#kenwato reunion ..we were robbed ..

[girlnadian]

Summary. A part of Wato had been expecting Ken to just pop up. She thought that as soon as she deleted the server, they'd be there, right by her side as if nothing happened. They aren't, though. Even with the End Barrens gone, Wato doesn't see Ken again.

Notes. spoilers for watos 100 days video. a fucking ghost possessed me on my 36 hour trip and i banged all of this out while on planes or waiting for planes. i miss kenwato so bad. banner from here

3.8k words // read on ao3

For as long as Wato has known them, Ken has been someone who just disappears. She's used to it—being suddenly unable to reach them for days at a time, only to come back to their shared world one day and find Ken there, with petals in their hair and wearing Wato's colors like they never left. Wato knows that, so she shouldn't have been surprised when they didn't stick around in one place for an entire hundred days, and she shouldn't feel so sick to her stomach when she doesn't see them again immediately after.

That cottage is the closest thing either of them has to a home world, even if it sits abandoned more often than not. Ken and Wato are both busy, constantly, flitting from project to project and slinking back into the world when things get too bad anywhere else. It's the first place Wato wants to go after the End Barrens—the world is green and alive and beautiful, but it's still just her.

<Wato1876> Ken?

No response. Wato gives it ten minutes and then tries again.

<Wato1876> Did you make it out?

No response. Wato's tail thumps nervously against the mattress of her bed. She never saw Ken leave the server, but even if they were online when she wiped it, it should have just kicked them off. They should be here. Ignoring her outright isn't like them.

(There had been something of an argument, and Wato had grappled with that for months on her own. She thinks of Ken and imagines their laugh and It's poetic, isn't it? but she knows they didn't mean it. Ken has never been cruel on purpose. They couldn't have known. She never saw a leave message, but she never saw anything else from them either. She just wants to–)

<Wato1876> Im not mad

<Wato1876> Ken. Please

Wato gives it half an hour, and then she crawls under her blanket. When she falls asleep for the first time in a hundred days, she does it still alone and she doesn't dream.

Wifies hasn't seen them, either. He asks Parrot for her—nothing. Wato reaches out to Avatar, but no one has heard from Ken in months. Weren't they with you? The dread that's been building in the back of Wato's throat starts to become an acidic sort of panic. They should be here. They have to be somewhere, but even with all four of them trying to reach out, no one gets a response.

<Wato1876> Are you okay?

<Wato1876> I just want to know that youre okay

She just wants to see them. She wants to hear their voice (It's poetic, isn't it?)—she did nothing but miss them and miss them day in and day out and they should be here. The End Barrens are gone. Wato reminds herself over and over, pacing the wooden floors of Ken's bedroom: the End Barrens are gone. She should have checked who was online, but she had been so desperate to rid herself of the whole experience—there's no way something could have gone wrong, could it? She's deleted servers with people online before. No matter how many times she replays the process in her mind, she can't fathom what would have been different, but she had been so dazed–

(Ken's room is always so messy. Wato carefully steps over diagrams and blueprints that have fallen to the floor, and stops the restless swishing of her tail so she doesn't accidentally blow any papers under the bed, but she can't bring herself to pace anywhere else.

She crawls on top of Ken's split-colored sheets to sleep, instead of under them, because she doesn't want to disturb anything.)

Four days after leaving the End Barrens and with no word from Ken, Wifies visits. That confusing knot of emotions gets pulled so tight that Wato nearly throws up.

"Hey," Wifies smiles apologetically. "Sorry to drop by unannounced."

When Wifies comes in, he brushes past her in a way that knocks their shoulders together, and Wato fails to stifle the full body shudder at the contact. If Wifies notices, he doesn't say anything. He scans the house, ears swiveling before he smoothes out the motion. Wato's ears flatten against her head.

"Just me here," she confirms. Wifies gives her a look she can't read—that seems to happen a lot with him. She loves him dearly, but sometimes she feels like she never lands right with him. (Ken is better with him.) She turns to let Wifies deeper into the house, and her feet carry her without thinking about where she's going. Wifies follows behind her until she sees the lemon-and-lime decorations of the room.

"Did something happen?" Wifies asks. It's quiet and soft—What happened to Ken?

Wato winces, and then forces a shrug.

"We got… separated, early in the challenge. They still haven't turned up," Wato knows that her voice shakes. She hopes Wifies doesn't call it out. "I'm… I'm sure they will."

The server's only been gone four days, she tells herself. As long as she doesn't think about all the days without Ken before that, it isn't that long. Wifies frowns, like he knows something is wrong but isn't sure what to make of it. Wato isn't doing a good job at reassuring him, she realizes. Four days isn't long for Ken to be gone.

