Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

I will write for the Dream SMP, Hermitcraft and Life Servers. I could also write for Empires SMP, but I don't know it as well, so still drop a comment and I'll let you know whether or not I can.

Things you should know:

- No romantic shipping

- I'm not terribly caught up on DSMP lore

- I'm particularly biased towards wingfics/hybrid fics

- Platonic/Familial cuddles and softness is yes

- Totally fine with gore, death, and difficult topics like self-harm, suicide, eating disorders ect. 

- Provide as much detail as you can in request - literally go ham. All the words.

- I'm fine with writing 'problematic' ccs (like Dream or Samgladiator) but only in specific ways (as 'villians' ect.)

- Modern AUs!! I love modern and high school and college and coffee shop AUs AAAAAA

I love exploring character's motives and emotions, so drop all your headcanons below! Have fun requesting, I'll reply to your comment when I start writing and when I finish :D

CONTENTS

1) Contents

- Request guidelines

- Contents

2) Tango - Hurt/Comfort ft. Jimmy

Tango is struggling with to adjust to life in Empires SMP and falls back on some old bad habits, Jimmy notices and comforts him. Contains eating disorders and an exploration of the complexity of them. 

3) Grian - Hurt/Comfort ft. Xisuma + Scar

Xisuma discovers that Grian is a Watcher and confronts him. Before he bans him, Scar intervenes and talks Grian down, and things are sorted out. Plus bonus scene of Grian using his Watcher powers for mundane things. 

4) Grian - Hurt/Comfort ft. Scar, Mumbo + Ren

Grian shares his high school experiences without realising quite how bad they were. Scar and the Hermits comfort him as he realises that he might have some trauma. 

5) Pearl - Angst + Hurt/Comfort ft. Scar

Pearl, after being rejected by her soulmate, falls back on self-destructive behaviours, tearing herself apart. Scar finds her and helps bring her out of her spiralling. 

6) False - Angst + Hurt/Comfort ft. Cleo

False isn't coping well, but Cleo is there to help her heal. Contains eating disorders, self-harm and vaguely implied past rape/non-con.

7) Grian - Hurt/Comfort ft. YHS & Doc

Grian, on the visitation day on Hermitcraft, has a visit from Taurtis and a few other YHS members. Doc helps ground him when he gets overwhelmed. 

8) Jimmy - Angst ft. Scott

Jimmy turns to self harm as a way of proving his humanity when the teasing gets too much. Being shrunk down is the final straw for him.

9) False - Fluff ft. Pearl

False, after the Hermitcraft and Empires crossover, is struggling with wing upkeep. Fortunately, she has Pearl, who is happy to help out a fellow avian.

Chapter Text

Even as the sun set below the cliffs, Tumble Town was still uncomfortably hot, the air holding a thickness that smothered those trying their best to work, stinging Tango’s throat as he inhaled deeply and sighed. 

The cliffs on the eastern side of the Tumble Town bowl were highlighted with golden evening light, though it was quickly slipping away into shadow. Despite everything, it was nice to slow down for a moment to appreciate the natural beauty of the location Jimmy had chosen to set up his Empire. Plus, he’d been underground in Gobland, hanging off of scaffolding and trying to get minecarts to work for at least six hours straight, so the sunlight was a welcome change.

He also hadn’t slept. Or ate. Or stopped working - as that was what distracted him from this whole food predicament. Just thinking about it summoned a lick of fiery frustration, though it burned out quickly, like all of his feelings, the lack of fuel dimming his usually bright flame. 

Instead, there was resignation and bleak acceptance. He didn’t have time to think about such ridiculous things as food when there was this whole multiverse thing going on, and all these new people to make sure he was making a good impression on. 

This was just a thing. That happened. And Tango got through it, just like making Decked Out in season seven, or his early-game massive iron farms, he pushed on through because there was no other way. It was just a way to stop his explosive anger, to quieten the blazing (hah - blaze) instincts to literally set fire to anything that annoyed him. It just came with a whole other host of unwanted side effects. 

Like zoning out. He’d been staring up at the cliffs long enough for the sun to drop fully out of sight of the peaks, casting the bowl in deep shadow. Ugh, Jimmy would be waiting for him by now. He meant to get back from Gobland in time to set up some deceitful measures that might trick Jimmy into thinking Tango had at least eaten something that evening. 

Oh, well, he could just say he made the most of Fwhip’s offer of unlimited Gobland pork whilst he worked. It wouldn’t do anything for the shaky terms their friendship was on right now - what with Jim’s obvious dislike of the goblin - but this was just a bad day, and Tango had to lie sometimes. Even though it hurt.

Activating his elytra, Tango found some rockets and took off into the sky. The setting sun greeted him, painting the desert land in gilded light. He spotted the wonderfully familiar recreation of the Ranch, the build so honest and humble and just everything that Jimmy embodied. Tango, despite the exhaustion deep within his bones, felt a fond smile work its way onto his face. He was so unbelievably glad that his rancher was here.

As he landed, he prepared to launch into his usual sociable and excitable conversation, taking a moment to just stand where he had landed to let the nausea and dizziness pass. The tremble that more often than not seemed to lace his hands and movements didn’t pass though. With momentous effort, Tango tried to gather his thoughts into some kind of focus and started walking up to the front door of the Ranch. 

“Hello!” Tango called, his voice sounding strange in his ears, “I have returned!” 

Opening the door, Tango peered in, seeing a kettle left to boil on the stove in the kitchen, chest left open and items strewn around, but no Jimmy. 

“Huh…” He made his way over to the kettle, pouring himself a coffee, and Jim a standard breakfast tea with a splash of milk. Hopefully the caffeine would help him appear a little more… not dead than he currently felt. 

Random lightheadedness washed over him, and Tango took a shaky step over to the counter to lean heavily on it and sip his coffee. A tangible wave of fatigue washed over him and he almost let his eyelids slip closed and his head slump against the worktop. 

Okay, now he’d actually stopped working he felt really bad. When was the last time he actually ate? Or drank something other than bitter, black coffee? 

He pushed those ridiculous thoughts away - he still had to make sure Jimmy was okay, and then sort out his wings. There were much more important things to be thinking about. 

This was the only way he could keep his stupid, stupid emotions at bay. It was the only thing that stayed with him when nothing else did, kept him grounded. This self-destructive habit was the most stable thing he had right now, and he’d be damned if he was going to let his biology win over him again. He wasn’t just his instincts - he wasn’t just a furious, indiscriminately destructive Blaze - he was himself. And apparently, starving was the best way to keep those impulsive instincts at bay.

Another wave of dizziness, and Tango felt his knees go weak and his muscles give up, “Oh… okay, we’re sitting down, right, yup…” He half mumbled to himself as he slid down the kitchen cabinet. 

It was at that moment that Jimmy appeared from the back door, cartoonishly brushing hay from his clothes, then locking the door. He walked into the kitchen, only to notice Tango in a sorry heap.

“Tango?” He made a strange face, approaching slowly.

After a moment, he replied, “Hi. The floor’s pretty, uh, comfy today. That’s all.” He tried a cheesy grin to add to the sentiment, but based on Jimmy’s deepening frown, it came out more of a grimace than anything. 

Jimmy’s eyes darted from the abandoned coffee to Tango, “Are you- Are you sure?” He gave a little nervous laugh, wings shuffling uncomfortably behind him, “You look… tired.” The hurt tone of voice suggested to Tango that he looked more than just tired. 

“Mm. Long day.” He hummed, finding some hidden strength within him and gripping the counter to attempt to pull himself up to standing, “Been, uh, doin’ wonky redstone. Yup.”

Jimmy pulled a face, pressing his lips into a thin line. He’d dealt with Tango’s… thing before, back in double life. After the Ranch burnt down, and that horrid anger reared its ugly head, Tango fell back onto his bad habits to try and stop himself from making any stupid decisions and getting him and Timmy killed. 

Being that they were soulbound, Jimmy quickly clocked that Tango was half-starved the majority of the time, and they had a long all-nighter’s worth of conversation. The stress of the life games really got to him, and Jimmy had been the only person he truly trusted, so he told him more than he would’ve liked. Despite that, being able to talk freely with someone other than maybe Zedaph and Impulse about ‘the food thing’ was beautifully cathartic and freeing in some strange, backwards way. 

“Right. I, uh, did you wanna sit down?” Jimmy stammered, gesturing to the couch, “Thank you for the tea by the way.”

Tango nodded, shuffling over to the sofa with his coffee in hand, sighing as he finally sat down. He almost fell asleep instantly, and he would have done, if not for the tangible nervous energy that Jim was giving off as he sat down.

“When, uh, when did you last eat?” The avian asked quietly, finally making eye contact with Tango. 

He shrugged, “Not a clue. Feel like crap, though.”

“Well, I, uh.” Jimmy said, then let out a few anxious laughs, “Could you deal with something now?”

Tango thought about it, and despite the deep exhaustion and headache and blurred focus, his whole mind reeled at the idea of eating. He gritted his teeth as a wave of nausea accompanied the anxiety. He shook his head.

“Okay.” Jimmy visibly deflated, “That’s fine. You- I’ll make some salmon in the morning.” There was a hint of desperation amongst the concern and care in his tone, and Tango would’ve cried if he had the energy.

