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Martyn never really thought about it when it was just him. He’s a drifter, and he’s comfortable with that. Certainly, he hasn’t missed the server upkeep that comes with a world all his own, and his combat skills are sufficient that public servers never pose much of a problem.
And then, between one breath and the next, it stops being just him.
“If you want to stop always coming to my place,” Ren ventures. The sand is cool under Martyn’s toes, his flip flops long since kicked off.
“Hermitcraft’s lovely, man,” Martyn says. He hopes it doesn’t sound like deflection.
“I want you to be comfortable, dude.” Ren shimmies closer, until their beach chairs are tucked up against each other. “I know you like Doc and all, but this is a — you’re not actually my hand.”
Martyn makes a dismissive noise. “I don’t really have the kind of friends you live with. We see each other when we see each other.”
Ren sighs, but it’s only half discontented. The sun sinks slowly over the water, throwing brilliant lashes of orange light over the waves. It looks like fire, but that hardly even makes Martyn’s heart skip a beat in his chest anymore. Ren’s right here, not tucked away in a miserable tower, and the air smells of salt, not smoke.
“’s not like I really have a permanent home, anyway,” Martyn says. He keeps his voice light, but his ears prick up anyway, waiting on Ren’s answer. His tells.
“Well, you don’t spend all your time here, dude.” Ren reaches his hand over, paw-pad turned up so Martyn knows he wants to hold hands. He’s silent for a long several seconds after that, though, and eventually Martyn tunes into the implicit question.
“There’re a lot of public servers,” Martyn says, light enough to disguise how unpleasant most of them are. He’s gotten good at dodging the prison servers, at least, and the minigame servers that are so overfull that he can’t get two minutes to lie down. “And the MCC practice server is pretty nice on the off-season.”
Ren lets out a disconsolate little snort, ears inching a fraction closer to his head. “If that’s what suits you.”
“Hey, I’ve got a pretty good set-up!” Martyn nudges Ren with his shoulder. “It’s not all college dorms or hiding under holes or whatever you’re imagining.”
“I don’t want to — to get all up in your space,” Ren says, although he’s a bad enough liar that Martyn doesn’t know why he’s trying to pretend. They spent a miniature eternity crowded into the same space at Dogwarts, and what felt like far too long staring at each other from across rival alliances. Martyn would be more concerned if Ren was well adjusted to them having the kind of distance they have now, visits every so often and only mostly-daily chat messages to tide them over.
“Nah, invite yourself over,” Martyn says. His stomach clenches a little even as he says it, the idea that Ren could catch him unawares, maybe even give his location to other people. But — this is Ren. “I’ll give you the coords when you get on the server. Just let me know when you’re popping by, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Ren says. He strokes his thumb over Martyn’s had, gentle enough that the claw doesn’t scratch, and he’s quieter than the ocean for a long time.
*
Martyn’s half-expecting something to come of it immediately. Ren’s not exactly known for his patience, after all. But even as he keeps fluffing his pillows and making sure that he doesn’t leave too many crumbs on the stove, Ren keeps not showing up. Martyn sends him a message, a quick ask if he wants to get together, and nowhere in the half dozen reply texts telling him about Ren’s day is a response.
It’s good, being with Ren. Feeling the devotion well inside him like puddles forming in footsteps. It’s also — hard, figuring out where they stand when there’s no life-or-death cause, when there’s just Martyn filling his days with parkour and scooping up server tasks before one of the real admins notices them. Tidying up around the place. There’s nothing there that he can’t stand to lose.
Martyn doesn’t think, at this point, that he could stand to lose Ren. If he’s not sure what the problem is, there’s really only one way to find out — or, at least, he’s really hoping he’s left behind climactic battles as conflict resolution.
You can’t access Hermitcraft without a whitelist invitation or a specific escort, so it’s a good thing Doc’s willing to throw him a line to the server and ask questions later.
“Ren!” Martyn yells, as soon as the void looses its grip on him and the world regains its solidity.
The camper van reflects the sound back at him. Doc makes a thumbs-up before taking off into the noonday sun.
“Ren!” Martyn yells again.
“Hm?” Ren pokes his head out of the camper van. He looks a little greasy, the kind he gets when he’s too invested in whatever mountain he’s balanced on his shoulders to take care of himself. “Martyn!”
“I thought we should… talk,” Martyn says. “I wanted to make sure things were okay between us.”
Ren cocks his head as he steps out of the RV. “What’s wrong?”
“You seemed —“ Martyn lets out a heavy breath. “I invited you over, and then you never got back to me, and in my head that was just — ooh, no good. I think probably I’ve just been getting too wrapped up in it, you know?”
“…oh,” Ren says. “Complete honesty, I thought you were giving me the brush-off.”
“What?” Martyn coughs. “Seriously, what?”
“I figured it was like — you know when you took the ender chest, something like that anyway, and you told me the wrong coordinates for it?” Ren shrugs, heartbreakingly open. “I figured you would tell me when you were ready.”
“I was ready!” Martyn takes two brutal steps forward, until he’s nearly nose to nose with Ren. “You ridiculous man. I messaged you about it, even!”
“I was trying to be understanding, dude,” Ren says, and he wraps his arms around Martyn. “We’re so bad at this.”
“We’re just not used to talking about the little stuff.” Martyn buries his face in Ren’s hair, hugs him back. The closeness thrills through him, comforting even as a sliver of his hindbrain yells danger. “Give us a war any day.”
“I don’t know.” Ren lets out a little shuddering sigh, his shoulders releasing tension Martyn didn’t even realize he’d had. “This isn’t too bad either.”