#traffic fic

[crowsongcaws]

Jimmy and Tango looked happy together.

Scott couldn't look away from them.

He'd been the one to tell Jimmy it was okay to visit the Hermitcraft server without him. Jimmy had asked him a million times if he was sure, and each time, Scott had told him yes because he trusted Jimmy and trusted everyone on the Hermitcraft server. What was a relationship without trust?

Jimmy was leaning against Tango. They were sitting on a picnic blanket looking out across the bay, occasionally talking about Grian, who sat at the other side of the bay. The two of them watched as Grian reeled in a pufferfish, and together they laughed at Grian's misery. It was only once their fit of giggling died down that Tango spoke again.

"I'm glad you're here, Rancher," he said.

Scott didn't need to see Jimmy to know how he looked in that moment—his pink-flushed face split by a wide, fond smile.

"So am I. I love you," Jimmy replied in a tone so soft it made Scott's heart flutter even if the words were directed at another.

Scott felt his throat close up.

He needed to break the moment, but he didn't want to. Scott was suddenly somehow glad that Joel was there. When he'd hopped into the Hermitcraft server, Joel had been the one to help him search for Jimmy. Now, Joel had a surprisingly comforting hand on his shoulder.

"If you don't say something now, you're just gonna go back and beat yourself up about this," Joel murmured to him.

He knew Joel was right.

"I just..." Scott trailed off, the words getting caught in his throat as he heard Jimmy and Tango laugh again—Grian reeled in a leather hat across the bay.

"Go get 'em, Scott. You deserve to be happy," Joel eventually told him, catching Scott off-guard yet again. He managed to weakly smile at Joel, and then he started walking towards the two.

It was pleasantly warm despite still technically being Winter, approaching the beginning of Spring. A slow breeze drifted through the air, the sun just now beginning to set. The bright blue sky above them was tinted orange, fluffy clouds lazily crossing above.

Scott couldn't believe that this was going to happen.

Neither Jimmy nor Tango heard Scott marching towards them until he was within feet of them. Only then did Tango turn around, the sun glinting off his circular red glasses. The motion caused Jimmy to turn around, and within seconds, the confusion on his face morphed into surprise.

"Scott?" Jimmy tried to say, "I thought you said you were busy—?"

"I was," Scott interjected. "I was busy, but I..."

Tango was just looking at him equal parts curious and confused. His mouth was parted ever-so-slightly, the sharp tips of his teeth barely visible. His golden-blonde hair looked somewhat messy as if he'd gone on a run recently. Scott swallowed hard.

"...I just wanted to say that both of you are very important to me," Scott finally managed to say, forcing himself to muster up the usual confidence he suddenly found himself lacking.

Taking a deep breath, he reached a trembling hand into his pocket and pulled out a box. He barely managed to hear Tango say oh under his breath as he dropped down to one knee.

"I've known of both of you for years, but I never really got the chance to know you until Grian's games started," Scott said, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I know those games have caused so many nightmares, but if I could go back and change it, I'd keep it all. Meeting both of you was the best thing to ever happen to me."

Jimmy's hands were cupped over his mouth, tears already streaming down his sun-kissed cheeks. The wings on either side of his head flapped in shock, no doubt beating just as fast as his heart. Tango, on the other hand, looked almost blank to just about anyone else, but Scott saw his hair sparking to life and the way his tail flicked here and there. His attention was on Scott, and the look in his eyes made Scott feel revered. He forced himself to keep speaking.

"3rd life was hard, but moving on after it ended was harder. I hadn't seen you for you until 3rd life, Jimmy, but how could I forget after it all? People joked that you were only dragging me down, but no one saw just how much I depended on you. You made each day brighter and easier, you made me confident, you gave me the strength to make myself strong. When I thought we were done for that game, you saw another chance, and you always convinced me to get back up and try all over again because giving up just wasn't for you, and it never has been." "Stop it, Scott, you—" Jimmy cried, his face already flushed and tear-stained. "Oh, Hun—" "Petal, you're going to make me cry, and I'm not even done yet," Scott said with a watery grin, and then he faced Tango. "Tango, lovely, double life was hard. The circumstances were difficult, and every single day was a struggle with Pearl and Martyn. Seeing Jimmy so happy without me used to make me so, so jealous, and then double life ended. I never would've expected you to come to me and ask if I was okay after I... well, after double life ended. But I'm so glad you did. The moment you did that, I saw what Jimmy saw. Kind, thoughtful, and just as resilient. None of it was a mistake. I would go through the hurt all over again for the love you've shown me afterwards." At that, Tango's blank expression shook to keep his composure. His hands were trembling, almost like even his own body wondered if he should dare to accept the praise and affection. However, all Scott had to do was smile at him, teeth and all, and a few tears began to slip down Tango's face. One long second passed, and Scott realized he needed to open the box. Inside it, two rings sat side-by-side, both with rose-gold bands designed to look like twisting vines dotted with the occasional miniscule gem. Though both had identical bands, one had an oval-shaped sunstone while the other had a similarly-shaped moonstone. "Sunstone for you, Jimmy—bright, reliable, and charming. Moonstone for you, Tango—resourceful, clever, and persistent," Scott explained, and then with another pause, he added, "There's no one else I'd rather be with than you two. Will you marry me?" "Yes—" "If you take my last name—" Jimmy and Tango both glanced at each other, and before any of them knew it, they were all laughing. "Scott Tek?" Scott asked with a grin heavy in his voice. "Better than Tango Major!" Tango cried out. "Jimmy Tek has a ring to it..." Jimmy murmured. "Wait, wait, why aren't either of you taking my last name?" And the cool breeze swept their good-natured bickering into the air all while crickets chirped and people across the server worked and laughed and haggled for supplies. It would be just another day for anyone else, something that would turn into an event that happened a few weeks ago, then last spring, then a few years back until all that was left was the memory of the warmth Scott felt in his heart and the way Jimmy and Tango laughed together like a melody only they knew in that moment, but wasn't that enough? More than enough, Scott thought to himself. And it was the truth.

[moon1ee]

after a year of work, MY HERMITSHIPPING BIG BANG FIC IS FINISHED! thank you to everyone who supported me!

chapters: 4/4, complete, word count: 25k, tags: romance, horror, angst, typical romance tv shenaniganry, also not so typical romance tv shenaniganry, the island is alive and trying to kill you, babygirl i can invent stages of grief you've never even heard of, canon typical ending, fucked up ways of showing love

you can also check out my playlist that goes with it :)

thank you to the lovely @bloodcrownedking, @inkystaarart, and 5alm0n for making art for life itself! this wouldn't have been possible without you ❤ and thank you to @hermitshippingbigbang for hosting this event!

[moro-the-sun]

"I want to understand."

Tango has a crack in pink glasses — he looks tired, skewed. Martyn looks at him with a curious look, twice, he thinks — who cares what he wants to understand. Martyn doesn't understand much either. He arches an eyebrow in an interrogative gesture, leaning on a shovel, like on a cane.

“He said he was cursed,” Tango clarifies, and okay, he should have expected it, "I don’t understand. I want to understand."

Martyn blinks, returning to the shovel, which he drives deeper into the clay black earth. He asks, playing disinterest: "What makes you think that I know?"

Tango nervously moves his shoulders and sits on the threshold of their dog house. What a pest, and you won't get away with it — Martyn is not ready for this conversation, he generally did not undertake to explain anything for Jimmy.

He wonders, if Jimmy himself understands something in this?

"Weren't you friends with him? Like, even before the games?" Tango takes off his glasses, gnawing Martyn’s back with such a look that he feels it almost physically, "He told me about Evo. I think you should know something."

Martyn reluctantly stops and turns around, humbles Tango with his eyes again: in his Heart Foundations uniform he seems smaller than in his usual huge vest, and his fire only shyly cracks, obviously expecting any attack from Martyn. Here he is, damn him: he stretches himself on the palm, open and sincere, with one single question that doesn't let him sleep at night — Martyn knows, because he himself once had such a question. It can be seen that he despaired, that he does not know who to ask already, since he went into badlands to fall at the feet of the now lonely red. Curse Jimmy again for his talkativeness.

Okay, he has to leave a shovel.

Martyn pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Welp, listen."

He turns him into the house and sits him at the threshold, sitting opposite on the edge of the bed: a bright gesture that he is not going to do anything with Tango, giving an advantage in the form of a retreat. Now the conversation is serious, the conversation is not in games, but over them — Martyn dreamed of at least someone talking to him like that once, someone he knew, and not a thousand-eyed shit that looked like a demon of sleep paralysis. After all, Tango doesn't even understand how valuable such a gesture is, how much Martyn will now give him in one dialogue. He bites his lips, trying not to look back on the box: “You know Jimmy is a canary, don’t you?”

Tango bows his head, as if not quite realizing what the question is for, but nods in the affirmative: "He spoke about it."

“Of course,” Martyn confirms, “he spoke about it. This is his curse - the curse of the canary."

Tango does not understand, obviously, and he needs to gather his strength again, he needs to remember again what he once understood — when was it? Has awareness come with victory?

“The miners take the canaries with them because they constantly sing. Birds are much more susceptible to gas and pressure, and therefore, when they fall silent, it means it's time to leave."

Tango's face darkens. "What does this mean?"

Martyn wants to spit. That's what it means, why don't you understand?

“Jimmy is a canary,” he says as calmly as he can, “He dies first. He will always die first."

“Not this time,” is the obvious fact. Martyn nods, "Not this time. But it's not that important."

Silence. Tango tears a crack in the lens with nails, thinking about something, while Martyn tries to figure out how to explain it more clearly, how to embrace this topic a little more than "Jimmy does not see his own nose further, and therefore collects everything along the way cones."

“This is a warning,” he finally exhales, “his death means that the stage of the peace is ending, that everything is now too dangerous, and. . . Well, it's time to stop preparing for war and it's worth starting to fight. After his death, it becomes much more dangerous. Therefore, it doesn't matter if he died first or second: his function is not in the number, but in the alarm."

Tango looks up at him — pity oozes from his red eyes, and although its not towards Martyn, he feels anger gurgling inside. He has his own opinion about all this, even if it's none of his business.

“It’s cruel,” Tango says quietly, and in these words — love, endless and boundless, embracing with fire, a love that Martyn could neither know nor understand. He looks away. He closes his eyes.

“Yes,” he agrees, “But it’s merciful."

[anonymous-dentist]

Grian stumbles into town with a bullet lodged in his spine and another in his ass. He walks with an obvious limp, making his spurs jingle obnoxiously with every step.

He doesn’t know where he is. His absolute idiot of a horse is at the bottom of a canyon choking on dirt. His back hurts, and his coat isn’t doing much to hide the blood oozing out of his bullet wounds.

All in all? Miserable day. Zero out of ten.

And, he thinks as a cloud passes over the scorching western sun above, it’s just going to get worse from here.

