#traffic fic

[novaspirit132]

The Weakest Link |Secret Life [Mind Games AU]

{A Retelling of Secret Life, but Hermitcraft Gem World Jumps and ends up in Secret Life instead. While she gains the help of former champions to find a way to escape the games, Grian struggles against both his Watcher side and the Watchers themselves as they try to gain another champion.}

This was the first ever sketch I made for this AU, so as I started forming more of the story, I had to add more and more to ensure it still fit. It took an INSANELY long time to color, and I'm still not happy with the results cause I messed up in several places. (I had to basically paint over Scar's skin cause I used the wrong tone, so now he's grey like in 3rd Life 😅) But, I put too much effort into this drawing to not share it, so here.

If you want to check out my AU, then here's a link to it on Ao3. I currently just published the first part of episode 3, so check it out if you're interested 😎👍

[flamingspud]

"I wonder if she'll stick around this time," Mumbo, a gentleman in a late, Victorian-era suit pondered. "I hope not, she was a bitch," Scott, a man in a striking blue regency era suit and silver mask commented.

When Lizzie and her husband inherit a mansion in the middle of nowhere after the death of her great-aunt, it’s like a dream come true.

The catch? The house is haunted.

After an accident leaves Lizzie with the ability to speak to the dead, she finds herself helping to solve their problems, both serious and ridiculous.

Based on the 2021 version of Ghosts.

Chapter under the cut

Eight figures were gathered around the bed's occupant, a very elderly woman, as she took her final breaths.

"I wonder if she'll stick around this time," Mumbo, a gentleman in a late, Victorian-era suit pondered.

"I hope not, she was a bitch," Scott, a man in a striking blue regency era suit and silver mask commented.

"Hey! She was my great granddaughter I'll have you know," Mumbo informed him, getting an eye roll in response.

Their bickering was disturbed by the old woman taking an ethereal form. "Who are you?"

"We're ghosts, and we-" Mumbo began, but a shaft of blinding light that filled the room interrupted him.

"And there she goes," Scar, a guy in a superhero costume with an arrow sticking out of his chest said. "Getting sucked off right away."

"Take me with you," Cleo, who wore a neon workout suit pleaded, reaching up where the old home-owner had gone through the roof.

The room was dim once more.

"I wonder who'll get the house now?" Martyn asked. He was the one in pirate attire.

"Maybe they'll be interesting people for once," Pearl suggested, donning a red cloak and black masquerade mask.

"That'd be nice," Impulse, who donned a black vest tied over a puffy sleeved shirt agreed.

"Or they could be a pain," Grian suggested. He wore a simple red tunic and trousers.

"I'm sure only distinguished people could afford this place," Mumbo assured him, not noticing the doubtful looks some of the others shot each other.

"All we can do is hope..." Scott said. "...does anyone want to go take a look at the birdbath?"

"Oh, I'll catch some birdbath action with you," Impulse responded cheerily.

***

"Woah... look at this place!" Lizzie exclaimed, not even taking the time to close the car door as she got out to marvel at the house.

It was the grandest thing she'd ever seen, an old mansion with faded bricks that was three storeys tall. There was no way that she and Joel would've been able to afford it on their own, but turns out Lizzie had some aunt that passed away, and the house was left to her in the will.

"It sure is big," Joel agreed, getting out and closing both doors.

"We have to go explore!" Lizzie said, bounding up the driveway to the house. She stuck the key in the door, and it swung open with a loud creaking noise. "We can probably oil that," she assured her husband.

They stepped into the foyer, a grand staircase leading to the second floor on the right and various rooms on the left. The marble floor could do with being mopped, and there were cobwebs in the corners, but all in all, the place was pretty nice.

Unbeknownst to Lizzie and Joel however, they weren't the only people in there.

"They're here!" Scott called up the stairs, and ghosts started coming from all different rooms in the house.

"A young couple!" Martyn mused from the upstairs landing, before sliding down the rail.

"That's sweet," Scar said.

"Let's look at the kitchen!" Lizzie decided, pulling Joel along.

