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frozenjokes · 13 hours ago

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can you guys stop slandering the clowns. they’re not assassins, nuns, deities of corruption, victims, or anything of the sort, they’re just clowns in the circus called hermitcraft.

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Mumbo had always held a distinct awareness of life, a sixth sense almost, and he wasn’t so sure anyone else was the same. He felt the roots of trees under his feet, the tender pulse of want eminenting from every living thing wisping up his ankles and sinking under his skin. He’d see dogs on walks and feel the scratch of their nails on the sidewalk like marks on his bones, he held their hot breath in his lungs, felt the sting of bright sunshine on their dark eyes. He did not have to see the fox to know its teeth in his own mouth, nor did he have to hear the squealing mouse to feel fangs in his own spine.

All the same sensations he shared with humanity, no weaker, no stronger. That had always been a point of distress for Mumbo; growing older, it seemed so clear that people shared an inherent connection with each other, stronger than their link with the rest of the world’s life. Species preference did not come naturally to Mumbo, it was a trait he had to learn, and it was not one he learned quickly.

He learned adults didn’t like when he hit other kids. Arguably, they were more horrified when he threw rocks at squirrels and sparrows and cats. Mumbo was not allowed to peel the bark off trees or gouge them with sticks, but this was not a crime deemed abhorrent, so he often found his caretakers would rather look the other way than fight with him.

Mumbo was always fighting, with adults, with other kids. He could not identify with them, and as a little kid, he did not understand cooperation was necessary for his own wellbeing. The world should bend around him, or at the very least he should be able to fight to make it that way- all the social hoops just got in the way.

Mumbo loved animals. There was one foolproof way for his many various caretakers to quell him, knowledge passed from one to the other, that Mumbo was partial to bribes, and payment by any nature related book or magazine would be acceptable. He wasn’t a particularly talented reader, but he didn’t need to be, not when the pictures painted worlds infinitely better than this one, when he had memorized his favorite passages to the point where his eyes only skimmed the words, lost in the scape of his own imagination. He watched the same documentaries hundreds of times, and in foster homes it wasn’t uncommon for one to always be playing, Mumbo’s only problem being that he wanted to be outside, and the TV could not come with him.

One of Mumbo’s favorite hobbies was running away, and faced with the smallest inconvenience he would be gone, out the front door without those pesky shoes everyone always wanted him to wear. Animals didn’t wear shoes, and humans were animals, so they ought not to be wearing shoes either! The local fire departments got to know Mumbo well, and honestly, were the source of most of Mumbo’s positive adult interactions. He was not a nuisance, he was never yelled at or scorned, he was Mumbo, running around without his shoes on again, we should probably make sure he doesn’t get hit by a car or abducted. Mumbo got to ride in multiple fire trucks, he got to wear their big hats and chase several firemen around the station while waiting for his guardians to pick him up. In elementary school, when Mumbo was not allowed to be a tiger shark or a jaguar or a peregrine falcon for career day, he relented to being a firefighter.

Sometimes Mumbo still thought about that. It felt too late, sometimes. He never went to college, didn’t have a clean criminal record, and had a history of job instability. He struggled with commitments, struggled being trapped inside. Maybe a career like that could work for him regardless. As far as physical fitness went, he could probably pass a test.

He kind of didn’t want to, though. He didn’t want any job at all. Though if he had to choose an animal, his answer would probably change. Little Mumbo had great ideas, sure, and adult Mumbo’s answer at the current moment would probably be something like an albatross, what cool birds, though his ideal animal could change on a whim. It didn’t matter too much, Mumbo was pretty sure he could be happy as anything so long as it wasn’t human. Maybe that was an exaggeration. But fuck, life would be a lot simpler, wouldn’t it.

Mumbo never understood why people had to do things so differently from the rest of the world. Like- he understood, he got it, but did no one else feel like something was so deeply, intrinsically missing, that if they could just beat the shit out of someone from time to time, everything would be better? To take a life in your fingers, feel it break, Mumbo felt crazy just thinking it, but there had never been a time in his life where he hadn’t been this way. He’d always been one of the bigger kids in foster care, he’d always been stronger, but physical violence always got him in trouble, even when the other kid clearly deserved it. The adults in his life were always appalled, as if not everyone in the world had that innate instinct to hurt.

