A/N - So what do you do when your best friend goes in search of trees?
Not everything is about you.
That's what Dark says to Bing in the clinic. It kind of stabs him in the gut a little but it also puts things into perspective and makes him realise that he needs to not focus on himself so much. There are whole other people with completely other issues in this building.
So, it turns out his best friend is some kind of tree spirit and he needs to go and save his trees. Naturally Bing volunteers to go with him, wanting to help however he can, but King insists this is something he needs to do on his own, that he needs someone to look after his squirrels, and that he would rather feed them to the Septics than place them in the care of the Jims, and Silver is still kind of jittery around small animals after the Jims brought home a small dog they found. Bing is the only one he trusts with the squirrels.
Of course Bing accepts and insists he will take the best possible care of all the squirrels, though he is kind of insistent that even if King is technically a tree man, he will always be the only King of the Squirrels.
King's absence in that first week is kind of like a big hole in his usual activities. It's really weird to go into the recovery room, to interact with all of the squirrels and try to get them all to behave like they would for King, knowing that he isn't nearby. It makes him nervous. At least when King was only in the next room, it didn't matter if Bing made a mistake but now it's all down to him. Still he promised King he'd look after the squirrels, so that's what he's going to do, nerves be danged.
He doesn't trouble himself thinking about Natemare. Dark can take care of that. Give the butt something to focus on. Google is still usually busy but since King's been gone, Red, Green, and Oliver keep arranging video game nights for the four of them to hang out. When Goog isn't busy he's there too and they just spend the evening having fun, usually playing some kind of party video game. He's not ignorant that they're probably worried about him missing King, but he doesn't call them on it. It's nice to spend some time with his bros without having to initiate for once.
It's not perfect, but it's a pretty sweet life right now.