"This kitchen looks older than the house," Joel remarked, unimpressed.

"I'll have you know that that kitchen is the best that money can buy!" Mumbo stated, affronted.

"You do realise it's been over a century since that was the case?" Cleo asked.

Mumbo bristled at that statement.

"Well, we can upgrade it," Lizzie said, "it can be the greatest kitchen in Lifeville!"

"I doubt there'd be much competition," Joel muttered.

"Hey-" Lizzie gently grabbed her husband's chin so that he was facing her- "there definitely won't be any once we open the B&B and become the biggest hotspot in the area!"

The ghosts erupted into exclamations of outrage at this statement.

"A B&B??" Mumbo demanded, "do they have no respect for the dead?"

"Just think of all the litter," Grian said, cringing.

"I don't want anyone sleeping in my bed!" Scott exclaimed.

The ghosts were too busy to notice Joel's unsure expression.

"Well, why don't we look upstairs?" Lizzie suggested, unaware of the uproar she had caused.

"Sure," he agreed, letting his wife excitedly drag him up the stairs.

"Well, we can't just sit pretty and let them ruin our afterlives," Martyn decided, rallying the team, "we need to take a stand!"

"But how? We're dead," Impulse reminded him.

"Isn't it obvious?" Cleo asked. Everyone gave her puzzled looks. She sighed. "We need to scare them away! Haunt them, it's what we're known for!"

"Like in the movies!" Scar agreed.

"I still don't fully get what that is," Pearl commented.

"I guess that's my signal," Martyn declared, "one helping of lights on the fritz coming right up!"

As the ghosts schemed, Lizzie and Joel explored the master bedroom.

When Joel made a face, Lizzie was quick to reassure him. "With a little paint, this place will be a home in no time-"

"Lizzie!" Joel interrupted, "stop, just stop!"

Lizzie blinked.

"I know you have all these dreams and ideas of opening a B&B in the countryside, but I can't- this place is falling apart at the seams and quite frankly I don't want to move to the middle of nowhere!"

"Oh." Lizzie slowly turned away.

Joel sighed. "Look, I'm sorry-"

"No, it's fine... I need a minute." She quickly walked out of the room.

The lights flickered in the hallway as Lizzie walked across the landing towards the library. Great, another problem with the house. Just what she needed.

"Seriously? How do you not react to that?" Martyn asked.

"Alright, stand back everyone, I've got this," Grian announced, stepping forward and stretching his fingers out in front of him.

The others watched as Grian crouched next to an end table, and pushed his finger against the vase that sat atop it. His face scrunched up in concentration as he put all his focus into his finger and the vase.

After an agonisingly long moment, the vase fell off of the table and hit the carpeted floor with a quiet thud.

Lizzie slowly turned around, the confusion written all over her face as she looked at the vase. She did a quick once over of the landing, trying to spot whatever knocked the piece onto the ground.

She found nothing, and walked over to the vase, gingerly picking it up. She looked over the railing to the floor below. "Joel? Did you knock this vase over?" She called.

Before she got a response, the biggest spider she's ever seen crawled out of the vase and onto her hand.

Lizzie screamed, throwing the vase away from her as she stumbled back, trying to shake the monster from her hand.

The ghosts then watched in horror as she toppled backwards and tumbled down the stairs.

Grian's eyes went wide, quickly looking around the group to gauge their reactions.

"Oh my god..." Cleo said.

Impulse's hand was over his mouth.

Scott's jaw hung open.

Pearl and Martyn leaned over the railing to get a better look at their murder victim.

"Grian!" Mumbo exclaimed, nervous laughter escaping through his lips.

"Don't look at me!" Grian shot back.

Joel ran out of the master bedroom. "LIZZIE!"

The rest went by in a blur, as the paramedics showed up and brought her out on a stretcher, Joel staying by her side.

The house was empty of life once more.

"...At least the B&B won't be happening anymore," Mumbo said into the silence.

"Mumbo!" Scar scolded.

"What, can't I look for the sunny side of things?" He asked innocently.

