Parrot sits there, dangling his legs off the edge of the colosseum's roof. There's a pressure at the back of his eyes, a certain numbness in his head, that empty, lethargic feeling that only comes with exhaustion; he runs through a mental list of every muscle in his body and finds that they all ache to some degree. There had been too -- much -- running. Too much fighting, both mental and physical. Too much -- politicking -- just to get him this stupid shield, because the people in the Farlands, unlike everywhere else Parrot had visited, somewhat cared about order.

It's odd. He should appreciate it. A part of him does, really -- the fact that things are at least somewhat predictable. A larger part of him hears the water rushing behind him, flooding the colosseum floor, and wishes that there'd been an easier way to get around all these damn rules he hadn't had a hand in setting up.

Parrot's wings are still soaking wet, bound tightly against his back. Theo had given him the strangest look when Parrot had walked in like that. It certainly wasn't comfortable; Theo would know better than anyone else. And he'd watched Parrot fight before, knew that Parrot had the habit of using them to sprint forward and dodge sword swings and arrows when he could. In that cold water, though, he'd wanted to make sure his riptide tridents faced as little drag as possible.

It wasn't a fair fight. He wouldn't have won a fair fight. He knows this. It leaves a bad taste in the back of his throat; victory is a bitter salve.

It wasn't intended to be a fair fight. "you're not going to beat him with PvP. obviously, right." he knows this. wifies narrows his eyes; surveys the colosseum; fixes his gaze on parrot in the strangely-focused way he always does. parrot can practically watch the gears turning in his head, watch him working through possibilities, probabilities, options, options, options. "so it's either the kit -- or it's the environment. that's the only things we can control."

It could've never been a fair fight. Parrot could not have won a fair fight. He knows this.

"Parrot," Wifies says.

Parrot watches him land out of the corner of his eye. Wifies tucks the grey wings of his elytra neatly against his back; his steps are near-silent against the pale quartz.

"Bro, how do you always know where to find me?" The question comes out whinier than Parrot expects it to; he almost winces at the tone of his own voice.

Wifies offers him half of a smile. "What do you mean?"

"You're always -- it's like you're always following me."

"I watched you fly up here after they all congratulated you," he says, terribly reasonably. "I was watching the whole fight."

"That's not what I mean."

"I had to be," Wifies continues, "to make sure our plan worked."

Parrot bites back the retort brewing in the back of his head; there's no point still arguing with Wifies, he has to remind himself. Wifies takes another step towards him, but Parrot just raises his shield, turns his face back towards the city. The metal edge of his prize clinks clean against the colosseum rail. Wifies's expression flickers in that way that Parrot never learned how to read, before settling back on the placid stare he's so used to seeing.

"Are your wings okay?" Wifies tries, again.

"They're fine." Parrot instinctively moves to stretch them out. His face pulls when he realizes why Wifies had asked in the first place. He recovers: "I'll get the bandages off later."

"Let me do it for you," Wifies says. "I put them on in the first place."

"I can do it myself."

"You said that you'd need my help."

"Right," Parrot says, tightly. "And you've already helped with the fight, so. What else do you want, dude?"

Wifies opens his mouth -- closes it, again. There's that flicker of expression, again. Parrot notes it dully. He wishes that Wifies would just tell him what he's feeling, sometimes. He wonders if Wifies even knows enough about those new, non-purpose-driven emotions of his to explain them in the first place -- or if they'd just cause him to keep impulsively sabotaging Parrot's plans. It's a mean thought; Parrot knows this. He lets it fester for a moment, before crushing it under his heel.

"I just want you to know that I'm here," Wifies says, softly.

"Okay, bro." Parrot can hear the bitterness in his own voice. "I know."

"Just let me know any time --"

"Okay," Parrot hisses. "I got it."

Wifies lapses into silence. After a moment of hesitation, he settles himself down next to Parrot, a healthy distance away from the shield that Parrot's put up between them. They stare out at that winged statue in the distance; the sunset backlights it in fiery orange, its shadow cast dark over the both of them. Parrot can feel the weight of Wifies's stare boring through his skull. That damned spyglass weighs like a collar around Parrot's neck. For a hot, selfish second, the venom rising in the back of his throat bubbles up, full force: don't expect me to message you again. i told you that i'd wanted to see you in the farlands, but i didn't really mean it, dude. like -- come on. you literally stranded me nine million blocks out. and i still made the final three million without you. i don't need you, i just need to clean up the stupid trap we made together. i could've done it myself. i don't know why i messaged you to begin with.