There are people staring. Townspeople, obviously, on both the street and inside whatever piles of wood they’re trying to pass off as actual buildings. And then there are the horses, as judgemental as Grian’s own rude, terrible horse.

And then there are the ghosts whispering to each other in the shadows. They point and laugh and mime shooting guns and stick their tongues out and flip him off as he walks by.

Grian grimaces at the attention and pulls his hat low over his face.

(That’s the thing about the living, they never know how to mind their own business!)

(Not that the dead are any better, mind.)

(And not that Grian is much better than them.)

He’s got a walking stick and a gun. The gun doesn’t have any bullets left in it, and the stick is half-broken. He used to have a knife, but he left it with BigB (because he’s stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!) His sword is at home, and his ax is somewhere in the desert buried in a skeleton’s ribcage.

It’s a small town, at least. Grian only walks past the saloon and the general store and the post office and two whole entire houses before he’s through the town and in front of the church.

More importantly, he’s in front of the graveyard.

He looks up at the tree in the middle of the graveyard. It’s got a noose hung on it, and there’s someone hanging from it: no soul, no breath, no life.

“Rip,” says Grian. (Living slang, he thinks.)

Looking around carefully, he hops the graveyard’s fence and heads towards the body.

“It’s nothing personal,” he tells it once he’s standing before (and below) it. “I’ve just got to borrow some of your juice, that’s all. You won’t be needing it where you’re going.”

Letting out a long, and deeply annoyed. breath, Grian leans his stick against the tree. He cracks his neck, shimmies a little in place, winces as the bullets in him wiggle around painfully.

“Right,” he says.

He nods.

And then he gets on his toes and places his hand on the body’s chest over where its heart once beat. He closes his eyes, and-

“What are you doing?” he hears- a whisper, hoarse like an asthmatic, well, horse.

The Living, Grian judgmentally thinks.

He wrinkles his nose in response. “Nothing. Go away.”

“Uh-huh. Well-”

The whisper cuts off as Grian shushes it. He’s busy!

No soul, no breath, no life… but there should still be, at least, juice. Tasty juice, perfect for getting rid of nasty bullet holes and dissolving the bullets inside.

But.

“This is a little personal, don’t you think?” the voice asks. “I mean, we don’t even know each other!”

Grian frowns.

And then Grian screams as the body he’s touching starts freaking wiggling.

His eyes fly open (hah!) and he stumbles backwards, clutching his hand to his chest and breathing entirely too heavily for a creature unable to feel fear.

The body smiles. It waves. It laughs as Grian hyperventilates below it.

“Why, hello there!” it cheerfully says.

Grian lunges for his stick and starts beating the corpse with it.

“Ow!” it yelps. “Hey! Ow! Stop that!”

“You’re supposed to be dead!” Grian snaps. (He’s rather an expert in these kinds of things.) “Go on! Be dead!”

The body whimpers and moans and kicks at Grian at Grian swings at it:

“Yeowch!”

“‘Yeowch’ this,” Grian huffs. He cracks his stick upside the body’s head so hard that his stick actually finally breaks in half.

The body just looks offended.

As Grian bends down to try and magic his stick back together, the body raises a hand to rub the side of its head.

“Okay, rude,” it angrily says. “What did I do?”

Grian narrows his eyes up at it: jagged scars cutting across its face, skin almost grey in appearance, rope around the neck. Fancy clothes like that of a businessman.

No soul. No breath. …Some life?

“You’re alive,” Grian explains. “That’s a problem.”

“Tell me about it,” the body sighs. It rolls its eyes towards the town. “Those guys spent weeks trying to get me killed! Haven’t the faintest idea why.”

This is. Strange.

“Where is your soul?” Grian demands. He stands and pokes the body right in the tummy, ignoring the light giggle it gives in response. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“Ah, see, that’s a funny story, actually…”

Grian turns and starts to walk away with his broken stick. “Yeah, well, I don’t want to hear it. I haven’t got the time.”

A cloud passes over the sun.

“Hey!” the body calls. “What about my juice! You said you needed it!”

“I can’t get it from someone alive.”

“Oh, is that all? Cut me down, I can help.”

The bullet in Grian’s back is awful smug for something about to get dissolved. It digs in as Grian turns around and gives the body a capital-L look.

“Did you kill someone?” he flatly asks.

The body bats its eyelashes. “Well, you won’t find out unless you get me down from here.”

Grian… weighs his options. He can’t run like this. Death will find him by sundown if he can’t heal up and hide himself. But the corpse in front of him is an affront to nature and he kind of really hates it.

He sighs, anyway, and starts back towards the tree.

Twenty minutes later, he and his new corpse friend are standing in a cave over the lightly-decomposed body of a young man in a dirty white shirt.

“That’s a dead man,” Grian astutely says.

The body nods. “Yup. Found him myself a few days ago. Went and reported it to the townspeople, but they just hung me instead of thanking me.”

Grian looks at him with a confusedly-furrowed brow. “They didn’t even come and get the body?”

The body shrugs innocently; Grian is sure that it killed this man.

He crouches by the dead man, anyway, and puts his hand over its heart.

“You’re one of those reaper guys, right?” the standing body suddenly asks.

Grian chokes on his own breath. “Ah-”

“Oh, don’t mind me asking!”

“That is. Private information.”

“So you are! That’s good, ‘cause, see, I’ve got this problem…”

Slowly, the body settles on the ground next to Grian, criss-cross-applesauce. It puts its hands in its lap.

“I may have screwed with Death,” the body says.

Grian looks at it, a walking corpse. “Well, I’d say.”

“And now Death is after me,” it continues. “So, if you’re a reaper, maybe you can put in a good word for me? I’m not abusing my immortality or anything, honest!”

Grian sucks in a sympathetic breath through his teeth. “Yeah, sorry, bud, I can’t do that. Death’s after me, too.”

The body doesn’t so much as blink before grinning and saying, “Then that’s even better! We can team up! You know what they say, two heads are better than one!”

“Better not. I’ve got a big target on my back. If you want to be left alone, I am not the reaper you should be hanging out with.”

He’d be much better off with Mumbo, Grian thinks. Death likes Mumbo. They’re good friends even outside of work.

But the body just shakes his head. “No, man, you don’t get it.”

And then he reaches into his suit’s inside pocket and pulls out a gun. The gun: old, tarnished silver with skulls engraved in the metal.

It points Death’s Scythe at Grian with a tilt of the head.

“Cool, huh?” it asks. “Now, I know that you know what this is, so I’m sure that we won’t have any arguments here when I suggest that we start working together. Reapers avoid other reapers, right?”

Grian rolls his eyes. “Yeah, unless they’re explicitly looking for other reapers. Put that down, you can’t shoot it, anyway.”

He turns back to the dead man on the floor; he needs his juice.

He jumps as a bullet flies right past his ear and into the cave wall behind him.

He freezes.

“I’m Scar, by the way,” the body- Scar, and Grian has heard of him, his name has been on the reaping list for almost a century now- says. “I’ve got a wagon hidden in an old barn outside of town and some supplies.”

Slowly, Grian lets out a breath. Of course. Of course! He’s only been on Earth for a day, and he’s already being kidnapped by a Living. Great. He’s never going to live this down.

Through grit teeth, he says, “Grian. Now, excuse me…”

He closes his eyes, and he plunges his hand right through the dead man’s chest until he’s holding the heart. He squeezes it, and he pulls it out of the body, and he brings it to his lips. He opens his mouth, and-

———

Or: It’s the Wild West, and Grian is a grim reaper is running away from Death, Scar is a human who cheated Death and (mostly) got away with it, and is immortality really all it’s cut out to be?

I’ve never written anything with these characters before, so let me know what you think!!

[bellshazes]

with a wicked pack of cards (gen/horror, 3.3k)

The nothingness choked him, slid down his throat, settled achingly in his belly. He gasped, swallowing yet more nothing with each panicked breath, tension rising, strangely certain that it was the deepening pit in his stomach that was consuming him. He was dust empty, mouth wool-watering, desert dry - and then that lingering at the tip of his tongue resolved into speech, loud with all the empty air inside of him released like a high pressure valve: I'm zombie hungry.

Bdubs tries to put order to his wild hunger, no matter what it takes to satisfy it.

On AO3 or below the cut. Content warnings for body horror, implied physical transformations, implied (non-permadeath) murder, insect eating, mild self-injury, and cannibalism. Inspired by Bdubs' interaction with Scar while fording the river in episode 2.

At the dealing of the second card, the body, whose previous unruliness had some sense in it, now had senses that fled, revolted, confounded, fell apart, misfired.

The first sensation had been familiar, lingering on the tip of his tongue like a word once known and now forgotten, or perhaps misplaced, or misused. The weight of its absence sat heavy in his mouth, drawing down saliva and anxious air. The nothingness choked him, slid down his throat, settled achingly in his belly. He gasped, swallowing yet more nothing with each panicked breath, tension rising, strangely certain that it was the deepening pit in his stomach that was consuming him. He was dust empty, mouth wool-watering, desert dry - and then that lingering at the tip of his tongue resolved into speech, loud with all the empty air inside of him released like a high pressure valve: I'm zombie hungry.

The others knew, because they had none of them escaped some desert, some zombie, some brief terrifying hunger in any number of worlds - but faces contorted and limbs jerked as if the strings that drew them across the body and dove hands into pockets or slid palms over mouths had snagged and knotted, contorting intent into some misunderstood action. Objects stuttered in hands, and across the group amongst the incoherent concerns, Mumbo's voice rang all in one breath.

"I can eat my pickaxe," he said.

The strange language of other bodies resolved a little, the glass between himself and the world wiped clean. The angle at which that pick hovered in front of Mumbo had, in the peripheral vision, been easily assumed to be merely a defensive posture, but now with focus resembled more a skewer just picked clean. It was only wood and stone, but reflected the sun just in front of Mumbo's open mouth.

Reflexes tensed his arm and raised it, the grip of his fingers around uneven cobble convulsing, poised as if to examine or divide or reduce it, to throw it away from him, preparing a decisive action, and when his hand had traversed the full arc, he felt stone at his lips.

The hunger was already fully there, but several people had levitated away after scooping dirt into their surprised mouths before Bdubs could make room for anything. Cobble made him nauseous, all the emptiness of his stomach now gnawing at muscle, sinking into bone. It occupied him, infected him. He could no longer rely on this body to obey his intent in ways that had once made sense - or in ways he had once thought they did, perhaps.

Even in the oldest games like this, your body and the usual laws of the world were subordinate to the survival urges. Finite bodies, bodies which did not heal, bodies which even death did not restore, conditions on the sating of hunger were all familiar, grown natural. The itch of the killing curse was only a temporary sickness. Swords arms had twitched, footsteps crept too close to new targets - but it was controllable, had been controlled, until the last, when he told himself he had decided to act.

