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It's stupid. Jimmy is fully aware that it's stupid. In fact, he welcomes the fact that it's stupid, as that small bit of self-awareness allows him to maintain some semblance of dignity.
But dammit, he really did care about that frog.
His nerves can't decide between completely unjustified rage or equally as unjustified despair—it was a frog, for gods' sakes, a stupid, white frog that he stupidly named Judge Judy And Executioner and stupidly hid in a stupid bunker away from stupid Bigb and Pearl and especially stupid Bigb, who started this whole mess in the first place through an amount of incompetence that even Jimmy is a bit baffled by. He knows that it's stupid to be madder at him than the person that actually killed the frog, but some wires inside of him must have been crossed due to the smoke inhalation because he shouldn't be dwelling on this at all.
Grian said as much. Grian also proceeded to call his emotional investment in the life and wellbeing of his (technically "their," not "his;" Judge Judy And Executioner was always meant to be under shared custody of all the Bad Boys) frog the "worst C-plot in the history of the series," which stung a little more than it should've and just made him miserable, even when he was building his carrot cake in the sky. The carrots just reminded him of stealing them, which reminded him of his interaction with Scott, which then reminded him of the fact that his and Scott's prior relationship seems to be being brought up a lot, a lot more than in any of the prior two seasons, and he's starting to think that it's another dramatic side-plot to his already boring and dilapidated story. What does that make it? The D-plot? The C-point-five?
Maybe it's the inherent hopelessness of his real loves and desires being torn to pieces for the entertainment value. Maybe it's because nobody could even bother to pat him on the shoulder for something as small and inconsequential as his frog dying (a frog that "nobody knew or cared about," mind you, as Grian so helpfully pointed out about three times in the following hours). It's probably some horrific cocktail of both that's bringing his mood down into that dreaded sluggishness. That feeling when you're just weighed down by exhaustion, running through life on pure instinct and barely lifting your head to look at the cameras you're meant to be performing for—that sluggishness.
Some more emotionally savvy members of the group might dub his experience with a fun and formal name to really hammer the nail into the coffin parading around the fact that he is stupid and wrong, but for Grian, it is simply deemed as being "down in the dumps."
Joel, surprisingly, seems to be the one to put a little more thought into it. Jimmy saw the furrow in his brow and the flash in his eye when he announced that Judge Judy And Executioner had been brutally slaughtered, but Grian immediately cut it off with his second "no-one asked, no-one cares" of the day, to put it into fewer words, and Joel had clamped his mouth shut and not bothered to follow up on it. Fine. No intentional harm from either of them (Joel is just the kind of guy that both gets distracted easily and finds it hard to focus in the first place, so his following up was practically an impossibility, and Grian has the smallest, tiniest, most minuscule amount of sadism due to his Nature, so Jimmy doesn't blame him for speaking his truth when he watched something bad), so Jimmy doesn't really have the right to be angry.
He doesn't have the right to be angry, but he is, and it's getting harder and harder not to be as the days between sessions go by. There's just something inside of him, something new and confusing that he wishes he could shelf away like most of his other genuine emotions, but it's causing enough tension in him that it's almost hard to breathe when he thinks about that stupid frog and those stupid Watchers and their stupid tower and stupid, bloody Bigb—
"Tim?" Grian says from behind him. "You're shaking like a leaf."
Jimmy looks at his hands (which are, in fact, trembling) and clenches his fists, slamming shut the chest he was standing over with a curt, "I'm fine."
Grian takes the opportunity to spring up onto the chest like a cat and cross his legs. "No, I don't think you are."
Jimmy eyes him out of the corner of his vision, wings already puffing up defensively. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think it means?" Grian retorts, a half-smile on his face that has always been a bit irritating. It's like he's calling you stupid with a smile. "You've been all quiet ever since the last session, even before it ended. What's up?"
Jimmy stares at him. Is he really that daft?
Grian looks completely oblivious.
Okay, sure, maybe he is. Or maybe he doesn't think Jimmy cared about the frog that much. Or maybe he doesn't think Jimmy should've cared about the frog that much. Or maybe he's forgotten about the frog altogether, because why would Grian, busy, important Grian, ever dedicate his precious bird-sized brain space to remembering something so insignificant about Jimmy of all people?