It drains out of him with the sound of the water, that numbing wave of exhaustion crashing over his head. With a great deal of effort, Parrot turns his back to Wifies, folds his knees up to his chest, rests his forehead against his forearms. The bandages are tight. Parrot had asked Wifies to bring his wings in as closely as possible -- it wasn't meant to be a long fight, after all. Wifies asked, in that fake-real concerned tone, are you sure? Parrot had answered, with all-too-real spite, yes, i'm sure bro, just do it before we run out of time. And Wifies had acquiesced without another word -- like he was still trying to maintain Parrot's damn favor, despite it all.

Whatever. He has it, for the time being. And he'll keep it as long as he doesn't keep talking. Wifies seems to take the hint: he barely makes a sound as he gets to his knees, moving towards Parrot. One of his hands rests, cold, on Parrot's shoulder. Another lingers for a fraction of a second too long around the crook of Parrot's wing. He sighs, near-inaudibly. Parrot wonders if it's the unkept state of his feathers; his godawful, torn-up primaries; the tenseness radiating through his shoulders, down the bend of his spine.

Wifies gently traces the curve of his alula, combs down through his coverts, brushes aside his scapular feathers. The tape had been secured right under the joint where his wings stretched out from his back. Parrot shuts his eyes. If he pretends hard enough, he can almost forget that they're in the Farlands at all; if he pretends even harder, he can almost forget that Wifies is there at all. nine million blocks out. you know this.

"There," Wifies says, once he's done. He withdraws his hands near-instantly. Parrot almost misses the feeling of those fingers carding through his wings. A pause, then: "Let's hope you don't have to get into any more one-on-one fights like that in the future."

Parrot stretches them out, enjoying the sensation of relief. nine million blocks out with nothing in your inventory. you know this. "It's not like I'm trying to."

Wifies chuckles. "That's not what it looks like to me."

"Because you're always paying attention to what I'm doing, right."

"It's hard not to." Parrot wants to ask Wifies to keep straightening out his feathers; he bites his tongue instead, wishes he drew blood. He risks a backwards glance at Wifies, breaks the eye contact instantly, he's not sure why he expected Wifies not to be staring daggers through him. "You're always trying so hard to get yourself killed."

nine million blocks out with nothing in your inventory and nobody you can trust. you know this, you know this, you know this. "No thanks to you, bro."

"For... not helping you get killed?" Parrot can picture it with such clarity: the arch of Wifies's brow, the faint smile that must've flashed across his face, the way his hand moves backwards to steady him as he settles back on his heels. "I'd hope I'm not."

"That's not what I mean," Parrot bites back. "I mean -- I'm not, like, doing it for no reason."

"I know."

"I'm doing it to help other people, okay?" Parrot's explained himself a million times; he says it again, nevertheless. "I'm doing it to help other people. I needed to be on this council so that I could -- I can convince Purpled to actually do something to help, instead of just sitting there doing literally nothing while the mafia --"

"Parrot, I know," Wifies says. As if it's the most obvious thing in the world: "To me, you're also part of that... 'other people' group, you know." More light-heartedly: "That includes making sure that you don't die, the same way you're -- we're trying to stop other people from dying."

Parrot tenses into himself. He's not sure why. He wishes he could curl up so tightly he could just blink out of existence, but he knows he's the only hope this stupid civilization has of convincing the Warriors and Farmers to work together again. He wishes he could collapse into himself and turn into a black hole and store the entire city in his heart so that he could protect it and its people forever without having to jump through all of the Farlands' stupid rules. He wishes Wifies would put his damn fingers back into his damn wings and actually straighten out his feathers properly without Parrot having to say the stupid words and ask him to.

"Purpled wants me in for a meeting in the morning," Parrot says, instead.

"Okay," Wifies says.

"I'll message you if I need anything else."

"Any time."