Looking out at the world, the first wild card had only made perception more true: slinking toward the ground brought you closer to the overlooked and immeasurable small things, so that all the world seemed to tower over the little forgotten kingdoms of earth and stone; reaching upwards, jumping, ascending all made the world smaller in comparison to your own vantage point. But it had been the body that changed, always changing, subordinated to conscious will but equally governed by absentminded instinct.

In the night, Etho came running to the river, arrows in hand, laugh a little manic. "Eat the arrows, slide it down your gullet, and say thank you."

Bdubs drew out his own small stash of arrows scavenged from skeletons. Tango took one from Etho and snapped it in half and set to chewing. Had Tango always had that many teeth? Had they always been so sharp? The light was low, the moon thin, the hunger urgent; he could not read his body, its signals and ciphers and code.

He tilted his head back toward the sky, held the arrow at the fletching, let gravity settle its pendulous swing above him. He smiled and his mouth opened wide. The arrow fell, pointed head drawing blood from his tongue, throat, washing away the accumulated desperate spit, food and drink both, and he let the roiling emptiness consume it.

Not long after, he made a clock and swallowed it whole. To keep time made him feel more whole, more of himself, and this way there could be no losing it. The clock sat heavy in his stomach, providing a steadying, mathematical precision against which he could mete out the following days and nights. He saw more clearly, and was drawn to water, but did not enter it, though he marked out the eventual course of a moat to keep their island safe.

Even unruly bodies could build and bring order to the landscape. The area needed cleared, devoured, made empty for the next steps. They needed walls between them, some container to keep the hunger from spilling, mixing, combining, growing out of control. The clock beat metronomic agreement as the emptiness clawed at his low ribs, its weight a comfort even as it dragged the pit of hunger deeper, down and down and down with each twitch of the gears.

He only got as far as laying the law down for three tower island before the natural order changed again. The polished deepslate he'd kept at hand now barely satisfied the beast in his belly; he was suddenly aware of how the dark cold stone ground only to loose chunks between his dull molars, coating his mouth with dust and grit. How had he not noticed before, the way it choked and grated, clogging his throat? He swallowed thickly, some rubble caught there, and swallowed again, trying to dislodge it, all attention narrowed to the constriction of his throat, salivating desperately, swallowing, a little movement, swallowing and swallowing, until it dislodged and he could no longer swallow, for it was crawling back up his esophagus, writhing, a thousand sharp edges prodding his flesh, frantic as if all the desperation he felt were escaping with animal fear, scrabbling against the back of his teeth.

Panicking, he stumbled toward Etho, reaching out with one hand and tapping his fist soundly against his chest with the other. But Etho fled before he could communicate, sickly green and twitching with poison shock. He began to scream, but the only noise that left him was the sound of silverfish falling from his gaping mouth.

The silverfish scurried away as everyone scrambled with their own crises of sound or physical affliction. Bdubs snapped back to action as Cleo arrived, and shared her stalactites. They went down like the arrows had, soothing his sore throat and washing away the dust. The taste of cracked eggshells lingered not unpleasantly on his tongue; his pulse settled back into the clock's stable rhythm. There was something like a congestive drip in his throat, but he didn't feel sick. He felt fine again, his appetite whetted.

Etho needed saving, as usual, cowering inside their temporary structure with fistfuls of lapis, unable to get full. He passed dripstone through between the cobble post and the wall, aiming a couple at the small of his back to get Etho's proper attention, and despite his initial skepticism, Etho ate. He'd come around and listen someday, Bdubs told himself. He would get his team to take care of themselves before others, take the world as it was in all its cruel order and get them to build up their own defenses.

In the morning, he crossed the river to visit Gem and Joel, who were eating grass.

"It's even better than dripstone," Gem said, pushing a fistful at him. Her fingers were stained light green; when he took the grass from her, there were thin, reedy lines across her empty palm.

More visitors arrived, pulling her attention away. Bdubs ate and found she was right. He ran his tongue over his teeth and considered his ground-down molars. He had nearly forgotten there were permissible organics, all the leaves and once-inedible plant life - but then, it had a certain soundness to it, that life could be better prolonged by consuming living things. A kind of natural order, like the golden ratio - common, comforting, exploitable.

His throat itched. He followed Joel into the storage cove, watching him rifle through chests and consider a variety deepslate configurations before swallowing them. Joel's teeth looked sharper, too, like he had imagined Tango's were the night of the arrows. They certainly held up and broke down stairs and walls and polished tile with ease, without breaking.

Joel looked up and grinned wide and thin through cracked lips. A little trickle of blood was trailing from the corner of his mouth, carving a path through the dust Bdubs hadn't realized was coating Joel's face. "Polished deepslate stairs are pretty good," he said before turning back to his chests for more supplies.

"Is that so?" said Bdubs. There was no stonecutter, but he did have one last block of polished deepslate on hand, from before the re-shuffling. He thought of the silverfish, the infestation - they must eat small plants or fungal growth, down in the caverns and mountain hollows where they normally lived, surely accumulating many little grasses within them - and if grass was good, better than stalactites…

He popped the deepslate into his mouth and bit down, cracking it like a bone. No panic, now; he swallowed and chased the rubble with one deep breath, drawing in more air than he knew he could hold, ribs and chest straining under the expansion of his lungs, the weight in his stomach, counting tick, tock, tick, tock until he could breathe in no more and began releasing all that breath even more slowly to the tick tock, tick tock.

The silverfish came crawling up, but they were less frantic or perhaps he was more prepared, as when they spilled into his mouth, he widened his jaw with shut lips just enough that when they moved forward, seeking an exit, he snapped his teeth closed again, crushing them. He repeated the action without thought; taste and texture had long ceased to matter, imparting no feeling other than the briefest of satiation, and after so many rocks and stones the thin, vulnerable carapaces and tiny limbs of insects were almost gentle.

If Joel noticed his rhythmic soft crunching seemed different than gnawing on stone should, he didn't say anything, and then Impulse arrived with a watchful Gem at his heels, and Bdubs let the chaos of the scene carry him away.

The day waned. He stuck to the surface, planting trees to harvest logs and leaves. He was losing patience with other people, who he instinctively felt wouldn't appreciate his discovery, his new science. Pearl and Scar had swum across the river only a minute after he returned home and were such a nuisance he barely registered Etho prodding him to use the enchanter for fear of Scar taking it away or worse.

Impulse showed up too, because two troublemakers following him back from Gem and Joel's simply wasn't enough. "What you guys eating on?" he asked.

"Stalagmites," Bdubs lied, cleaing up the dripstone he'd tried to use to protect their only fortification.

"Did anybody hear that?" Pearl said before he could even finish the word, standing presumptuously in their doorway, shouting a little over the din of thunder and people squabbling about what the meal of the day was.

"Yes, of course there's noises, Pearl, everything's going - going crazy," Bdubs huffed, drawing out the last word and snapping the two syllables apart into distinct pieces. He turned on his heel toward the back of their island-to-be, away from all the hullabaloo and static that drowned out his strong pulse, the perfect mechanical motion of the body he was cultivating.

He fumed while chopping trees. How could anyone only just now register the full range of immediate effects, while he was discovering the hidden ones, the intricacies of consumption? Pearl herself had protested when Gem accused her of already going red in the day, with her one beaten-up eye - a familiar sight to Bdubs, who knew what a bad fall could do. But Gem and Pearl were both wrong, as Pearl was neither red nor merely scuffed, her sunken eyes and thinned-out cheeks a clear warning not to succumb to the hunger or else suffer its changes.

It was so clear to him now, scuttering energy propelling each swing of his axe in perfect time, that it was not the food that changed but them, their bodies, their teeth and mouths and ears and stomachs and eyes and hands, skin and bones and flesh. Not only changed but changeable, just as it had been with the changing of size, if you only bothered to understand the rules. Even the strangest rules had logics to unravel, spiraling out into encompassing, comprehensible patterns; or perhaps spiraling inward, smaller and smaller until every piece and fragment of the world could be expressed in its strange ciphers.

The last of Gem's grass got him through enough trees that by the time he returned to drop off the wood and foliage he'd harvested, the disharmonious crowd had left again to bother some other poor soul. But it wasn't satisfying even as he knew he was full and not falling prey to the emptiness' unending desire for more; since consuming the silverfish, mere harvest lacked that vitality. There were few other options, as there was no more deepslate to induce them. He knew the pattern well enough now to follow its long arc toward the only satisfying next target: if living things made old stone unsatisfying, and live creatures surpassed picked plants, then this cultivated hunger could only be fed by some larger, hungrier thing than silverfish. All the usual animals were out, meat of any type inducing terrible starvation-weakness, that old zombie hunger; the unusual animals had nothing to give beyond that had not already been tested and found inferior.

He bit into the last of the oak saplings he'd been planting as he approached Scott and Etho, who were blessedly calm and outside the fortification and, apparently, talking about him.

"Bdubs is working hard," Etho said, and Scott nodded appraisingly.

The green growth of the sapling went down easily, barely reminiscent of more lively stuff - but then, a burn spreads from his chest and down his arms, lighting up the nerves and veins, branching out and drawing his hands closed, one going to the sword at his hip. "Oh, what do I have here," Bdubs said, and lifted the sword from its sheath in one hand with an airy smoothness he had never possessed before. "Strength," he said, flourishing the sword and tossing the last saplings to Etho. "From an oak sapling."

"Be careful not to get annoyed and punch anybody. You could practically one-shot anybody on the server like that," Scott said eyeing his posture, and Bdubs was pleased that someone recognized his transformation, all the work he had done.

"Oh, I wanna kill somebody," Bdubs said through gritted teeth, striding toward the river with long, strong strides. The hunger and the adrenaline reminded him faintly of his time as the boogeyman, but he had never felt so clear-headed, so in control.

"Scar's about ready to cross the water there," Etho said behind him, a little softly and with a laugh.

Bdubs wasn't laughing, his eyes fixed on Scar and the cow in the water, Cleo trailing. "It's so juicy - I'd take him out."

He couldn't make out the words, but he recognized Scar's cries of frustration and Cleo's amusement. The cow tread water aimlessly, trying to follow the wheat in Cleo's hands despite Scar tugging on it, occasionally dragging its head under the water for brief seconds. They were going to breed the cows, foolishly in anticipation of when they could eat like they used to, obsessed with the wrong consumption and overly sure of their place at the top of a food chain that had been totally upended.

Bdubs ran his tongue over his teeth and between one tick of the clock and the next made his decision and dove into the water, swimming direct and efficient over to the ruckus.

Scar managed to notice the noise of him cutting across the river even over the cow's sad braying. "Look at him, I told you!"

Bdubs placed strong hands on his shoulders, so that Scar's grip on the buoyant cow kept them both afloat. His nails dug into fabric, and he pulled himself closer, treading water. "Hello, delicious!"