Jimmy shuts his eyes and tries to shoo his insulting thoughts away, clenching his jaw so hard one slip might send his canines through his tongue. "No idea. Sorry if it's been bothering you."
There is a very quiet noise that comes from Grian, one of confusion. Jimmy feels just the tiniest bit bad (but also satisfied) until Grian asks, "Wait. Are you mad at me?"
All of a sudden, coming so fast that it startles Jimmy, is a knot in his throat that constricts the words that attempt to leave his mouth. Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, absolutely not, absolutely the hell not. He is not going to be brought to tears over the idea of being seriously mad at his teammate. He is not going to cry because of a stupid, bloody frog.
He sharply turns away, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side as he makes towards the remains of the Bread Bridge, and the sight of that just makes him want to cry even harder because damn, they all worked so hard on that together, and it was blown up for such a stupid reason, too. Is he sentimental because it was the first thing the Bad Boys really built together? Probably. Is he frustrated because it was so much work that was ruined because of something so incomparably insignificant that Jimmy's head starts to spin whenever he thinks about the thought process TIES must have had to decide that one cow being killed, when they had an extra one on hand, was enough to warrant destroying the food source for the entire bloody server? Most likely. Is he just tired of things he makes getting destroyed? Does he even really need to ask himself that?
Case in point, he turns away from the Bread Bridge to try and enter the mansion through the attic before remembering exactly what will be remaining below him. Water. Charred, floating remnants of wood. A death of fall damage waiting to happen—or, it would be, if the three of them hadn't gotten so used to traversing the burnt remains of their home.
He hears Grian shift from behind him, and sure, the obstruction in his throat grows and he feels like he's closer to tears than he was about four seconds ago, but that bubbling anger under his skin finds him choking out, "Why would I be mad at you, Grian? What reason could you possibly have given me to be mad at you within the past three days?" He throws up his hands a little. "What reason could I possibly have to be mad in general, Grian?"
"Well, I don't know," Grian says densely, completely missing the way Jimmy sounds as he hears him jump off the chest and land on the cobblestone platform below him. Cobblestone, so the foundation of their base can't be burned down. Gods, this is miserable. "That's why I asked you."
Jimmy doesn't dignify that with a response—mostly because he's not sure if he'll be able to maintain the somewhat-steady level of his voice or, you know, his lack of tears, but also because Grian is purposely being obtuse to get a rise out of him. He practically does a full three-sixty turn to face the bubble elevator that goes up to their combined base, marching toward it with a little too much force in his steps as Grian trails him from behind.
"Not answering?" he asks, a teasing lilt to his voice that clashes so badly with how Jimmy's feeling it almost gives him whiplash. "Alright, let's see." Jimmy twists his eyes shut. Please, gods, strike him down here and now. The 'him' can be Jimmy or Grian, he doesn't care, he just wants out of this conversation. "I proposed being Good Boys at the beginning of the session. We let Bread Bridge get burnt down. The person that led the effort was your ex-soulmate—sorry about that." What? "You've been forced to interact with your ex-'soulmate'—if you know what I mean—pretty negatively for, like, two sessions...your build doesn't look as good as Joel and I's..."
Jimmy ignores him very deliberately. He steps into the bubble elevator and relishes in the somewhat-silence, the water rushing in his ears drowning out the sounds he would normally be able to hear without Listening. It's peaceful, for the second and a half that it lasts, and then he's spat out at the top, completely dry, and almost crashes into Joel trying to get materials from the chest in Grian's loaf.
Joel looks startled, green sparrow wings flying out behind him to steady himself in a way that almost makes him coo (if Jimmy wasn't so upset, he probably would've), as Joel's wings are very new and he doesn't know how to properly use them in the slightest. "Timmy? What's the matter—"
Jimmy practically knocks him out of the way in pursuit of his own part of the build, practically spitting, "Shut up. And that's not my bloody name!"
Joel just stares at him, spluttering for his words before asking, "What—what—are you okay, Jimmy?"
Before Jimmy can retreat back into his passive-aggression with a very annoyed 'yes, I'm fine,' Grian comes spewing out of the top of the bubble elevator, landing gracefully on his feet and continuing without missing a beat, "The only retaliation you were able to get on TIES was blowing up one of the cosmetic bits of their base, the mob farm was empty when we went to go check it—that was frustrating for me, too, don't worry—oh, and you finally found that dumb frog you've been talking about for the past three sessions."