"When you were alive you literally thought everyone was out to get you," Scott reminded him.

"Ah, well..." Mumbo tried to come up with an excuse.

***

The ghosts gathered at one of the second-storey windows as Lizzie and Joel's car pulled up once more, a few weeks after the spider incident.

“I thought you said we were going home," Lizzie said, looking up at the house.

"Sure," Joel replied.

Lizzie's eyes narrowed. "You said you didn't want to move…"

Joel took her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. "Yeah, well… when you were legally dead for five minutes, it had me thinking; I love you, I want to be with you, and I don't care where that is, whether that's in a cramped apartment where you can reach the fridge from the bed or a decrepit old mansion in the middle of nowhere."

Lizzie smiled. "That was so sappy."

Joel chuckled. "Yeah, well that's all you're getting from me, so come on!"

The pair got out of the car together, and Lizzie marvelled as a bunch of contractors pulled up and got out of their vans and trucks.

Inside the foyer was chaos, as people rushed around with wood and paint and other supplies.

"Come on, come on, come on!"

As Joel excitedly ran up the stairs, Lizzie noticed a guy standing amongst the builders who wasn't running around to get odd jobs done. He was dressed sort of oddly too.

"Cool shirt, I like the sleeves," Lizzie commented, before following Joel up the stairs.

Impulse blinked. Was he dreaming? He could've sworn she was talking to him, but if that's true, then that means-

He ran from the room, almost tripping over his feet. "Guys!" He called out, "Lizzie's a witch!"

"What, did she use the toaster? We already went over this-" Cleo began as Impulse nearly ran into them.

Impulse quickly shook his head. "No! She could see me, she spoke to me!"

Cleo suddenly began treating this more seriously. "For real?"

Impulse nodded.

"Show me."

***

"Voilà."

"Woah," Lizzie said, admiring the master bedroom.

No longer were the walls covered in peeling wallpaper, as they were now a bright yellow.

"Jim and I painted the room while you were asleep," Joel explained.

"I wasn't asleep, I was in a coma," Lizzie reminded him.

"Yeah, right; anyway, he picked the colour, said the piss yellow called to him for some reason."

"Piss yellow?"

"Well technically it's canary yellow but y'know-"

Joel kept talking, but the next words out of his mouth flew over Lizzie's head as the man from earlier stepped through the door, and by through I don't mean via opening it, but through the wood, as if it didn't exist.

"What the-"

Another ghost followed him, one with firey orange curls who was dressed like she came out of an eighties workout video. Lizzie could've swore she had blood on her clothes.

It wasn't long until the room was full of people who could walk through walls, people in masquerade masks, a superhero, a pirate, a knight out of armour-

"Lizzie?" Joel asked from far away.

"By the gods she can see us," the pirate said in awe, looking at her like he'd never seen anything like it before.

"Who are you?!" Lizzie demanded, her voice shaking from fear. What the hell was happening?

"We are the ghosts of this house," a moustached man in a suit that didn't quite look new explained.

"Lizzie, are you feeling alright?"

The last thing Lizzie remembered was opening her mouth to scream.

[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.

[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."

[thefireintheshadow]

when i say his name

Etho missed Gem. It was stupid, probably, because they saw each other all the time on Hermitcraft. They didn’t need to team together here, and he surely wasn’t disappointed they hadn’t.

Surely.

They’d even based near each other. He could see her anytime he wanted and it wasn’t even pathetic that he was there all the time because their teams were allied.

Surely not pathetic at all.

This is what he told himself as he gravitated across the bridge, like a magnet, like he couldn’t control his own feet crossing the water just to say hi. Just to see her bright smile, hear her soft teasing voice rib him for something or other, enjoy the waterfall of her strawberry hair as she brushed curls over her shoulder.

Joel’s knowing smirk because he knew, he knew what hungry Etho looked like. Joel had seen more of Etho during Double Life than most had ever seen, knew how pathetic – no, surely not pathetic, this was fine, he was totally normal about Gem – he could be.