"I told you this man was hungry!" shouted Scar as Cleo giggled helplessly in the background, both of them acting as if it were a joke. "Go eat grass, that's the only thing that works."

They didn't know better, but they'd learn, just as his teammates would learn that it had to be every man for himself, every person against the world, and eventually, the rules dictated that there could only be one, all the others falling by the wayside, consumed. He could teach that lesson even if he could not win.

"No, you know what's better, what's going to make you foam at the mouth? A sapling gives you strength, enough to one-shot anybody on the server."

"Oh, wow," Scar said, attention finally leaving the cow, interest piqued by bloodlust as usual.

Bdubs smiled. "Wanna see?" he said, and without hesitating, sunk his stone-sharpened teeth into Scar's shoulder, through the fabric of his vest and shirt and deep into the meat of his shoulder. Suddenly, the playful crowing turned to an animal screech, driving the cow further away and blocking Cleo's view.

"Cleo!" shouted Scar, but without the cow or anything else to hang onto, it was him that slipped under the water's surface, gurgling and trying to orient himself.

Water did nothing for the hunger, but with sharp pulls Bdubs could widen the rip in Scar's shirt and finally, finally tear into flesh of that living thing which had grown stronger from all the accumulated life, and he swallowed it whole, blood leeching into the water, confusion from above now loud enough to drown out Scar's bubbling desperation, concern from Cleo and even faintly Etho's nervous holler, surfacing to reaching arms as he backpedaled and gasped for breath, lungfuls of air that invigorated him even as Scar tried to thrash in his hold, wild-eyed and hoarse.

"I told you," Scar croaked, but Bdubs held Cleo's worried eye and was sure, knew with total confidence that if anyone understood it would be Cleo, who could not fault him for his hunger and his desperation, since he had betrayed no one, and if she did find fault then that was good too, to protect her own self from the threats that would come not from the world and its next deal of the cards but the players, and with a red and toothy smile that revealed how this injury was dealt, he tried to prepare one last push before the strength left him, and bit into a sign because he had left the sapling with Etho.

With a moment's lull, Scar began to kick and nearly got away, bloody and carved-out shoulder now visible to all bystanders who had all also failed to understand what hunger meant until they saw it fulfilled, but the birch imparted a familiar feeling, and Bdubs announced:

"Water breathing - and now, I'll see you all later," before sinking into Scar's outstretched, flailing arm and deep into the water, down the underwater ravine, and finally, finally, ate until he was full.

[soemthingsparkly]

Ahem, can I tell you all the good word of Redstone Snap? (Aka the HCC Discord's pairing name for Mumbo and Scott)

Anyway, I'm working on populating the Ao3 tag, so heres a cute little one-shot of Mumbo and Scott releasing a spider and comparing the length of their legs.

[aroacepotatoo]

WRITING MASTERPOST

seen some of these so thought i'd do one for myself! (hopefully will start adding when they update here too :3)

CURRENTLY BEING UPDATED:

Soulmate's Street: double life inspired fic where the cast all live on the same street and slowly develop and mend friendships and relationships (i also made a lot of people a-spec lol)

The Strings Of My Heart: a superhero au where grian and scar are newbies who are trying to catch mumbo and martyn (with desert duo and watchers lore to go along with it)

Hating But Loving You With All Of My Heart: a ranchers royal au where their in an arranged marriage and decided to act like they hate each other in the hopes to get the wedding canceled (all while falling for each other and trolling their siblings along the way)

those are the three fics i'm currently updating! and as for some other stuff i've posted:

MISCELLANEOUS ONE OFFS:

convenient store questions: aroace boatboys fic of them unintentionally but intentionally messing with gem

hiding the hurt: 5 + 1 thing hurt/comfort fic of grian dealing with the watchers bullshit after they refuse to accept his no contact stance by himself for awhile until he tells his friends/family

Babe: the badboys and gem being chaotic roommates with her being super confused about the fact that they call eachother babe

Cuddle puddle: the badboys just cuddling in peace when gem comes asking if they have sugar. banter and confusion ensue...

Earmuffs: a hurt comfort clock duo fic where bdubs tries to find a solution to help with the horns bothering impulse (also impulse has misophonia)

I Don't Like Him That Way! (But I Do): a little prequel kind of thing to the strings of my heart with annoying sibling teasing and desert duo

Freckles: a boatboys/ethoslab fic where the gang ask etho why he wears his mask and his response just makes them confused

Nervous Butterflies: an ahasbands date fic where neither of them know what their doing and everythings awkward but it all works out (they're also aroace :3)

The Way I Feel About You: aroace ahasbands coffession fic that's awkward and silly

and those are all the fics! (or atleast the ones i'm proud of anyway...) i have some other one offs and longer series in the drafts too, and i'll update this post if/when i actually post those! if you consider checking any of these out, i'd really appreciate it! you can also ask questions if you want, i'd love to answer those!

Have a lovely day! <3

[thefireintheshadow]

live

[for the mcyt summer of yuri 2024, gift for @ski89 ]

“Gem, you don’t want to do this, right?” Pearl’s voice would sound so collected to the untrained ear, but Gem knew better. She seemed confident, leading, like she was weaving psychological warfare, but Gem knew the undertones of anguish. They bubbled just under the surface, turmoil and fear and conflict.

She knew Pearl didn’t want to kill her. But she also knew that Pearl wouldn’t betray her teammates. Pearl was loyal until death. Her Pearl. Her everything.

How had this gone so fucking wrong? “No, I don’t,” Gem said, and she didn’t bother to disguise the pain. Her eyes pleaded with the woman she loved. She so badly didn’t want to do this. But she had teammates to care for, too. If it was just her, she would have laid down her sword. She would rather Scar slay her than have to raise her weapon against Pearl.

But she wasn’t alone. They’d ended up on opposing sides, somehow—how—and it was the end of the line, now. The end of this sick fucking game.

Pearl raised her chin, a stoic goddess, but Gem didn’t miss the slight quiver of her bottom lip, even from so far away. “So maybe you should be over here.”

Tears sprung to Gem’s eyes, because if only it were that simple, if only, if only. It wasn’t, and they both knew it. This was a dance they were doing simply to delay the inevitable because fuck, it was inevitable, and it was horrible, and she just wanted to be back home. Home. It felt so far away now.

“Maybe you should be over here,” Gem said, her voice strained, her heart aching, wanting to throw everything away and fling herself into Pearl’s arms, and fuck it all.

But they couldn’t. They had to finish this. Finish it fighting. Finish it to the best of their ability, to appease the sick entities that had put them here. It was her first time in one of these death games, and after apologizing profusely for the sick fate that had brought her here, Grian had given her a rundown on how it all worked.

Gem had thought she’d understood the level of PTSD her friends had when they returned from these things. She hadn’t. But she thought she did now.

She gave it her all. And when Scar struck her down, the only other option having been her and Pearl crossing swords, she was glad for the small mercy.

She opened her eyes on Hermitcraft, gasping, ghosts of wounds still pulsing along every nerve ending in her body. Pearl’s cry of anguish as she’d fallen echoed in her mind, but it was okay, it was okay and there were only two of them left so she would be here soon too.

Gem wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, bury herself in blankets and safety and just ride it out, but she didn’t want Pearl to wake up alone. She didn’t want her to feel empty and abandoned and all of the nasty emotions that swelled despite knowing that none of them had a choice.

She picked herself up, head feeling heavy. Her antlers felt like home, but it was almost a foreign feeling. Her ears twitched, and she reached up to run her fingers over the soft fur, as if to reassure herself they were there.

Gem opted to walk to Pearl’s. It wasn’t far and she couldn’t handle flying at the moment with her mind reeling like this. Walking was safer, through the warm and welcoming woods she’d built with her own hands. Across the bridge carved from stone as a symbol of friendship between her and Impulse and Pearl.

She checked to see if he was home, but he wasn’t. He tended to spend time with Tango after these games, and she hoped that they were doing okay, that they were coping together.

Gem approached Pearl’s gorgeous landscape, the clopping of her hooves sounding like gunshots in the still air. She didn’t know how long it would be. Or who would be back first.

---

As Gem’s body fell, lightning striking the ground where her bloodied form had been, Pearl’s heart shattered. It was the best she could have hoped for, she knew, she hadn’t wanted it to be her and Gem at the end, but it still wrenched her to see it.

She hadn’t wanted to win. And it was a sweet release when she plummeted towards the ground, leaving Scar the victor.

Guilt twisted her guts, because she knew it was selfish. ‘Winning’ wasn’t really winning. It was hell. Double Life had been the worst experience of any of them, and being the last alive had been a torturous curse.

Now it was Scar. Now he was condemned, and she was free, and she hoped that he would forgive her.

She opened her eyes and sat up in her bed, and it smelled like home and it was home and—

“Pearl,” Gem choked out, and her voice was so small and watery.

Pearl blinked a few times before her death-addled brain registered that the woman she loved was curled up at the end of her bed, knees against her chest, eyes brimming with tears, pale and shellshocked and in agony.

“Oh, Gem,” Pearl breathed, and pulled her close, Gem’s face into her chest, resting her cheek atop her fluffy orange hair, nuzzling against one of her soft ears, breathing in the scent of her.

Gem’s sobs wracked her body, and she clutched at Pearl like she was the only thing anchoring her to this earth. She released everything and Pearl held her, whispering soft noises of comfort, running her hands up and down her back.

The first time was the biggest shock to the system. Being the winner was harder, but the first time you didn’t know what to expect. It all came crashing down so hard after.

Pearl hurt, too, but she’d been around this block many a time. Nobody could ever get used to this, but she knew what it was like to have it worse than this. And it could have been so much worse. She could have had to fight Gem head on.

Her intrusive brain wondered what it would have been like if Gem had killed Scar. There had to be a winner, always, so Grian said. She didn’t know what the Secret Keeper would have done if they’d have refused to do it. If they’d have just decided to live in that war torn world together, forever, embracing instead of fighting.

Would they have been in for a worse fate? Had there been a time limit on the final task? Could they have smashed the fail button together, died together?

They would never know, now.

Eventually Gem’s violent sobs subsided into sniffles, and Pearl waited patiently for her to be ready to pull back, sitting up and wiping furiously at her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” Gem hiccuped. “I came here to comfort you when you spawned, and—” Her words choked off.

“No, no,” Pearl cupped her cheeks in her hands, pressing their foreheads together. “You have nothing to be sorry for, sweet girl. I’m just so happy you’re here, that we’re both here.”

Gem nodded, lower lip still trembling. “You said it’s easier,” she said thickly, “to be on different teams…so we wouldn’t end up having to turn on each other if we made it to the end.”

Pearl swallowed hard.

“But nothing is really easier ever there, is it?” Gem whispered.