Jimmy stops in the doorway of his part of the base. Grian doesn't even hesitate. "And that same frog died in that same interaction—oh, Jimmy. It's not about the frog, is it?"
Jimmy's nails dig into the doorframe. He doesn't turn back towards Grian, only asking through gritted teeth, "And what if it is?"
Grian lets out the most exaggerated groan Jimmy has ever heard off of him, Hearing him drag his nails down the sides of his face. "I'd say that that's a stupid reason to be mad, Timmy. It was a frog—"
"Grian—" Joel speaks up, a shock in his voice that almost shocks Jimmy.
"—that you've been starting nonsense with other people because of, which means that we've basically lost an ally before the other two of us get a chance to interact with them. It was just a dumb frog, man, get over it."
Get over it.
Jimmy's nails properly split through the wood. "Right," he spits. "Thanks."
He slams the door behind him so hard that he hears something crack.
It is in this moment that Grian realises he may have gone too far.
It is only further solidified by Joel grabbing him by the shoulder, spinning him around to face him, and hissing, "What in the bloody Goddamn hell is wrong with you?"
The swear makes Grian's feathers rise up—Joel's are all already basically parallel to each other with how far they're standing on edge. His eyes are wide and teeming with surprise and mild confusion and disappointment, which makes Grian shove Joel's hand off of him and reply, "What? I was just kidding around, Joel, chill out."
"That wasn't just joking around—!" Joel exclaims, voice shrill. "Didn't you see him? I only had to take one glance and I knew something was up, are you blind?"
Grian shrinks back just the slightest bit, stepping away from the door so Jimmy doesn't hear them—which, he realises shortly after the thought crosses his mind, is a bit of a useless endeavour due to Jimmy's Nature, but the thought is still there. "Come off it, Joel, it's not like you're any better—"
Joel's wings continue to rise behind him. "What does that have to do with this? What do my previous interactions have to do with you?"
"It means you should stop acting like you're better than me for not pushing Tim around," Grian retaliates, pushing Joel back square in the chest. He couldn't explain his defensiveness—he doesn't even know what he's doing. He's just...mad. Inordinately mad, unfairly mad, but he isn't willing to admit either of those things to himself, not when there's so much righteous annoyance coursing through his veins. "It's practically your entire personality on Empires, Joel, how am I wrong for it here?"
"That hasn't been my bit for bloody ages, Grian," Joel hisses, stepping closer to Grian until they're practically face to face, their two-inch height difference exaggerated due to how close they are. "Not since we..."
Joel glances to the side as if ashamed before he turns his swirling yellow eyes back to Grian and quietly continues, "We talked."
Grian just stares at him. "You talked?"
Joel huffs and the air blows straight into Grian's face. "Stop playing dumb, I hate it when you do that."
That stings, just a little, because Grian isn't playing dumb a vast majority of the times he asks basic questions, but he genuinely can't tell whether he's asking to make a point or whether what Joel is implying genuinely isn't registering in his brain. They talked? About Grian? About the game? About the teasing, definitely. They talked, and it was a serious enough talk to get Joel, Timmy teasing extraordinaire, to change his entire character plot on Empires to comply with his wishes? What did Jimmy say? Does he think the teasing is serious? Is it making him depressed? Oh, Channel, is he giving his pseudo-brother depression? How would that even work? Is he teasing him so bad he stopped caring about everything? Himself? When was the last time Jimmy preened himself? When was the last time Jimmy was preened?
Grian swallows, attempting to wipe his spiralling train of thought away. "I'm...genuinely asking."
Joel breathes on him again, meeting his eyes before yanking him further away from Jimmy's door. Why did Jimmy lock his door? Is he okay in there? Is he alive? "He explained to me that the teasing was genuinely tiring and negatively impacting his mental health and that it needed to stop. That's basically it."
"That doesn't—that doesn't mean anything, Joel, what does 'negatively impacting his mental health' mean?" Grian stresses, his brows pulling together with sudden concern, because, look—as much as he teases Jimmy, as much as he pokes fun at the guy and is mean to him sometimes, he's always been fine with it. He's explicitly stated multiple times that he finds it funny to be the butt of the joke, back when Grian would consistently ask him whether he was okay because he felt bad about it.