(She's known Ken for so long. She tries to remember their laugh but it's always overlayed with the screech of an Enderman pinning her in place. It's poetic, isn't it?)

The way Wifies is looking at her makes her want to shy away, but she doesn't. His eyes are a duller purple than she imagined, and nothing screams at her, but she still has to force herself to look at him directly. He's solid around the edges. He shifts his weight and the floorboards creak under him.

"Can I get you something to drink?" Wato asks.

She only does it to get them out of this room and away from the conversation, but when she hands Wifies his cup fifteen minutes later it remains a firm weight in his hands. Wato releases a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. As worried about Ken as she had been, she sort of… forgot: she hadn't seen anyone else yet, either.

They chat and catch up; Wifies doesn't say Ken's name and so Wato doesn't, either. Wifies waves idly as he leaves, and Wato walks up to Ken's room and lays on top of the sheets and tucks her tail against her body. She doesn't dream, and Wifies comes back the next day. They busy themselves with idle chatter and discussion about escape room ideas, and Wifies waves idly as he leaves, and Wato walks up to Ken's room and lays on top of the sheets and tucks her tail against her body. She doesn't dream, and she stops messaging Ken every day, and she doesn't hear from or see them.

Ten days after leaving the End Barrens, the door to their cottage creaks open. Wato jolts up like she's been shocked, ears pricked towards the entrance so hard it aches. There's a beat of silence, and the footsteps that follow are paw-pad soft. Someone who's naturally quiet, not someone who's trying to be.

Wato wants to call out, but the name gets caught in her throat even though she'd recognize the cadence of those steps anywhere. She doesn't need to—the door to Ken's room swings open, and mismatched yellow-and-green eyes stare back at her in the low light.

Ken's eyes are wide and startled, and it occurs to Wato that she should be embarrassed about being caught curled up in a ball on their bed. Ken's mouth opens and then closes, and then they turn and disappear down the hall.

"W-wait," Wato makes a mess of the sheets in her haste to scramble up. "Wait! Ken!"

A door slams shut. It's not the front door, though—Wato gets out into the hall and realizes the door to her bedroom is now locked.

Ken is gone in the morning.

<_Kenadian_> im busy

<_Kenadian_> you dont have to wait for me

Wato waits anyway. Any work she has to do, she can do from the cottage—she isn't anywhere near building stages. She lets Wifies and Avatar know that Ken is back and declines Wifies' offer to visit further.

Now that she's seen them (it was them, she's pretty sure—they moved the door and she heard their footsteps), the fact they're avoiding her is startlingly more obvious. There's a fragment of Wato's chest that wants to be angry about that, but every time she replays that brief glimpse in her mind all her frustration turns back into clawing, lonely desperation. She didn't get a good enough look at them, but she thinks… When was the last time she saw Ken wide-eyed like that? It wasn't just surprise; they looked scared.

She tries to be mad, but she thinks about the End Barrens and what it did to her, and then she thinks about Ken. There hadn't been food, she remembers, and then she thinks about Ken. Wato had at least been able to death reset, but Ken hadn't died or returned to spawn once. What were they doing all that time, without a way to eat or regain health?

She doesn't bother texting them to ask, because she knows they won't answer. Ken comes back three days later, and this time Wato makes sure she's in her own room. There's a small tuft of unnatural yellow fur caught in her bed frame—Wato picks up the reminder, soft and physical between the pads of her fingers, and nearly sobs.

Ken always comes back at night, but Wato is never asleep when they do. Sometimes she stays up near the front door just to see them, and on the third time she does, Ken mutters a greeting (It's poetic, isn't it?) before vanishing up into their room again. Every time, Wato trembles with the barely-restrained urge to grab by the shoulders just to prove she can—she doesn't know what she'd do after that, though.

It's weird and tentative. Wato wouldn't even really call it peace. Ken is constantly skirting around the edges of her vision, and Wato doesn't turn her head for fear that if she looks at them directly the illusion will shatter. (She catches them in the morning light, once, on their way out—she notices how thin their wrists look. Ken has always been small, but have they always looked like that? Does Wato look any better?) Instead, her eyes are always just behind them, so she can see the way they interact with the world and remind herself that she isn't imagining them. She doesn't sleep in their room anymore, but she doesn't need to—those same yellow tufts of fur end up all over the cottage again. Ken takes cups out in the morning and leaves them out. They're tangible enough things that Wato doesn't feel like panicking every time Ken is out of her sight, and it's enough, for a little bit.

"Were you looking through my blueprints?"

She catches them in their makeshift kitchen, which is just where the furnaces are. Ken's tail puffs, flicks to the side, and then smooths out again. A few months ago, Wato would have laughed at them for being surprised by her voice. It's the first time she's addressed them directly in… a while now.

