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Terrified, blood-curdling screams are all that Mumbo can hear.
They began not too long ago, rattling the walls and shivering through the floors, pulling Mumbo from his slumber. He almost startled out of bed when they began, the suddenness of the noise jerking him into wakefulness in an instant.
The screams are long, they are wailing and breathless and they pervade the air of the entire house. They echo down the corridors and reverberate off the walls until the redstoner finds himself convinced that surely, surely, the entire server can hear them.
The most notable thing about the screams, however, is that they are not his own.
It takes a few seconds for Mumbo to process who they must belong to upon his unpleasant awakening, his brain lagging behind his body as he springs out of bed, blinking groggily around the dark room. He stares tiredly for a beat or two, before he’s spinning on his heel and uncoordinatedly sprinting towards the room that he knows Grian is in.
The pair of them had been having a movie night, sharing popcorn and yelling at shoddy romance movies, cuddles up together on the sofa. Grian had cooked them dinner – while Mumbo was rightfully kept far away from the stove – and then they had retired for the night. It was too late for Mumbo to comfortably fly home, so he had been ushered into the mansion’s spare bedroom and tucked in with a comical kiss to his forehead, before Grian had retreated into the master bedroom.
It couldn’t have been later than midnight at that point, and the digital clock that Mumbo hurries past on his way out of the room now reads 3:08 AM.
Neither of them have gotten much sleep, then.
The screaming hasn’t stopped, even as Mumbo rushes towards the bedroom. He slides on the polished floor as he turns a corner, his fluffy bed socks not offering much in the way of grip. The door comes into sight as he does, and he finds his ears prickling even further as the sound begins to taper off into words, wailed and sobbed from behind the thick oak.
He’s known that Grian has suffered with nightmares for many years now, but, somehow, he’s never been present during any of the particularly explosive ones.
Somehow, none of the interrupted sleep he’s shared with Grian before has ever been quite as loud as this.
Perhaps they should have seen this coming; maybe they should have known that they wouldn’t be able to avoid something like this forever. That they always had to talk about it eventually.
The rhythmic thudding of his heart in his ears and his feet on the floor are the only other company, the only consistent sound as Grian yells and cries, and Mumbo finds himself wishing that he could press his hands over his ears to block it all out as he stops before the towering oak door.
It feels colder here, somehow. Like the temperature has dropped in the presence of a ghost – the ghost of a person, a place, a world. Of all the hundreds of other things that Grian has seen killed.
Mumbo doesn’t allow himself to hesitate for a moment longer before throwing open the door, bracing himself for whatever he might see.
Immediately, the words become clearer. They are pleas, he can tell now that the noise is unobstructed. They are begging, wailing pleas to be freed, to be helped.
Mumbo feels as his heart shatters into pieces, pierced by something wet and sharp and muscular.
Grian is twisting and writhing in the sheets of his grand king-sized bed, his back arched and his chin tilted up, expression almost entirely obscured from where Mumbo stands.
“Please-“ he wails, a screeching, clawing sound; voice breaking on the word. “Please, no- no-!”
Mumbo stumbles forwards, hands fluttering uselessly in the air. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know whether to touch him, to wake him up, or to simply sit here and let whatever it is that torments Grian’s dreams simply… run its course.
It feels cruel, just to watch. He wants to help so badly that keeping his hands to himself begins to feel like an itch, like he’s suppressing some sort of reflex or instinct as he watches his best friend writhe.
“Nn-o- stop, stop-” Grian repeats over and over like a stuttering record. Like that word is the only one that he knows how to say. “Plea-ase!”
Mumbo falls to his knees beside the head of the bed, eyes glued to the contortions of his form as he tenses and falls limp almost rhythmically. He can see Grian’s face from here, with a terrifying, awful clarity.
The man is pale as death, his eyes screwed shut so tightly that Mumbo worries about him hurting himself. There are tears on his face, a wetness that has been smudged all around his cheeks as he’s moved, battling an invisible enemy. He looks halfway dead, like he’s teetering on the bank of the river, and Mumbo wants nothing more than to cradle his face; to whisper sweet comforts to him until he calms.
His hands itch to touch him, to cross that final distance and hold the other man close. He doesn’t want to watch Grian scream, to watch him cry and wail and plead to be saved. He doesn’t want to listen to a single second more of his best friend – the person who has been with him for as long as he has been able to be, through all of the highs and lows – beg for mercy.
Mumbo wants so badly to reach out, but he daren’t.
Grian keeps crying.
“H-‘lp-“ he slurs, chest arching forward violently. “I- no, no-“
“Gri-“ Mumbo hiccups.
“Please- he-lp!”
Every word feels like a gunshot, ripping through him, tearing him apart. Mumbo’s back bows until his head is resting against the mattress beneath Grian’s seizing frame. His entire body is shaking as he listens to the avian cry out, a few tears slipping past his lashes and soaking into the bedsheets.
“’m sca-scared- please-“
“You’re safe,” Mumbo whispers like a prayer, his voice low and earnest. “You- you’re safe, I promise.”
“No, no- no- Stop!” Grian screams again, before he’s bolting upright and kicking frantically at the covers, the sheets, anything that will let him push himself away from the danger that his unconscious mind has conjured. It’s instinct that has Mumbo snapping back to attention, sitting upright and flinching back, staring helplessly at the man before him.
Grian’s breathing is heavy; rushed and rabbit-like as he scrambles backwards, pressing flat against the head of the bedframe. His eyes dart eerily around the room, flicking from corner to corner with such burning intensity that it makes Mumbo want to check too, just to be sure that they really are alone. His pinprick pupils land on the redstoner eventually, freezing as Grian seems to slowly take in his presence.
His breath doesn’t calm, but his desperate scrabbling slows to a stop after a few seconds, the pair simply staring at each other in silence, neither quite sure what to do.
“Uh- hi,” Mumbo starts, “Hi, let’s- let’s breathe together, okay?”
He inhales and exhales exaggeratedly, miming for Grian to try and follow along, but the man does nothing but stare. His eyes are glazed and fearful, almost wide enough to seem cartoonish, and he watches Mumbo for a few seconds before he is bursting into tears. He wails, falling towards Mumbo and bringing his hands up to his eyes, pressing the heels of his palms into them in a way that looks painful.
“M-umbo-“ Grian sobs, his breath hitching in his throat as he pushes himself closer towards the man. “Make it stop- please-“
The syllables almost interrupt themselves, janky and uneven as Grian cries so harshly he can barely speak. It’s almost as though the words are tumbling uncontrolled from his lips, unbidden and unwelcome as he searches for comfort.
“Please make it- make it stop-“
Mumbo leans back, until Grian can tuck his head into the crook of his neck – bare and warm from his pyjamas. He reaches a hand into the smaller man’s hair, stroking overtop it gently as he winds his arms loosely around him.
“You’re alright,” he says, “You’re here with me, on Hermitcraft, and you’re okay.” He keeps breathing steadily, overstatedly; constant and stable in the centre of whatever Grian’s mind has been forcing him to relive.
“I h-hate this,” Grian whimpers as he tries to take a deep breath, his fists clenching in the back of Mumbo’s t-shirt. “I hate that I’m like this.”
Mumbo hums sympathetically, pulling him a little closer. His arms are starting to ache at this angle, and his knees are complaining loudly as he stays knelt on the floor, but he doesn’t even entertain the idea of moving.
Grian needs him right now, and there is nowhere else that he would rather be than his best friend’s arms.