Everyone in the world did not, in fact, feel instinctually driven to hurt others. That was not normal. They were not pretending.

That was a dizzying realization. Mumbo was nineteen, just before he was about to be forced to leave his final foster home. Now, maybe that was late, but late grade school and high school were easily the worst years of his life, and kids did not have to be physical to be vicious, so. Though, those ‘worst years’ were only the worst before twenty and twenty-one when he was homeless and lost, and ‘escaping’ to the wild didn’t really work out like he’d dreamed for so many years in foster care. At twenty-two, prison sounded deeply appealing, but he didn’t get the chance to go before being bailed out by a stranger pretending to be his cousin, promising to take him home.

And he did.

Mumbo was so fucking desperate, he didn’t care. He didn’t even ask his ‘cousin’s’ name. Mumbo was shown a room, of which he locked himself inside, determined never to leave. This stranger would either kill him, acceptable, or call the police and have him thrown in jail, also acceptable, but Mumbo would not spend another night on the streets.

Grian did neither of those things. He did not push when Mumbo refused to leave his room for over twenty four hours, not to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. Mumbo was really animal now, and there was no world in which he imagined coming back.

Grian felt differently, it seemed. Sitting outside Mumbo’s door, talking through it, chatting like they’d known each other their whole lives. Traversing the house loudly, letting Mumbo get used to the noise. Going to work, trusting Mumbo in his place alone. Gifting him the power to stay, leave, hide, or poke his head out the door of his bedroom, peering into the living room down the hall where Grian sat reading on the couch, the TV on, but muted.

Mumbo wanted to know what he was reading. What kind of books he liked, the TV he watched, what job he had, and the other things he did in his free time. Those questions burned hotter than the ever-present bloodlust at the back of his mind, at least in those early days.

Grian was receptive. He wanted to know about Mumbo, too. It felt like a trick, but all these years later, Mumbo had to relent his suspicion. At a certain point, did it really matter if Grian had ulterior motives when he’d given Mumbo a life he could live at his own discretion for this many years?

He still didn’t know where Grian came from. He never asked, not even now, twenty seven and having grown into his own. Mumbo was afraid to ask, to question anything about this happenstance, like doing so would cause the illusion to crumble under his fingers. It had been almost a year ago when Mumbo suggested he move out; he had money, he had a job, even if he’d been planning to quit in favor of something new, something to suit his atypical needs. That violence, the drive, always crawling under his skin. That was the day he told Grian, craving his rejection.

Mumbo was going to be an assassin- however you went about doing that. He was going to kill people, an idea that was impossibly exciting, regardless of the life he’d lose in the pursuit.

Grian knew Mumbo was the one tearing up the leaves of the old oak in their backyard, stripping the bark with pocket knives. Grian had seen him pull up flowers and weeds alike. He had caught Mumbo with blood on his hands more than once, and turned the other way.

Grian knew.

Mumbo knew Grian knew, and he could not stand to wait for the blow of his rejection to land any longer, red hot and smoldering. Mumbo wanted it now. He needed it now, for his savior to see just who it was he’d picked off the streets, to see the mistake he’d made.

And Grian loved him anyway. Begged him to reconsider. If not to reconsider, just to stay.

Mumbo had never been wanted before. Loved, unconditionally. It was truly the most horrible, gut wrenching thing, like having sand thrown in his eyes, his windpipe being stomped on, a vice crushing his lungs. He cried so hard, chest heaving until he hiccuped, then wheezed, he truly thought he was going to die. He had never hated himself as much as when someone else loved him. He had never wanted to be truly human so badly, to feel that connection everyone else seemed to share. Maybe then he would understand. Maybe he’d be able to love Grian back.

It had only taken five months to be injured severely enough to kill Mumbo’s dreams, as well as most other work opportunities for the foreseeable future. Recovery had not been kind to Mumbo, the concussions leaving him with unbearable vertigo and nausea that kept him hunched over a toilet seat for hours at a time. It seemed like every form of entertainment was off the table when your brain was this fucked, and Grian enforced the hospital restrictions relentlessly, only allowing Mumbo old freedoms once he got the okay from a doctor. Even then, Mumbo felt lost. He was suddenly, unfathomably uninterested in everything that used to bring him joy, like his failure to chase what he really wanted hit so deep, he would never be fulfilled again so long as he laid to rot in bed.

