Choni One Shots pt: 2

252: The One With the Parrot

TONI POV:

I walk into Jason's room and see him on his phone. "Jason?" He looks at me. "What are we supposed to be doing right now?" I ask quietly. "Getting dressed." I nod. "And what are you doing instead?" I ask. "Looking at bird stuff on my phone." He says sadly. "I'm sorry Mama." He whispers. "It's ok! We just need to get going. So give me your phone so you don't get distracted, I'll give it back to you when you come back downstairs, ok?" He nods handing me his phone. "I don't know why I didn't take it earlier that was one me." I say quietly. He looks at me. "Hey! You're not in trouble. You got distracted, happens all the time! It's ok." I tell him. "Ok?" I ask quietly. He nods. I kiss the top of his head. "I love you." I whisper. He smiles a little. "I love you too Mama." I smile. "Get dressed, we're meeting mom at Pops and we're running late." He looks at me. "Hey, Veronica knows about your food problems and will happily accommodate. Ok? We've talked about this." He nods. "But you have to try something you know that." I say quietly. "Did you feed Henry?" He ask quietly. I nod. "Yup."

I look at Jason who's looking at his food nervously. "Hey, it's just food. It's not gonna hurt you." I whisper. "Just try it!" I say quietly. He slowly picks up the fry. "It's not gonna hurt me?" He ask quietly. "Might burn your tongue a bit but that's it!" I say smiling. He takes a bite of the fry and shakes his head. "No." He whispers pushing his plate away. "Ok." I say calmly. "You tried it though! That's an improvement!" I whisper. "I'm proud of you kid. Keep eating your pancakes." He looks at me. "Am I your favorite kid?" He ask smiling. "Dude! You're my only kid!" I say quietly. "Is that a yes?" I nod. "Yes Jason you are my favorite child!" He smiles. I kiss the side of his head. "I love you kid." I whisper. "Where's mom?" I ask quietly. "You got annoyed because we were running late and now you think mom is late because we showed up 33 minutes earlier and you told mom to be here at 7 and it's 6:55." He explains. "She's here now." He says looking out the window. I look over and see Cheryl getting out of her car and walks in. She walks over to us. "Hey guys!" She smiles. "How was your day?" She ask Jason. "Good, we went to the zoo today." He says quietly. "Yeah?" He nods. "We went into the bird exhibit and saw their African Grays, one of the birds were swearing." He says smiling a bit. "He said sh-." I stop him. "She doesn't need to know exactly what the bird said!" I whisper. "Mom took my phone." He says quietly. "I asked him to get dressed and he was on his phone." I tell Cheryl. "How was the bird exhibit even though we have one at home?