“No,” Pearl admitted. “We’re all just doing the best we can. Then we get out. Then we heal.”

Gem took a deep breath, looking up into her love’s eyes, her own big and round. “How do we do that?”

Pearl kissed her softly, taking in the brightness of her, the wholeness, the feeling that everything was okay in the world. “We live.”

[read on ao3]

[salemoleander]

For he to whom a watcher's doom   Is given as his task, Must set a lock upon his lips,   And make his face a mask. Or else he might be moved, and try   To comfort or console: And what should Human Pity do   Pent up in Murderers' Hole?

The Ballad of Reading Gaol | Oscar Wilde

Martyn looks at the ground. If he looks at the sky, he'll see-

judgmental remnants of friends / wisps of cloud sailing by / an endless sea of eyes / theater curtains drenched in blood / stars beginning to come out / his own clock, numbers in freefall

So he looks at the grass. The smell of charred flesh hangs on the air, disturbingly close to the steak they'd all been sharing.

He won. Is the thing.

And now Martyn's not sure what he's meant to do with that, with this clawing nauseous sense of victory. With the silence. The feeling of a trap kill elevated to a million, because he pulled off a betrayal none of those bastards would've ever tried to pull.

Except maybe Grian, but Grian never knew when the time was right to drop the act - too used to driving the knife to have access to many unsuspecting backs anymore. Martyn clicks his tongue, remembering Scar's naïveté earlier in the day.

"Fool me twice," he mutters, voice still too loud for a world gone quiet.

Martyn glances across the arena at Scott's armor. It lies abandoned on the ground, grass torn up and marshy from spilled water and blood. He considers the phrase 'a fair fight'.

Rightfully, Scott won- rightfully, he'd been the winner for the entire episode. They'd all been walking dead. Scott was just egregiously better than most of them at PVP. The only reason he'd even been at 4 hours was due to constant, benevolent deaths to allies.

The idea of being handed a win, of Scott letting him win, was repulsive. Incredibly patronizing, really. Martyn has a great deal of respect for Pearl - if Scott had pulled that stunt with him in Double Life, pulled away the chance to prove his victory in any way that mattered- Well. He'd have hunted him down here immediately, Green Life or not.

And how unfair, that everyone else had to claw and bite and scratch for victory. Alone, afraid, hunted - and they would get to calmly fight as equals? Children, smacking at each other to see who would win a game?

No, that didn't interest him at all.

Winning used to mean something; it demanded everything from you. Somewhere along the line- between Scott refusing to Boogey kill and refusing to fight Pearl and refusing to kill him and Impulse, refusing refusing refusing, like this is something you can just turn down like a bad fucking potato-

Winning this game is going to matter again. And if the only thing he has left to pay that cost is friendship, well. Grian paid just as much; and- his lips curl- he's just seen what friendship gets you.

Martyn cranes his head back to smile coldly up at the sky, and the sky strikes down to meet him.

[tiny-minecraft-rabbit]

She seemed small now, as he approached, crouched in the snow. The stories he had heard of her were tales of gore and terror. The stories told of a wild girl that ran with wolves, bare feet and hair whipping in the wind and bright red eyes. That she would send her pack on unsuspecting travelers and revel as they were torn limb by limb. That she would take her own bites out of the meat, hands as bloodied as the claws of her wolves. She looked like nothing of these stories. She was stupid girl in the woods risking her life with feral animals and occasionally scaring off the locals. She was no monster. She was nothing like him.

Participated in @mcytblraufest and was teamed up with @the-amber-scrawls! She made some amazing art that is embed in the fic but absolutely make sure to send her some love here

[gaytimeswith-scar]

not me writing this shitty little oneshot 🤜💥💥💥💥💥

volta au ranchers my beloved!!!!!!!!

[shadeswift99]

Limited life.

Ooh, how spooky. Imagine! Only 24 hours to live! Imagine, that time just ticking away, being forced to watch it go, until your inevitable gristly end! Pieces of it being ripped away from you along the way, unexpectedly! The horror! The inevitability! The drama!

Cleo never understood the hype. After all, it was better than anything she got, all those years ago before she turned zombie. At least this time she could see it coming. Frankly, the idea was almost relaxing.

To her, anyway. She idly picked at a splinter on the handle of her axe as she watched Bdubs and Skizz circle each other in the matted grass ring. Of course there had been posturing - it was Bdubs and Skizz, after all - but when it came down to it neither of them seemed especially inclined to take the first shot. Skizz jittered forward, teeth bared in a snarl, but he skirted to the side last minute. Bdubs laughed and taunted, but he showed no signs of doing any better in the initiation department. Cleo smirked. Men. Boys, really.

They'd regret this, in the end. As the clock wore down and 00:00:00 became less of a vague idea and more a thing they could see bearing down on them, they'd curse their past selves for throwing away precious seconds for the sake of a grudge. Or maybe, they'd just be consumed by more bloodlust, scrambling to regain a fragment of the time they'd lost. It's fear, either way. And they'd come to it way too late to end up where Cleo already was, undead and long past seeing a ticking clock as any kind of worry. They'll all have wasted too much time on processing by then to see what's on the other side of that fear.

Freedom.

Imagine. You know when you're going to die. By exclusion, that means you know when you're not going to die. You know it's not tomorrow, or today, and those are guarantees you don't get anywhere else. So - what do you do? You burn a mansion. Hell, two if you feel like it. You bait Jimmy, you poke fun at Joel, you make alliances with everyone you can so they'll betray you sooner so you can get that out of the way so you can have more stuff to burn - it's fun, if you shake the nerves early. Ignorance is not bliss. Make friends with the idea that death is inevitable and give yourself the luxury of a farewell party you'll enjoy.

All the things she wished she'd done, when she was still alive. All the things she still probably wouldn't have done if she'd known.

Instead, she'd have just done this. Squander life on recklessness early on. Squander it on fear later.

Skizz circled Jimmy. Jimmy circled Skizz. The others looked on and cheered, while their clocks ticked silently on. Finally the two leapt at each other, shields thumping and armour sparking as diamond and metal and shouts rang loud. Cleo rolled her eyes.

She turned to dispatch a skeleton that crept up while the others were distracted. By the time she'd reduced the bones to dust, the fight was over. Skizz gloated. Bdubs grumbled. Cleo made all the right sympathetic sounds and faces.

She'd missed the end. It didn't matter. She'd already seen it.

[starcrossedandstupid]

‘Somehow, I always end up back in Marianas Trench’ is over! I’m gonna miss it, but I adored the ending, can’t wait to see what op comes up with in the future!

Side note, but I made a comment about how I wish I had started reading the fic earlier so I could have had more time with it, and this is how the author responded with:

I’m- someone is going to have to fish me out of my ocean of tears, this is so incredibly sweet

[moro-the-sun]

Grian would like to leave everything like this: the bright sun, the tickling behind the ribs, the clover in Mumbo’s hair. Fractioned memories without context or words, pure emotions and sensations, love under his palms.

Warmth, loud laughter, Scar humming to himself.

Close your eyes and dissolve, become one with time-space, stay here, here forever, with the two of them and your heart aching from feelings.

Grian would like to leave everything like this: tongue behind teeth and hands in pockets. So that the tremor is not visible.

It's terribly embarrassing, but what can he do? Icarus has flown too close to the sun, and all he can do is try to stay in the sky for a little longer. At least a couple of seconds, a moment of some confidence.

Questioning glances, uncrossed boundaries, the bliss of their ignorance.

Grian allows himself to swear that this will continue. That they will be safe. That it will be better for everyone.

Grian would like to leave everything like this: nightly dreams of the end, of escaping to distant, distant servers, where none of them are obliged to do anything anymore — a secret that accidentally fell from his lips in a fit of sincerity, not fear or necessity.

But it all happens like this:

He dreams of the sun in nightmares. Heat and stains under the eyelids, sand in every accessible and inaccessible place. Crooked mirrors, his own broken crescent smiles.

Someone else's laughter and hackneyed joke echo through the crystal glass. Grian sees. Hands clenched, stupid power of attorney bursts - a real paradox in their conditions.

What did Daedalus say to Icarus? A couple of simple truths: don’t get attached to people so as not to hurt them or be hurted. But Icarus enjoyed the flight too much. Grian closes his eyes, and underneath there are yellow spots, and tangled clover grows through the moss and mushrooms.

Cruel reality in exchange for intertwined fingers during breaks, for a little lie for them and for himself: I love and I am loved. Grian is not allowed to think with emotions; Grian allows himself to fall into someone else's arms.

In the end, Grian would like to leave everything like this:

[germworms]

Half-a-life (the story)

Pairing: Bdubs/Etho

Limited Life/Secret Life

Wordcount: about 5900 words

Summary: Bdubs wakes up after having died in Limited Life, instead of going back to Hermitcraft, he realises he's stuck in the Lifesmp. All because of some sort of "Half-a-life" deal a few lives ago...

___

A miracle brought him back, a bug or an error must have occurred.

His eyes blinked at the stone cave, and his back was against the uncomfortable bed, that only served as his respawn point, but still was comfortable enough to sleep the night away in.

He slowly remembered everything, and not only the game that they were playing but also his horses. His hologram, his friends whom he hadn't seen for days.

He remembered how Grian had asked them to play a new game, how a lot of them had agreed. But why agree to this game of murder?

The light from the entrance hit him in the face, and he could hear from far away, fireworks and yelling. Explosions and chaos.

His legs felt weaker than before, his whole body sore, feeling like he was burning up from the inside. Standing up felt worse, but he wouldn't dream of anything other than defending his family. His friends, to try to make them stop.

Out of habit he checked his clock, mostly to see how far away the night was, but his eyes landed on his timer, which wasn't ticking. His clock was frozen, time stopped. Maybe it was broken, but still, he wasn't dying anytime soon.

30 minutes on the clock, 30 minutes which meant nothing in the grand scheme of everything. Frozen minutes that flew by, and seconds he didn't want to be on stand-by.

He tightened his headband, and went out into the dark oak forest where he was headed for the clocktower which was making sounds. Ticking down the time, ticking down the deaths. Waiting to be ruined by the explosions.

In his head, he saw Grian, how happy he looked when they all agreed to play.

But behind all his confusion, he saw Etho for him, dying countless times while he stood by and watched. It was a life and death situation and by God, he didn't want to die. But watching Etho die in front of him at that time felt even worse than potential death would feel like.

Cleo knew that Etho was his favorite, his number 1. Definitely more than friends, but he couldn't see them together as a stereotypical couple, that made no sense. Etho was his special someone, his shoulder, his shield, someone he would protect with his life.

That's why when he neared where bombs dropped from the sky, and swords and arrows could be heard, he ignored the way his body jerked. He ignored the way his eyes closed and the way his ears rang, he even ignored the pieces of stone being flung into his skin. Leaving behind bruises and wounds.