Jimmy shuffled a little closer to him, opening his arms in a welcome for a hug, “Is that okay?” He whispered.

“I- yeah. Yeah, that’s okay.” Tango replied, his voice sounding alien and far too calm for the whirlwind of emotions that was raging inside of him. He made a move to accept Jimmy’s hug.

Jim held him tightly, his wings coming to wrap around them like a huge, feathery blanket, grounding Tango as he started to tremble with intensity of emotion. His grip was firm, as if Tango might slip away if he didn’t hold on strong enough. 

“Thank you, so much.” Tango breathed, so quiet that anyone else would have missed it.

With a final squeeze, Jim pulled out of the embrace momentarily to look him in the eyes with a firm yet teary smile, “Anything for my Rancher.”

With that, Tango finally felt tears build in his sinuses, returning to the hug as sobs wracked through Jimmy, and Tango finally found his voice, “My Rancher.” He whispered back, holding onto the avian like a lifeline. 

It was during moments like these where Tango was reminded that he had the best friends, ones that loved him no matter whether he was human or half Blaze, no matter what he looked like or how hard he worked or how quickly he built.

Chapter Text

Xisuma was simply running routine checks over the server, maybe a little more thorough than usual considering they’d just moved to a new world, but nothing rigorous. He didn’t actually expect to find anything, it was more for his own sake than anything else, but then an alert for something-something ‘unknown entity code’ popped up on his screen. 

Was the new software a bit fiddly when it came to the more… unique, to put it lightly, beings that the Hermitcraft server housed? Curious and mildly concerned, Xisuma expanded the alert, guessing it to be related to someone like Doc, or maybe Jevin, or even Keralis (he still didn’t know quite what that man was, exactly, even after all these years). The last person he expected to see was Grian.

The guy was a standard avian-human hybrid, and despite being a little keen on the pranks and trolls, there was nothing immediately alarming or strange about Grian. 

Xisuma didn’t dig around in personal code - that wasn’t his job as an admin - unless it was something that might cause greater harm to his server and the people who sheltered in it. He didn’t like invading Grian’s privacy like this, but for the greater good and the sake of the server’s safety, he had to.

Now, all the Hermits had their fair share of past experiences and things they’ve worked through before arriving at the Hermitcraft server, and Xisuma could say firmly that he’s seen a lot in his time. Certain things that gave him the knowledge to be able to instantly recognise the twisted Galactic within Grian’s code, the signature of some horrid being imprinted right there, within the very core of one of the people he offered shelter and safety to. 

That was the brand of a certain type of deity that called themselves ‘Watchers’, and Xisuma had dealt with them more than enough, and he did not want to ever see their damned symbol anywhere ever again. 

He was paralyzed, stuck staring at the screen with disbelief. How had this ever slipped his radar? How had Grian concealed a secret like this? Why was he keeping a secret like this?

Grian had always seemed so kind-natured, so friendly, so genuine. Was it all a ruse? Was he just pretending to be their friend? 

Xisuma stepped away from his standing desk, mind reeling and anxiety making him feel ill. He needed to act, and fast. Grabbing his communicator, X pulled up his contacts list. 

One moment, Grian was clearing out the Entity to make a viable space for a shop, and the next he was surrounded by Hermits, armed to the teeth, swords pointed directly at him. His mind scrambled for some kind of prank he’d pulled that would warrant a group of very unhappy Hermits, or possibly an early minigame that involved PVP, but he drew a blank. 

Confused and nervous, Grian slowly backed away, “I, uh, don’t know what blew up, but I can promise it wasn’t-”

“Quiet.” Doc snarled, and Grian flinched, bumping against the wall of the Entity. A sharp spike of fear shot through him at the tone from the usually soft-spoken and friendly man. 

False pointed a tipped arrow directly under his chin, “You’ve got some explaining to do.” She said, voice steely and intimidating.

The admin, Xisuma, faced him from the centre of the group, “I got an alert regarding your code when running the server checks this morning.”

His stomach dropped, panic suddenly coursing through his veins like ice. This was what he’d been fearing, Grian had night terrors about this kind of thing, and now it was actually happening? Words died in his throat, he felt sick. This was it, he had finally been found out. It was nice whilst it lasted, but it was never going to be forever. This had always been temporary. 

They knew he was a Watcher - or at least, had been some kind of Watcher. He was a player that had been stolen and beaten down, and had had their code melted and forged into new shapes that fit their liking. He’d played at their game for a little while, until he finally couldn’t take it anymore, and like a fallen angel had crashed into the server hub. 

Xisuma’s expression was unreadable under the helmet, “We know what you are, and I honestly have no idea how you managed to slip past my defences, but you will not be hurting any of my Hermits.” 

He sounded conflicted, but had clearly made up his mind as to whose side he was on. Grian didn’t blame him, but was still hurt somewhere by how quickly they were to turn on him. 

“I- Please can I just-” 

Doc inched closer, axe barely missing the skin of Grian’s neck, “What did I say. Silence. I don’t want to hear a word from you, creature.”

He just wanted to maybe say goodbye to Mumbo and Scar before Xisuma banned him, or whatever he wanted to do with him, but guess he wasn’t going to even get that. Why was he so stupid, this had happened before, he should know not to let people grow close to him by now. All that ended up happening was him leaving and his friends getting hurt. 

Sliding down to the ground, Grian felt his composure crumble at the thought of Mumbo and Scar being left without him, finding out second-hand that they had been friends with a monster, not the player they thought he was. Tears started to build up behind his eyes, and his breaths started speeding up without him noticing. 

Xisuma was saying something, shifting a weapon in his arms, but Grian didn’t register it. He was lost in his mind, wings brought up from behind him to form a shield from the outside world. Grian could feel the void-bourne magic of powerful Watchers, the pain they inflicted on him, the brightness of a thousand eyes open and searching.

With horror, Xisuma watched as the fairly normal looking person in front of him started changing . Grian seemed to have descended into something akin to a panic attack, but as he slipped further, his wings changed from their usual red-yellow-blue pattern to a deep, inky purple, with black interspersed like freckles of void. 

A guttural cry ripped through the being in front of them, and out of the corner of his eye, Xisuma noticed a glowing purple eye on one of Grian’s feathers. Suddenly, his entire wings were covered in horrifying luminescent eyes, and the overwhelming feeling of being observed and picked apart under the harshest of glares seemed to startle all of the Hermits he had gathered to some extent. 

Xisuma swallowed his fear down at the sight, though whatever sympathy he had left had conveniently left at the wretched sight of the Watcher’s eyes. With a glance around, he noted the disturbed expressions of his fellow Hermits.

“What should we do with… it?” False asked, grip tight enough on her sword that her knuckles had gone a jaundiced yellow, “We– Can you ban it?”

The creature - whatever it was, some kind of Watcher adjacent abomination that had been disguising itself as their friend - was quiet for a moment, only to let out an unbelievably loud and anguished scream, writhing on the floor of the Entity.

“Kill it already!” Doc hissed, though he had backed away and was cowering in pain from the volume, “Before Scar or someone hears!” 

Xisuma hesitated though. There was something off about the situation - despite Grian very clearly being a Watcher, he was nothing like any other Watcher Xisuma had ever encountered. It would make sense if Grian acted defensive and angry when confronted, but if anything he just seemed to have been scared. It wasn’t quite fitting together in his head, and he could see that behind him, Etho and Cleo were exchanging unsure glances. 

As a temporary fix, Xisuma decided he could send the Watcher to his private testing world. It was secure and away from the Hermits, and it would make do whilst they came to a conclusion as a group whilst not under this kind of pressure. 

However, a certain friend of Grian’s came sprinting into the Entity moments before Xisuma could carry out the command. 

“What’s going on? What’s all the noise about– What in the world!” Scar stumbled to a halt merely metres away from the Watcher, “Is that…” He trailed off, looking up at Xisuma with a desperately confused expression.

Cleo pulled Scar back, “Grian’s a spy sent from the Watchers to our server.” They explained, blunt and to the point, “X is going to ban him.”

The Watcher, upon seeing Scar, stopped its horrible screaming and followed him with the hundreds, if not thousands, of eyes. It was strangely calm, opening its wings to reveal that Grian’s clothes had been swapped for flowing lavender and pale purple robes, and that a further pair of wings were closed over its true eyes like a mask. More pairs of the same void-like wings unfolded from its body, yielding a total of four including the facial ones. 

Now, Xisuma’s Galactic wasn’t quite up to scratch, but he did recognise a couple of words amongst the garbled mess that the Watcher spoke. Namely, ‘please’ and ‘help’. Which, well, if the sobbing and screams of anguish hadn’t convinced him, that sealed the deal. This wasn’t what they imagined it to be.

Scar had somehow managed to slip out of Cleo’s grip to creep up to the Watcher, curious and concerned, completely free of the paralysing fear that Xisuma was sure permeated the air around any kind of Watcher. 

From behind him, Etho - an enderian, therefore knowledgeable in Galactic - was frozen in conflicting emotion, eyes locked on the Watcher.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, no one’s gonna hurt you.” Scar muttered, coming impossibly close to the Watcher, oblivious to the claws and talons and stiflingly powerful magic that it wielded, “I know, I know. Grian, you have to calm down for me. I don’t think the others particularly appreciate whatever eldritch funkiness you’ve decided to become today.”