Between tufts of fur and moved cups, Wato notices the papers detailing her next project being shuffled like someone was flipping through them. She isn't upset, it was just…

"It looks good," says Ken. "I was just curious."

It was just unexpected. Sharing blueprints is something she wouldn't have thought twice about, before. Ken is always curious. Wato is the one who wants to wait in one place.

"Just good?" Wato asks. She sounds, unwittingly, like she's talking to a nervous stray, but only because Ken is treating her like one in kind. Ken has never called her puzzles just good. This is their art as much as it is hers—they always have something to say.

Ken hesitates. Their tail sways restlessly behind them. Say something, Wato wants to beg. I know you have thoughts. Say something. Don't leave me here.

"It looks good," Ken repeats. Wato supposes good is better than poetic.

Eventually, Wato can't procrastinate with just blueprints and small mockups anymore. She needs to start doing full prototypes, which comes with two more, slightly uncomfortable truths: she needs to leave her server with Ken to start building, and she needs playtesters. Normally, she wouldn't even have to ask Ken—often, Ken would just show up to whatever server she's building in unannounced and then refuse to explain how they got the IP. Now, though, when everything Ken offers her is through murmurs… She's not sure.

"You should just ask them," Wifies says. "If you aren't sure."

The void is easier to stomach than the End Barrens. Wato forgoes a dirt block in her design and replaces it with netherrack. She'll have to give the player a pickaxe to mine it, but if it's a wooden one that shouldn't allow them to get any blocks they aren't supposed to.

"I don't know," Wato says. "Maybe they just need to rest some more."

Not that Wato knows what Ken has been doing, outside the time she sees them at the cottage. It's been weeks, nearly a month, and Wato hasn't explained the End Barrens to anyone—Ken hasn't asked and Wato hasn't asked them either, and Wato doesn't even know how she would explain it to someone who wasn't there and didn't see what it was like.

"Are you just talking about the escape room?" Wifies voice drops, What happened to Ken? and Wato fumbles.

"What else would I be talking about?"

"I get the feeling," Wifies talks slow, like he's choosing his words very, very carefully, "that you two aren't talking much at all."

Wato erects a wall of bedrock. A voice in her head reminds her to be cognizant of the wall thickness, because there's access to a boat in a later room. People think they can get away with two, it says, but you actually need three layers to stop someone from phasing through.

"It's complicated," Wato settles on. It's ultimately not more complicated than the fact she created escape rooms for Wifies' evil creator who was also Wifies, but it sure feels that way—and isn't that so telling. Maybe Wifies thinks the same thing, because he raises a brow.

"I'm only making a suggestion, but it kind of sucks—watching you two like this."

Wato winces. Wifies is right, but…

Ken is back now, but it's so, so fragile. Wato imagines the conversation playing out, and she imagines saying the wrong thing, and Ken leaving and being gone for good this time. If Wato couldn't even convince them to stay with her before, how would she do it now? Is she even ready to share something like this with Ken again?

She thinks about saying I'll ask soon, but she doesn't want to make a promise she can't keep, especially not to Wifies. "I'll think about it," is what she settles on instead. As if she hasn't been thinking about it for months and months already.

Ken must realize she's started building. Wato can see that ever-present and rampant curiosity in the back of their eyes, but they don't say anything. Wato finds herself more and more unsure of what to make of things the longer it goes on. It hurts more to realize that they want to ask but won't—why? Why put them both through this? Why hover if they won't commit?

Wato climbs up to Ken's room and sits on their bed. Their blankets are rumpled and one of their pillows has fallen on the floor. She places herself on the edge of the mattress and waits.

She's banking on the idea that Ken even comes back tonight, but it seems like luck is on her side. The door to Ken's room swings open, and mismatched yellow and green eyes stare back at her in the light, wide and startled.

"Wato?"

"I started building a new escape room," she says, which is—okay, maybe not the most elegant start to the conversation, but the words tumble out as soon as she sees them. Ken furrows their brow and one of their ears flicks.

I need playtesters next. You're the best one I know. Wato imagines herself saying it. She can hear the words in her head in her voice, but they don't make it into the air. Ken stares at her for a long moment, before both their ears fall.

"That's… good, I–"

"Don't you want to be there?"

That isn't what she meant to say at all. Ken freezes, but Wato keeps talking—"Why don't you want to be there?"

"I do!" Ken's voice raises a pitch. They sound helpless. "I always want to–"

"No you don't. You don't always want to be there."