I look around Jason's room. "You did really well today." I say quietly. "Thanks." He says looking up. "I'm really proud of you Jason." I say quietly. "African Grays are the most accurate when it comes to mimicking voices and sounds." He says quietly. "Really?" I ask quietly. He nods. "Obviously that's why we have one." He says smiling. "You didn't notice?" He ask. "I didn't know if there was another bird similar." I say quietly. "They're really smart but, I see the way Henry acts and I really wonder what went wrong for me to pick him out specifically, then I remember that his brain is the size of a walnut and he's one of the few African Grays that is nice to more then one person at a time." He explains. I nod. "Also I liked his head shape because it was a little different from the others." He adds. "You know I still don't see it." He gets up. "Well, I need to put him to bed, so I can show you." He says quietly. I nod. We walk downstairs. He pulls out his phone and shows me the difference. "How do you know the difference between male and female?" I ask him. "Well, Henry is 16 and hasn't laid any eggs yet. Also his under wing is a dark gray compared to females who's under wing is light gray. Also his tail grows longer then females." He explains. "They aren't a guarantee and it's only for Congo African Grays. There's also Timneh, those are the ones with the white on their beaks, they're also smaller and their tails are darker. Also, he hasn't laid any eggs and he's 16, and attached to me so he would have laid some eggs for me." He tells me. I look at him. "Wouldn't he need another bird if he was female?" I ask quietly. "No, it's like Hens they lay eggs without a male, they're just unfertilized, kinda like when a woman gets their period but not as bloody." He explains closing Henry's cage and puts the cover over the cage. "He needs his claws clipped. He's not maintaining them well." He tells me. "I'll make an appointment." He nods and goes upstairs. "Goodnight!" He says before closing his door. I walk upstairs and walk into the bedroom. "You guys went to the zoo?" Cheryl ask quietly. "Yeah, we had nothing to do and he wanted to go so we decided to go! We also have the yearly pass. We might as well!" I say quietly. "Did he have fun?" She ask smiling. "Yeah." I nod. "We almost had an incident, but he pulled through. We had to sit on a bench for an hour longer then I would have liked but you know, it was nice out so I didn't really care." I tell her. "I'm really proud of him." I say quietly. "He's really matured." I whisper. She looks at me. "Yeah! I think the therapy is helping. I think getting Henry also helped him. He's able to put his energy into something that isn't accidental self harm." She says quietly. "He has to find something else to talk about though." She says sitting up. "He's autistic, what do you expect?" I ask. She nods. "True." She says. "I worry about him." I nod. "That's ok! I worry about him too, I worry about you, I worry about Henry! Speaking of him, we need to go get his claws clipped." She looks at me. "Is that safe for him?" She ask concerned. "Yeah! It's like us clipping our nails! They don't feel it." I explain. "We've done it before, you're usually at work when we get it done! It's like twice a year so you also probably forget! The only thing we have to worry about is he might have a problem gripping stuff for a few days. Last tome he fell all the way down his cage then looked at me and Jason like we were the ones who fell!" I tell her. "Obviously he was ok!" She smiles. "What about his wings and beak?" She ask quietly. "Oh no! He's good at maintaining his beak and last time we clipped his wings he couldn't fly that well so he kinda crashed into the couch then again looked at us like we were the one who did it." I explain. "How do you not remember this?" I ask quietly. "Henry's not my number one priority. You know this." I nod. "I love you, but I think you should try to pay more attention to the bird. So you and Jason have something to talk about. He's happy to answer any questions you have about him because he has done his research." I tell her. She nods. "You have a better bond with him, I just let him because it was better then him feeling isolated!" She explains to me. I hear the door open abruptly. "Jason we've talked about you barging in." I say slightly pissed. "Sorry, no one told me what we're doing tomorrow." He says quietly. "Oh! Um... I don't know exactly but I'll make sure I tell you by 9 tomorrow morning." He nods. "Can I make a suggestion?" I nod. "You can't say go to the zoo though we did that today, maybe next weekend." He smiles. "Cool." He says quietly. "Can we go back to Pop's? I think I want to try the fries again." I nod. "Sure!" I say smiling. He nods and walks out. "Oh! Also I got a girlfriend yesterday at school, she gave me a hand job yesterday, it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I forgot to tell you." He says before his door closes. "What?!" Cheryl and I both say in shock. "You know what? Not today! I'm tired." I say lying down. "He's not one to sneak out so I'm not going to deal with this right now." I say quietly. "He used to be a runner." Cheryl says quietly. "He hasn't ran off in years. Knock on wood." I say and immediately knock on the bed frame.

I watch Jason as he walks around the kitchen table anxiously. I look down and keep cutting the apple for Jason. I hear a tinging noise. "Water!" I look at Henry. "This is food! Can you learn that word? Food?" He looks at me. "Up." I look down and see Henry with one of his claws up. I reach my hand out and he steps on. He bring him closer. "Can we do kisses?" I ask quietly. He quickly puts his beak up to my lips. I smile. "Good boy!" I say giving him a cashew and putting him on my shoulder. "Should I be jealous?" Cheryl ask quietly. "If you want." I say quietly. She comes over to me and kisses me. "Morning baby. Have you talked to him?" She ask quietly so Jason can't hear. "No, he's just been walking around the table all morning. I don't want to cause a meltdown this early so I'm letting him burn out his energy." I explain. She takes a deep breath. "He also has his headphones on so I can't really do anything right now." I say quietly. "What set him off?" She ask quietly. I put Henry down on the counter so he can start eating. "I really don't know." I say quietly. "I think he's just anxious." I whisper. I feel something hit my hand. "Hey!" I look at Henry. "Come on, you're eating in your cage!" I say picking him and his bowl up. I go into the living room and put him on his cage. "Come back in when you're ready." I say quietly. "Ok?" He just looks at me and does some of Jason's vocal stims. I sigh and go back into the kitchen. "Jason." I whisper. He doesn't look at me. He walks around the table a few more times and we watch him break down.

