Work Text:
Mumbo likes to believe he has a strong will; that when push comes to shove he can hold his own and control himself.
Sure, he has been known to on occasion give in to Scar and Grian’s puppy-dog eyes when they ask to borrow some of his supplies, or to rush to their aid when they ask for some help building a mob farm.
But when it comes to the important stuff, like his cravings; well he’s been training for years to ignore the pumping in his friends veins in favor of the animals in his pasture. Hours of practice on tuning out the gentle hum of the human heartbeat and instead focus on the easy flow of conversation.
He spends his days deep inside his redstone machinery, avoiding the sun for as long as he can; otherwise he layers up in his dark suit and high collar. The warmed cotton protects his skin from the sun's burning rays while his dark hair shields the top of his head and back of his neck, always strategically facing his back at the sun rather than his face.
Occasionally, on the bad days, a pair of dark sunglasses will sit heavy on his nose and he'll blame eyestrain if anyone moves to question.
Mumbo knows how to avoid the triggers. He knows not to be around during the middle of the day, when the sun is at its strongest. He knows to rest at every chance he gets because despite staying awake during the day to interact with his friends he is still nocturnal and his body refuses to sleep at night. That and, above all, he knows to leave immediately if someone starts bleeding in front of him.
Which is, exactly, the unfortunate situation he finds himself in now. Some game of killer-capture-the-flag that one of the hermits, he thinks it was Doc but Mumbo’s memory is cloudy at best right now, set up to liven up the server had gone south and his Grian had been the unlucky victim of an arrow gone astray.
Or more accurately, Scar had been trying to ‘Hotguy’ someone on the opposing team just as Grian moved in front of him to defend from an oncoming blow with a sword.
Scar had been quick, turning and shooting a second arrow at their attacker, a headshot sending to a quick respawn faster than Mumbo could even register who it was. But, it wasn't fast enough because now Grian was laid down on the floor, bleeding himself into what might be the slowest respawn imaginable.
Scar was babbling out apologies, his leg braces clicking as he made his way to his knees to try and help their partner and stow the blood flow. Grian was giggling, because of course he was, shoving Scars hovering hands away and prying the arrow from the meat of his shoulder with a light huff. But all Mumbo could focus on was the steady drip, drip, drip of where the blood was rolling down Grian’s arm and dribbling off his elbow to the dirt below.
The scent of iron was permeating the air, the lingering stench from the quick teleports of respawn Mumbo could handle, but the slow growing puddle just a few feet away from him was already sending his head spinning in a dizzying haze.
Mumbo was hungry.
Glowing from the shadows, his red eyes were fully dilated in their slightly sunken sockets, and his mouth salivating like a Pavlov-ed dog. He took a half stumble away from the wall they had been using for cover, its shadow protecting him from the setting sun behind it.
Distantly, a voice that sounds like his consciousness tells him he needs to run, to book it away from his boyfriend's vulnerable form before something worse happens. But, that voice is overrun by the unwavering urge to surge forward and bite. To sink in teeth and claws and drink from a fountain he hadn't indulged in in what could've been decades.
Years upon years he’d been surviving on cow and pig blood, laboriously shrugging his way through a half-filled stomach, aching for something more but holding back for the sake of his friends safety.
Now he stands, struck with the seemingly impossible task of walking away, of stowing those intrusive thoughts and getting out of there.
When was the last time he ate anyway? He can't recall, he thinks he might’ve skipped his last meal, something coming up and leaving his stomach barren, more than it usually is. Now he’s here, domino affected into a tricky spot. A rock and hard place, because the only thing he wants to do right now, is eat.
A part of him, maybe the part that still wants to be sane at the end of this, whispers that at the very least, he would be sending Grian to a quick respawn.
The next thing Mumbo knows is he's latched his jaw tight around the puncture wound from the arrow and that liquid gold is pouring down his throat.
There was a shout, it could’ve been from either Scar or Grian but Mumbo can't get his head on straight enough to figure it out. His skin is tingling, goosebumps prickled along his limbs and he's sure if his heart could beat it would have flown from his chest in euphoria.
Then, nails are digging into his shoulder from behind, trying to pry him away from his prey, his well-earned hunt. He can’t have that, jaw unlatching, the body beneath him disappears in death, presumably to its respawn point, but Mumbo couldn’t care less. He has a new target, body spinning around so fast anyone else would’ve gotten dizzy.
Mumbo’s not just anyone else, he was made for this, built to hunt and make quick turns and to pounce, just as he does now. Onto a new body, new flesh to tear into, to devour.
Only when that body too vanishes from his hands, leaving nothing but a metallic clang as a set of leg braces crumble without the support of their owner, does he uncurl from his hunched position, back straightening and his blood-covered hands clutching at the dirt beneath his fingers.
Red stained his skin, it was dark out now that the sun had settled beyond the horizon but he could still see the faint lines of fresh and dried blood that trailed up his forearms, the deep brown discoloration that left large splotches on his slacks.
The bright, green grass had been stained, dirt below turning to a thick mud with the leftover liquid; faintly he wondered if he could drink blood-mud.
Mumbo is full, though, and his brain hasn’t quite caught up to his body. Everything is moving in slow motion and he can't seem to catch up.
