Chapter Text
“Y’know, Variety or whatever, you’re rather silent for something as annoying-looking as you.”
Verity turned slightly to look up at Grox. And this player, surprisingly, was one of the players where Verity was waiting for them to leave or simply… cease to exist. “Hm. Rich coming from you.” Verity said flatly. They rolled slightly closer to Grox.
Only because the fire next to them was spreading slightly closer. Getting burned hurts.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Where’s the next village, Verity?”
“Southeast, but considering the fact you wasted all your materials on destroying this one, I don’t see any use going to another.”
“Yo chiiiiill, I did nothing to you Variety.”
Yeah right.
“It’s Verity.”
“Whatever, potato tomato. Besides, I’ll just go to the village to get more materials. Those villagers will probably be more obedient anyways.”
Grox picked Verity up, although Verity visibly recoiled. Grox didn’t notice, he never did. He only really noticed or cared whenever Verity was useful.
Nothing Verity wasn’t used to.
-
And that marked village number five today.
Grox didn’t really have a set base, so he just dug and made an underground dirt hut for a moment. He hummed a slight tone without any real beats or melodies, scrolling through the menu and tabs he had open. Somehow, Grox was multitasking, reading and typing through discord and scrolling through TikTok at the same time. Truly an admirable ability.
Verity sat on the crafting table nearby, looking up at the sky through oak trapdoors. Tired. Maybe if he was human he would feel tired. What would it feel like?
Grox, meanwhile, was laying on the bed in the corner. Currently, he was spamming his old buddy, Mob, with a gif of villagers burning. Over and over. He just reached seventy two sends with no response, not even a “Shut the fuck up,” which was weird. Hell, Mob hasn’t even talked to Grox, not since three weeks ago when he asked Grox to join him. Maybe Grox should ask Verity.
Wait a minute, wasn’t that one time Mob talked to Grox about Verity? Where Mob wanted Grox to babysit Verity?
“Yooo Verity,”
“Yes?” Visibly annoyed, Verity stared at the beautiful sky for a moment longer, before turning back to Grox. Grox probably wanted to show Verity another reel or something.
His knowledge told him otherwise a bit too late,
“You were friends with Mob, right?”
.
.
.
“...Pardon?”
“You were friends with Mob right? I remember him wanting me to babysit you once, lol. Still as annoying as you were back then, but you probably have a different AI so—”
“Yes, I know Mob. What about him?”
For the first time in the five days Grox was torturing Verity, he finally took note of how tense Verity was. His wide grin that now looked a little too forced and a little too unsettling. Not to Grox though. It was rather funny, content-worthy even. He held back his retort, though.
Swiping through three more videos, Grox tilted his head slightly with a smug grin. “He’s just been silent lately, bro. I wanted to know where he was since you know everything, right?”
. . .
“He’s not here anymore.”
“Yeah no SHIT sherlock he’s not in the server.”
“He’s not in the other server either.”
“I know that dumbass I have perms to join it and nobody is online.”
“He’s in the SKY.”
“Oooh, One Block or Sky Block? Honestly I think one is better than the other, but I’d still be willing to join—”
“He’s DEAD.”
Grox didn’t have something immediately this time.
“...Bro what?”
“Do you need me to repeat myself?”
“...No but like, how did he die?”
“You don’t need to know that. Now, let’s talk about something else, shall we? You’ve been bedrotting long enough. If you want to get up and actually burn calories we could go to the next village, or go mining. The nearest mineshaft—”
Verity went on rambling. Grox very well could listen, but he was thinking about something else. It was different when villagers died, but Mob? Mob was someone Grox was actually chill with, how did Mob even die? Mob was scared of Verity, sure, so did Verity kill him? It could be likely. Twixxel has been silent, too. Mob and Twixxel were tight, so maybe Mob invited…
“—and that mineshaft also has a ten-vein of diamonds—”
“Wait, really? Aight bet, what’s the coordinates, Verity?”
“...I said five different coordinates of ores in the mine not even a minute ago.”
“I knoooow, I’m just testing you~”
“No you’re not.”
“Whatever, let’s just go, my bestest friend ever Verity!”
“Don’t call me that.”
After spending a few minutes packing up and getting rid of any evidence proving Grox was here, he picked up Verity, (who recoiled again. This time Grox did notice,) and scampered off towards where Verity said the mineshaft was, blabbing about new ideas on how to torture villagers with all the ores Grox would get.