His eyes searched for one man, who was in front of him, holding his arms and trying to speak to him. He couldn't watch his mouth, since it was covered, so trying to figure out what he was saying was impossible. His hand went to pull his mask down, and he was finally able to understand.

"We need to get out of here."

We, plural. Cause, even if everything seemed dull, it was always the two of them. They could rely on each other, when everywhere else was a mess.

His feet followed suit, but he could feel the harsh ground rip up his bandaged soles.

A squeeze alarmed him of the reality setting in, Etho looking back at him while running, his mask off and a sad smile was now shown. Still hopeful in spite of all this. He ran along until he couldn't anymore, until a barrier stopped them from running. Thunder halted their steps, Etho holding his hand tighter than before, "Someone's out."

Bdubs watched Etho looking at his own clock, it was a necklace around his neck, "I've only got a few hours left before I'm out, what about you?" He watched as Etho's eyes glanced down at his, so he quickly turned it around. Not wanting to reveal that he wasn't supposed to be alive right now. Knowing that behind it all, Etho would be sad about it, whether he showed it or not.

Etho raised an eyebrow, and tackled him until it was turned it around, time froze as Etho slowly realized what had happened.

"What did you do?"

"Someone blew me up from above, I woke up to thunder, and now I'm here." He confessed in a haste. His voice quietened down, "I should be dead."

He watched how Etho took a step back, assessing the situation, he went around in circles before stopping. "That means you can win."

He took a step back from Etho who neared him, who took his hands and looked at him in wonder, a different light beamed from him. Who hugged him, tight. He could smell smoke, blood, dirt, and sulfur, from the silver head. He hugged him as tightly back. His hands seemed to have missed the feeling of someone holding him so dearly, someone who sounded proud.

Which is why he took the opportunity to take Ethos clock off him, pushing them away from each other. With a stab from his hidden knife from his belt, he hit the clock, stabbing through the glass and metal, a purple smoke escaped and Etho who could have done something, was only watching.

Bdubs stomped on it for the last time and spat on it, "We're in one of Grians games, Etho. I don't want to do this anymore."

Etho stunned, nodded, shook his head and looked up at him, "What? Grians game? What about my time? My clock..."

"I'll give you one when we're back on the server." Bdubs eyes cast a last glance down at the broken clock which had stopped ticking. "I'll give you as many as you want."

Sounds of rattling from below, made him jump back, as he watched the clock magically rearrange itself and seemed to glue itself back together, purple smoke circled around it before landing in Etho's out-stretched hand. "What in the world!" He exclaimed, quite loudly. Loud enough for Etho to quiet him down, his hand around the clock.

It was ticking again, the one red eye reflected on the new shiny glow of the clock, "My time."

Bdubs finally realized that half of Etho's time was gone.

Thunder rumbled from the sky, sudden lightning making them flinch. "They're out to kill you." He stated, leaning against the barrier, behind him. Etho finally looked at him, nodding before putting his clock around his neck again.

"We gotta keep moving." And in seconds he was running again, hearing new footsteps meters behind them.

Arrows started shooting over their heads.

He felt exhausted, his knees weak and in pain, his feet hurt and his head felt heavy. He had to stop, even if Etho seemed to keep going, he had to surrender, to whoever was out to kill them.

"Etho!- Bdubs?"

He fell to his knees, feeling the night near and even if he had no bed, now was a good time to sleep. His head hung low, ready to be struck down. "Grian, do you have a bed? I'm tired."

"Oh, Bdubs, what did you do?"

He never got to answer before fireworks went off right behind Grian, who snapped his head to look at where it was coming from before running away in fear.

Someone picked him up, he was familiar with this person, of course, he knew Etho inside and outside. His rather ragged breathing turned more stable, his eyes opening to watch the distress in the others eyes, mask covering his mouth again, for more than practical reasons. He could feel his lungs get filled with smoke before he could hear the explosions.

He was lost, not knowing where Etho was taking him, he kept drifting in and out of consciousness.

When he woke up, he was alone, the air was tight, and the room was cold. His eyes looked around, landed on Grian who was sitting beside him, "How are you still here - alive?"

His eyes were red, as if he had been crying before he woke up, he didn't know how much time passed, he went to look at his own time, but it was still stuck.

"G, I don't know. Everything hurts."

His back felt stiff, his arms unmovable, his legs as heavy as a boulder and a loud thunder seemed to be stuck in his head.

Grian paced inside the small cave, "You lost all your time, yet you're not back on Hermitcraft. I can't call Mumbo or X to help, because I'd have to die in order to get help, which I don't even know what could have gone wrong! Everything seemed perfect except for..."

His eyes landed on him, "... you."

Grian was all over him, in the bed, looking even more distressed, his voice raspy and high pitched, "Whatever you're doing! This is dangerous, for yourself!"

"For myself?"

"You could actually die! Or go offline for, who knows how many weeks, months! Maybe forever?!" Grain raged. Spit flying everywhere in the spur of the moment, he had to push Grian off him with the strength he had.

"Enough, I'm fine. It's just pain, I can take some regen or whatever." Bdubs pulled himself up, sitting upright and starting to go through his inventory finding it very empty, "Do you have some potions?"

Grian sighed, pulled out his clock and turned it over, he watched as Grian wrote to everyone else about stopping the timer. Behind Grian, wings grew and his eyes turned from red to black, his hands reaching into his unlimited inventory and pulling out a few regeneration potions.

"Really going creative on me..." He mumbled, wondering how serious Grian was, his worry started setting in. If Grian stopped the game, his own game, for him.

Grian quickly changed back, picking up the potions and shoved them into Bdubs arms, "Drink these, I'll go out."

"Wait! G!"

Grian stopped in the entrance, "What is it?"

"Could you give Etho his time back, I tried to break his clock and it took some - time off... I feel really bad about it."

Grians eyes whitened out, like how it did when you would look into the controls. His eyes turned normal after a few seconds, furrowed eyebrows raised the suspense.

"I can't?" Grian looked unpleased about this, his eyes kept flickering, and Bdubs would rather have Grian stop trying to get time back, than potentially glitching out on him. It was a pathetic sight.

"Okay, G, stop! Stop!" He went to hold Grian in place, trying to ground him. "Listen, it's okay! Stop doing that."

Grian inhaled deeply and calmed down, "Somehow, Ethos time has been reduced to half of what he had, unless he gets a kill of course. The game works smoothly, and you don't even affect it in any way, shape or form. Stay put. Wait here until I come back."

He watched Grian sprint out before he got to ask where Etho was. The small human-dug cave seemed smaller and colder, he took a few potions down into his inventory and stood up, feeling the cold floor and the shake in his body.

The pain has subsided, for now.

"Etho?" He called out, once he walked out and onto some stairs. This must have been a quick hole Grian had dug for him, he could recognise it from the way he didn't hit his head on the way up. Not that he usually did, but that wasn't because he was short!

He was taller than most of the server, well 4 or 5 of them. Tango was a centimeter taller and Etho a meer 5 centimeters. Still, they kept bullying him.

If anyone could call him short it would be Pearl, Mumbo, or Ren. Impulse could he also excuse, but that was because of personal reasons.

He had a hard time adjusting to the light of the moon, he switched over to a sword he suddenly had, his eyes scanning for threats, not seeing anything but a zombie a bit away and a skeleton roaming around.

He ran towards the Clocktower, searching for Etho in the meantime.

He avoided the holes in the ground, from either tnt or creepers, this server had gone a mess. Once inside the tower, he stopped to catch his breath, the tower he had built had crumbled, now ruins scattered in its place. He looked up and saw a bright light falling directly above him, he quickly ran out of the castle while he felt a heat creep behind him.

With covered ears, he sat down as a loud explosion was heard behind him.

"Bdubs?" He heard a familiar voice call out.

He stood up, quickly equipping his sword, "HEY!"

"Woah! I saw the lightning! How are you still here?" Impulse stood a bit away from him. "I even got the time for the kill.."

It dawned on him, he took a step back, "You took me out, I can't believe this! My own- You took me out! I thought we were allies!" He yelled at Impulse who seemed to crumble in on himself.

"There's no allies once you're low on time, how much time do you have?"

"I'm dead." He stated. "I died, but I'm here, okay? G- G said I'm not- That I might go offline if I die. You do remember Hermitcraft?"

Impulse shook his head, "What? What do you mean go offline? I-" Impulse looked in pain as he tried to remember, "Why can't I remember, what?"

Bdubs watched as someone shot something towards them, "Impulse! Watch out!"

He was yanked away before he could grab onto Impulse.

"Bdubs! I thought Grian kept you away! You're playing with your real life here!" Etho said, as he ran away with Bdubs in his arms. "I can't lose you to you being reckless!"

"Awh, stop it, you love when I'm like this." Bdubs said, grabbing onto the other tightly as he felt the ground beneath them.

It wasn't the right time to joke, when this was the second time he was saved by Etho.

They ran until Etho physically couldn't hold him up anymore, it wasn't like he was petite, he was a full grown adult man. And Etho was quite lanky for someone his size, "Weak." He scuffed, obviously joking. "Thanks."

"Like you could carry me." Etho dared him, out of breath, but still willing to try to be cheeky.

"Oh, yeah?" He easily picked up the other, even swung around, while Etho held around his neck for support, "What did you say?"

"Okay! Okay! Put me down, I'll be sick!" Etho said, hiding his face in the others chest, trying to not get motion sick.

"Alright-" He started coughing, and even though he felt his lungs give out, he still found a way to safely put Etho down on the ground without hurting him. He was on the ground too, on his knees, as in a prayer. He was praying, for someone to save him.

When he felt like dying, he would close his eyes.

Hope for something good to happen.

"Bdubs!"

Hope for someone to hold him.

"Bdubs! I'm getting Grian!"

For someone to hold him tight. And when he least expected it, he was in a different place, in the same man made cave he knew. In front of two half soulless eyes, darker than the void.

Teleportation made him sick, his head spun while he was forced to drink a potion. Pink liquid filled his mouth, his stomach.

"You'll feel better, fill up your inventory with these, or a chest, I don't care, im one text away if you need me anymore. Stay. here. I beg you! Once I'm back on Hermitcraft I will get Mumbo to get you out, okay?" Grian said as he ran up to the surface again, shoving some potions into his inventory.

Once, again, isolated from the world.

He stayed down there for 2 days, thunder came from the outside twice, making him aware that the game continued on.

Another hour and he was up on the surface, looking around the world in flames.

He called out, to no one in particular. Grian, Etho, Scott, Impulse, Martyn.

It was in his blood to help, so he ran for his life when he heard screams. He ran until he got to the ruins of his work.

He watched the scene of Impulse, Martyn and Scott take place. His head sticking out from a place where they couldn't spot him.

Watching Martyn kill Scott made him jump up from his spot, "IMPULSE!" He yelled out.