By the time he’s decided he wants to stand, he’s already on two feet and wandering around, feet headed back to the base on muscle memory alone.
He was doing something, before this, before the bloodlust. Memory slips through his fingers like warm butter, and before he knows it he's at his bed.
At his bed where his teammates are huddled together against the far-wall whispering panicked words into a communicator.
Scar was halfway through a sob, his taller body nearly blocking the view of Grian beside him from where they were pressed together hip-to-hip in the corner. The blanket from where their three beds had been shoved into one had been haphazardly shoved to the side, laying mostly on the floor.
Why were Grian and Scar crying?
It’s almost like he wakes up, sobered like a cold shower. Had they lost the game? Could something so trivial as a minigame cause this kind of reaction? Moreso, how could Mumbo have missed that in the time it took to walk from where he was to here?
Taking a half stumble forward, Mumbo moves to ask what was wrong but before he can do so, his boyfriends jump back, curling further into each other with a halted breath and scrambling limbs.
“Stop!”
And he listens, stops dead in his tracks. The shout startles him, it's hardly ever that Grian yells at him so ferociously, let alone with that tone of panic; flowing through his single word like a river. Scar is still mumbling into the communicator but it's more rushed now, Mumbo can’t hear what's being said or who's on the other line but worry laces his way through his brows anyway.
Hands raised in surrender, because he doesn’t know what else to do. “What’s wrong?” The words come out hushed, half whispered and dipped in confusion and concern.
“What's wrong?” Scar snaps, a tone Mumbo wouldn't be able to pin to that face if it weren't coming out from his mouth before Mumbo's very eyes, “You dont- What’s wrong is you-” a breath, thick and quaking, “-What's wrong is you just attacked us!”
“Killed-” Grian interrupts, voice too shaking as he shoves his arm in front of Scars chest in an attempted shield, “-and not just killed; you bit me! Why the hell did you bite me?”
Scar, huffed a defeated sounding sob, “He tore you apart, I wouldn't call that just a bite-”
“I… I what?” Mumbo couldn't believe his ears.
Years of hiding, of effort, or self-torture. All of it was just thrown down the drain in front of him. Over what? One slip up? That’s all it took for him to break and give up everything and hurt the two people he cares about the most?
“What?” He repeats, in a sort of shock. His hands move to cover his mouth but stop just short.
They’re still soaked.
Grian and Scar stay quiet, the answer rings clear in the silence.
Finally, Mumbo listens to that little voice in the back of his head, the one that kept telling him to run.
-
Days pass, nights too. Mumbo doesn’t leave his base, he can't even get out of bed. He refuses to move, won't allow himself the comfort of rolling over, of stretching his muscles, or pulling the blanket up to cover his head and hide from the world.
Mumbo just stares at the ceiling of the room he had stumbled, and collapsed into. Curtains pulled shut tight, covering up the windows and blocking away the outside world.
Occasionally he hears the faint sound of rockets overhead, or the rumbling of thunder as a storm comes and goes. Most of all he heard the sound of his communicator buzzing away from its spot on the floor where it landed after it bounced off the wall he’d hurled it at.
Every hour or so it would buzz, Mumbo didn't have the energy to get up out of bed and check whether it was serverwide or a DM.
Or maybe he did have the energy, and that felt worse.
He had the energy because he took it, robbed the ones closest to him of their lives just so he could quell that thirst.
Sure, if he wanted to live in denial, he could say all that Grian and Scar had gotten out of it was a painful respawn; but Mumbo wasn't stupid, there was a whole butt-load of trauma that came wrapped up with an incident like that.
He should know, he's feeling half of it.
He feels the guilt eat away at him like a parasite, coating every fiber of his being in a thick unwavering sludge. He can hardly breathe beneath the weight of it, suffocating in his own skin, his own mind. Banging on the walls of his head, all without moving a muscle.
His communicator buzzes again. And Mumbo blinks his hazy eyes at the ceiling until the fuzziness clears. He has to face what he's done sometime, might as well be now.
He sits up, not bothering to stretch, wholeheartedly believing he deserves not even the simplest of comforts.
Mumbo stands, and one step at a time forces himself to walk to where his communicator sits innocently on the floor, screen still lit up from the last message. He leans over to grab it just as the light blinks out. The screen is cracked, little spiderwebs fracturing the surface in a cruel mimicry of how broken Mumbo feels at the moment.
He sucks in a gust of air, trying to calm his nerves and settle the trembling in his hands, they shake as he swipes open the device. Hundreds of missed messages, from everyone on the server, mostly asking if he was okay.
That was a shock. Mumbo is surprised that he hasn't been ousted, hunted down and burnt at the stake.
Well, that was for witches; stabbed with a stake would be more his kryptonite.
But most important to him are the latest messages from Scar and Grian.
GoodTimeWithScar: Stophiding were not mad
GoodTimeWithScar: Just meet us to talk
GoodTimeWithScar: Please?
GoodTimeWithScar: Redstone on top?
Grian: X told us about ur hybrid status
Grian: you couldve just told us
Grian: dude next time youre hungry just ask
Grian: quit ignoring me
Mumbo likes to believe he has a strong will, but when it comes to Grian and Scar, he will always give in.