Ken hasn't moved, but Wato stands and starts to pace, shoes scuffing against the hardwood floor. She can feel their eyes tracking her, back and forth, until she asks again, "Why weren't you there? Where did you go, Ken?"

I missed you. I thought about you constantly. I miss you right now, where did you go? Were you okay? Are you okay? Wato doesn't ask and Ken doesn't say—Ken will never fold and Wato will always be left to pick up their discarded cards and try to make a hand. They just watch her. Wato inhales sharply, and Ken in kind makes a wet, choked-off noise.

"I didn't…" Ken tries—she can tell they're trying but she's so tired of it. They keep twitching like they're moments away from fleeing, and if they left again Wato would have no way to stop them again. She can't keep chasing the lie of permanence forever.

"Just go if you're going to go," she bites out. The words feel like a punch to her—she doesn't look at Ken to see how they take it. She turns towards the wall with no clue how long they stand there struggling, and she lets Ken disappear down the hall and then out the front door.

_Kenadian_ has left the game.

Wato doesn't make it to Ken's bed; she sinks to her knees on the floor and lets sobs wrack her body until exhaustion overtakes her.

She gets Parrot and Seawatt to playtest for her, instead. She thinks about asking Wifies, but she doesn't feel like enduring his concerned looks when he notices Ken isn't around. It goes smoothly, if dully. There are no sequence-breaking ways to glitch out of the map, and it's impossible to eliminate cheesing but it doesn't seem obnoxiously easy.

All she needs to do is decorate the winner's platform. No one is coming to playtest, so she doesn't bother checking the user list until paw-pad soft steps come from somewhere behind her. Part of her figured she'd never see Ken again—most of her still imagines this will be the last time.

"I didn't think you'd want to see me again," Ken says. Wato pauses. "After I left, and I laughed at you while doing it—I didn't think you'd…"

Ken swallows. "Leaving spawn was a bad idea. You were right."

"What happened, Ken?"

Ken laughs, but it's rueful and strained. Wato finally turns enough to see them run a hand through their hair.

"I just kept walking," Ken says, "I couldn't eat, because there was no food, so I just walked and walked. No structures, just dirt and Endermen and sometimes water, but never any fish—and I was just on half a heart, forever, and I couldn't die because dying would send me back."

"You could have come back," Wato argues. "Ken, I wanted you there—I wanted you to come back so bad it killed me."

Ken's expression twists up. Their chest heaves, and Wato's vision blurs in turn.

"I was too stubborn, I guess. I just– I just kept walking, and I never accomplished anything, and I was so tired but I had to keep walking. I couldn't come back empty-handed after how I treated you, and if I got to the Nether I could travel through there to get back to you faster, but," Ken's tail coils around their leg miserably. "I didn't make it. I was– was basically starving to death the whole time, and I couldn't regen health, so even falling a couple of blocks felt paralyzing. I don't know."

"Ken–"

"I want to be here, Wato, I promise. I didn't think it would—it was supposed to be a stupid challenge. I saw all your death messages, and when you got the Nether, and when you– you– but I didn't– I'm sorry. Wato, I'm sorry."

At the first sign of tears, Wato lurches forward. Ken hits the floor and Wato goes with them, burying her nose in Ken's soft hair and squeezing her eyes shut. Ken's claws dig into her back, but they're real and alive and here.

"I just wanted to know you were okay," Wato croaks. "It was just… the same thing every day, waiting for something to happen, and it was so lonely. And then the server was gone, but you still weren't there–"

"I'm sorry," Ken whines. Wato tucks their head under her chin. "I didn't want to upset you."

"It was so, so lonely," she echoes, again, a little hollow. "Did you hallucinate, too?"

Ken sniffs, "What?"

Despite everything, Wato laughs. "I started to– I guess I just couldn't handle being on my own, so I started hallucinating. I thought Wifies was there—don't tell him. I haven't told him."

Ken's hair is wet with her tears, but they only press in closer. Wato idly starts to run a hand along Ken's ears—she only realizes now how unkempt their fur is, and when she reaches a hand up to her own ear, it feels the same way.

"I won't tell," Ken promises. "I'm sorry, Wato."

"It's okay," and she means it. She can't remember the last time she felt this okay. Ken remains a warm, shuddering weight in her arms—and it's okay. It's okay. Wato squeezes them tight one more time before pulling back to look at their face.

"Let's just go home, alright?"

She'll finish the winner's platform later, but she'll probably ask Ken to do a run-through of the room before she finalizes it. For now, they reconnect to their server; Ken takes Wato's hand and pulls her into their house. Wato crawls into Ken's bed and Ken settles in next to her, curls their tail around her leg and presses their face into her shoulder as their chest rumbles with slightly uneven purrs, and it's okay. They're both okay.