Doc and Xisuma shared a glance of disbelief. The room was silent apart from the heaving, stuttering breaths of the Watcher and Scar’s nonsensical mutterings. Slowly, the wings started to lose their glowing eyes, each one shutting and fading individually. 

“That’s it… I don’t quite know what’s going on, but you still seem like Grian.” Scar justified, “I am going to need an explanation though, mister.”

And the moment Xisuma knew that it was Grian, and not just a Watcher, was when he huffed a little exhausted laugh at Scar’s antics, the extra wings finally dissipating, leaving him slumped against the wall in crumpled robes. 

Xisuma finally found the strength to speak, “Scar, he’s a Watcher.” 

Scar rolled his eyes, “Well, I could tell that much.” He stepped back from Grian, putting his hands on his hips, “Why didn’t you tell anyone, Grian!”

Grian inhaled deeply, sighing, then spoke for the first time, “I– I knew this would happen. That’s why.” He glanced up to Xisuma, then quickly diverted his eyes to the floor again, “I’m neither Watcher nor player. I was a player until– yeah.”

The sound of firework rockets made a couple of the Hermits jump, and Mumbo came gliding into the entrance of the Entity, about as on time as Mumbo could be. 

“What happened?” He asked frantically, “Who was screaming? I swear-”

After Grian explained the full story to them, Pearl by his side, confirming the strange happenings of the Evolution server, the rest of the Hermits got to adjust to not just having Grian on the server, but having Grian who also could now use a whole plethora of unnatural powers. 

Xisuma had mostly gotten used to it, though he’d always hold fear for the Watcher’s themselves, he only had fondness for Hermitcraft’s resident demi-god eldritch being. 

Currently, he was trying his best to get these new tweaks to work on the server, but mods were never really his forte, and he hadn’t taken a break in quite a while. It was taking longer than it should have, but he really wanted to get this sorted out - it was a quality of life thing for the hybrids on the server that were hydrophobic which meant they could have water resistance potions on the server, as well as enchantments on armour. 

He was made aware of the feeling of being watched. Ah, Grian must be checking on him. 

“I’m fine, don’t you worry.” He said aloud, well aware that there was no one in the vicinity. 

The feeling grew, nudging him in a way that should have felt eerie, but instead was familiar. It was still Grian, trying to get him to take a break. 

Suddenly, the sound of the electric kettle boiling water rumbled through the office. Ah, the pesky bird had managed to activate the kettle in his attached kitchen. Well, he might as well get up and make a cup of tea, then. 

A muffled, garbled and echoing voice communicated one word in Galactic in Xisuma’s mind as he got up from his desk: victory! 

He snickered, thanking Grian in his mind, knowing the part-Watcher would hear it.

Chapter Text

Halloween on the Hermitcraft server was generally very relaxed - some Hermits liked to decorate or dress up, others were content with just a night spent by a campfire, exchanging stories. Grian definitely felt more aligned with the latter, especially after playing in the MC Championships. He was tired, and had gotten his fair share of over-the-top Halloween themed celebrations in MCC. 

Hence why he was huddling around a fire with his fellow Hermits, no costumes or ridiculous decorations in sight. There were sweets though - Ren had brought enough to feed an army.

The light was slowly fading from the sky, making the campfire appear brighter as the minutes dragged on. They were waiting on Xisuma to return from the server hub with the monstrous takeaway order for the whole server and Mumbo, who had decided to return to the server for a couple of days. Grian had been talking with him over the phone pretty much every day, but he’d missed seeing his best friend in person, so he was most definitely looking forward to having Mumbo here.

By the time it got properly dark, Xisuma returned with a shulker box full of various health hazards in the form of server hub takeaways. He rarely got food from the hub for the server, but since this was a special occasion Xisuma happily agreed. Mumbo also arrived, but he was fully dressed up in a Halloween costume. 

“Hey mate! Do you like my…” Mumbo spun around in dramatic effect to show off his surprisingly well-made vampire costume, “I’m a vampire! If you couldn’t tell.”

Grian laughed, “Yes, I could tell. Show Scar, he’ll love it.” He glanced over at Scar, who was helping unpack the food, “Don’t catch your cloak on fire.” He grinned, following Mumbo over to the others. 

“Bumbo! I love your costume!” Keralis greeted, handing Mumbo a pizza box, “This one is yours, I believe.”

Grian found his own dinner, some kind of noodle dish that came with a couple spring rolls and some spicy crisps. He thanked Xisuma before sitting down with Mumbo and Scar to eat and catch up. 

It was nice, and Grian found himself thinking about how glad he was that he found a group such as the Hermits. They seemed to understand everything, not asking any questions when Grian requested that they split into two groups for nights like this - those that were drinking and those that weren’t. He’d found so many people that didn’t mind that he didn’t talk about anything before the Hermitcraft server, people who understood. 

“-and then we found out that it was just our friend, not a poltergeist or anything!” Ren finished his story with a chuckle, “We had no clue, it was so funny.” He’d been telling a creepy story of some kind, Grian was only half-listening, mostly trying to think of his own story to tell.

They hadn’t really done much for Halloween on Evolution, and his teen years weren’t exactly campfire story material. Maybe he could tell a somewhat true story and just gloss over the details?

“G-man, you got a story for the campfire?” Ren asked, grinning at him. 

He nodded, “Yeah, I think I do.” With a sinister smirk for dramatic effect, Grian lowered his voice slightly, “This is a really spooky one.”

Scar loved exchanging stories over the fire, especially when it was the Hermits. They were all a bunch of theatre kids, and Ren in particular was incredible at telling a story in a way that grips you and reels you in. 

Grian was sharing now, and that smirk told Scar that he had something planned, which was always either great fun or a problem. 

“This was back when I was a teenager, we were still in high school, and I had just changed schools.” Grian began, and Scar was already interested. Not only was Grian great at storytelling, he also very rarely shared things about his past.

“It was the middle of the night.” He paused, leaving everyone hanging off of his words, “My friends and I had finished trick-or-treating, and as teenagers do, we were committing minor crimes.”

That got a chuckle out of everyone - it was nice to know that Grian hadn’t been much different in his teen years.

“My friend, Sam, and his girlfriend thought it was a great idea to break into the school whilst it was empty. According to him, several students and a teacher had all died in the school, and it was haunted by their ghosts.” He was whispering almost now, and it left an air of tension around the fire, “Me, Sam and our other friend decided to play a little game of chicken in an attempt to impress a couple other students. We broke into the school and tried to stay in there for the longest time possible.”

Scar almost laughed at the idea of Grian and his friends trying to impress other students by breaking into a school. It was almost not surprising that teenage Grian had done his fair share of trespassing and the like. 

“It was completely dark in the school, and I’d never even been there before. I could have easily gotten lost in the long corridors and identical classrooms.” Grian described, setting everyone on edge, “Then, at the end of the corridor, my friends and I saw something. Some kind of figure. An apparition, floating lifelessly in the hallway.” 

Scar exchanged a look with Mumbo, who looked just as clueless and slightly disturbed.

“Sam and my friend recognise him, they say; ‘that’s the teacher who hung himself in one of the classrooms’.” He paused, letting the information set in, “The next ghost we saw my friend also recognised. It was the girl he had dated, but had been murdered! At this point, we decided we should probably bail, but we were still playing the game of chicken. I won, obviously.” 

Scar stared with disbelief, “Were you guys okay in the end?” He felt incredibly bad for Grian’s friends, that sounded like it must’ve been downright traumatising. 

Grian shrugged, “Well, not really.” 

“How? Did something happen?” Scar was kind of worried now, which whilst ghost stories were supposed to be spooky, they weren’t supposed to be downright concerning. 

“My friend got stabbed, we were in a car crash, he was in the hospital for weeks and– yeah. It was a whole thing.” Grian explained, sounding incredibly nonchalant, then he smiled and said, “Get this - Sam missed our friend so much he made me dress up like him and called me by his name and forced me to act like him!” He told it like a joke, like he expected the Hermits to start laughing, “Kinda hilarious looking back, even though I was losing my mind in the moment.”

There was an uncomfortable silence, and Grian started talking to fill it, “I mean, I guess I deserved it, for letting Taurtis drive the car with a stab wound of all things. Sam said it was my fault, after all. At least I didn’t rat Sam out for stabbing him!” Grian had started wringing his hands in nervous gesture, “Guys? Don’t tell me you’re that freaked out, that’s nowhere near the worst thing that happened when I was in school.” 

Ren finally spoke up, “Grian. My dude. That’s– that sounds serious. That sounds like– like gaslighting, or manipulation.” He voiced the rest of the Hermits’ thoughts.

The jovial atmosphere had turned sour and awkward, and now Grian was closing in on himself. Scar felt anxiety bubble up - just what had happened to Grian in high school if that was nowhere near the worst thing?

“I think we might have to cut this campfire night a little short, peeps.” Xisuma said, “Let’s, uh, give Grian some space.”

Most of the other Hermits nodded, though Scar knew he’d be staying with Grian.

“Is that why you always wear your sweater?” Scar asked, hoping to pull Grian out of whatever self-deprecating spiral he had for sure started going down.

Grian furrowed his brows, confused out of his catastrophizing, “Huh?”