The incident with Cub made month four of Mumbo’s recovery, and since then, Mumbo couldn’t stop thinking about him. How was he doing- bad by the look of it, but how was he doing at home, was he as restless as Mumbo, as miserable? That was assuming Cub liked being an assassin, that he was driven to hurt, and the time without had him spiraling in all the same ways, but Mumbo couldn’t help but project, not when Cub had been so helpless, just as frantic as Mumbo had been for so long.

He tried to talk to Grian about it. Tried to explain with none of the words he needed, since those words were dark and bloody, and the rate at which Mumbo was starting to want was enough to disturb even himself.

It wasn’t Grian’s fault he didn’t know how to help. Hopefully, he tried to suggest Mumbo ease back into working, just part time to ease the stir craziness of bed rest. That they go on walks despite Mumbo’s new disinterest in being outside at all, that they take a cooking class, or do yoga, or learn a random new hobby.

Mumbo got so frustrated with him. He didn’t know why, and it frightened him just how angry he was, how rage boiled over into hate some nights, laying alone in bed, wide awake, hyper aware of every sensation across his body, every brush of blankets, the draft from the old windows, his own hairs standing on end. Mumbo had always had violent impulses, he’d accepted them as part of himself, as thoughts he could not act on in accordance with the law, and he would not feel guilty for them, but it disturbed him how intensely they were starting to turn in on Grian, how detailed his fantasies would get if Mumbo indulged them, and nearing month six of his recovery, Mumbo did indulge them.

He isolated. What else was there to do?

The world was far too overwhelming, Grian was too much to face most days, and Mumbo didn’t think he could take being in his presence for too long. Grian was pushy, he was scared, he didn’t know what was going on, but even he relented dinner at the table together after Mumbo screamed he wouldn’t do it any more.

Mumbo wouldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t do this anymore.

///

Cub had run in to the grocery store around ten minutes before closing, not one of his finest moments, but he’d had trouble getting out of bed after his mid afternoon four hour nap, he was disoriented and a little weak, and he really didn’t want to go. Unfortunately, he’d run out of the frozen toaster waffles he ate most every morning for the past thirty years of his life, and he didn’t want to go tomorrow, so he had to go tonight.

Most people pushed their shopping carts at a walking pace, so while the banging of a high velocity shopping cart was unorthodox, Cub was far more focused on his waffle buying at the end of the frozen breakfast aisle. Did he go for the blueberry or the regular? He liked the blueberry, but he got them last time, so did he really want them again? Maybe he could just buy actual blueberries and put them on top, that was always good, but produce was all the way at the front of the store..

The rampaging shopping cart screeched as it turned into Cub’s aisle, the bull at the helm red and angry, Cub momentarily frozen in place before grabbing a random box and scurrying out of the way.

“AaAugh-“ came a belated noise of distress as the driver anchored the cart with deadly precision to block the easiest path of escape down the aisle, then abandoning their vehicle to trap the second path with their body, blocking Cub in. Recognition hit, and with it, terror.

“You.” Grian hissed, and despite being similar in stature to Cub himself, he looked twice as big, puffed up like an angry cat. “I owe you an apology.”

Cub was frantic in his brief search for any escape at all, but it seemed he and his waffles weren’t getting out of this one unscathed. “I’m sorry, then. I have to go.”

“No- I’m sorry, listen to me, won’t you?” Grian was still talking at Cub like he was mad at him, so this made nothing clearer.

“Why are you sorry. What is happening. You look like you have a lot of groceries, you should check out before they close.”

“I do not think I overreacted given the circumstances, but hindsight has made me believe you were probably more innocent than I initially gave you credit for. I know it’s not easy. This could happen to any of you, and it does, all the time, to no fault of your own. It’s not like you have anyone else to turn to.

“I- hey. You’re making a lot of assumptions about me. I have other people in my life.” Cub crossed his arms, a little awkwardly with the cast, to which Grian pointed, lamely.

“I only see one name.”

