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They all gathered on the last day of Season Seven in front of the Admin Portal that Xisuma had made for them to travel to their reserved Season Eight world.
Three men came walking into view together, joking and laughing. Scar, the most flirtatious of the crew, started to joke about Grian's prudishness, in dress and in his, activities, with other server members.
"Have you even kissed someone on this server, Grian? Not on the cheek, but on the lips?!?" Scar queried.
"No, I haven't," Grian said, letting out a long suffering sigh, "I'm not interested in anyone on the server."
"What are you, aromantic or asexual or something?" Scar asked, tone supportive but joking.
Grian shook his head no.
Looking away from Grian at this point, Scar asked,
"Are you secretly married and you didn't make me your best man???"
A flash of sorrow crossed Grian's face. He schooled his features and lied, but reasoned in his head that it was technically true, and said "No."
His high school sweetheart, and later, husband, Taurtis, had died however long ago it's been since the Watchers took him.
He had spent fifty-something years in the Deep End, being tortured into submission, turned into a Watcher, then 'taught' how to behave in the 'appropriate' ways.
His husband, had he not been killed by Watchers fifty-some years ago, would be elderly or possibly dead anyways. It's of no use to him to think about.
Xisuma started his end of season speech, which Grian tuned out, thinking about his late husband and the crushing guilt he'd felt the one time he'd tried to move on in Hermitcraft.
He had almost kissed Ren during the hippie days, but stopped last second. He wasn't moving on then, he was comparing Ren to Taurtis and that wasn't fair to anyone involved. He wasn't yet ready to move on.
Xisuma clapped his hands and the portal lit up. He guided them through one-by-one. Grian was last, other than Xisuma, who needed to close the portal after him. Grian smiled wanly at Xisuma, and stepped through.
He landed in the new world with a soft thump, as his feet met the ground.
"Ugh, server jumps make me dizzy." He groaned.
There was a pit in the middle of the gathered hermits, a village to one side, and a swamp to the other. He nudged his best friends, Mumbo and Scar, and pointed at the iron golem.
They looked at him, exasperated, and decided to ignore his antics.
Grian ran up to the iron golem and bopped it on the arm, before sprinting through the hermits, cackling.
Xisuma sighed. He started, "Well, Mumbo, I told you what to say before we went through, go ahead!"
Mumbo, who had not paid attention to the information he wasn't told before entering the new world, stammered out, "W-welcome hermits, to Season eight! In this crevasse, we have two new hermits, GeminiTay and PearlescentMoon."
At the second name, Grian stopped cold.
He croaked out a "What?" before being slammed over the head by an iron hand in the midst of the watching hermits, inevitably respawning.
He scrambled from where he respawned to the edge of the hole and breathed out one word, "Pearl?"
Pearl whipped around at the familiar voice, and stared at Grian, stood on the side of the pit, for just a moment before saying, "Griba?" just as quietly and disbelievingly as Grian had called her.
Tears started to fall from both.
Grian is a very fair person, he would never use his wings before any of the reasonable players had a chance to get elytra, just to even out the competition, but that all left his mind as the old nickname left his twin's lips.
He flew at her, tears falling and she caught him easily, colliding in a hug. They fell into the side of the crevice, scraping their limbs and stumbling for stability, but not letting go for a tick. The hug did not falter a centimeter.
They sobbed in sync, sun and moon reunited. Their wings wrapped awkwardly around each other, overlapping and stretching over limbs and tangling feathers and themselves until the two were nearly hidden from sight.
They pulled apart slightly when grian sobbed, "Is everyone else alive too?"
Pearl gasped and pulled back her wings and body to grab her communicator.
She simply exclaimed, "Yes!" before searching for her communicator.
He started to ask, "Is-is Taurti-" before being interrupted by a dialing tone.
He looked at the screen and sobbed harder.
She said, "He hasn't stopped looking for you for the past 7 years. He might not pick up on the first call but definitely by the fifth.
He chuckled wetly, "That sounds like him."