“Your sweater. Is it because you’re worried people might not recognise you without your signature red jumper?”

Grian went silent, expression flickering through a thousand complex emotions. He shook his head, pressing his fingers into his eyes, “God, this is so stupid. It wasn’t even that bad compared to-” He sounded on the verge of tears.

Scar shushed him, “But it’s obviously upsetting you, right? You’re allowed to feel upset about things, no matter how long ago they happened or how ‘not that bad’ you think they were.”

Through gritted teeth and held back tears, Grian snarled, “It’s not– Stop treating it like it’s trauma or something. It’s just a thing that happened years ago. It doesn’t matter.” 

With a concerned glance at Ren, who returned the sentiment, Scar turned back to Grian and assured, “There’s nothing wrong with having a past. A lot of the Hermits have had bad things happen to them in the past. You just have to accept that some things are going to be harder than others, and move on with life.”

“I’m not traumatised though.” Grian insisted, “Sam used to tease me for it back then, but I’m fine now, I’m not crazy.” 

Cringing, Scar ignored the several things wrong with whatever Grian just said, then gently took the other’s hands into his own, “It’s perfectly normal to have things that scare you and make you panic, it doesn’t make you crazy or anything.” 

Grian chewed his cheek, obviously reeling from the recent realisation. He let Scar take his hands, and tears started to streak down his face, “It hurts.” He whispered, voice scratchy and full of emotion.

Scar ran his thumbs over Grian’s knuckles in a soothing motion, “I know.” He muttered, “You’re okay, you’re still Grian, our friend, and we still love you.”

Ren piped up from behind him, “Yeah dude, whatever happened, we’re still your friends.” 

“What Ren said!” Mumbo added, “I may be a spoon, but I’ve stuck with you all these years, and I’m not stupid enough to turn on you because of something that happened in highschool.”

Grian choked a laugh through his sobbing, smiling teary-eyed at Scar, then at Mumbo and Ren, “Okay. Okay.” He murmured, gripping Scar’s hands, “I’ve killed people before though. I’ve done awful things.”

“Did you want to?” Scar asked, “Or were you stuck?”

With that, Grian shattered into sobs, leaning into Scar’s chest. He placed a hand above Grian’s wings, just on his shoulders, and held the avian as he broke down. 

Scar didn’t care what Grian had done. He knew Grian, and despite his mischief and pranks, he was incredibly kind at heart. He’d talked Grian down from panic attacks, flashbacks and night terrors, and knew that there was a lot going around his head.

“We’ll work this out…” Scar murmured, “Don’t worry.”

Ren spoke up, “Hey, uh, G-man, do you want something from my selection of sweets?” 

Pulling away from Scar, Grian narrowed his eyes at Ren, “Do you have KitKats?” 

Mumbo snorted from behind them, “Oddly specific.” He teased, grinning at Grian, who threw an unimpressed look back at him.

“Quiet, Mumbo, I need a sugar fix.” His voice still sounded broken up from crying, but otherwise he didn’t sound like he’d just come out the other end of a breakdown.

Ren handed Grian the chocolate bar, “Here you go!” 

Grian took it gratefully, opening and taking a bite, then he said, “This is the first time I’ve had one of these since high school. I avoided them because I basically lived off of KitKats and other trash back then.” He explained, “My parents just gave me some money, then wanted nothing to do with me.”

“And yet another thing to add to the ‘talk about later’ pile!” Scar exclaimed, “But for now, let’s go find somewhere warm and cosy. It’s getting late and I want to sleep.”

Ren kicked dirt over the fire, putting it out, “I vote pillow-fort time and sleepover.”

“To the Elven Tree!” Scar cried, “I have all the supplies and the cookies!”

Chapter Text

Pearl, despite not having been there for the first of the life games, already held a hatred for the hearts engraved into her wrist. The third rendition of the games was well underway by now, and though the first few weeks had gone deceptively well, things hadn’t stayed as such.

Her adventures with Martyn had been almost enjoyable, they worked well as a team and spent a good few weeks traversing the nether. They didn’t even know of a ‘soulmate’ system until they finally returned to the overworld and made contact with the other players, who seemed to have worked out what those strange, phantom pains were. 

Pearl had never meant any harm, but she’d caused it alright. Scott, who she quickly realised was her soulmate, was devastated and angry, and had apparently decided to team with Cleo, who turned out to be Martyn’s soulmate. 

It was messy and painful, though somehow Pearl had come out of it the worst. Scott and Cleo were happily working together and ignoring their soulbounds, Martyn was still on good terms with the majority of the players, minus some minor irritation thanks to his obtrusively ugly house. Pearl, on the other hand, had isolated herself on reflex, and was now thoroughly regretting it.

She’d built herself a tower, tall and defensible, with one small room at the top. She’d surrounded herself with animals, namely her pet dog Tilly, and convinced herself that she would be fine. She was fine.

Most of her days were spent focused on surviving, she fished in the nearby stream and spent hours upon hours underground, until she started to hallucinate and breathing became almost impossible in the thick, cave air. Some nights, she sat out in the freezing air, perched on the windowsill of her tower, one miscalculated move from dropping to her, and by proxy Scott’s, death. 

The cold slowly started to creep into her bones, like a virus, gripping and twisting her thoughts, leaving days to blur into nights and back into days. The cold, clear nights were her only friend, the night air biting at her skin, reminding her that she was real, reassuring her that Scott would feel every sting.

After the pool party and the incident with at Box that caused Ren and BigB to end up on red, she was regarded by most of the server as insane, having fallen victim to the death games once and for all, despite having spent the least amount of time stuck in them compared to the rest of the players. 

Pearl was wandering the woodland around her tower, two hearts engraved into her wrist, a jaundiced and sickly yellow. She had taken to biting the inside of her cheek, hoping she would wake up Scott from whatever sleep he had fallen into. 

She found the stream that she used for water and fishing, and decided to scoop up the flowing water into a bucket. It was well below freezing, but due to the rushing water, it didn’t freeze except for the water around the banks. 

Without even flinching, she plunged both of her hands into the painfully cold water, laughing to herself as she felt a startled rush of fear from the other side of the soulbound. That was a new thing, they’d gone from just sharing to pain, to actually sharing injuries, to now broadcasting their emotions. Pearl hoped, with some kind of twisted glee, that Scott could feel her crushing loneliness and the unpredictable, incomprehensible thoughts that constantly assaulted her consciousness. 

The ghostly feeling of another’s hand on her back - or Scott’s back, really - brought her out of her vengeful ruminations, tearing her from anger and hatred all the way to grief and jealousy like an arrowhead being ripped from the skin. She was oh so cold out here, sitting on the dirt with her hands in a bucket of water, but she could feel the suggestion of warmth on her back and shoulder, like the universe was holding it over her head and sneering ‘ look what you could have had ’. 

The bucket of water had already started to freeze over. She picked up the small sheet of ice from the top, marvelling as it didn’t melt in her hands like it should have done, then reaching back and pressing the ice into the back of her neck. It worked to chase away the phantom sensations for a moment, but not for long. 

Biting her cheek, Pearl felt rage bubble up inside of her like a sickness, and she would have thrown up if she had eaten anything in the last few days. Screaming, she jumped up and kicked the bucket over, hands finding a grip in her tangled hair, tugging like it would pull the confusing thoughts out of her mind.

What in the world was she doing out here? She should be making alliances, preparing for battle, forging herself weapons, not living up to her reputation as the insane lady in the forest. 

Then the distinct feeling of a hug from the other side of the soulbound reminded her why she was doing this. She had no one - the one person who should have been on her side no matter what had abandoned her for another. With another desperate, broken scream, she punched a nearby tree, the pain muffled by numbness but still lancing up her arm and settling in her shoulder.

Her knuckles were bleeding, and she watched with satisfaction as the blood slowly rose to the surface of her skin, much slower than it should have done. She hoped Scott could feel this. She hoped Scott knew what he had done to her. She hoped Scott knew how much this ridiculous betrayal hurt after the last life game. 

She slid down the tree, coming to sit on the ground again, breathing laboured and cold down to the very code that made up her existence. A wave of some indescribable emotion wracked through her, shuddering and twitching like a freshly killed corpse, and then the familiar pressure in her sinuses built up. Biting her lip to delay the tears and only succeeding in splitting it and making it bleed, Pearl felt the most desolate form of love - grief. She didn’t know exactly what she was grieving, but it was for sure something to do with the ghostly embrace and the second-hand warmth that only served to taunt her from Scott’s side of the soulbound. She should be the one holding her best friend after a nightmare. 

Each sob was ugly and physically painful, her bleeding knuckles slowly coming into view as the sun rose. The sky mocked a forest fire through the dark, leafless trees, and Pearl watched as her tears dried to her cheeks, uncomfortable like the rest of her existence. 

She was so hungry. She really should have focused more on trying to gather and hunt food, but everything felt so impossible right now. The coldness and tiredness had settled somewhere deep inside her, and pinned her to the ground.

She felt herself drifting, and instead of fighting it, she let herself float away, mind in some kind of liminal space. It was almost peaceful in some strange way, the world felt too far away to matter and the only thing that existed was the thrum of pain that at this point was a comforting constant. 