Cub looked down. Scar’s name was the only one visible, written large enough to cover the entire front of the cast. Cub had been so mad at him for that. He huffed, showing Grian the other side, covered in the names of most all the clowns in the clownvent. He had friends. Even if it was Scar that had made him go around collecting the signatures… and Cub didn’t know half their names… and he only talked to one or two of them a couple times a month…

Grian raised his eyebrows, looking more surprised than he had any right to be. “Other.. victims..?” he said, looking more disturbed than anything- come on!

“No! They’re the clowns! Do you guys seriously not know about the clownvent, it’s where the clowns live!”

“The. Clowns. Right,” Grian dismissed the subject as if the clowns were imaginary, and moved on before Cub could defend himself, “I need to know what it’s like.” The sudden switch in intensity caught Cub off guard, holding his waffles close as Grian suddenly advanced, “Mumbo’s sick, really sick, and I don’t know why or what to do. Scar-“

Cub snorted, “Well now you’ve gone and done it. He’ll be on his way now.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“He hears. If he’s given you permission, he’ll know every time you speak about him. His name, at least. He’s nosy, he always wants to know what the fuss is about.” Cub sighed, deeply relieved. Grian was on a timer now. “You have five minutes, ten at most, but coming from you, he’ll definitely want to know what you’re saying about him. You didn’t know?”

“No one- Fuck! We need to get out of here.” With one hand, Grian grabbed his cart, and with the other, Cub’s wrist. “What does he know, just the location I said the name, or will he be able to follow me?”

“What- What are you doing!?”

“Answer me!”

“I- Just the location you said it, I think- Let go of me?”

“I’m not done with you.”

Cub was too frightened to fight, too bewildered and still too unsure on his feet to put up a proper resistance, even if Grian was really as weak as Scar insisted he was. Grian hadn’t seemed incapable when he’d shoved Cub out on his doorstep, and his grip was like a vice, tight and determined. Grian maneuvered his cart with impressive dexterity, especially for how fast he was moving, and the way Grian bulldozed through the self checkout had Cub mesmerized, up until Grian snatched the waffles out of his hands, scanned them, and shoved them unceremoniously into his reusable shopping bags, taking all four in his arms and sprinting out the sliding doors without his receipt. His- He took his fucking waffles!

Panicked, Cub pushed the cart Grian had just left back to the return, and scrambled after him. Grian whipped back, already halfway in his car.

“Get in.”

“I don’t really-“

“Get in the fucking car!”

Cub wasn’t sure at what point in his life that he lost his spine, but he was starting to believe as he fell into the passenger seat of Grian’s car that it might be a problem. He considered calling for Scar, but with Grian in the driver’s seat, it was unlikely that’d do anything but piss him off. Given the maniacal way Grian screeched out of the parking lot, Cub wasn’t trying to test his luck.

“As I was saying.” Grian spoke through gritted teeth, eyes dead forward, “Mumbo is sick. And as much as I would like to suspect the corruption’s influence, I am not so sure it’s to blame. We, uh.. We have an arrangement-“

“I know about the sex.”

“He told you!?”

“He told everyone and their brother, so like, all the clowns and some of the other circus people. He’s kinda pissed. Mostly he’s pissed it was good. If it wasn’t good he would’ve eaten you, that’s what he usually does at least. I guess he might not have eaten you, not with Mumbo around. He’s just mad he agreed not to bother you for so long.”

“For fuck’s sake! Are the clowns all spawn of corruption?”

“No, they’re just clowns. He just doesn’t give a fuck. It’s pretty obvious to everyone but the ringmaster he’s evil incarnate, but he’s fun and makes good cookies and he’s a pretty good clown. They like him well enough.”

Grian snorted, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he crafted some kind of spell, curse, or otherwise on the whole circus if that’s the case.”

“No. They’re just normal clowns. They aren’t-“

“Whatever. Point is, I don’t think the corruption is behind this- not that I trust it to uphold its end of our arrangement, but I haven’t sensed his or your presence anywhere for months, and Mumbo hasn’t been speaking to ghosts or anything. I’m worried the concussions have messed with his brain chemistry, he has no interest in anything he used to care about, he sleeps all day, he’s miserable, he-“

“Oh, thank god.”

