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“Are we expecting a visitor?” Cleo asked X, who shook his head.
“I expect that’s what was hacking in. Everyone stay here, and don’t text on the main chat. Grian, can I have my communicator please?” He paused. “Grian?”
Grian was standing stiffly, shaking slightly, wings pressed tightly to his back.
Mumbo got to his feet, crossing the room and standing in front of Grian.
“G? Can you look at me please?” He said quietly, so just the two of them could hear.
Grian raised his eyes to meet Mumbo’s. They were furious.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Grian gritted out.
“Why?” Mumbo asked.
“He’s the reason for at least half of my trauma.”
“Okay,” Mumbo said. “Give him hell. But give X’s communicator back first.”
Grian handed it to him, then spread his wings.
“Are you sure you can take him?” Mumbo checked.
Grian chuckled darkly. “I’m dead, he ain’t got shit on me no more.” He pressed a quick kiss to Mumbo’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon.”
With that, Grian spread his wings and hurled himself through the door and away.
“What just happened?” Pearl voiced. “Mumbo, where’s he going?”
“To my knowledge,” Mumbo answered. “He’s about to beat the shit out of that Sam guy. I, for one, am going to go watch the show.” He strapped his elytra on.
“Does Grian know Sam Gladiator then?” Xisuma asked.
“Same gave Grian trauma, according to him,” Mumbo answered. “That’s reason enough for me.”
Pearl stood up, pulling her elytra out. “Wait for me, I’m coming too.”
“And me,” Scar said.
Xisuma sighed, standing up. “I’m sure there’s a better way of doing this, but we need to back Grian up in case the hacker is more harmful than he accounted for.”
From this height, Grian observed, Sam was small, insignificant. Nothing but a speck of chalk on a used blackboard. How ironic.
Grian dived, pulling his wings close to his body. It was only when he reached head height that he spread them wide to catch the air resistance, dropping in front of Sam easily. Shock quickly was replaced by a bright, fake smile.
“Taurtis! I finally found you,” Sam beamed. “You must have missed me so much!”
Grian rolled his eyes. “Uh huh, sure. Why’re you here, Sam?”
“For you, of course! You don’t seem very happy to see me, Taurtis.” Sam narrowed his eyes.
“Oh no, I’m ecstatic,” Grian smiled, saccharine sweet. It dropped a second later. “I’m not a kid anymore Sam. Neither of us are. I won’t play your games.”
Sam frowned. “You aren’t making any sense Taurtis.”
“Oh, he’s making perfect sense.”
Grian grinned, angling to face the newcomer, making sure to keep Sam in his field of vision.
“Jerry? What are you doing here?”
The real Taurtis blinked at Sam. “Jerry? Who’s this character?”
“That’s you,” Sam insisted. “We found you in that park in the hospital gown. Stop acting stupid.”
Taurtis glanced at Grian, who sighed. “When you had the memory loss after this dick stabbed you, he decided you’d be called Jerry.”
“Huh,” Taurtis stated. “Weird.”
“Hey, don’t talk over me,” Sam fumed. “You aren’t being a very good friend, Taurtis.”
“I think he truly believes that I’m you,” Grian remarked. “That’s somewhat worrying.”
“School did a number on everyone,” Taurtis shrugged.
Grian fixed his attention on him. “Was he not like this before?”
“Stop ignoring me,” Sam pouted.
“Not at the start, no. Do you think…”
“Is there any way of saving him? He was terrifying as a teenager, but now it’s just a bit sad,” Grian admitted.
“I don’t need saving! You guys are acting crazy!”
“That doesn’t defend what he’s done though, especially to you,” Taurtis hovered.
“Yeah, but he might have begun to change. He hasn’t done anything wrong yet today other than call me by your name. I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but I think we should give him a second chance.”
“I don’t think this is the best idea. Even if we did let him start again, how would it help?” Taurtis inquired. “What would we do?”
“Police won’t have the same views,” Grian realised. “And he mentioned being in an asylum before, so that might bring back PTSD… maybe we co-”
He flinched as a weight hit his chest, and looked down.
A hocho knife was buried in his ribs.
“Huh,” Grian observed. His gaze lifted to Sam’s outstretched arm. “Y’know what, I take it back. He doesn’t deserve a second chance.”
He smirked as Sam’s face rapidly paled.
“How- what the-” he edged backwards.
Grian tugged the knife out of his chest, Watching black blood ooze from the hole. He smiled sweetly at Sam, voice light.
“Funny story, actually. This body is dead. I am the god inside it.”
He giggled at Sam’s horror.
“Oh! And one more thing, I almost forgot!” He wiped the smile away, flicking the knife through the air. It stabbed through one of Sam’s rabbit ears, pinning him to a tree with it.
Sam whimpered as he pulled out a pistol.
“My name’s Grian,” he growled, shooting three bullets into Sam’s neck.
“You are so cool,” Taurtis stated, awed.
Grian chuckled. “Thanks, turtle.”
“So, are you alive cause of the Watcher thing or the dead thing?” Taurtis cocked his head.
“A bit of both, I guess,” Grian shrugged, spinning the gun. “I haven’t used one of these in ages. Brings back memories.”
“As if all this didn’t?” Taurtis laughed, gesturing to Sam’s body.
“Fair,” Grian chuckled. “Hey, wanna have a tour while you’re here? You don’t have duties to get back to, do you?”
“Nah, I told the court I’d be away for a bit. A tour sounds awesome. Though, quick question, where is everyone? I thought you said there’s more than twenty of you?”