-
As the moon started to rise, this time, Grox mined into a mountain to make a small base for the night.
Luckily for Verity, Grox hasn’t spoken in a while. Probably because he was still mad at Verity for lying about the diamonds. But, in all honesty, Verity didn’t care as much as long as Grox forgot about the conversation earlier. And the silence was nice and refreshing, it was good to not be bothered every ten seconds to be shown an AI generated video of a fruit eating themselves.
Grox was sitting on the bed this time. He had just more than one tab open, but Tiktok wasn’t one of them, an anomaly in itself. He was still spamming Mob or trying to, with still no response. The other tab was Twixxel’s discord.
Wait, where did Twixxel come from? Verity never told…
Reluctantly, Verity rolled closer to the bed. Grox moved away, sliding slightly further from Verity.
“...What are you doing?” Verity hopped on the bed.
“I’m trying to spam Twixxel.”
“Why?”
“Stfu.”
“...you spelled the letters for a word that doesn’t exist. If you’d like, I can autocorrect it to—”
“Google it or something.”
. . . one second passes.
“Rude.”
“You're rude, Verity.”
“I’m not.”
“Nuh uh.”
Verity was about to respond when a cheery ringtone interrupted him first. Grox apparently tried to call a group-chat, which included Mob, Twixxel, and some pumpkin. Verity stared at it.
“Mob and Twixxel won’t pick up.”
“Why, are they having—?”
“—Neither of those two are okay with that joke, don’t finish it.”
“Ayo chiiiiill Verity that’s not what I was going to say..”
“Then what were you?”
“I was gonna ask if they were having a livestream or something so then they wouldn’t pick up,”
“No you weren’t.”
Ten seconds of the call passed.
Grox didn’t hang up the call yet. “Yoooo get your mind out of the gutter Verity.”
“Twixxel won’t pick up anyways, you’re wasting time and your battery.”
“I have enough redstone to make a charger. And if anything you’re going to say Twixxel is dead too,”
.
.
.
“...Verity, why aren’t you—”
Ba-bong
“Yo, who the fuck is calling at one in the morning—”
What.
No.
They couldn’t be alive, Verity knew.
Verity lowered his gaze to the tab, his expression dark. Not the weird smile from before.
…
Oh.
It was just the pumpkin.
Of course. It had to be, after all.
Grox seemed to perk up, smiling smugly despite the camera being off.
“Yoooo what’s up,”
“... Grox, if that’s all you had to say—”
“Ayo chiiill, I didn’t mean to call you, I just wanted to call Mob and Twix at the same time—”
“Just call them individually??”
“—have you seen ‘em lately?”
The pumpkin paused for a moment. “No, actually.. I was starting to wonder about them, I hope they’re okay.”
“Oh yeah no they’re dead.”
Verity stared up at Grox. There. Is actually no way. This idiot just-
“...what. Grox, hah- funny, funny, but please don’t say that.”
“No but it’s true.”
“...”
The pumpkin on the other end was silent. Verity stared. What was he even supposed to make of this? If other people figured out. There- there wouldn’t be a way to… it would be very, VERY bad…
Verity muted Grox on the call.
“Yo, Verity- what are you-”
“What. The HELL. Are you doing?” Verity managed to say, barely managing, if he was even trying to manage, the fury in his voice. He should just… just end this right now… and- and–
“Chill Verity, I’m not doing anythiiing….”
Liar.
“Maybe you just need a break, bro… Go outside or something.
Verity inhaled. Or made a sound like it. Maybe he will go outside.
-grox pov-
Watching as the ball retreated to outside, Grox unmuted himself.
“Yo, Wispy, you good? You haven’t spoken in like… five minutes.”
Wispy, apparently muted without Grox realizing, gave a shaky exhale.
“You just told me. Two of my friends died. And you are STILL saying ‘yo’. How are you this casual.”
Grox didn’t realize how upset Wispy sounded.
“...Sorry.”
Wispy let out a shaky laugh. “It’s fine. I expected nothing else from you anyways.” Grox pouted. “I was just researching.”
“Researching what?”
“...It’s nothing, just something I saw on the news.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m serious.”
“Uh-huh.”
Wispy didn’t respond. Instead, he texted Grox. I random stream of numbers and a… server. “Dude, what is-”
“Just come to the server. We’ll talk there.”
Grox didn’t have time to respond before Wispy left the call. He stared at the server invite. Then at the door, where Verity was. Grox smiled.
…this was going to be fun.