Footsteps crunching through the early morning forest sparked a glimmer of fear that pulled her back to the real world. There was another being here, player or not, and it was most likely a danger to her in some way. 

Prepared for the worst, Pearl opened her eyes and searched the trees. In place of the bloodthirsty red-eye player she had been imagining was Scar, eyes green and dull in a way that was unusual for him. He had a slump to his posture that suggested his soulbound, Grian, had once again said something or done something completely insensitive. 

Despite having a distinct feeling she knew him from somewhere else, Pearl knew little to nothing about the admin other than he had a very complicated relationship with Scar and that he was dangerous no matter what life he was on. 

“Pearl?” Scar called out upon noticing her, “What in the world are you doing out here?” He reached the stream, eyeing the bucket kicked over on the grass. 

Pearl choked on her words, curling up further into herself, biting at her lip and cringing as it bled. 

Scar scowled, coming to sit next to her, “Are we both having soulbound troubles?” He asked, surveying her bloody knuckles and purple nails, “Did you need bandages? I stole plenty from Grian.”

Pearl managed a little laugh at that, “I’m doing just fine, Scar.” She assured him, trying to smile at him, but from his expression it was the opposite of reassuring. 

“Yeah…” Scar hummed, “Here, let me bandage your hand, then we can go up to your tower and complain about things!” He gently took her hand in his, “Sweet baby Jellie, your hands are cold!”

“I’ve been out here all night, I think.” She explained, feeling Scar’s warmth tingle through her skin, chasing away a bit of the cold feeling.

Scar shook his head, “Now that just won’t do. We’re going to your tower and having hot tea and then you’re sleeping for at least eight hours.” He chided, wiping Pearl’s knuckles and placing a makeshift bandage on them. 

Pearl stared at their hands as Scar wrapped the bandage around her knuckles, noting the little scabs on Scar’s arms, tiny circle-shaped surface wounds that looked like someone had taken a particularly sharp stick and repeatedly poked Scar’s forearms with it. 

“What are the scabs on your arms from?” Pearl asked, “Are they from the pandas?”

“Oh no!” Scar shook his head, tying up the bandage relatively tight, “These aren’t mine, these are Grian’s. He’s got a nasty habit of plucking his feathers, and though I can’t feel the ones on his wings, I can feel the ones on his arms and neck and especially on his face.”

Pearl hummed, “That’s annoying.” It was also somehow reassuring that she wasn’t the only one who was irritated at their soulbound. Despite them living together at the Red Velvet Keep, Scar had joined Pearl on some of her less insane attempts to punish her soulmate. They’d stood in snow together on the mountains, sometimes for hours on end, waiting until their heartbeat slowed and they stopped feeling cold to crawl out and back down to warmer, less thin air. 

“It is insanely annoying.” Scar muttered, “He’s a completely ridiculous man, it feels so often like he’s avoiding me on purpose, but when I finally say I want to leave, he begs me to work with him. As if he’s not actively working against me.”

Pearl nodded, “I get that. I really wanted to work with Scott again, but I had no idea that he felt all the injuries from the nether during those first few weeks. I never meant to hurt him.” She muttered, feeling an arm around her shoulder, though this time it wasn’t a phantom touch, it was the grounding warmth of Scar. 

He gave her a sad smile, “Come on, let’s go get warmed up.”

Chapter Text

False didn’t remember a time where she wasn’t on guard, fighting or running for her life. Survival instinct was woven into her very existence, and even after years on the peaceful sanctuary that was Hermitcraft, some things don’t change, and old habits die hard. 

It turned out, suddenly going from not knowing whether you were going to make it through the next twenty-four hours alive to being on possibly the safest server in the whole universe took a little bit of adjusting. False, contrary to what she told the other Hermits, never really made that adjustment. She, in her mind at least, was still living on adrenaline and survival instinct. She was still waiting for the next thing to go wrong.

Logically, she knew that nothing could hurt her on the Hermitcraft server, but that didn’t stop her mind from wandering into paranoid depths and conjuring night terrors that would shake anyone. Her code, the very makeup of her existence, was mutilated and violated beyond repair thanks to her time spent entrapped in underground servers that acted as a hiding place for anti-hybrid extremists and a whole collection of sick individuals who ducked and slithered out of the way of the universal laws. 

The charcoal black scales that covered patches of her skin like some kind of necrotic rash were a constant reminder. She would never be the same again. 

Most days, she threw herself into work, collecting or building for her cyberpunk themed base. It was easy to get lost in the repetitive motions of mining terracotta or building up large walls. Her constant working had already yielded a bedrock-deep scar in the land in which her build would sit. 

Today was one of those days - she’d woken up after an unsatisfying night’s sleep, ingested a near-lethal amount of black coffee and exactly one half of a slice of bread (cut thinly, no butter, crusts removed). The feeling of absolute control over everything she ingested was one of the main things that kept her afloat. She gripped onto that control tightly, as if she might lose it again, and ignored how awful it made her feel physically. 

She was currently trying out a design for the front of her main tower. Once it was tweaked to what she thought might look good this time, she took off into the air, flight muscles burning with fatigue and overuse. It still looked awkward and out of place, though, even after multiple corrections. 

Landing on the ledge of the huge, rectangular hole in the earth, False bit her cheek, wondering just what in the world she was doing wrong. Her mind chased itself around in circles, always returning to the fact that she, personally, wasn’t good enough. Maybe if she had been stronger, maybe if she had changed herself, she wouldn’t have spent years in captivity like the animal they had believed she was. And finally, maybe then, she would be good enough to build alongside other Hermits such as Keralis or Bdubs. 

She was spiralling, and fast. Over something as stupid and unimportant as a design on a build. 

False gritted her teeth and took off once more, flying into her tower and finding somewhere private to have whatever breakdown was peeking over the horizon. Already, she could feel the fog of dissociation settling in her mind, one of the warning signs that she was about to have some kind of panic attack. Despite the episodes being difficult to remember, she’d had enough of them to piece together vaguely what happened. 

Finding her bedroom, False shut the door and slowly sat down on the bed, reminding herself to breath as the blurry, far away feeling washed over her and took away all the frustration and hatred. There was a distinct feeling of almost peacefulness, until a sharp spike of fear pierced through her middle, the adrenaline starting to slink its way into her bloodstream. 

She spiralled further, thoughts surfacing that were paranoid to the point of being delusions, shadows starting to lean and shudder in her vision, though her grip on her breathing remained iron tight as her panic built up. With her heart now beating in her throat, though, she couldn’t help curling into herself in the corner of the room, her nails finding purchase in her hair. 

The pain was grounding for a moment, until her eyes drifted closed and then she knew that there was no stopping the panic attack that would happen next. As soon as her eyes closed, she lost control of her breathing, descending into short, frequent breaths. They came out shuddering and painful, until the pace started to pick up and she felt the presence of someone else that she knew distantly was nothing but a conjuring of her mind, but it was enough to send her into full blown hyperventilation.

The worst was yet to come though, she still had a grip on reality and some kind of control. It was slipping, though.

The phantom feeling of hands gripping her lower body was the final tipping point.

Her now violently shaking hands tensed painfully as she held them out in front of her against her will, her mind slipped into something akin to a flashback, eyes closed, gasping for breath. 

She felt hands that weren’t there. Hands, gripping, pulling, demanding. A string of desperate, whispered pleas escaped past her lips, though it quickly elevated in volume.

Soon she was screaming, aware of the pain in her throat, but her consciousness was too far locked into a fight-flight-freeze response, all three turned up to full, pinning her down, leaving her thrashing. 

Cleo tended to keep to herself, preferring to mind her own business most of the time, though today was the third day in a row that she hadn’t received a message from False. The worry for her good friend had led her to the towering buildings that made up False’s season seven base, and immediately upon entering the tower, she knew something was wrong. The blood curdling screaming was a fairly good pointer.

They rushed to False’s room, feeling their own panic pick up. She sounded so viscerally scared, it was hard to believe there was no actual threat. Knocking on the door, they received no answer besides more hoarse shouts, and decided to enter the room. 

She sat a good metre away from False, burying her nerves and starting to talk.

“False, it’s me, Cleo.” They kept their voice level and calm, contrary to the raging anxiety in their stomach, “You’re on the Hermitcraft season seven server. You’re in your tower. There’s no one else but you and me in this room. You are completely safe.” 

She continued to repeat things of the same vein until False descended into shuddering breaths and sobs. Her eyes finally opened, meeting Cleo’s for a split second before returning to the ground. 

They knew that False struggled massively with vulnerability - it was drilled into her at a young age that griffin hybrids like her were meant to be strong and stoic. It had taken a while for False to be comfortable with Cleo even being near her, but countless conversations, shared trauma-dumping sessions and confessions later, False seemed to fully trust Cleo. 

“I’m sorry.” False muttered, “I was ignoring your messages.”

Cleo offered a hand to False, and she gripped it gently, “It’s fine, I was just a little worried.”

Shuffling a little closer so that they were sat shoulder-to-shoulder, False hummed, “I’m fine. Relatively.”

“Sure.” Cleo let out a little stress-fueled laugh, “How have you been?”

False sighed, “I’ve been– yeah. Alright.” She shifted uncomfortably, letting her wings spread out a bit more. She took a hand up to her head and started running her fingers around one of her dark horns, a nervous habit. 

