Work Text:
For some strange reason, Grian sometimes finds himself missing Secret Life.
And it was odd, because he knows he shouldn’t miss the games, and he doesn’t, really—how could he ever miss being forced into killing his friends over and over again?—but maybe it was because of the fact that the beginning of the games were always the best times for everyone. It was everything he’d hoped for: a simple world where he and his friends can live together. But it would never be like that. All of that could shatter in the blink of an eye. It was just an illusion; nothing more, nothing less.
But even then, he misses those simple moments of the games. Of simply messing around with each other, of living in blissful ignorance, of pretending like he doesn’t know how exactly this will end. He misses the slumber party at Pearl’s base, misses the odd and strange conversations he’d get into with the others, even that damn camel that everyone brought everywhere. He misses reminiscing with Joel about the better times instead of remembering memories they didn’t want to talk about.
Maybe it was those precious memories that led him to shift his direction of flight towards Joel’s base. It didn’t take long before he found the latter fumbling over a chest filled with building materials, organizing silently. Grian lands beside him with a grin.
“Hey, Joel!”
Joel jumps, sending a handful of deepslate flying. “ Geez, Grian, what the heck?!”
Grian throws his hand to the air in mock surrender. “I was just checking up, just checking up what you’re up to.”
“You’re so…” Joel groans, trailing off. He picked up the pieces of deepslate off the grass. “Well, I suppose I was kind of falling asleep here, so I needed that a bit. What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I can’t even visit my best friend just because I want to?” Grian drops his arms and raises a brow, moving to sit on the chest. “And anyway, why would that be a bad thing?”
Shrugging, Joel mumbled something incoherent. He glanced away for a second, arms full of stone, and for the first time Grian really noticed the dark circles under his friend’s eyes, and the exhaustion residing there. “Just need to get this done—and get off there.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
Joel blinks, like he’s just asked a completely absurd question. “Don’t worry about it. And, seriously, get off the chest. I need to store these.”
Grian ignores him, but he does stand up from his perch. “Joel, you need to get some rest.”
Joel averts his eyes, and there, beneath the warm morning sunlight, with an armful of blocks clutched to his chest, he seemed much more tired than usual. Much less like the friend he knew so well who never failed to get on his nerves, to annoy him to no end. Maybe, he thinks with something akin to dread and an overwhelming wave of sadness creeping up to him, maybe there was a part of Joel that he had never truly recovered from that glass room. Maybe he was still sitting there, hollow-eyed, trapped to live in that nightmare for eternity.
“I’ll try.” He responded quietly, and moved to finally store the materials on the chest. Their eyes don’t meet each other’s, and in the horrible silence that followed, Grian could only watch silently, unsure of what to do.
Sometimes, they found comfort in the most tragic things. Who else would ask each other about a different life where they are happier, after all?
On those rare, quiet days, it was easy for the two of them to bask in golden sunlights and laughters alike, when the looming reality would give way to a moment of tranquility, a moment for them to breathe.
It was moments like those that Grian wanted the world to simply stop, for those little in-betweens to last for eternity. He could easily sit here forever, cross-legged in the grass on top of the cherry mountain (which has quickly become their favorite spot), Joel lying beside him, and the whole world before them.
“Do you think alternate universes exist?” It was Joel who started the topic. It was just a simple, passing line that sent them tumbling into vivid imaginations of all that could’ve been.
“Alternate universes?”
“Yeah, like, I dunno, maybe somewhere in a different universe, the games don’t exist.”
Grian smiled slightly. “What a world that could’ve been.”
“Or maybe in another universe, we’re the ones who forget.”
“Maybe, but—” Grian shakes his head, bites his lips to keep the thoughts, the words in. Because, really, he’s grown fond of this, despite everything. And, honestly, what would it feel like to cross paths carrying an unexplainable, heavy feeling of nostalgia like they’ve met before? How do you live, clueless that you’ve died together with someone you don’t even recognize?
“But what?”
Grian clears his throat and lets himself fall to the grass, arms by his sides. “But would that really be better?”
What he wanted to say was something more honest, something like but I don’t ever want to forget about you.
“I guess that’s true.” Joel says after a while, and there was something in his quiet tone, something he couldn’t decipher. Who knew, maybe they were thinking the exact same thing. Maybe they were the one memory that either of them wanted to reminisce on forever.
“But you know,” Grian muses, tilting his head to watch the clouds above them. “If the world could be shaped by me, I’d design it just like this…” He gestures to the sky, forming indistinct shapes with his hands as if he’s morphing that very world before him.
He closes his eyes, lips turned into a smile. “It’d be a world where our homes are merged together, a world just like this, but with a gateway to your universe of empires. Where we could visit each other everyday, where all of our friends can come together.”
A world where the sunsets are not a symbol of the oncoming darkness and bloodlust but more like a door merely closing, which will be opened the next morning. Where nights are not lonely but quiet, serene. Where there is no blood on their hands. Where they do not have to carry the weight of memories wherever they go. Where they are not haunted by somebody who is standing right in front of them. Where there are no eyes in the corners, no looming wings above their heads. Where the sky is not their territory, not some place where they can watch from, but something so blue like sapphires, and so clear-white like crystals—something like hope.
A world that was simple, and normal. A world where they can fly, and soar .
“If I could change the prophecy…If they did not exist and it was up to me, to us, to shape the world, I’d write it like that.” He lets his hands fall to his sides, opening his eyes. He turns to Joel and smiles at him. “Honestly, I would love to just build something together with you in a universe like that.”
Joel hums. He was smiling, too. “Like what?”
Grian shrugs. “Something stupid.”
“Something completely impractical?”
A laugh bubbled up in his chest. “Exactly.”
The world was so cruel. Here they were, laughing and smiling with broken hearts and scars and haunted eyes, dreaming of a world that they would never truly be able to grasp. It was just like that, wasn’t it? Just like their flickering hope, those surreal dreams were obscured with a fog so thick they could not navigate through it. At some point they’d think it was right there in front of them, just a bit out of reach, and then they would stumble, inevitably, and when they looked up it was gone, as if it was never really there.
“In another universe, huh?” Joel said softly.
The two of them lay there in silence, staring at the clouds.
“In another universe, I guess.” Grian whispered.
Later that day, when he was strolling around the mountain after making some progress to their volcano project, Grian found Joel sleeping beneath a tree. He was sitting against the trunk, arms on his lap and his head tilted slightly sideways as a cascade of cherry blossoms fell around him like snow. The sun was so bright that the shade from the tree casted shadows amidst golden rays of sunlight sprinkled around Joel’s features.
His eyes softened ever so slightly. It seemed like forever since he’d last seen Joel actually sleeping. It always worried him to see the dark circles underneath his friend’s eyes. He knew, since the day the Watchers had entered the server, Joel’s nightmares had grown more frequent, perhaps more violent. He’d sometimes see Joel pacing around his area in the middle of the night when he had a project that needed immediate finishing, and as such had been trying to get him to sleep but to no avail.
Leaves crunching softly under his feet, Grian steps closer and sits down quietly beside Joel. The afternoon sun seemed to glow before his very eyes. A cool wind passed by, rustling the leaves and moving the grass gently, and for a moment Grian thinks he’d glimpsed the world he’d been longing for.
Joel’s head fell on his shoulder, and Grian closed his eyes as he falls into sleep with a smile.