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“Doesn’t this feel like a little far?” Katherine asked. She eyed the wither Grian and Joel were setting up outside Tumble Town limits and fidgeted with her axe. She wasn’t worried about fighting it, she’d done that lots of times before, but her main job here was to keep the nether star out of Jimmy’s hands—something that hadn’t been explained to her until they were setting up next door to Tumble Town.
“Nah, I’ve known Timmy for ages, I know when I’ve gone too far.” Grian dismissed. His button eyes were glued to the wither skulls he shuffled in his hands, impatient for Joel to finish clumping the soul sand correctly. “And if I’m wrong he’ll drop the toy and tell me to my real face.”
“Oh, oka—wait, what?” Katherine did a double take. Joel stopped building the body and stared at Grian.
“’Drop the toy’ what do you mean drop the toy? Real face?” Joel demanded.
Grian stopped playing with the skulls and looked between them. “Y—yeah? If you’re not listening when you go too far he’ll just—he’ll just leave his vessel to yell at you? It’s hard to miss a signal like that.”
Katherine and Joel looked at each other and back to Grian.
“What the blooming Nether are you on about?” Joel asked with a laugh. “Jimmy’s just a toy.”
“Is he haunted?” Katherine asked. “Oh no, have we been making fun of a ghost this whole time?”
Grian’s gaze flicked between them rapidly. “You don’t—you don’t know he’s a Listener?”
“WHAT?” Joel shrieked. Katherine had to cover her ears, the yell was so loud. He cleared his throat. “Very—very funny Grian. Don’t ever make those jokes again please.”
“I’m—I’m not—?” Grian dropped the skulls and run his hands through his yarn hair, nervously laughing. “Oh no. Ooohhhh nooooo, I was not supposed to say that!”
“What’s a Listener?” Katherine asked. She was ignored.
“Grian… Grian, were you serious? Please tell me you weren’t serious!” Joel begged. Katherine had never seen Joel look so scared or so desperate.
Grian just laughed harder. “I was not supposed to SAY THAT!”
“Not supposed to say what?” Jimmy walked out the Nether portal, arms full of iron. He looked over the three of them suspiciously. “What are you—hey! Are you summoning another wither? Get out of here!”
“Jimmy, what’s a Listener?” Katherine asked.
The iron hit the ground.
“Grian!”
“I’m sorry!” Grian shrieked. He hopped a few steps away from Jimmy. “I didn’t know they didn’t know!”
“Obviously they don’t know!” Jimmy shouted back. “You think they’d keep acting like that if they knew?”
“Well everyone on Hermitcraft knows!”
“Ever—they know? How?” Jimmy’s voice rose in pitch. “Even Tango?”
“Because I’ve been around since Season 6 and we have Pearl now! And BigB and Martyn are in the Life Series too, so I bloody well hope they know the signs by now! Yes, even Tango!” Grian fired back. “I thought these guys were the same! Joel here’s in the Life Series for Heaven’s sake!”
“Well they don’t! He doesn’t—he knows. You know. You both know. Oh no.” Jimmy buried his face in his hands with a groan. “Oh no.”
“I’m sorry?” Grian started that nervous laughing again. “I’ll make it up to you?”
Jimmy groaned again. Joel gaped at him, face pale.
“What!” Katherine raised her voice. “Is a Listener?”
“Nothing you need to worry about! In fact, you can forget Grian ever said anything about it!” Jimmy said with forced brightness. “Seriously, you can just go about your day and pretend this never happened!”
Katherine scowled. Jimmy clearly didn’t want to talk about it and normally Katherine would respect her friend’s wishes, but Joel looked so scared Katherine felt it was her duty to know.
“Hey, weren’t you trying to summon a wither?” Jimmy asked frantically. “Well I’m here now! Go ahead, summon it, make me freak out. That’s always the plan, yeah?”
Joel made a sound like a dying sparrow. “You—you want us to do that?”
“No—well, that’s the bit, isn’t it?” Jimmy pleaded.
Joel spluttered and gestured around. Jimmy winced and avoided eye contact, his gaze drifting down to his dropped blocks. He gathered them up. He slowly turned to Katherine, not quite meeting her eyes.
“A—a Listener is—I genuinely don’t know how to explain this. Um, basically I can—it's sort of omnipresence? And… power from beyond your known universes…” Jimmy's eyes darted up to meet hers before flicking away.
“Oh.” Katherine breathed. “Oh.”
No wonder Joel looked so scared. He was a lot of things but Katherine knew for a fact omnipresent was not one of them.
Joel laughed hysterically. “They’re—Listeners, Watchers, they look in servers for stories to follow! They’re beyond comprehension! They could wipe away a server with a snap of their fingers! And—and you’ve been one this whole time?”
Jimmy shuffled his feet. “Um.”