“Have you been hurting yourself?” Cleo asked softly, “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, I just want to know if I need to bandage anything.”

False pressed her lips together for a moment, pensive, then nodded solemnly, pulling off the leather fingerless gloves that she claimed to anyone else were for protecting her hands when using a bow. 

There were a collection of smaller scratches, along with a couple deeper wounds, only about a day old. Cleo felt their heart surge with fiery protectiveness, and they silently pulled out their first aid supplies from their small bag of useful stuff to have in an emergency. 

Tenderly, she wiped False’s arm with an antiseptic wipe, placing plasters over the deeper wounds. She looked up into False’s conflicted expression, and smiled softly.

“You know, if anyone else had done that to you, I would kill them with my bare hands.” They stated, rolling down False’s sleeves.

Startled slightly, False laughed, pulling her gloves back over the half-scaly, half humanoid skin of her wrists. She wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

Cleo opened her arms in invitation to an embrace, and after a moment of hesitation, False wrapped both her arms and wings around her, gripping her with the unnatural and impressive strength of a griffin hybrid, until she slumped against Cleo’s chest, exhausted. 

After a few hours and a good amount of retail therapy in the shopping district later, Cleo took False back to her base, despite it being a little bit of a mess and nowhere near complete. False had promised Cleo that she’d eat something once they got there, even though that ended up with them sitting on the floor, Cleo with a sandwich and a banana, False with a single boiled egg and three crackers. 

Truthfully, it scared them. Cleo had never really understood quite why False coped the way she did, but all they saw was that it was hurting her and that they wanted to help. This meal, however painful it was to look at, was better than nothing. 

She didn’t know whether the other Hermits really noticed False’s unhealthy coping mechanisms, or whether she was just so good at hiding all her struggling that only Cleo knew about the large scars on her torso. She’d stitched a couple up before, though that was a while ago, when things were really bad. Most of the time, all she could do was to clean and dress the cuts and leave them to heal with whatever minimal energy False had.

The way False presented herself made it easy for her to hide behind a false bravado, something stoic and unwavering, a mask to hide her crumbling mind and body. Cleo could see how easy it was to believe from the outside. 

They wished they could repair everything, fight away the problem, kick someone’s face in, though there was nothing to fight by now. The fractured pieces of False’s past that they knew about could be placed together to form some kind of coherent timeline, but there was nothing they could do to change it. 

Right now, all she could do was to sit with False, ask her if she wanted an apple, and if her face screwed up and she said no, Cleo would just have to hold back the urge to scream at her, ‘ you’re literally disintegrating into nothing in front of my eyes, you are dying, please, please, please–’ and to place the innocent piece of fruit back into the bowl. 

Somedays, she would take out her frustration whilst Joe listened, and eventually, when her voice was sore from emotion, he would calmly rationalise and pick apart why she felt like that, explaining and weaving her impulsive, fiery emotions into poetic words that made sense of all.

Right now, they would hold False in their arms as she broke down, biting their tongue when their hand brushed over her spine, feeling every vertebrae, even the beginnings of her ribs. 

She would preen her wings, not saying a word when more feathers fell from her plumage, the glossy sheen long lost. 

And things would be okay, someday. It would be more okay, at least. 

Chapter Text

Hermitcraft was an escape, a safe haven far away from anything that may have happened before a player’s arrival. Most people on the server, however, had friends and family that they were still on good terms with, and to allow players to meet with said friends and family whilst also avoiding jeopardising the security of the server, the group had a designated visitation time every six months or so.

Each individual Hermit had a day that they could have others visit the server by sending encrypted invites across the inter-server communications to anyone they wanted to have spend the day in Hermitcraft. A select few Hermits decided to opt out of the program, knowing they had no-one from their past that they wanted to see again, but most spent their day catching up with their friends and touring the large-scale builds of the server. 

This was probably going to be the last visitation day Grian tries to invite anyone to the server. He’d tried since season six, and he was losing hope at this point. Each time, he sent out multiple invites weeks in advance, and got nothing in return. He’d gotten more and more desperate, going from sending a couple of invites to Evolution members, to going as far as to dig out the old IGN’s of his high school friends. 

Now it was just past midday on his visitation day, and no one had shown up, just as he had expected. Sat on the top of Scar’s elven tree, eyes locked on the spawn, Grian found himself once again mourning for his lost friends. Those from Evolution that he never managed to save, and going even farther back, those from high school that he left behind after being moved by witness protection services, and then eventually escaping the server by making a deal with the Watchers. 

Grian let his thoughts wander, until a strange muffled shouting drew him out of his rumination. It almost sounded like someone was calling his name. The noise was coming from inside Scar’s tree, in one of the thicker branches, strangely enough. 

Pulling out an axe, Grian scaled down the tree a little to reach the branch. The noise was definitely someone shouting his name. What in the world? Who was inside Scar’s tree, and what kind of sick prank idea was this?

The wood splintered, and Grian couldn’t believe his eyes, because hidden in the literal crawl space inside Scar’s tree was a person he thought he’d never see again. 

“Grian! Thank goodness, it was getting really hot and stuffy in there.” Taurtis climbed out of the branch, brushing himself off like this was a normal thing to be happening, “I’m thirsty, is there anywhere I can get a drink in this weird place?”

Grian gawked at the man, briefly wondering whether or not he’d finally lost his marbles, “Taurtis. You’re– you’re here.” He choked up on the sudden rush of emotions. He had been so sure that Taurtis had fallen victim to the corruption that enveloped the Evo server after he was abducted, though the person in front of him was most definitely alive and thriving. 

“Well, duh. I’m not over there, am I?” He grinned and lightly shoved Grian, “I found Martyn and he pulled out some kind of invitation for me! Did you know he’s gone into datastream regulation?” 

Grian shook his head, “I– Taurtis, I thought you all perma-died.” He let out a little stress fueled laugh, “I thought everyone on Evo was dead.”

“What? No!” Taurtis giggled, “We found a way to escape.” He started climbing down the tree, “Oh, also, I brought a few others along with me, they’re probably waiting at spawn right now!” 

Sudden anxiety started to flood in, Grian didn’t know who Taurtis might have invited. Was it other Evo server members? His mind ran circles around itself, usually coming back to the conclusion that Taurtis had obliviously led a particular rabbit hybrid back to Grian’s safe space. He loved Taurtis, but he never seemed to grasp that Grian was left scarred by high school. 

“Don’t worry, it’s only people that Martyn found invites for!” Taurtis assured him, “What is this place, anyway? Wait! No, don’t tell me, I’ve seen this before! In another universe– Hermitcraft!” He shouted, pointing at Grian, “See, you didn’t believe me, you had no faith in me–”

“I did Taurtis, I trust you.” Grian laughed, feeling tears starting to build in his eyes from the pure emotion of it all, “Gods, you don’t know how much I missed you.”

“Aw, Grian, don’t cry! You’ll make me cry!” Taurtis started walking toward spawn, patting Grian’s back in a show of some kind of reassurance, “Dude, seriously, you don’t want to make me cry.”

Grian frowned, “Huh? Why not?” He squinted, trying to make out anyone he knew waiting at spawn.

“I shoot lasers from my eyes when I cry.” Taurtis announced nonchalantly, “I can’t control it, it’s a bit–”

“You don’t.”

“I do! I swear! It’s just a bit… inconsistent.” Taurtis grinned. He’d always been like this - making up random lies that were so out of left field they were funny, and using it to avoid seriousness. 

Grian shook his head and sighed, but truly he had missed this teasing and joking. Even if it was slightly odd, it was so very Taurtis, and he’d definitely missed his best friend’s eccentric nature.

They shared a quiet laugh as they approached spawn, but Grian stopped when he saw what he was sure was a group of his old friends from high school. They looked slightly different, naturally, but he could recognise Ellen’s eccentric taste in fashion anywhere. 

“Taurtis, how did you do this?” He whispered, still in disbelief, “How– I’ve been trying to contact them for years!”

Taurtis simply shrugged, “I’m simply that amazing.” He placed a hand on Grian’s back and guided him forward as the people noticed them.

His mind stalled, he hadn’t seen Ellen or Silly or Domrao for over a decade now, and here they were, in Hermitcraft, right in front of him. 

“See, I told you he was here!” Taurtis announced to the three, shoving Grian forward gently, “Now, heal from your trauma or something!” 

Ellen was the first to speak, “I’m surprised you’re still alive.” They deadpanned, a small smirk working its way onto their face, until they gave in and opened their arms in an invitation for a hug, “We all missed you, and I thought I’d never see you again.”

Grian fought back his tears once more, giving into the hug. It was firm, and lasted just a few seconds until they pulled away. 

“We’ve got a lot of catching up to do!” Dom said, pulling Grian into yet another hug, “You wouldn’t believe the things that have happened since high school.”

Grian smiled and shook his head, “I think I have a fair amount of wild stories to share.”

They toured the spawn area, Ellen explaining how they’d gotten into code magic, and how they now had a small, stable business working privately with large servers. They still dabbled in fortune telling and the like, but they seemed to be doing well, even being commissioned by the organisers of MCC to help with the complicated code magic the games needed to function.