Several of the nosy hermits had gathered to peer over Pearl's shoulder by this point, while others were just seated on the grass, watching from random points around the pit.
The dial tone stopped, and the blank screen, which was returned to face Pearl by now, lit up with an exhausted face.
"What is it, Pearl, aren't you on your new server by now?" Taurtis's voice asked.
Grian sobbed and Taurtis asked, "Who's crying, why are you crying Pearl, do you need me to get you?"
She shook her head and said, "I have a surprise for you."
He hummed, apprehensive, as she turned around in Grian's death grip, and showed her brother who hooked his head over her shoulder to stare at the image of his presumed-dead husband.
"Taurtis," Grian breathed.
Taurtis stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped thinking. His beautiful, amazing, strong husband. Right there.
He spoke after a tick of hesitation and said, "Grian, honey, is that really you?" Tears were already welling up in his eyes.
Grian sniffles, "Yes."
"OH MY GODS, GRIAN, OH GODS WHERE ARE YOU???" Taurtis shouted.
"I'm on Hermitcraft. I'm so sorry please forgive me I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry." He begged.
Taurtis's face softened as he reassured his missing husband, "I'm not mad, I'm stunned. You're alive, I can't believe we've found you again, I can't believe it, can I come see you, can you come see me?"
Grian looked up at Xisuma, who was being nosy and paying attention to the conversation.
He started to hem and haw over it, before several Hermits started saying that they support it.
Grian, finally out of his little bubble, turned red at all the hermits staring at him and Pearl, their interest and concern.
Xisuma asked, "Who is he to you, before I white list him, and what's his tag?"
Grian said, "He's my husband, who until a moment ago, I thought was killed."
Several hermits gasped, both at the revelation of who this mysterious man was to their resident prankster, and at the idea that their beloved friend had thought his husband was dead, and many had tried to come onto him while he was silently grieving.
"His tag is capital 't' lowercase 'a' 'u' 'r' 't' 'i' 's'." Grian managed to say.
Xisuma typed quickly and Taurtis gently said to Grian, who by this point was gripping both Pearl by the hand, and the side of her communicator, "I'm going to be right there, I'm hanging up so I can join you I swear I'll be right there with you."
Grian sobbed and shook his head, "No, no, please don't leave!"
Taurtis tried to reassure him, but realized it was futile, so he quickly hung up to log into the server.
Grian screamed in agony, his husband was gone again. Pearl grabbed his hands before he could start tugging his hair or scratching himself.
Most hermits by this point were also openly and earnestly crying for their friend.
Their comms pinged simultaneously, but Grian kept sobbing. Until there was a loud thump behind him and familiar hands replacing Pearl's in his own. He dared to crack open a tear filled eye, and was met, this time, with his husband's gorgeous eyes, his nose, his red, bitten lips.
Grian wrestled his hands out of Taurtis's, then tackled him. He pressed his chapped lips to his husband's stabbed ones. Wolf whistles abounded as he kissed his husband he'd thought he'd never see again, tears dripping from both of their closed eyes.
After a moment, Taurtis brought his hands up to Grian's face, gently pushing him away to stare into his black eyes.
"I'm loving this and I'm so happy to see you, but man, this wall is uncomfortable to be pressed against." Taurtis mumbled.
Grian blushed furiously and grabbed his hands, pulling them both up. He kissed his husband again, before looping his arms around the brunet, and lifting them with a couple desperate flaps of his parrot wings.
They landed a few blocks from the pit, stumbling.
Taurtis's face lit up a tick after they landed, hand reaching up to a chain on his neck, which he pulled out of his collar, revealing two rings and an obviously old bright red feather.
Grian only cried harder seeing these.
Taurtis hurriedly unhooked the necklace from his neck, and took the rings off. He stood, holding the ring Grian had left in their home before the dragon fight seven years ago, and presented it to his husband.
Grian held out his left hand, palm down, and Taurtis gently replaced the ring that was always meant to be there.
In the midst of very nosy Hermits, the reunited couple kissed gently again.