I walk out of Jason's room. "He's asleep." I whisper. "He's 19! We need to figure something out! For his future." I say quietly. "We did! He's staying in school until he's 21 and ages out." I nod. "And what after that?" I ask her. She looks down. "I didn't think we'd get this far." She says quietly. I look at her. "What? Like we were going to abandon him?" I ask her getting pissed. "Like we- we're gonna throw him in a classroom so he can sit there and do nothing, all day every day until the day he dies?" She shakes her head. "Jason is our son! We need to do what's right." I whisper. "Stop!" We hear Jason yell. "You're being to loud!" He adds. "I'm sorry!" We walk downstairs. I look at Cheryl. "I'm sorry for yelling at you." I whisper. "I just hate seeing him get beaten down. I know you didn't mean it like that." I say quietly. She nods. "This shit is stressful." She whispers. "I know." I whisper pulling her closer. "You have work." I tell her. "You got this?" She ask. "He's going to stay in bed for the rest of the morning, then he's going to come downstairs and watch tv while Henry paces back and forth on the back of the couch for the rest of the night while he grumbles to himself." I explain. "You pay way too much attention to that bird." I nod. "He's my favorite bird and Jason's my favorite kid and you're my favorite wife." I say quietly. "Right because of your second family that you never see because you're with Jason all the time." She says sarcastically. I nod. "Totally." I whisper. "Go to work, have fun." She looks at me. "I have it from here baby. You don't need to worry. If anything happens, I'll call you."

I rub Jason's back as he pets Henry. I feel him flinch a little. "Ow!" I look at him. "You ok?" He nods. "Just tried to bite me, wasn't that successful." He says smiling a bit. "Can I ask what you were so freaked out about this morning?" I ask quietly. He nods. I look at him. "My therapist told me yesterday that I had to start thinking about maybe getting a job." He says quietly. "I don't know what to do." He adds. I take a deep breath. "Do you want to get a job?" I ask quietly. He sits up. "Yeah." He nods. "Where?" He ask me. "Maybe tomorrow, since we weren't able to go today. We can go to Pop's tomorrow, you can ask Veronica if you could get a job there." I suggest. "To loud and I can't handle money." He says quietly. "You have an African Gray Jason!" He looks at me. "It's different." I nod. "She might know someone who can help you!" I tell him. "Ok." He smiles. I kiss the top of his head. "That works." He says quietly. I nod. "Can we go downstairs and watch Tv now?" He ask quietly. "If you want." I say quietly. He gets up, grabs Henry and goes downstairs. I get off his bed and go downstairs with him. "Do you still want to go to Pop's tomorrow?" He nods.

"His therapist thinks it would be a good idea to get a job." I tell Cheryl as I walk out of the bathroom. She looks at me. "No!" She says quietly. "Cher? He's 19! He needs a job, it wouldn't hurt." She looks at me. "Will he be ok?" She ask quietly. "Yeah!" I say quietly. "He was freaking out earlier!" I nod. "Yeah, but he needed to think through it." I tell her. "We didn't intervene in time." I say quietly. "He's gonna be ok." I tell her. She looks at me. "Where?" She ask. I shrug. "I don't know, I was gonna talk to Veronica since she's always helping kids get jobs." I whisper. She nods. "I don't know." She says quietly. I sit down on the bed. "Remember when he first got his diagnosis, how we thought he wouldn't even be able to button his own shirt in the morning?" I ask quietly. She nods. "Look how far he's come! I still have to help him pick out clothes in the morning but that's just because he's indecisive!" I tell her.

Part 2?