Grian took them to his base, and Silly explained how she and her mother escaped the server and after nearly a year of staying in refuge servers, they finally got a place in a residential server that had a good reputation. From there, Silly mentioned that she’d carried on her education, and was now working part-time as a teacher whilst also writing books. She’d only released two titles so far, one of them being a documentation on her years in high school. Apparently, it had sold very well, being described as an excellent critique of admin power abuse and neglect. 

As they explored Scarland and peered over the perimeter, Domrao described his venture into the entertainment industry, how he had ghostwritten for many famous players and helped produce videos and short films from popular servers. He was currently working with Ellen and a team of professionals to create a documentary on the events that occurred at their old server. 

“We’re hoping to finish it in a few month’s time.” He said, following the others along the edge of the perimeter, “So, Grian, what have you been doing all these years?”

He hummed, trying to find a way to tell a similar story whilst also dancing around the whole Watcher situation, “Well, at first I was working creating scenery for a few groups that did comedic skits and movies. I worked for CraftedMovie mostly, but I did create sets for other groups like ItsJerryandHarry.” 

“I underwent Admin training and helped to set up Wynncraft, and then made my own personal project called Evolution. After a while, I got an invitation to Hermitcraft, and I’ve been here ever since.” 

Ellen chuckled, “Wow, and to think that you’re the same Grian from high school.” They placed a firm hand on his shoulder, “Well done, I’m glad you made something for yourself out there.”

With a grin, he replied, “And the same to you guys. I’d love to check out this documentary you’re making.” 

Domrao returned his enthusiasm, mentioning that they needed to arrange a day for Grian to come to the studio and maybe do an interview. It was exciting, but also nerve wracking, bringing up old and buried thought patterns. 

“This place is incredible, by the way.” Silly pointed at the huge chunk-error of a base that Doc had created, “I can hardly see the other end of it.”

Taurtis peered down at the exposed bedrock hundreds of blocks below them, “Yeah, how do you even mine that much stone?”

The fizzle of a firework alerted them to the presence of the owner of such an insane feat of stamina.

Doc landed beside Grian, “I didn’t mine it, actually.” 

“Hi Doc.” Grian grinned, “These are my old friends from high school.”

Ellen was the only one out of the four that didn’t look outright terrified, “Cool eye.” They pointed to the redstone powered mechanical eye that Doc used. 

He chuckled, “Thank you, I made it myself.”

Grian surveyed the rest of his old friends’ expressions, “Guys, this is Doc. He may look and act intimidating, but I promise you he’s actually a big softie.”

“If you’re causing problems again,” Doc threatened, glaring at Grian, “then there are a few charged creepers that might just find their way into your base.”

Grian smirked, “Me? Causing problems?” He turned to glance at his friends, “I would never…”

Ellen rolled their eyes, “Grian, have you really not changed since high school?” 

A sliver of fear worked its way into Grian’s thoughts, though he just kept smiling at Doc, hoping that Ellen didn’t accidentally tell Doc too much.

Laughing heartily, Doc shook his head, “He’s always poking around in my redstone, pressing buttons and flicking levers, man.” 

“Sounds about right.” Taurtis added.

“Well, I wasn’t exactly thinking about that kind of causing problems.” Ellen hummed, “Grian, have you told anyone about high school?”

He froze, not knowing whether this was better than Ellen just outright telling Doc some of the occurrences from high school. Doc looked confused and mildly concerned, joking grin gone from his expression. 

Silly sighed, “I’m taking that as a no.” She glanced back at Domrao and Ellen, the atmosphere quickly falling away from lighthearted and joking.

He really did not want to do this today. His poor mind was already overwhelmed with the sudden visit from Taurtis, who he thought was dead, and three of his old high school friends that he had mostly left behind in memories. 

Grian bit his cheek, fighting to keep his face mostly neutral as the tension between the group grew. 

“Grian, have you even gone to therapy?” Silly asked, “Have you at least tried it?”

He shook his head. He didn’t need help - and plus, therapy would mean leaving the Hermitcraft server and going into the main hub, which he would not be doing anytime soon. The risk of Them finding him without Hermitcraft’s carefully constructed security measures was way too high. 

Doc frowned, “Should I leave?” 

Silly stopped him, starting to explain something, but Grian was too far away to focus on it. He was busy sorting out his racing thoughts and keeping his composure somewhat put together. Right now, dissociation was temptingly easy, but then he’d also be fairly unresponsive to everyone else, which would just make them more concerned. 

He balanced carefully on the edge, fighting the pull to regress into his mind and let his consciousness drift, letting his thoughts be dulled by the far-away feeling.

“Yeah, of course I’ve heard of it.” The rumble of Doc’s baritone permeated his dissociation, “That server was the reason weapon mods were completely banned from permadeath servers.”

Oh, they must be talking about the residential server that he grew up on, Grian thought. He didn’t want to talk about that server. 

“Hey, uh, Grian?” Doc asked, looking down at him, “You all good there?”

He stared intently at nothing for a moment, trying to herd his thoughts into some kind of normal human speech, “Uh… My brain’s gone. Checked out.” He tried to explain, but it was difficult to make dissociation make sense when one was fully present, let alone halfway out of it.

Taurtis and Dom were saying something, but he didn’t hear it. 

“Okay,” Doc chuckled, obviously not fully understanding, but getting the gist of it, “Did you want me to leave? Or, like, I dunno, should I get Scar?”

Grian shook his head, “Just need to… ground. Myself.” He forced the words out, sentences coming out backwards and broken up, but somewhat understandable.

Doc glanced back at Silly and Ellen, then to Grian again, “Did you want like, a hug or something? I know I’m probably not the first choice to come to mind when you think of-”

“It’s okay.” Grian swallowed, stepping into Doc’s personal space as a way of accepting the offer, then bracing himself for contact. 

Nervously, as if afraid of his own strength, Doc wrapped his arms around Grian. He made sure to avoid his wings, placing one arm over his shoulders and tucking another in the space between his right wing and his back. It was tense and awkward, but after a few seconds Grian started coming down to Earth from wherever his brain was trying to whisk him away to, and he relaxed into the surprisingly calming embrace. 

Doc, whilst not exactly giving off ‘cuddly’ vibes, was definitely a good hugger. He was also much taller than Grian, meaning he could tuck the avian just under his chin. It felt oddly safe, the overwhelmed feelings slowly melting away. 

After about a minute of just being held, Grian backed out of the hug, quietly thanking Doc. 

In the time that he’d been grounding himself, Xisuma had appeared and was talking with Taurtis and Silly. Ellen was still hovering near him, obviously wanting to help but not knowing how. 

“Oh! Grian, good to see you’re okay, I was just having a chat with these folks.” Xisuma greeted, gesturing to Taurtis, Domrao and Silly, “It’s nice to see some fresh faces visiting the server.”

He nodded, feeling better for the long hug. 

“Well!” Taurtis announced, “We should be on our way, but first, give me your communicator!” 

Grian hesitated for a moment, processing Taurtis’ energetic demeanour, before pulling out an old model communicator - he refused to upgrade it - and passing it to him. Taurtis entered his IGN, passing it to Silly, who did the same thing. Eventually, all four had put their IGN’s into Grian communicator so that he could contact them through interserver communications. 

A few bittersweet goodbyes later, and Grian was left with Doc, Xisuma and a lot of explaining to do.

Chapter Text

Jimmy was shaking. He was shaking quite violently, actually, so much so that locking the door of his house was proving itself a very difficult task. Why was he locking the door behind himself? Probably paranoia, but he didn’t dwell on it. As Grian had said when he first showed his face in Tumble Town: Jimmy wasn’t safe anywhere.

It had started off as a well meaning joke, just a little gag. He was fine with it - he’d found it quite funny at first. Well, until Joel built what he dubbed ‘the wallpaper’. 

It got out of hand too quickly. It should have ended with the stupid little toys that Joel somehow kept making, but Joel was never one for half-hearted pranks. Or even just common sense. No, he had to take this stupid joke and gang up on him with Grian of all people. 

Every day he was told over and over again by multiple people that he was a toy, and each time he had to tell himself that no, he was a human, an avian hybrid at that, nowhere near a toy, and definitely real. 

He should have told them. He really should have told them, they would understand and drop the bit. But he couldn’t.

So Jimmy locked the door behind himself and stumbled into the kitchen, boiling some water for a cup of tea, hands still shaking. Why was he being so over dramatic about this? It was just a bit of teasing, light banter between friends. They did this all the time. The Hermits had had an outright war over some pranks and they were still best of friends, what was Jimmy even freaking out about? 

The kettle made a horrible rumbling sound, and he slipped his fingers into his hair, whining. His wings were uncomfortable, he really needed to sit down and preen them properly. Tumble Town’s desertlike environment meant they dried out very quickly and grains of sand got caught between feathers. 

Once the water boiled, he picked up the kettle and poured as carefully as he could into his mug. However, with how shaky his hands were, of course the water spilt and scalded his other hand. 

With a hiss, he recoiled his injured hand, cradling it. For a moment, he fell into his usual self-depreciation thought pattern, until a new, different thought popped up in his mind. The boiling water had hurt, right? That meant he wasn’t a toy. Toys didn’t have nerve endings, of course, that would be stupid.

If he could feel, that meant he was human and very much real.

Suddenly, the scald didn’t hurt as much. 

Huh. Well that was strange.