“Wh- What?”

“He looked so put together. Like, completely normal. Coping. Perfectly fine. I thought I was crazy. Like, I’ve been this depressed since I took my first steps, that’s just a given when you’re like us.”

“That- I know he’s depressed, Cub. But this is new.”

“For real?”

“Yes for real!”

“Fuuuuuuck.”

“Chronic depression isn’t uncommon mind you, unfortunately you’re genetically predisposed for failure in about a hundred different ways, but this isn’t the main issue- I mean- it’s the start of the problem, but ever since he’s stopped doing all the things he does to cope, his condition has magnified to a level I’m concerned is getting to be unmanageable- I can tell, I can tell by the way he looks at me, and I- I was thinking about hospitalizing him, but that’s a worst case for normal depression, and this is- I’m not into purity, Cub, I know he needs outlets. Antipsychotics aren’t going to fix him. I just. I want to do what’s best for him, but I’m.. It just got so bad, so fast. I don’t want him to suffer.” Grian trailed off, and even looking straight ahead, Cub could see him squint against panic, could hear him strangle the quiver in his voice.

Cub knew in some ways what Grian was, what he was here for. Scar was never very concrete in matters of the supernatural, but he’d dropped a few vague remarks in regards to the nature of Grian’s kind, old spirits, victims of the Earth’s scars. Scar framed their meddling as a matter of revenge, simplified to a war of ‘good versus evil,’ when in reality they were sticking their noses in business that didn’t concern them. Corruption’s spawn belonged to their fathers, their nature could not be changed, and trying to do so was an unnecessary cruelty, prolonging a miserable life that could instead be free. Scar dismissed them as spiteful. Selfish. Which was not to say Scar himself was not selfish and cruel, but in his words, he did not pretend to be anything else.

Cub believed him. Before Scar, most all of what he’d ever wanted was to die. At least now he had something to be. Mumbo as he was now was just suspended in a state of endless wanting, having inhuman needs left unfulfilled, stuck because Grian would not let him go.

He did not care about Grian. Cub did not want to help him. His allegiance was to Scar, and despite everything, it would always be to Scar. However, kinship with Mumbo drew a new line of loyalty, almost stronger, bound by the kind of shared agony that not even Scar could ever know. Cub did not want Mumbo to suffer like this, not if he didn’t have to, not if Scar was right there, when Scar could take his pain away, facilitate the violence that would ease Mumbo’s aching heart. Cub wanted Mumbo to feel that relief, that explosive, rushing weightlessness he himself had experienced when he’d curled his hands over his mother’s throat.

So that was that then. This needed to run its course. When Mumbo killed Grian, he would be free. If Mumbo’s state was as dire as Grian seemed to think, it could be a matter of days.

Good. Good..

Cub stared straight ahead, watching the yellow lines of the dark road blur past, Grian similarly fixed to the empty street, eyes glazed. Cub had no allegiance to Grian. His kinship was to Mumbo.

And Mumbo could not go to Scar.

“What’s your endgame.” Cub only breathed the words, yet the silence still shattered, Cub squinting against the discomfort. “What’s your plan with Mumbo? What are your intentions?”

“I don’t understand.” Grian’s voice was just as quiet.

“What do you want. Why are you here when you know he could snap and shred you on a whim? If all of this resolves, if everything goes your way, how does it end?”

For the first time, Grian took his eyes off the road, he looked at Cub for a long time, too long, only for the light of another car to catch his eye, in which he turned his attention back.

“Mumbo gets to grow old. He gets to live.”

Cub’s lips were gently parted, body rigid, but Grian didn’t see. He was too concerned with the road ahead, with his fingers trembling on the steering wheel. Cub might’ve forgotten to breathe, he certainly wasn’t taking in any air, chest taut, constricted. What a simple thing it was, that could bring his whole world crumbling down.

“You think that’s possible? For him?”

Something impossibly sad fell across Grian’s face, tensing his jaw, clouding his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

#hermitcraft #hermitfic #hermitcraft fic #hermitshipping #technically #grian #gtws #goodtimeswithscar #cubfan135 #mumbo jumbo #convex #waffle duo #grub

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