Big Book Of Parvill One Shots

Will Strife Contemplates His Life Choices at 3am (S)

TW: Introspection, pre-slash, Set in Solutions In Chaos

It's three in the morning, and Will Strife can't sleep.

Parvis is a sprawl of warmth against his side, all bony limbs and sharp angles. He wriggles constantly, snorts and grunts and snores with intolerable volume as he sleeps, and seems incapable of differentiating between Will and the mattress when he frequently rearranges himself into a more comfortable position.

They really should make a second bed soon, Will thinks, and then discards the idea almost immediately. They're managing just fine with one bed, really - no need to waste more precious time and resources on constructing another.

(It's got nothing to do with the fact that Will sleeps better with Parvis in his bed than he has done in years. Nothing at all.)

It's three in the morning, and Will Strife thinks he might be in love. Just a little.

Next to him, Parvis' snore stutters and then resumes as he shifts, buries his face more firmly into the pillow. There's a patch of drool under his mouth, Will notes with distaste - and then struggles to note anything at all when Parvis throws an absent arm over him in his sleep, a heavy line of pressure across his chest. His senses light up with it, the pressure of it a crackle across the delicate receptors under his skin.

Will's freckles glow a little brighter at the touch.

They're yellow-green in the darkness, a sea of shifting luminescence peeking out from under his collar and sleeves. They turn his face into a galaxy of steadily-fluctuating stars as the light fades in and out with the movement of his blood just below the skin. His eyes outshine all, though, clear torches as he stares up at the ceiling unblinkingly.

Early morning, the sun only just still below the horizon, is a poor time to be looking at his life choices; but he really can't help it.

Quite honestly, he regrets ever agreeing to repay his debt to Xephos by taking on an apprentice. Parvis is lazy, incompetent, irritating, and a downright liability. At this point, he's almost definitely slowing work down. He's also infuriatingly likable, his excitement contagious and his smile both sly and-

Will refuses to refer to anything relating to Parvis as beautiful, or even attractive. Even in the privacy of his own head.

The worst thing is, Will can tell Parvis' smart; can tell he could achieve incredible things if he actually tried. But he won't. It infuriates him beyond reason, Parvis' smug stubbornness and his unfathomable desire to play the village idiot.

(He'd be lying if he said it didn't make him just a little relieved, too - if he'd never watched Parvis at his most unstable, his most amoral and cruel, and been quietly grateful that he refused to embrace his full potential. No one with a mind like Parvis' should be given the power to level cities with the flick of a single switch or the whisper of a curse.)

Parvis mumbles something incoherent into the pillow, snorts, shoves one of his feet against Will's calf. It's shockingly, unpleasantly cold and Will hisses, pulls away as best he can when he's already precariously balanced on the very edge of the bed. "Parvis!" he grumbles, under his breath, not wanting to wake the sleeping human.

Humans, he's learnt the hard way, do not quite have his species' tolerance for lack of sleep.

Unsurprisingly, the hissed admonishment doesn't work. Parvis shifts again, jams a surprisingly sharp elbow into Will's unprotected side and resumes snoring. He seems utterly oblivious, in sleep, of the other person trying to share a tiny and uncomfortable bed with him - not that he's exactly conscious of where his limbs are when he's awake, either. Parvis is uncoordinated, usually overexcited, and built like a beanpole. It's not a good combination.

"Shh," mutters Will, vaguely, trying to get him to settle. Slowly, slowly, he shifts Parvis' elbow away from his ribs, and worms his way back onto the bulk of the bed. It leaves him pressed close against Parvis' side, close enough he can feel Parvis' heartbeat in his own chest, but he doesn't mind. That's fine. "Shh."

Lifting one hand, he settles it on the pillow, his knuckles tentatively pressed against the back of Parvis' head. When the barely-there contact doesn't elicit any kind of negative response, Will moves his fingers ever so slightly, running them across Parvis' scalp in minute circles. "Sleep," he says, quietly, voice low and a little rough with tiredness.

He may not need quite as much sleep as a human, but he still needs some, and already light is beginning to glow on the horizon. They'll be up in a few hours. He should try to get some sleep.

Parvis makes a slow, sleepy noise at the touch, nuzzles a little further into the pillow - and then jolts, violently, entire body twitching. His arms and legs kick out and Will, entirely unprepared, is shoved unceremoniously off the bed with an indignant and slightly high-pitched yelp that fails to wake Parvis from his blissful sleep.

Sprawled on the floor and shivering from the contact with the cold stone, Will grinds his teeth together and hisses curses in a language only Xephos would be able to understand.

One elbow's numb from slamming against the floor, his shoulder aches, his head's a solid fuzz of sleepiness, and he's cold. His freckles pulse an angry, wild rhythm of irritation, eyes dimmed with tiredness and discomfort, and when he runs out of curses in his native tongue he switches fluently and easily to Minecraftia's local one - directing all of them at Parvis.

It's three in the morning and Will is fairly sure that, in love or not, he's going to actually murder Parvis at some point in the not too distant future.

Credit to Sparxflame on Ao3