Chapter Text
Grian awoke to the stench of something burning. He wrinkled his nose, almost afraid to open his eyes. Maybe this was all a dream, and it would go away in a moment… He had no such luck. He jumped out of bed, tossing the covers off and darting down the stairs to his kitchen, searching for the source of the black smoke that was filling the place- “Mumbo?” He stopped short in the doorway to the kitchen, finding his very embarrassed looking boyfriend at the kitchen counter with a flipper in his hands and a blackened stack of pancakes billowing smoke on a pan before him.
Grian burst out laughing.
“Mumby you absolute spoon, what are you doing?” He looked ridiculous in a bright pink apron that read ‘ kiss the cook’ , a rubber spatula in one hand and a fish shaped cooking mit in the other one. “I wanted to make you breakfast in bed!” He sounded like a toddler who’d been caught drawing a beautiful picture for his mother all over the wall in permanent ink. To be fair, he did also look like a toddler in the getup he was wearing. The avian chuckled and shook his head, but his smile told Mumbo he appreciated him nonetheless.
Mumbo dumped the burnt pancakes into the trash can while Grian opened the windows to let out the smoke. After a few minutes of Grian flapping his wings the house started to clear, leaving Mumbo looking dejected at the food he had managed to prepare, which was much smaller than his original plan. The tray consisted of orange juice (one thing he couldn’t burn), a small jar of water with a fresh allium, utensils, and a plate with a piece of burnt toast and what looked like an attempt at scrambled eggs.
Grian held back more laughter. “I was going to make waffles but…” Mumbo looked at the waffle maker by the sink, which was covered in a horrendous mess of half burnt batter. “So you moved on to pancakes?” Mumbo chuckled nervously, “Well, and the crepes…”
“What happened to the crepes?”
“I don’t think you want to know.” Grian let out his laugh at last, navigating over to where Mumbo stood and wrapping his arms around his waist gently, stretching up to rest his chin on his partner's shoulder. “Thank you for trying love, I really do appreciate it, even though you look absolutely ridiculous. First a moonlit picnic and now breakfast in bed? What did I do to deserve you? Or is there a catch?” He raised one eyebrow carefully, teasingly.
“No catch, just a lovely boyfriend who I can’t help but want to spoil.” Mumbo leaned back and planted a gentle kiss on Grians cheek, pink roses blossoming in its place when he moved back and happy sort of chirrup escaping his lips. He was the one who could flirt and tease so effortlessly, but melted at the simplest touch from his lover. Just another one of the things that made him so perfect in Mumbo’s eyes, so perfect… “There is something I wanted to ask you, though…” He felt Grians face nuzzle into his shoulder, and was surprised to hear a soft snoring in response. Mumbo chuckled softly, the avian must have been up late again planning builds and pranks as he often did. He never had been an early bird.
Gently Mumbo scooped his partner up in his arms, being much smaller than him it was fairly easy to carry him over to the couch and situate him comfortably with a blanket over his wings. Mumbo adored their height difference. It meant he could place his head atop his blonde hair and Grian had to get on his toes to kiss him, and he felt just so perfect enveloped in his arms. He was certain they were made for each other, and he so badly wanted to explain how he felt. Unfortunately, this was the second time the smaller man had fallen asleep on him trying to.
Mumbo chuckled and went to clean up the mess he’d made in Grians kitchen.
Unfortunately by the time Grian awoke (Mumbo hadn’t wanted to wake him until he absolutely had to, he looked so peaceful) he was out the door and straight to work, claiming apologetically he had a busy day ahead of him, though he wished he could offer more of his time. Mumbo didn’t think he could focus on building or redstone until he got what he wanted to say out though, so he decided instead to go on a walk.
His jaunt took him around the main spawn area, surprisingly his feet led him to his friend Stressmonsters teacup starter base, where he found her working on a flower garden. “Mumbo!” She waved him over with a smile, taking off her wide brimmed hat and gardening gloves. “Oh sorry, you don’t have to stop, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” He said gently, but she just shook her head. “Nonsense, I was just finishing up, besides, you look like you could use a cuppa.” Stress led him into her house and sat him down at her table, and Mumbo felt a wave of gratitude to his flower-crown adorned friend.