It suddenly hits Grian how long ago the last time he had bothered to ask was. The last time since he had really felt bad about it. When did he stop holding himself accountable whenever he felt as if he'd gone too far? When was the last time he felt he'd gone too far in general? When did picking on Jimmy go from lighthearted jokes to something so bad that he needed to stand up to Joel to stop it? When did they stop being jokes? Why won't he stand up to Grian about it if it's that bad?
The stress under his skin prickles, weighing down on his chest as Joel quietly says, "It's just...he has garbage self-esteem already, Grian. You're basically his brother, you should know that—"
"Don't," Grian interrupts, grabbing the front of Joel's shirt and pulling him forward, this sudden swell of fear and apprehension and shame being smothered with a thin veil of anger. "Don't say that. Don't bring that up."
"I'll bring it up if you won't," Joel snarls, shoving Grian away from him. "You've been bloody horrible to him this entire time, and you're too stubborn to acknowledge that it's wrong."
"I'm not stubborn, I'm not being horrible," Grian insists, but he knows that he's lying through his teeth at this point and can't tell whether it's to convince Joel or to save himself from feeling the guilt. "I'm just—I'm just stressed. There's a lot going on, seeing as how I run the game and am also participating—"
"So Timmy's your blummin' stress ball?" Joel snaps back, cutting him off with a sharp disappointment in his eyes and in the body language of his wings. "Is he suddenly supposed to be your punching bag because he used to be okay with light teasing?"
He's right, Grian knows that he's right, but accepting the fact will mean having to put everything he's said to Jimmy into that perspective and he doesn't know if he can handle that, not on top of the game and the stress that made him start poking at Jimmy more in the first place. He stares down and clenches his fists, releasing them and tensing them over and over. "Joel, I get it."
Joel makes a noise that almost sounds offended in its shock. "Wh—no, I don't think you 'get it,' actually. I don't think you're even sorry at all!"
Grian's fists bunch up the fabric of his pants at his sides as he meets Joel's intense gaze with furrowed brows and narrowed eyes. "Joel, I was just stressed. I get that it was wrong, okay? I just—there's just a lot."
"If you're so stressed out because you're a player," Joel hisses, venom in his voice that already stings Grian and makes his skin prickle painfully. "Why don't you go back to Watchin' from the bloomin' sky like you're meant to?"
Like you're meant to. Grian's ears are ringing. He distantly hears a door fly open, but other sounds just aren't registering in his mind. It shouldn't affect him this much—it's a dumb insult, low-hanging fruit, but Grian can't help but dig for an ounce of truth within it—an ounce that quickly spirals into much more.
Joel thinks he should go back, and maybe Grian agrees with him. He can only imagine how the rest of the server feels on the matter and are just too afraid to tell him. Gods, he doesn't even want to think about Jimmy (Jimmy, who has practically run out of his room and placed himself between Joel and Grian, who is holding a loud and completely unintelligible conversation with the man in front of him). He's only been nice to Joel in this game—what would Jimmy, who he's treated like little more than the gravel stuck in his boot, think about him? About him being here? Surely, if anyone on this server would want Grian to leave, it would be Jimmy. His not-brother.
Something about that makes his chest ache more than anything.
He can't remember when he stopped asking Jimmy if he was okay with the teasing, but he can very clearly remember when it started. Back when they were kids, before Jimmy even had wings, when Grian had Pearl and Jimmy had Lizzie and they both had each other. Back when the only thing Jimmy had to worry about was playground drama (while Grian had to worry about food and a place to sleep, but that had nothing to do with anyone but himself and Pearl) and he was just so tiny compared to everyone else. Back when the worst thing anyone could call Jimmy was some nonsense phrase made of cobbled-together snippets of a parents' own insults, when the extent of teasing would be keeping the ball away from him for an entire set of games. Back when people would get a bit too mean and Lizzie and Grian would get a bit too angry, and when Jimmy would tell them that it was fine, that he found it funny, and that he didn't mind him being the one that gets teased because it doesn't bother him and he would rather it be on him than someone that it actually would bother.
And Grian was skeptical, as he was and always is, but he accepted it. And then he played into it. And when they got a little older and Jimmy grew wings that followed a catastrophe that marked the beginning of his tentative, perilous existence, it was Jimmy's thing. He would be introduced to friends and they would be concerned at just how much teasing was going his way, but it was fine because Jimmy was fine with it. You could even ask him yourself. He's fine with it.