“Yeah, we were having a sleepover before shithead showed up and kinda crashed it. I’m surprised they didn’t follow, actually. Unless they’re hiding somewhere.” Grian shrugged. “Anyway, tours. This is the community farm, I think Joe set it up right at the start. My starter house is over there, by Scar’s giant tree. He’s going for an elven theme this season, long hair and all.”
“Well they’re definitely dead,” Xisuma stated after a pause. The Hermits had all crowded around Sam’s body as soon as Grian and the other person, who Mumbo assumed to be Taurtis, had left.
“I think that’s quite obvious,” Scar said, eyeing the bullet holes warily. “Grian’s scary.”
Mumbo couldn’t help snorting with laughter, covering his mouth when people glanced at him.
“Aren’t guns illegal on this server?” Impulse asked.
“Technically, yes,” Xisuma replied. “But I think I’m allowed to make exceptions.”
“So,” Gem started, pulling a spade out of her inventory. “Where are we burying the body?”
Four hours later, Xisuma’s elytra had broken and he was trudging back through the forest towards spawn. He could message someone if he wanted, it it wasn’t that far, and walking would probably do him some good.
“X-Xisuma?”
X started, turning towards the voice. He blinked at Grian, who perched on a tree root, wings curled around himself. Tear tracks ran down his face.
“Grian!” Xisuma searched for the right thing to say. “Uh- did your friend go back to their server?”
Grian nodded, smiling slightly. “Yeah, he couldn’t be away for too long. Why’re you out here?”
“Elytra broke,” X gestured to the tattered remains on his shoulders. “Decided to just walk back to spawn. How bout you?”
Grian winced. “Ah- I was a bit… overwhelmed, I guess, by today. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again.”
“Your friend, or the rabbit hybrid?” Xisuma asked.
“The rabbit. Sam.” The name was spoken with obvious disgust.
“Mumbo didn’t want to say anything without your permission,” Xisuma started cautiously, “but he mentioned that this Sam gave you some… bad memories.”
Grian chuckled. “You can say trauma, I’ve accepted that I’ve got PTSD. Yeah, Sam was a dick in high school. He murdered people, hurt me multiple times, stabbed Taurtis, manipulated me into pretending to be Taurtis, managed to gaslight himself into thinking that- he was a little unhinged, to be honest.” He gave a wry smile.
Xisuma took in the information. “Right. That- that’s a lot. Have you talked to so-”
“I’ve been venting to Mumbo, so you should probably get him a therapist before I ruin our relationship by sucking away his happiness, and I’ve talked to you now. That era wasn’t even too bad, though I went a little batshit after high school. Then there was the whole Watcher thing-” he stopped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to trauma-dump.”
Xisuma crouched down, then shifted to sit beside Grian. “Feel free to trauma-dump on me, G. I’ll hear you.”
Grian curled up to his side, wing hugging him. “Did you see when I killed him?”
Xisuma nodded. “I think everyone did.”
“Oh,” Grian said quietly. “I guess there’s no hiding it then. I mean, you’ve always known I was a Watcher, but- remember when I was taken into the Rift and came out with weird eyes?”
“It’s not easy to forget,” Xisuma chuckled slightly to lessen the tension.
Grian bore the ghost of a smile. “Yeah, tell me about it. You also remember when — I think it was Doc — pointed out that my hands were translucent?”
Xisuma nodded, starting to realise where this was going.
Grian lifted his hands, gray seeping over them. Xisuma blinked as the trees became visible through them.
“That was my punishment,” Grian spoke dully. “They killed me, the Watcher side of me, at least. I’m still half player, same as I always was, but the other half of me is now a ghost, I guess. I’m practically immortal though now, so I’ll take it as a win, and I get a sick Halloween outfit.”
Xisuma pressed his lips together. “I will feel incredibly guilty if I laugh at your trauma, G. I assume Mumbo knows?”
Grian nodded, letting himself fade back into opacity. “No one else though, until now. Well, I wrote to Taurtis, but he knows pretty much everything about me. And me him.”
Xisuma nodded. “Alright. How would you feel about getting proper therapy?”
Grian hunched his shoulders. “You don’t have to-”
“I’m getting a server therapist regardless, G, we all need to vent sometimes. I have recently been going around asking Hermits if they’re interested, just to gauge roughly how many of us would go.”
“That’s a nice idea,” Grian nodded, soft smile slipping onto his face. “I think I’d like it, yeah.”
“That’s good,” Xisuma hummed. “I’m probably gonna go too, admin duties are a bit frustrating sometimes.”
“Tell me about it,” Grian chuckled. “But, like we said yesterday, we are here for you, we can arrange a rota so the server’s safe while you aren’t doing admin duty. We can op a group, if there are any of us you trust not to prank people with it.” They both laughed, envisioning the scene. “But yeah, we love you, Dad. We’d rather kill than let you overwork yourself.”
“That’s not a particularly high bar,” Xisuma pointed out. “I’m 99% sure all of you have murdered at least one person in your lifetimes. But I appreciate the sentiment.”
“No problem,” Grian beamed, momentarily tightening his wing around Xisuma in the same way one would squeeze someone’s hand. “By the way, you’re trapped here now.”
That startled another laugh out of him. “Am I now?”
“Yup.” Grian snuggled up to him, gently headbutting his armour. “You can never escape. ‘T’would be foolish to even try.”
“I’m sure it would.” Xisuma smiled, moving an arm around him. Grian trilled contently.
“Mhm,” he hummed.
“Good thing I never want to leave your side,” Xisuma whispered as he drifted off.