But this time it didn’t seem like anyone was home. There was no bubbly redhead bouncing out of the barn to greet him. No unhinged laughter from atop the car from the green-haired gremlin that was her teammate.

The base was quiet.

Or, wait. No, it wasn’t completely quiet.

He strained his ears.

There, again, a ghost of a whimper, muffled.

[read on ao3]

[abyssboo]

More fanfiction guys

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: 3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series

Relationships: Jimmy | Solidarity & Lizzie | LDShadowLady & Ryan | GoodTimesWithScarJimmy | Solidarity & TangoTekGeminiTay & Jimmy | Solidaritygeminitay & jimmy | solidarity & ryan | goodtimeswithscarJimmy | Solidarity & Lizzie | LDShadowLadyJimmy | Solidarity & Ryan | GoodTimesWithScar

Characters: Jimmy | Solidarity, Lizzie | LDShadowLady (Video Blogging RPF), Ryan | GoodTimesWithScarGeminiTay (Video Blogging RPF), TangoTek (Video Blogging RPF), Charles | Grian

Additional Tags: Jimmy | Solidarity-centric, Jimmy | Solidarity and Lizzie | LDShadowLady are Siblings, Winged Jimmy | Solidarity, ranchers can be read as romantic or platonic idc, Blaze TangoTek (Video Blogging RPF), TangoTek Loves Jimmy | Solidarity, Deer Hybrid GeminiTay (Video Blogging RPF), Watcher Charles | Grian, Red Life Bloodlust (3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series), Red Life Jimmy | Solidarity (3rd Life | Last Life SMP Series), Canonical Character Death, no beta we die like mumbo jumbo, Shapeshifter Lizzie | LDShadowlady (Video Blogging RPF), Phoenix Jimmy | Solidarity, Jimmy | Solidarity's Canary Curse, or lackthereof, Wild Life SMP: Session 5, Wild Life SMP Setting, Sad Charles | Grian, Kinda, He’s grieving but also he’s on screen for like 5 seconds lol, its still notable i think though, canon-typical pg streamers

Summary:

“So- what? My wings are just- burning away?” Jimmy closed the featherless things against his back, letting his head fall onto the grass and looking up at his teammates. “I may not have liked the curse, but I sure liked having the wings!” He complained to the sky, intending to reach whichever Watchers were currently observing.

Or; Mumbo dies, Jimmy (literally) explodes. Set in session 5

(This is a sequel to the last fic in this series: “But if (when) in the end I lose my voice (will you forget about your love for me?)” but I think this can be read as a standalone as well)

(Title from the song “Arcturus Beaming” by The Crane Wives)

Side note, I discovered that every single one of the snails from session 3 has a character tag ns I think that is absolutely glorious

[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!!

[aroacepotatoo]

Scar really wants Cuteguy to be his friend (and maybe join him and the rest of the clockers as assassins). The parrot is incredibly stubborn however so it's been difficult. But he's got a new approach to this now; trying to befriend his civilian identity first. And lucky for him, they just so happen to be co-workers. An awkward interaction ensues...

we are continuing to expand the assasinations of character universe!! This time it’s Scar and Grian a very awkward interaction (with a health concerning amount of blushing sprinkled in)

enjoy folks of tumblr!!! <3

[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.

[verdantglow]

"Write a fic involving flashbacks to every Life series," they said.

"It'll be fun," they said.

Well, I just spent over an hour & a half working on it & have got a whopping 120 words to show for it.

Because most of that time was spent doing FUCKING RESEARCH.

[novaspirit132]

[Mind Games AU]

Gem: You keep talking about the Watchers, but who are they? And, why does it seem like only you know about them?

Scott: Because I was one of their champions...

Wanted to finally start drawing out some scenes for my Life Series AU where Hermitcraft Gem enters Secret Life instead and ends up seeking the help of former champions, so they can find a way out. Currently only 2 of the chapters are up right now, but more are on the way. I'm right now working on the chapters that cover session 4, and I am very excited! 😁

[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!!!!!!!!

[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]