The only thing he had on him was a few regen potions and his clock. He threw one at him, but missed. Darn.

Martyn had stopped in his killing spree, turning towards him, "Bdubs? Oh, you had it!"

And suddenly this situation had turned, "WAIT WAIT WAIT!" He yelled, "HOLD ON!" He screamed out, "MARTYN!"

Impulse took this opportunity to put down a minecart tnt cart, "BDUBS! COME TOWARDS ME!"

Was he crazy? Did he really want him to go offline that badly? What had he done in the previous seasons to make Impulse hate him. Yet he still ran over because they did team up last time and somehow that trust was the only thing he could feel in that moment.

He ran past Impulse, as Martyn ran after him, not stupid enough to step on the pressure plate of course. But that was never the plan in the first place.

Two bolts of lightning struck down at the crater that was just made. He was alone.

Did he win?

He had fallen, he was out of breath, and he was crying. He was cold, and warm, and out of place.

"What happened?"

He looked up, "Etho."

"What happened to everyone?"

"God Etho," He pulled himself up, wiping away his tears, his hands, shaking, but still managing to hold onto the other, "Impulse saved me."

At first Etho looked rather unpleasant, and then it dawned on him, "He died saving you."

"Yes."

He wasn't that good at expressions, but somehow he knew exactly what Etho was feeling at all times, even if he only saw his eyes most of the time. Jealousy had been a big factor ever since he mentioned Impulse.

Etho nodded, "Alright, I have to say thanks to him, I guess."

"So there's only, you and Grian left, huh?"

The air changed, "Nope. Only the two of us."

...

"What happend to him, Etho?"

Etho looked at him, "Are you scared of me? Grian died two days ago by my hand, okay?" He noticed how Bdubs had scooted away from him, only a few centimetres but still enough to be noticeable.

He shook his head, "No! I'm not! Etho you won! I don't count, so what's the price? Diamonds? Redstone? Shulkers? - Whatever your heart desires?"

A sudden faint expression painted Ethos face, an unreadable emotion, he didn't even say anything as he started climbing a ladder to skynet. "Hey!" He yelled at Etho, he ignored him, "What are you doing?"

He followed quickly, trying to keep up, "Etho!"

"I didn't win anything, Bdubs."

He kept going, and Bdubs followed him all the way up. Until they were on a wooden platform. The wind was wilder up here, so he kept himself grounded by sitting. His eyes on Etho who was standing, seemly deep in thought.

"I didn't win. There's no winning this if everyone is gone."

He shook his head, grinning, his mask lost somewhere on this server, his red eye met his black ones, "Even If I win, I have to go back don't I? And what about you? That's not winning, that's losing."

"I- Maybe- Grian said he was gonna go find help. And then..." His words died, "And then everything would be fixed."

"No."

"Huh?" He asked, looking up at Etho, who didn't even look at him, he was fixated on the ground way below them. "What do you mean?"

Ethos silence was deafening, he stood up, against his own fears, "What do you mean no?" With his friends expertise in coding and redstone he must know a bit more than he did. Which is why this one word concerned him the most.

"I'll go get help-"

"Like HELL you will! Everyone's gone! I can't lose you too! It's been days! Grian is gone now, and said he would talk to Mumbo about-" His arms flailed pointing at himself, "My situation!"

Etho looked at him, his eyes sad, his hands holding him tight, "I will get you - back again."

His hands shook as he fought himself to not be desperate, as the impulse took over, as his hands were all over the other. Holding, holding. On for his dear life, wandering.

"Please- Anything," He grabbed the others shirt, ghosting near his face, closer than he had ever been and would ever be. Seeing the small scar in the red eye and the tears in the other black one.

"Etho-" He took the others face in his hands, smashing their lips together in a last attempt at compromise, his hands sweaty and his whole body shaking. It wasn't nice, it wasn't warm, he didn't feel happy- dread filled his stomach and his eyes closed. Etho had gone into shock, his whole body still, not holding onto him, like a statue.

His lips cold against the others. The ticking of a clock felt like thunder in his ears.

Etho was the one who pushed him away, looking at him, not with disgust, but with sadness. With a whisper, almost impossible to hear, "I'm... gonna go find help. I- I'm-," His words seemed stuck in his throat, as if in a debate with himself to what he was gonna say, "I- I really care about you."

He jumped,

for goodness sake, he actually jumped and Bdubs were close to take off as well, but had to stop himself from doing so. His feet halted, hand reaching out for air as he watched his friend fall.

"ETHO!!" He screamed, a late response, falling to his knees as he in shock stared while Etho fell through the clouds. Lightning struck through them and then disappeared as quickly as he blinked. Only the remains of thunder sounded as an echo through the wind.

"Etho.." He whispered, falling back onto the platform as he started curling up into himself.

Last 5 minutes, Etho had used all his time trying to save him, trying to comfort him. And what had he done? Been a bother, only thinking about himself.

A tear fell down his cheek, his heart hurt, either from the sudden solitary, or from the illness or "bug" as Grian called it. He wasn't supposed to be here, and he couldn't die and respawn anymore apparently.

When the night neared, he stood up, not daring looking down, and not daring speaking up. He knew he would break down if he started speaking, even if it was for himself. Trying to cheer himself up, something he had gotten good at, since he was hilarious.

"He'll come back for you." He mumbled, stumbling to get down the ladder, "He wouldn't leave you alone."

"He loves you." He said, as quiet as the wind, "He does."

"He loves me."

When his feet landed on the dirt, he crumbled down into himself, he held onto himself tightly as one does when left alone, and started shaking. Trying to hold back his sobs, a talent he had gotten good at.

After some time, the night was over, with no meeting of a creeper or skeleton, he was sitting at the bottom of the ladders, stained cheeks of tears and red eyes. His arms were moist and his breath shallow. He forced himself up, holding onto the ladder, trying to not stare at it for too long.

The sun was out, warming him up, and lighting the way for him.

His hand went to reach for his lips, regretting his action. Closing his eyes to chase the feeling, hating the way he got excited, hated the way he loved it. He was far too gone to think straight anymore, his hallucination of lips against his ever lasting. His emotions all mixed up, some more fucked than others. Some more sinful and shameful.

He was devouring Etho's presence, or lack of.

Hungry, he was hungry and his feet were moving towards a cow farm he knew he had. He, Cleo, and Scar, their base. Which was, where? He swear it had been right there, right beside him. Before it blew up.

Before it blew-

up.

Realizing where he was, he ran. Ran until he couldn't anymore, until his hunger got the best of him, scared of dying and scared of this new world with none of his friends.

"They're coming." He said, to hear himself talk, "They're coming back for you, they promised. Grian promised, Pearl, Impulse... Etho promised me."

And after days of waiting, of finding ways to motivate himself to not go insane, he had built a new home. Well, newer than the one from yesterday, which he had burned down. Along with all the other projects he had.

Every strand of grass seemed the same, every single tree was newly planted. His leg was injured due to a skeleton, the arrow seemed to have pierced through him. He drank the last potion Grian had given him, for what seemed like months ago.

His clock was broken, so he couldn't count the days. He stopped counting after day 6.200. It all seemed meaningless after all.

He had learned to live by himself, even kept a zombie in a boat for company, which he had named Ethan. For no apparent reason. Ethan knew how to make him laugh, and even would sometimes grunt at him if he disagreed. Which he totally did, because who else would understand him in this barren world?

When his crops had disappeared one day after his expeditions to the mines, which he had almost stripped out completely, he didn't question it. Maybe it was a mob who had stopped by, burned and gone away. Or maybe it was his wolf who had eaten it. But, worst of all, Ethan was gone.

Ethan had disappeared along with his house.

Even the grass was greener, and a big statue had appeared where he had dug up from.

A big stone statue, of a head? Not his head, which was a tad bit offensive. If the mobs had decided to praise him, then at least get his face right.

"People these days, don't know how to build right! I say, to thou, stone head, I will rebuild you once I get back to my chest and get my - uh, pickaxe! I will redeem your sins against me!" He yelled at the statue, his voice more raspy and worn out.

"Bdubs?"

His head turned almost too fast, his neck cracking a bit, "Huh!?"

Grian stood there, someone he hadn't seen for a long time, "Why are thou- you here? What are- who- Get away from me!!"

The words died out as he screamed, his heart racing, his eyes blood shot and his sword dashed towards the man. The man who had been his friend, who had seemed to help him, who had promised him something he would never forget.

He would never forget.

"You forgot me, so why did you come back?"

Grian halted in his action to walk closer to him, "We really didn't! I went back and talked with everyone! Mumbo, Tango, Doc, Zed - everyone! And then, they said that the code had been mixed in with yours and there was no way to send you back until they had made a brand new one! Apparently something about a promised life, and the code for the new life series was unstable, so you only got half of a life, and-"

He couldn't listen to excuses, so he swung towards Grian, "YOU!" A hit against Grians shirt, "LEFT!" His sword left a mark on Grians arm, "ME!" Grian fell backwards, "TO DIE!" He stopped himself right as he was about to go for the final blow.

"But you didn't." Grian said, his voice was as calm as ever.

He cried, tears which hadn't been there for a long time fell down his cheeks, his sword limp in his hands, throwing it to Grians side, wiping away his tears, "But I wish I did." He held out his hand to help Grian up.

Grian went in for a hug, a warm one, he hadn't felt this warm since he was on fire that one time. Which had hurt a lot less than this, his body seemed to shake violently, which he found out were from the loud sobs he was making, he didn't want to let go, afraid to be left alone again.

Afraid to be left out.

"Bdubs, we did everything we could to start the server up again, it was on lockdown, and we all thought of you. I'm under strict orders to not tell you how Etho really missed you. He went offline for a long time to protest, and was really sad when he logged on to find you gone still. But I'm not allowed to tell you that!" Grian chuckled, rubbing circles on his back to calm him down.

"Where is he?" He asked, like a child, like a desperate lover, like a last plea. "Is he coming on?"

Grian nodded into his shoulder, "Of course, he's gonna be here soon to play test everything. You can respawn now by the way, you aren't tied to the code anymore."

"Okay, so I can be fully healed?" Bdubs asked unsure.

"Yes."

He pulled away from Grian, getting down on his knees, "Kill me."

Bdubs looked up at him, while Grian pulled out an enchanted netherite axe from his inventory, "Are you sure?"

He nodded.

He could feel the air change, his breathing slowed down, he could feel his heart stop, his eyes locked with the axe. He was gripping the grass.

He was - terrified.

"STOP!" He yelled out, rolling to the side, missing the axe by a centimeter. "I can't - can't do this!"

Grian nodded, "It's alright, I'll go back, I think the testers will be on in a few hours?"

"You're going?" Bdubs asked, his voice smaller now, he was still sitting on the grass, petting it slowly, "You're really gonna go?" It was almost impossible to bear.