Grian takes a step back. How long has he not been fine with it? How long has he just been saying that because that's practically how Grian would introduce him? How long has it been since anyone cared to check up on that fact? It's not like they've gotten new friends over the years. It's not like he ever had a chance to correct what had been his standard for so long. Gods, and that's why he had to tell Joel. It all got too much.
He takes another step back. Jimmy, whose attention had been mostly focused on Joel, only throwing worried glances back at Grian's blank stare a few times before turning back to continue talking with the other man, turns to face him completely. Grian ducks away and takes another step back, just as Jimmy reaches forward and grabs him by the wrist.
He can see Jimmy's mouth form his name, but he shakes his head and tries to pull away from him, straining to say, "Tim—let me go."
Jimmy's voice comes through almost unnervingly clearly. "No."
"Jimmy—"
"No," Jimmy repeats, practically yanking Grian back to him. It's like getting pulled out from under the water—one jerk and sound is hitting his ears as normal again. "Where are you going?"
"You don't have to do this," Grian says, staring Jimmy square in the eyes. For once, Jimmy meets them head-on, gaze not wavering for even a moment. "I'm not asking. Let me go."
"Yeah, well," Jimmy raises his shoulders and rouses his feathers. "I am asking. Where are you going?"
"I don't—away?"
Jimmy stares at him, and Grian takes the opportunity to wrench his hand out of Jimmy's grasp. "Grian, don't listen to what Joel said. He didn't mean it."
"It sure sounded like—"
"But he didn't," Jimmy interrupts, striding behind Grian and standing in the way of his great escape. He ushers Grian back towards where he was before, continuing, "So don't freak out over it. He was mad, you were mad, and you both said things you didn't mean. Can we move on?"
Grian doesn't look at Joel, and Joel doesn't look at him. He lets out a sardonic half-laugh. "You want us to move on?" he asks, trying to mask the utter confusion rattling around in his brain. "This is about you."
"And, honestly, I'd really much prefer if it wasn't!" comes the overly-cheery reply through gritted teeth. "This all started from me being rude for no reason, so we should just—"
"Jimmy, our pet died!" Joel snaps, making Jimmy whirl around and stare daggers into him. "That isn't 'no reason,' that's a completely justifiable Goddamn reason to be upset! Especially when someone is telling you over and over how stupid it is to be upset about it!"
"Joel, we're in a death game," Jimmy says coolly, and Grian feels sick. That isn't supposed to be him at all, it feels wrong. All former traces of that aggressiveness, that anger from just a few minutes before, are completely gone. It feels like he's been reset back to his baseline of 'just accept it,' and Grian can't ignore it in good faith. Not when he's been forced to think about it and consider his actions and realise how awful he had been. Specifically about this, sure, but also for the past however-many-years. "There are more important things dying than frogs."
He takes a step towards Jimmy and lays a hand on the man's bicep, saying, "Jimmy. I was being an idiot."
Jimmy rolls his eyes and shrugs Grian's hand off of him, lightheartedly groaning and saying, "Gods, no, Grian, it's fine. You know it's fine, I'm fine. You were right, it was—"
"No, stop," Grian interrupts, because he can't stand to hear that frail, tense insistence that he's any sort of 'fine' continue. "I wasn't right, I was being a jerk. I..." He falters, then casts his gaze to the floor underneath them. "I've been being a jerk."
Jimmy visibly hesitates, then plants a hand on Grian's shoulder with a light, "Oh, come on, man. Is this about Joel saying we talked? I promise it's not that serious, G. It was just...a little stressful over on Empires."
"And that's the thing!" Grian blurts, still staring at the ground but suddenly adding hand movements to the mix. "I've been taking out my stress on you and it makes you stressed. And—and I wouldn't know, but it probably makes you feel bad, just generally bad—and I didn't mean to—I've been—"
Jimmy's hand stills on his shoulder before rubbing it comfortingly. "G—"
"And I just feel sick because I didn't even realise how bad it was until—" Grian laughs, and it is humourless and strained. "I mean, who tells someone to get over their pet dying and doesn't think twice about how bloody awful that is until—?"
