"Panty raider!"

The stupid bird clearly had no qualms with lobbing insults at Neil, even while using his shoulder as a perch.

Never mind the question of where the hell a parrot would have even learned such a term.

"These aren't panties, you little freak."

Just to prove his point, Neil pulled a hoodie from a dresser drawer and held it up so that Ankh could see.

"Hoodie raider!"

"..."

Why do I even bother.

Ignoring the relentless flurry of verbal barbs, Neil shifted his focus onto finding a suitable-looking pair of sweatpants to go with the hoodie.

----------

"Wha?"

Lorraine looked down at the bundle of clothes that had just been thrust into her arms.

"Mr. Schneider, what are these fo-"

"A change of clothes," Neil replied. "It's the best I could do on such short notice, but..."

"No, this is more than good enough!"

Neil was expecting her to be happy to change out of that uncomfortable getup, but to actually start tearing up because of something so minor?

"Thank you so much, you have no idea how grateful I-"

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Don't worry about it."

And with those words, Neil coolly exited the scene.

----------

"Yer soft."

Ankh's shrill insults resonated through the office.

"Soft. Softy soft soft cheese."

"Shut up."

A long sigh escaped Neil's lungs as he returned to his desk.

"Softshelled."

"Seriously..."

After locating his notebook, he fished around for a writing implement.

"Softboiled. Yer a softboiled detective."

"Hey."

He cut the parrot a sharp look.

"Keep it up and I'm gonna leave you in the cage when I go out."

"Sorry. I'll be good."

"You better."

Now Neil did have fairly thick skin when it came to insults, but ones that happened to involve his chosen profession were a notable exception. And as someone who had known him for half a decade now, Ankh was well aware of this fact.  But at the same time, Neil was every bit as aware of how much Ankh hated being separated from him for any length of time. As such, threatening to put him back into the box was essentially a "win" button for any argument between the two.

And so, taking advantage of the newfound peace and quiet, he picked up a pen with his right hand and scratched out a couple of lines of text in the notebook.

"Looking for information regarding recent murders within the past two weeks. Name/location/circumstances, etc."

Terrible handwriting, but still a respectable effort when taking into account that Neil was left-handed.

Meh, at least it's legible.

One of the most vital things that his predecessor instilled in him was the importance of obfuscation. Asking around about something can tip off the people involved with what you're asking around about in the first place, making contact with an informant can give away the fact that there's something that you're trying to look into, and so on.

After all, you never know who might be watching.

So after tearing the page from the notebook, Neil folded it up until it was around half the size of a drinking straw and then slid it under the window of his office that he always kept barely cracked open.

"And now to wait for a response," Neil sighed.

Not that he was about to just sit in one place until it came, of course.

"Promise to behave?" he asked the bird on his shoulder.

"Scout's honor!" Ankh saluted.

"Alright, then let's go for a walk."

How in the hell did Nate teach him how to salute?