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Grian didn’t know why this had happened now. He was balanced on a tree branch, back pressed against the trunk, and Mumbo was below him on the ground, calling his name. Oh, and also he was having a panic attack.
He’d been terraforming and gardening around his base, humming to himself as placed blocks and planted flowers and bushes. He’d been working on it for a few hours and he was deep in a groove, determined to get as much done as possible.
He’d gotten so into it, in fact, that he didn’t hear the footsteps of someone approaching him.
Mumbo had been walking past Grian’s base when he saw the man and decided he wanted to go say hi. As he got closer, he could hear Grian humming an unfamiliar tune, not seeming to notice that he was there.
Mumbo stopped behind him and reached for Grian’s shoulder, but the man’s wings had fluttered at the last second and he ended up grabbing a wing instead.
Now, he didn’t know what happened to make him react like that. It’d been years since Grian panicked like this over someone touching his wing, but the moment Mumbo’s hand made contact, he flinched away, pulling his wing from Mumbo’s grip.
Mumbo stepped back immediately, holding his hands up, but Grian was scrambling away from him before he could get a word out.
“Grian-” he called, but the man couldn’t seem to hear him.
Grian glanced up and around, eyes landing on a branch high up in a nearby tree, and quickly took off, flying up to it. Gasping in breaths, he pressed his back against the tree, looking up at the sky through the leaves above him. His heart felt like it was about to beat out of his chest.
“Grian!” he heard Mumbo call faintly.
He didn’t respond.
“Grian,” he heard again a few minutes later, and this time the voice was closer.
He quickly turned his head towards the voice and jumped a bit when he saw Mumbo sitting a few branches away. Close, but not close enough that he could reach him.
“Grian, hey,” Mumbo said softly as soon as Grian was facing him. “You’re safe.”
Grian nodded slightly, wrapping his arms tightly around himself. He knew that, he did. It just didn’t feel like it. He was panicking.
“Do you want me to go?” Mumbo asked reluctantly.
“No,” Grian managed.
“Can I come closer?”
Grian didn’t respond for a long moment, but eventually, he nodded, watching as Mumbo carefully climbed through the branches to sit on one right near him.
“I’m gonna reach over, Grian,” he warned, stretching his hand out towards him.
Mumbo still couldn’t reach him, but moving closer made it so his hand was easily within his reach, and after a moment of hesitation, he reached out and took it, squeezing.
“Good, good job,” Mumbo said, rubbing circles on the back of Grian’s hand with his thumb, ignoring that he was crushing his fingers together with his grip. “Do you think you can try to breathe with me?”
Grian didn’t know if he could, but he knew he could try. Mumbo exaggerated his breaths, murmuring “in” and “out,” and Grian copied him. It took a bit, but eventually, Grian’s breathing was normal, and his heart had stopped racing at some point along the way.
“You think we can get out of the tree now?” Mumbo asked, once his breathing had been stable for a bit.
“Yeah.”
Mumbo squeezed Grian’s hand before pulling away and slowly making his way down through the branches, while Grian simply glided down. If only he’d thought to bring an elytra.
When they were both on the ground, Mumbo walked up to Grian, holding his hand out again, and Grian took it.
“Can I hug you?” Mumbo asked.
Grian stepped closer and wrapped his arms around Mumbo, and he decided to take that as a yes. He wrapped his arms around Grian’s back below his wings, holding him tightly.
“Thank you,” Grian mumbled into his shoulder. “Also sorry.”
“No, no, you don’t need to be sorry,” Mumbo replied softly. “Don’t apologize for that.”
“I dunno why that happened,” Grian said, changing the subject.
Mumbo sighed, but allowed it. “That’s okay. We can try and figure it out later if you want, but don’t worry about that right now.”
He rubbed one of his hands up and down Grian’s back soothingly, and Grian leaned against him, leaving Mumbo practically holding him up.
“Thank you,” he whispered again, pressing his head into Mumbo’s shoulder and tightening his arms around him slightly.
“You’re welcome.”
He didn’t know how much time passed before he felt Grian pull away.
The other man had a slightly embarrassed expression on his face, much to Mumbo’s dismay, but before he got the chance to reassure him, Grian had mumbled something about resource gathering before spinning around and flying off.
Mumbo sighed as he watched Grian fly away, knowing this was gonna be another thing he had to try and convince Grian to talk to someone about, but that was a problem for another day.