He cuts himself off and Jimmy stays silent. He is acutely aware of Joel staring at him, mouth clamped shut, not saying anything as Jimmy takes charge of the situation. He doesn't want Jimmy's hand on his shoulder, he just wants to leave. He wants to run away to some far corner of the map, because he knows that there's no way in hell that he'd actually go back to the Watchers, but disappearing or running his timer out to zero would probably be best for everyone, just so he can get back to Hermitcraft and hide—
Jimmy squeezes his shoulder and crouches to look directly in his eyes. "G. Grian. Look at me."
Grian tentatively meets his gaze. Jimmy looks about as serious as murder, a shadow passing over his face that looks less like an expression and more like the silhouette of death cast across his eyes.
He drops his voice down to a whisper. "You know I hate doing this—Listening, I mean—" A shudder rolls throughout Grian's entire body and he feels a bit nauseous. "But I need you to promise me that you'll never think that again."
Grian stares at him. His voice comes out as croaky as he asks, "What?"
"Running out your timer," he says even quieter, so quiet that Joel wouldn't be able to hear them if he strained. Joel takes a step back, then another, and turns to go back into his sub, realising that he's probably intruding on something outside of him. "Don't you dare. Or I'll do—something. I'll stop you."
"But—Jimmy, I—"
"This isn't about you, Grian," Jimmy cuts him off, and the bluntness of his words sends a shock through Grian that clears his mind of most of the fog. "This isn't about just you. Everyone teases me. Everyone says awful things. Everyone here, everyone on Empires, everyone on every other server I've ever joined—except, like, Tango."
"But," Grian breathes, grasping for words to form a coherent sentence and finding none. "But it bothers you."
Jimmy hesitates, then nods. Something in Grian's chest shrivels. "It does. Sometimes. But it doesn't bother me that it's you more than anyone else."
"But we're—"
Jimmy cuts him off with a pained expression and a squeeze, and the words 'basically brothers' get caught in his throat.
Grian could cry, if he thought he was still capable. Jimmy knew what he was going to say and stopped him. Why? Did he lie? Did it hurt him more for all this time, knowing that one of the worst (if not the worst) offenders was someone whom he had known since early childhood? Who had an entire inside joke based around the fact that they talked like brothers, acted like brothers, felt like brothers, but insisted on adding an argument ('basically,' 'practically,' 'almost,' 'sort of') beforehand just to pretend like there was any difference? He can't remember what crying feels like, not after all this time, but he thinks the choking pressure in his throat and nausea and dizziness come close enough.
Maybe he deserves this awful feeling. Jimmy still doesn't move away from him, doesn't harden his gaze or recoil in disgust, and he almost laughs. He definitely doesn't deserve Jimmy.
As if he can read Grian's thoughts—which, Grian distantly recalls, is no longer that far-fetched of a possibility as Jimmy has already broken that barrier—Jimmy slowly pulls Grian closer to him, wrapping his other arm around the shorter man and squeezing ever so slightly, making sure to keep his arms from pressing against his wings like he always does. Grian doesn't hug him back. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't, but he doesn't move, either.
He can almost hear the smile in Jimmy's voice. "It's okay, G," he says quietly. "I forgive you."
"I'm so sorry," he whispers, too little and far too late. He hadn't said it already—he hadn't even thought it yet, and now it just sounds fake and responsive when he really is sorry. He's so sorry he can hardly breathe. He isn't one that often feels regret, and even rarer does he feel guilt, but he wishes he could go back and replay all these years of what he had done, redo it all so he could salvage something real out of this moment. It doesn't feel real.
Jimmy only squeezes him tighter. "Grian. I forgive you. I understand. It's okay."
It isn't.
"It's okay," Jimmy insists, shifting a hand to run down the topside of Grian's wings, the avian equivalent of soothing someone by patting down their hair. Grian's hands itch at his sides. "I promise you, it's okay. I believe that you're sorry. I believe you."
Jimmy leans his forehead on Grian's shoulder. Grian's arms slowly raise to curl around Jimmy's torso, and before he can really register what he's doing, his claws are dug into Jimmy's clothes and pulling them taut, his wings stretching out to try and encase them both.
"I'm sorry," Grian repeats.
There is no bitterness in Jimmy's voice, no hidden anger, no forced-down resentment come to stab further into Grian's chest. None that he can hear, at least—only gentle acceptance and a soothing tone, meant only to calm Grian down in the moment. He can't lie and say it doesn't work.
"I know," Jimmy says, and Grian can only hide his face in his not-brother's jacket.