“Now, tell me what’s bothering you dear.” She said, pushing a cup of tea she had just poured across the table to him. “How did you know-?” “-Something was bothering you? I suppose I’m just good at telling those sorts of things.” She said with a wink, “Or maybe it was the fact that you aren’t wearing a tie and you look a mess, which is very out of character for you Jumbo.” “Ah, that’s fair.” Mumbo took a sip of the tea slowly, trying to sort out his thoughts in his head so he could speak them in a way that would make sense.
“How… how did you know when to take the next step in your relationship with Iskall?” He watched Stress’s hands instead of her face, wrapped around the teacup before her with a simple woven gold ring around her ring finger. “Well, we talked about it. Um, consent is important of course.”
Mumbos face felt red, “Oh no that’s not what I meant,” He said a bit too quickly, “I meant, well, how long did it take you to tell Iskall you loved him?” She chuckled lightly before giving him a warm smile. “I think at one point we both just… knew. I knew he was the one I wanted to spend forever with, and so I told him. It was as simple as that for us, he proposed one morning without even a ring at the time! The absolute fuzz-brain. He just looked me in the eyes and said ‘marry me?’ and that was all that we needed.”
It doesn’t have to be special babe, just tell Grian how you feel when you get the chance. I'm sure the only thing that matters to him is that it's coming from you, and it's sincere. That’s special enough.”
Mumbo took a moment to soak up her words, delicately sorting them in his brain in the right places. “But… how do I know he doesn’t feel the same way? What if he’s not ready for that sort of commitment yet?”
“Mumbo, how did you and Grian become boyfriends?”
“Well, I confessed to him by accident, I was nervous and rambling and going on about just being friends if he wanted when he just up and asked if he could kiss me.” Mumbos heart warmed as he relived the memory.
“So you just cared for him and wanted him to know, but if he didn’t feel the same way then you would still be there for him! It’s as simple as that Mumbo. I can understand if you want to make an impression and do something big, but honestly it's better to just let it happen naturally.” Stress finished, looking quite proud of herself.
“How did you get to be so wise?”
“I think a lot. 9 out of 10 the thoughts are absolute bull, but every once in a while I think something that’s really brilliant.” Stress half joked, her chuckle cut off as a familiar voice called her name. Iskall appeared at the doorway, a small bundle of flowers in his hands that seemed to have been damaged a bit on the journey over. He greeted Mumbo happily and positioned himself behind Stress, kissing the top of her head and handing her the flowers with a wide smile. Mumbo watched the married couple contentedly, feeling happiness for these two of his closest friends and reassured about his feelings for his own partner. With a short farewell to Iskall and his wife Mumbo began his walk back to his and Grians house.
It was raining. Mumbo absolutely despised rain. He hated water, water always messed up redstone and it was wet and cold and he couldn’t swim, and rain was water that fell from the sky and messed up his clothes and left him soaked and freezing and unable to work on anything. So instead of working on his base as he had planned to do that day, he was stuck inside his starter base, which was a hobbit hole with a large glass window that overlooked the place where he had begun his larger build. He leaned back against the wall, feeling bored with nothing to occupy his brain or his hands, having sorted his chests to the T. He was so bored that he was delighted when a minecart with a chest inside fell from the ceiling onto his head. He rubbed the spot where it had collided with him, but any annoyance he felt was washed away as he realized what it was.
A message from Grian! Warmth blossomed in his chest as he thought of the tunnel the smaller man had built between the two bases with a railroad running through it from which they could send messages. While Mumbo hadn’t exactly been great at responding to them, he treasured every note from his avian friend. He opened the chest and pulled out the slip of paper, immediately recognizing Grians untidy scrawl. It was a hastily drawn tic-tac-toe board and a message asking to play signed with a G. Mumbo grinned to himself and marked the middle of the game board, sending back the minecart.
Back and forth this continued for a little while, and it turned to a game of twenty questions with each asking sillier and sillier things till Mumbo could hear Grians laugh echoing through the tunnel. Sure, they could probably just go hang out, but there was something thrilling about the little paper messages. It was almost like every slip with Grians handwriting was a little piece of the man that Mumbo could hold and treasure. He was absolutely, undeniably in love.
He stared at the last question from Grian,
“ok, ok: what’s a secret you’ve never told anyone before?”
Mumbo's chest hammered, he could tell him. It was the perfect opportunity to let go of the skeleton in his cupboard that it seemed like he’d been holding on to forever. A secret that restricted his breathing and tore him away from Grian, leaving him feeling sorry and empty and stupid. So he poured his heart out onto another slip of paper, messy sappy words he knew he would probably never show his best friend because they were too raw, too vulnerable. His relationship with Grian had never been that, and most days he didn’t want it to be. They could joke and play and tease each other all day as long as they knew that every word held no true meaning, that really there was affection behind every insult.