“The destruction thing is a myth.” Grian cut in. “We're not suited for that.”
“We?” Joel's voice pitched again.
“Wait… you’re one too?” Katherine asked.
Grian waved his hands around vaguely. “Watcher specifically. Surprise?”
In hindsight, if Jimmy was an eldritch being possessing a toy, it made sense that the other toy he was friends with who knew about Jimmy's true nature was also one.
Joel made a choking noise. “Grian? What—how—how many of you are here?”
“Not my secret to tell! If there even is a secret! I’ve already messed up once!” Grian clamped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Speaking of secrets… could we maybe, you know, keep this between us?” Jimmy asked quietly. He adjusted the iron in his hands and offered it out. “Would you… like some iron for your troubles?”
“Um… Keep your iron, I can keep your secret.” Katherine promised him. In any other context, Jimmy offering bribes would have opened the door to teasing. In this one, it felt like a sign that this was serious. Bigger than her own secret even, because as much as she didn’t want her parents finding out about her “hobby,” she willingly let half the server know. “I promise, not a word from me.”
Jimmy blinked at her. His face lit up with a bright smile. “Thanks Katherine!”
“Yeah. Yeah, um, same here.” Joel slowly backed away, staring at Jimmy. “I uh, Hermes! I need to—to pick up Hermesokaybyepleasedon’tkillme!”
Joel flew off.
“Do you think he’s actually going to keep quiet?” Jimmy whispered to Grian. Grian snickered.
“I think he thinks you’re going to go bananas on him if he doesn’t. Which you should do. Tell me you had another way to let people know if they misread your body language and went too far.”
“Um…” Jimmy’s voice trailed off.
“Oh my goodness, Tim!”
“It never came up!” Jimmy defended himself.
Katherine cleared her throat. “It’s probably not my place to say—I still don’t fully understand what Listeners and Watchers are—but I feel like doing an eldritch transformation to signal you need someone to stop teasing you is bad?”
“We know.” Grian told her cheerfully. “Timmy just has trouble communicating when he’s distressed in his vessel.”
Jimmy made a face. “I’m getting better.”
“Yeah, because you apparently are forcing yourself to use other methods without allowing fallback onto a perfectly acceptable one! If it works it works, and Hermitcraft and Life is proof no one cares!”
“Did you see Joel’s face? He cares! And fWhip’s already got shrines to me, I don’t need him knowing about this!”
“Oh. That’s what that was doing under Lizzie’s village.”
“Jimmy.” Katherine interrupted. “So you being a Listener… that’s nothing to worry about right?”
“It’s not. Honest, hand to my heart—” Jimmy fumbled with his blocks to place his hand on his chest. “—you don’t need to worry. Just keep treating me same old same old!”
“Hearts are usually on the other side.” Grian said. Jimmy switched sides. Katherine giggled.
“Well, alright then! I trust you Jimmy. Um, if you ever need help, you can come to me!”
“Thanks Katherine, I really appreciate that.” Jimmy smiled.
“No problem! And uh, maybe you can explain this whole thing to me better later? I’m pretty curious.” Katherine asked hopefully.
Jimmy shrugged and turned to Grian.
“What are you looking at me for?” Grian demanded. “You already know I don’t care less what people know about me. Do you trust her?”
Jimmy nodded. “Right, right. I guess we can get together and I can answer some questions? I mean, if you’re already keeping part of the secret…”
“Thank you!” Katherine smiled. “And hey, in return, I’ll show you one of my secrets. Um, if you… didn’t already know about it. Because of the… omnipresence thing.”
“Pfft, I probably don’t. I have full control over what I Listen to, and it’s turned off in my vessel anyway.” Jimmy said.
A weight lifted off Katherine’s shoulders. At least he wasn’t around for everything! That would have been awkward. There were some things that really should remain private.
“Great! I’ll see you later! Sorry about the—” She gestured at the sad pile of soul sand.
“I’m not.” Grian announced.
“Whoop-de-do, big surprise.” Jimmy deadpanned. “Anything else you need, Katherine?”
“Nope! Should I get going?” Katherine took out her rockets.
“Yes please. I should… talk with Joel, and I can’t do that if there’s a wither patrolling my skies!” Jimmy turned to Grian pointedly.
“Aw, come on. You don’t even have to be here, it went well last time! Except for where you blew yourself up with rockets, but that didn’t have anything to do with the wither.”
“Last time was a fluke!”
Katherine shook her head. Of course there was a last time. “Bye Jimmy, bye Grian!”
“Bye Katherine!” The two possessed toys called and went right back to bickering, Jimmy walking toward his town and Grian trailing behind, clearly not intending to build the wither but wanting to needle Jimmy over it anyway. Katherine flew away, head spinning with what she learned.
Well, at least this was a good kick in the pants to clean her basement. It’d gotten sloppy with three other people sharing it.