Work In Progress: THE TWO VALERIES

A mercenary's life isn't all about eddies and reputation. Every target you zero, and every piece of cyberware you install, eats away at your humanity—one of the rarest things in Night City. But Valerie Hawkins, Afterlife's hardest-working merc, has found something so rare and precious that in Night City's dystopian hellscape many considered it extinct. Something, that scares Valerie to death: love. The would-be legend, who crawled back from the gates of hell only to spiral dangerously out of control, is about to face her greatest challenge yet: her broken heart, guarded by ghosts of the past.

Rating: Explicit Category: F/F Fandom: Cyberpunk 2077 Relationship: Valerie Hawkins / Judy Alvarez Characters: Valerie Hawkins, Judy Alvarez, Johnny Silverhand, 'Tiny' Mike Kowalski, Jackie Welles, Viktor Vektor, Ruby Collins, Alena 'Alex' Xenakis, Sandra Dorsett, Solomon Reed Additional Tags: Embedded Images, Image Heavy, Graphic Violence, Graphic Nudity, Explicit Language, Explicit Sex, Lesbian Sex, Sex Work, Degradation Kink, Snuff, Implied/Referenced Torture, Poverty, Organized Crime, Crimes & Criminals, Shitting, Established Relationship, Canon Lesbian Relationship

summary:

“I don’t like surprises,” Bruce says tightly, after surveying the setup. It strikes Clark’s heart like an arrow.

“Maybe,” he tries, “you’d like a night off?”

Yeah, no, he hears it as soon as he says it. Batman? A night off? Ha! Right, on the twelfth of never, for sure. Bruce’s dubious silence says the same thing, but…

Well, Clark has to try, right?

--

bruce and clark get plastered off alien wine.

--

(obvious tw for death and suicide and general grief adjacent feelings)

But what if there was something else...? Something like humans domesticating dinosaurs and creatures known to be mythical. Giant sea serpents that taught humanity to become one with the water. Great beasts that could manipulate the very ground they stood upon and made it bend to their will.

Okay so basically, we did this thing where we would each take turns writing sentences.

Once upon a time there was a fr*nch person.

They had a pet dog named Bob Bobbing Bob the Bob.

They took Bob Bobbing Bob the Bob on a walk.

While they were at the park walking they tripped over a rock.

Bob Bobbing Bob the Bob fudge ducking dies.

He died of brain cancer suddenly and shockingly.

Except… his brain was actually working perfectly fine and he was being dramatic.

So anyway, The nameless protagonist tripped over a rock and landed on their face.

They fudge ducking died, but in a cool way so that nobody could even be sad.

They woke up as a ghost and said, “Well cool Guess I'm a ghost now. :D”

Except ghosts weren’t real.

So they actually became a squirrel because squirlf.

And then Bob Bobbing Bob the Bob saw the squirrel and chased after them.

So they ran and ran and ran and ran and ran right in front of a desoto adventurer.

The car disintegrated.

And that's when the war started…

WORLD WAR SEVEN AND A HALF. . !

Their were bullets flying and lots of important red body juice evreywhere.

The red body juice was paint that the soldiers stored in their bodies.

They all were addicted to drinking the foul stuff.

They were all… paint drinkers. . !

The human(?) turned squirrel was horrified yet intriged. 

So they started drinking paint aswell.

They chugged paint after paint after suspiciously blood like paint.

Eventually they ran out of “paint”.

They sobbed in squirrel turned paint addict and cried out to the goddess of paint.

They ended up massacring all of the soldiers to find more of that addictive “paint”.

Suddenly Bob Bobbing the Bob ran over and screamed like a school girl stepping on a Lego brick.

Because Bob Bobbing the Bob had attained a concerning amount of “paint”.

Him and the squirrel fought over it before a bird showed up.

The bird had even more “paint”.

They all started a cult dedicated to the red stuff.

But one day…

Five the rat showed up in a flying yacht.

And they were walking their pet human.

The human, a 50 year old man named Jake pointed at the Cultists.

“You… you must stop drinking the ‘paint’.”

The squirrel stared at him “why bruh, this taste bangin, yo”

“It is… human blood…”

Insert evreyone gasping dramatically like in those Mexican soap operas where it turns out so an so was actually dating that guy's brother but was also secretly impersonating her secret twin sister who's ex boyfriends in the mafia.