He thought his heart might just split into a million pieces if he told Grian how he really felt. How butterflies blossomed inside of him every time he saw him. How he loved his golden smile. How he wished he could hold the smaller man in his arms and kiss him in every place he was insecure about. How could you tell your best friend you had hopelessly fallen for them? Somehow the words just streamed out of him onto the paper in smudged black ink, creating a flowery prose of sorts that was far more sappy than Mumbo had ever meant it to be.
He sighed, looking back at the words and shaking his head, best not. He folded the page and set it aside, tearing a new page from the old notebook he’d been recycling from and writing simply instead:
“I’m deadly allergic to garlic.”
He placed the folded paper in the chest in the minecart and pushed it down the railway, feeling a bit heavier than before. He rubbed his eyes, shaking his head for no one to see. He unfolded the other paper, reading over the words again and deciding what to do with it.
“I’m deadly allergic to-”
Wait.
In an instant Mumbo was out the door of his hobbit hole, scrambling through the mud and rain trying to get through the jungle and to Grians base before the minecart reached him. By the time his best friend's hobbit hole was in view he was soaked to the bone, his suit stained with mud from all the times he had fallen in his rush. He stood in the doorway to the hobbit hole, just as a smaller man with an umbrella in hand stepped out into the storm in front of him. “Grian!” Mumbo's breath caught in his throat. “Don’t- I- I sent the wrong- wrong minecart…” He swallowed, stopping his scatterbrained explanation as the avian just shook his head.
“Mumbo, I already sent back my response, did you run all the way here?”
“You…” Mumbo could connect up complicated machines with redstone wires and repeaters and create circuits, but his brain seemed to struggle to connect the words that came from his friend's mouth with reality. His heart fell with a thud to the bottom of his stomach, crushing the butterflies that had once nested there. He let all the words in his brain tumble out in a scattered mess, “Grian I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to send that and I didn’t mean to make you feel weird at all I completely understand and I don’t want anything to change between us you’re my best friend and-” His words were tangled together as his face contorted into a plea for Grian to say something, anything, to assure him it would be okay, and he hadn’t possibly ruined everything between them.
“Mumbo.”
“-And I’m so sorry and you just look so beautiful and I wanted to tell you but gosh not like this I didn’t want to go and screw everything up! Can we just forget this whole thing and-”
“Mumbo! Stop!” Grians hands gripped his shoulders and Mumbo cut off the words in his throat, finally meeting the avians blue eyes with his mouth hanging open and his hair plastered to his forehead with rain water. The smaller man had dropped his umbrella to hold Mumbo, and now the rain speckled his golden hair beautifully, sending streaks of water down his face, which was decorated with a soft smile that held something Mumbo hadn’t noticed before. “Oh gods you’re so adorable,” He muttered, so softly Mumbo almost missed it, and he felt his eyebrows lift with surprise. He was suddenly painfully aware of how warm Grians hands felt on his shoulders and oh god Grian was touching him and looking at him with those eyes and…
“Can I kiss you?”
The whole world seemed to stop, and all Mumbo could see was the sopping wet man in front of him, offering his heart as his companion had in his cold hands. A nervous smile decorated his lips, oh those inviting lips and Mumbo couldn’t help himself but take the offer, throwing away every other care and anxiety that had gathered in his brain and colliding with Grian. He tasted like cinnamon and sunny days and everything Mumbo had only ever dreamed of, and gods he was a glorious kisser. When he pulled back he supposed he must have looked like a bloody idiot, his mouth hanging open and his green eyes all starstruck but he didn’t really care because he’d kissed him, GRIAN KISSED HIM. The smaller of the two bit his lip, a smile reserved just for Mumbo peeking through.
“So, um, your response, what did it say?” Mumbo managed to get out, his face feeling pleasantly warm despite the freezing rain around them.
“You bloody idiot.” Grian grabbed him by the tie and kissed him again, his hands warming his chin and his ears and his heart.
The moustached man felt a thick drop of cool water splatter against his scalp and stopped to watch for a moment as a drizzle turned into a summer shower. He grinned beneath his moustache, memories dancing in the form of colored lights across his vision. Mumbo absolutely adored the rain.