Over the course of the next few days, Jimmy found more inventive ways to prove his humanity, usually coming back to pain. His favourite method so far was to find a small metal object - a coin, a ring pull tab, a spoon - and use a lighter to heat it up, then drop it onto his skin somewhere. So far, he’d covered his left forearm in various scrapes, blisters and bruises, and was moving onto his upper left arm and shoulder. 

Burns were really quite fascinating, at first his skin went a strange shiny, smooth texture. After a little while, it went bright red, and after about a day it blistered. Thanks to morbid curiosity, he usually ended up picking the blisters and pulling the protective layer of skin off of it, only to leave open, sore wounds all over his skin. He did eventually bandage them up, but it was interesting to feel how they stung against the cold air. 

Distantly, Jimmy knew this fell into the category of ‘self harm’, but he didn’t quite address that. It wasn’t self harm in the traditional sense, so he didn’t immediately realise what he was doing. However, it was definitely self harm of some kind, and it really wasn’t helping him cope with the constant teasing, at least not long term. 

Jimmy was balancing on the edge of a blade right now; one more bad thing would quickly send him spiralling into… he didn’t even know. The burning sessions had been getting more frequent and severe over the last few days, and he had to bandage himself up a couple times. Although, without that sharp spike of sensation, he was unable to cope with people constantly denying the fact that he was, indeed, a person. He made his own decisions and he felt emotions and most evidently, he felt pain. 

The straw on the camel’s back, as it turned out, was thrown at him in the shape of a potion. A ‘lore potion’, because of course, it had to have Joel’s name literally written all over it. Whilst the Hermits were being shrunk by a couple of inches as most, this potion more than halved Jimmy’s height, sending him from a respectable six or so foot to nothing more than two. 

Suddenly, Jimmy was knee high to everyone else, reduced to the height of a toy, and his already fragile psyche couldn’t take the sudden physical change. After everything, the frequent breakdowns and self-harm, this was what finally sent him spiralling into the first panic attack he’d had since Evolution. 

Of course, no one noticed at first the way his breath picked up and his eyes went glassy - why would they, Jimmy was little more than just a toy to them, he wasn’t even human. At least that’s all that his mind could provide in his frazzled state. 

Acting on instinct, Jimmy wove between the dozen or so pairs of legs and ran in the direction of the portal at Pixl’s place. He had to get away from everyone, he had to find somewhere to privately fall apart, somewhere that no one could see his weakness. 

Upon returning to Tumble Town, seeing the buildings he had taken such pride in when he had crafted them with his own fair two hands, and how huge everything looked now, Jimmy broke out of the blurry dissociation he’d fallen into and started hyperventilating, still sitting outside.

Whatever - it wasn’t like anyone came by Tumble Town other than Joel and Grian when they wanted to terrorise him. Plus, they’d gotten their daily dose of bullying him already. He imagined them, the Hermits and a few Emperors all laughing and joking on the great bridge, and only felt his sobs grow in intensity. 

He needed something to feel. Something to remind him that their jests were merely that - jests - and not the truth. Jimmy needed his crutch, his one coping mechanism that actually worked.

Jimmy needed to hurt. Because to hurt is to feel, and to feel is to be human.

The only thing he had on him that could harm him was a diamond sword, sheathed and tucked away, hanging off of his belt. It too had shrunk to a suitable size, but it was still sharp as ever. 

He didn’t like cutting as much as burning himself, but he was in desperate need of grounding. Closing his eyes and holding the blade to his wrist, Jimmy swiped.

SolidarityGaming was slain by SolidarityGaming using [THE LAW]

Scott had been having fun messing with Jim, until he ran off and that message popped up on his communicator. He’d sensed something was wrong when Jim fled the scene, but told himself not to worry too much. No one else had checked their com’, so it was only him who knew something was not quite right. 

Quietly slipping away from the group, Scott equipped his elytra and took off in the direction of Tumble Town. Even if nothing was wrong, it would be nice to catch up with Jim one-on-one, since they hadn’t properly chatted in what felt like forever.

Once he breached the large cliffs surrounding Jimmy’s little town, Scott wound a couple tight circles to drop altitude, then smoothly landed in front of the main house, near the gunpowder cart. However, something was definitely awry. 

Jim’s items were scattered across the ground, his precious Sheriff hat left in the dirt. In the middle of the mess, Jim’s bloodied sword, only the size of a small kitchen knife when Scott held it. 

The story told itself. Something was painfully wrong.

Scott wanted to tell Grian, Fwhip and Joel, as he knew that they all cared deeply about Jim as well, but he wanted to find the bed that Jimmy would be respawning in before he worried about that. It would help to have someone that wasn’t involved in the teasing when he woke up.

How had they not noticed it? Scott should have seen the signs that the joke was being taken too far, he should have seen the way that Jim’s breath quickened and hands shook. It was too late, now, though. All he could do was try to apologise.

Chapter Text

With the Empires folks gone, the rift closed and a whole new mountain of past lives and memories to sort through, Pearl was in a particularly confusing space in her mind. Time spent with constant distraction from processing anything, mainly in the form of Mythical J. Sausage and his terrifyingly energetic demeanour, had left Pearl unsettled and oddly empty feeling. Without a thousand different things going on at once, she felt strangely numb, as opposed to the peacefulness one would expect.

From her own godhood to inter-dimensional travel, Pearl had experienced a lot of things in the last few months, and returning to simply terraforming her base and goofing around with Impulse and Gem was… somehow difficult. 

She decided to go and visit someone else who also seemed to have a lot more than just the rift on their mind - False. There was obviously something going on, seeing that Pearl was sure she’d seen False’s doppleganger on Empires, but she didn’t want to push. She knew that she wouldn’t want anyone pressing her about the whole ‘being a saint’ thing, so she wouldn’t mention anything to False. If she wanted to talk about it, she would bring it up.

The flight to False’s was short but enjoyable, the evening warm and pleasant on the Hermitcraft server, allowing her to glide smoothly on the thermals, taking her time in the air. Flying was always a release for avians, though each of the server’s avians had their different flying styles - False veered more towards dramatic swoops and dives, Pearl preferring to glide and soar, and Grian pulling off ridiculous stunts and darting and weaving his way through the air.

Pearl arrived at False’s base, navigating her way into the living area of the base. 

“False?” She called, closing the door behind her, “It’s me–”

Pearl stopped in the living room, catching False in the middle of what seemed to be her attempt at preening herself.

“Hi.” False said, hands still frozen in position on her plumage, torso twisted in what must have been an uncomfortable to the point of being painful position. 

Her own wings giving a little self-regulating beat, Pearl stared awkwardly, “That looks mighty uncomfortable.” She tried an easygoing grin, hoping it came across as reassuring.

False finally moved her hands, pulling her wings close to her body and clearing her throat, “Well, yeah. It, uh… yeah.” She firmed her jaw and stared at the carpet, wilting under the awkward tension.

“Right, why don’t I help you?” Pearl offered, “I could do with something to keep my mind occupied.” She tried her best to word it as if False was the one doing her a favour - she was, technically, they both were mutually helping each other - since that would increase the chances of her accepting help. 

False shrugged, “I mean, if you don’t mind.” She started shuffling up the sofa, “Cleo usually does them, but it’s always nice having another avian preen you.” She shot Pearl a look, “And I am not letting Grian anywhere near my wings.” 

With a giggle, Pearl sat down behind False, “Yeah, you say that, but he’s preened me more times than I can count and he’s a master at finding all the misaligned feathers and such. He found things that even I hadn’t noticed myself.”

False rolled her eyes, “Whatever, I’m still not trusting him.” She laughed, then sighed almost silently as she spread out one of her wings - the right one, on the outer edge - for Pearl to begin preening.

Letting the conversation dry up, Pearl lowered her voice and said, “Okay, I’m going to start touching your wings now.” She waited for a moment, until after False had muttered a quiet ‘okay’, then she placed a single hand on the space between where False’s wings began.

With gentle, light touches, she started carding her fingers through the plumage on the back of False’s right wing. Her wings were that of an eagle - huge and impressive, designed for gliding and swooping and diving. Her mind fell into a calming rhythm, finding the out of place feathers and patiently realigning the barbs of the feathers so that they interlocked and sat perfectly. Pearl used a flannel and the little tub of warm water that False already had prepared to first dislodge and remove any dirt and dust, then she combed through the feathers. 

Under her hands, False had began to unravel, a couple of chirps escaping her at the particularly itchy and uncomfortable spots being corrected, until she seemed to bliss out from all the caring, meaningful attention, an odd avian type purr filling the otherwise quiet living room.

Of course, being an avian, and also knee deep in her instincts at the moment, Pearl responded with a cacophony of trills, chirps and clicks. As she moved onto the left wing, both of them seemed to be beyond human speech, allowing their consciousness to slip into a safe, warm space where their instincts took over. 

Here, in this place, there was no worry about inter-dimensional travel and past lives, there was only Pearl and her flock member and her loving hands correcting the plumage, False slowly melting under the touch. It was pure bliss, and the satisfying feeling that settled inside her once False’s wings were pristine and perfect completed that warm glow. 

Once the preening was complete, they curled up together on the sofa, just enjoying the glowing content that came with satisfying the notorious bird-brain instincts.