Grian gave him a small smile, "Hey you could come with me if you - well, respawned. I have to be sure you're all new before you go back. I don't want what happened before to happen again..."

He nodded, slow at first, "Yeah, I will be here. I'll stay - here, good bye."

Grian waved, a bright light absorbed him.

"WAIT!!"

He yelled out, stumbling to get up, chasing the light, "DON'T LEAVE ME!" He cried out, his hands reaching and reaching, "GRIAN!!!" He face planted right down into the grass, quiet sobs, his whole body engulfed with shaking, and his hands trying to reach for something that was gone.

He threw up whatever he had swallowed down in the mines and throughout his period of being in solitude. Spider legs and Zombie flesh, steak and a cold potato. All the water he had swallowed when he almost drowned and all the ink he got into his lungs when trying to make a fresh octopus. A puddle of all the shit he had to endure, a pile of all his horror and terror of being alone. A small bone from a camel, and a fish eye. Not much to see.

What a man wouldn't do to survive, when all he wanted was to die.

His hands, rough, bruised, cut up from the stone and in constant pain. His pants, ripped, dirty, a different color than it had once been. His shirt gone, used for a cleaning rag and to help him survive from all the wounds he got. Shoes, gone, but never really forgotten, lava accident.

From where he stood he watched how the world had stopped moving, in a constant pause.

It didn't phase him how long he stood still for, he had been sitting for approximately 2 weeks before, it wasn't odd to wait for anything to happen. Either starvation or a zombie to find him.

A bright light startled him, a silhouette, two silhouettes.

He reached for his sword, out of defense. His eyes met familiar red ones, blonde hair, and red clothes.

All the words he wanted to say were gone, his eyes blinking at someone he both knew and couldn't recognize.

"Bdubs!" Tango screamed out, startling them both, "Good to see you again buddy! How, uh- I guess it's been rough. I missed you." His eyes watched how his friend reacted to his whole being. He probably looked like shit, and he felt like it too.

But, he didn't even listen to Tango, his eyes were focused on Etho, who had stopped in his tracks, eye to eye.

And he fell to his knees, not him, but Etho. His eyes filled with tears as he cried, no one dared near him, not even Tango who had taken a step back, knowing how long it had been.

As Etho cried, and cried, endless sobs into his hands, he weakly said, "I'm sorry" in between his cries. And after some time Bdubs went to hold him, scared at first, he was dirty, he was filthy, and he was everything horrible. But even still, Etho held onto him as hard as possible, to the point where he had to try to tap out, he was suffocating.

"What happened to you?" Etho asked, his voice stable now, his hands warm on his back.

He held on even tighter, "I- I don't know. Too much, can you just - please, hold me."

And he did. He could hear Ethos trying to slow his breathing through the mask.

The goddamn mask was back on, not that he really remembered what was hidden under, other than the experience of a lifetime. Other than the guilt.

He did remember the kiss, of course, how could he forget that. He felt shameful for it. "Etho I'm sorry-"

He didn't get to even start his apology before Etho was on him, mouth on mouth, with a mask in between them. He could feel the silhouette of his mouth, of hot breath, of wet tears. Of desperation. 'forgive me' repeating in his head as he stayed there for a second longer than appropriate.

A sudden tightness in his stomach occured, a force greater than he had felt in ages. He gasped, and Etho cried harder.

"Forgive me."

This time it wasn't he who said it, but Etho who held a bloody dagger in his hand, "This will be better for you after you respawn."

Tango stood there silently as his world faded in and out, "It hurts."

"It hurts so much, Etho." He whimpered.

His world become dark, as he felt his body ascend towards a familiar light. Every wound healed over, and every broken bone fixed within seconds. New clothes was provided along with shoes.

...

..

.

They all stood in a circle, a campfire in the middle as Grian was talking. Everything felt familiar, but who cared about that?

Bdubs beside Etho.

As fate aligned.

[thedo0zyslider]

The third death game has certainly been an experience so far. Maybe a more negative one for Scar. The whole soulbond gimmick wasn't really working out for him, and probably hadn't been since the first day. It was working out fine for everyone else though...

Well, mostly everyone else.

The sun's starting to set now, as Scar travels the server on foot. Normally, at this time of day, he would be hauled up in the Red Velvet Keep, feeding Jellie and taking care of his pandas. But Scar didn't feel like staying ag the Keep today, so he'd feed his pets early, told Jellie she was in charge, and headed out. (He's pretty sure Jellie fell asleep right after he left, but she was a very good cat! She'd wake up and sort out any trouble if she needed too!)

He didn't know where Grian was, and probably didn't want to find out. Maybe he was baking bread with his secret admirer again. That did seem to be his teammates favorite hobby as of late.

It really was a coincidence he ended up by Ren and Bigb's box. Normally, he would've gone towards the Ranch go bug ol' Timmy, but he's pretty sure Tango would've actually set him on fire. So, Scar took to wandering around the server instead.

And his wandering had brought him here.

Scar approached the cobblestone box lazily, not thinking anyone would be out. It was almost dark out, after all! And fighting monsters wasn't really an ideal pasttime in this game. Then the sound of movement, of blocks being moved and placed, comes from nearby, and Scar's not so sure about his assumptions anymore.

"Is that a Ren-diggity-dog I see?" Scar says, spotting quite the familiar figure outside Box. He doesn't know what Ren is doing with those blocks, since his base seem to be done. Maybe he's trying to Box jelwey, or something like that. He did quite enjoy decorating the outside walls, for whatever reason.

"Scar!" Ren exclaims, looking over at his base's newest guest. His tail starts wagging behind him happily. Scar mentally compares him to an excited little puppy, which is basically what Ren is at all time. "How are ya man?"

"Oh, I'm good!" He smiles, remembering why he hsd left home and wandered out in the first place. Scar was not doing good at all, no siree. "Found out my soulmates seeing someone else, but I'm doin' amazing!"

"Er, right." Ren mumbled, leaning against Box's wall awkwardly. If Scar noticed how his tail stopped wagging, he didn't make an indication of it. "Forgot about that."

"It's fine Ren, it's fine!" Scar says, waving his hands dismissively. Ren isn't the one cheating, after all. He has nothing to be sorry for. BigB and Grian are their own people who could make their own choices, and they had apparently decided that soulbonds and their shared lifeforce meant absolutely nothing.

"Well, I do feel a little bad." Ren shrugs, not noticing how his sunglasses slide down his face. Seeing his eyes made his friend's expression look all the more troubled. "Your soulmate is messing around with mine."

"It's not your fault! I didn't expect you to have BigB on a leash or anything." Scar reassures, reaching over to give his friend a firm yet gentle pat on the shoulder. A very reassuring pat, if he does say so himself. Scar is very good at making people feel better. Usually.

Ren smiles up at him, seemingly reassured by the pat; if only just a little bit. (Which meant his pat had been a success! A small one, but a sucess nonetheless!) "Heh, yeah."

"How are you doing, Ren?" Scar hums, changing the topic away from his feelings at the first opportunity. He came out here to get away from all those gross complicated feelings about Grian and being cheated on! He doesn't want to talk about them on his nice relaxing walk! Not that Ren could've known that, of course.

"Uh, kinda not good, my dude." The dog admits, leaning against one of his base's walls. His tail has started to droop now, as well. "But it'll come to pass."

Scar frowns, idly resting a hand on hid hip. It's unusual to see Ren this sad. The sight is definitely more than a little worrying. "The cheating really bothering you, huh?"

"Is it not bothering you?" Ren counters, raising an eyebrow at him. Scar stiffens under that gaze, feeling the resentment and the hurt bubble back up again. He pushes it down before speaking.

"It is." Scar mutters. He doesn't say much else, and doesn't want too. Ren seems to sense that, and nods; not prodding any further like he might’ve normally done.

Scar shuffles his feet, feeling awkward. Neither of them say anything. He doesn't think there's anything to say. Sorry my soulmates seeing yours sounded lame. They didn't need to apologize for it anyways. Ren and Scar didn't need to say sorry fir anything, unless they started kissing each other too.

Oh, that was certainly an idea. A very good idea for payback. And giving Grian a taste of his own medicine sounded like a very good plan at the moment.

Scar hums, not giving himself any mkre timr to think about or doubt his brilliant new plan. "I did have a little idea though..."

"Really?" Ren asks, his tone playful and a smile returning back to his features. "What kinda of 'idea?' Another scam?"

"Oh, very funny Ren!" Scar laughs softly, taking a few steps forward. They would need to be closer for his plan to work, after all! "But no, it's not a business plan this time. It's something very different!"

"Different in what way?" Ren studies him, interested. His tail thumps against the cobblestone wall behind him lightly, now like a curious little puppy instead of a happy little one. Scar can't help but smile.

"Well, how about some payback?" Scar asked, a slight smirk spreading across his face. It's his salesman smirk, though he isn't selling anything this time. Unless he decides to make Ren pay up after the fact....

"Payback?" Ren ask tentatively, feeling his right ear twitch. Scar can almost see the cigs turning in his head as he studies their positions. But the light blub hasn't quite lit up yet. So he decides to give it just a hit more electricity.

A second later, Scar leaned forward, until thier noses were almost touching. Ren blinks back at him, said light blub finally lighting up in his brain. Something sparkles in his eyes. Scar wants to find out what.

"Oh, payback." He muttered, not moving away. Scar thinks Ren actually gets pulled in closer, like a magnet is drawing them together. The universe must agree with his plan then, if its pulling them closer!

"I take it your on board?" Scar asks, raising an eyebrow. Tentatively, he pushed Ren back a little, so he's backed into the wall. Ren lets him.

Ren snorts, rolling his eyes fondly. He takes one of Scar's hands in his own, and laces their fingers together. Scar tries not to blush too hard at the action. "Obviously. Now shut up and do it already!"

Scar smiles at his friends enthusiasm, and wastes now time after that. He kisses Ren softly, finding himself suddenly unsure as he pressed their lips together. Ren kisses back with a hum, clearly finding it enjoyable.

The kiss deepens after a moment, and after Scar has time to gain a bit of his confidence back. Not too deep, but deep enough to leave them needing air and pull away gasping. Which is exactly what they do, by the way, when locking lips and the lack of air because of it become a bit too suffocating to handle.

"That was....cool." Ren mumbled quietly, pushing his sunglasses back up his face. It doesn't do anything to hide how hard he's blushing. Scar has to hold back a giggle at the sight.

"Yeah." Scar agrees, just as breathless as he feels. (And probably looks, too.) He had to admit, Ren was a surprisingly good kisser! "Wanna do it again?"

"Of course, dude!" Ren agrees, laughing softly. Scar leans in to kiss him again, and is met in the middle. It's the closest thing to heaven he's felt all season, and he wants more. (And hopefully, Ren will be here to give him more tomorrow...)

He hopes Grian is happy.