Work Text:
You first see it when it's pouring down.
For whatever reason, you decide to rescue an Enderman from its otherwise inevitable demise under the rain.
You build a tall wall and a little roof with the dirt you have, hoping it's smart enough to figure out what it has to do. Turns out, it is.
You don't look it in the eyes, well aware of the fact that once one locks eyes with their species, they act on instinct. It makes indecipherable noises, and you're not sure if it's thanking you or still feeling the pain caused by the water on its tender skin.
But you don't wait to find out, instead opting to leave.
However, you don't expect to see it again once the sky clears out.
You don't give it much thought at first. It just happened to find you. You keep doing your tasks, and only when you notice that it still hasn't left, do you begin to raise suspicion.
Nevertheless, you still go mining and come back late into the night. It's gone, you don't voice out, but make a mental note.
...
It's back the next morning.
This time it's holding a rose with its slender arms.
It's cute when it places it on the block next to you, and you smile, admiring the plant.
You want to give it something in return, and settle on chorus fruit. You don't know what Endermen eat, so picking something from the End is your safest bet.
You throw it at the creature, and it makes those noises again. Funny.
It doesn't leave this time, though.
The sun has settled under the horizon already, and you want to go to bed.
You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby
You look around, and see its slim body in one of the windows. You don't want to kill it, though.
You walk outside and, as expected, it's there. Your peripheral vision tells you enough to know that it's staring right at you.
You try to speak to it, but it doesn't seem to fully understand you.
After a few tries, you give up.
You take your bed and dig down deep enough to be able to fall asleep.
...
It's been following you around for quite some time now.
It rarely says something, and when you try to communicate with it, it just makes confused sounds. But it seems pretty content and friendly, so you let it hang around you.
All the same, it kept nagging you whenever you went into your house, so you eventually had to change the entrance, making the front door bigger.
You gradually start to understand its body language, and it gets significantly easier to understand what it wants from you at the moment of time.
It volunteers to help you whenever you're building something, and makes what you deem happy noises when you praise it for the good work.
It's cute, so you give it a name with a name tag. It doesn't understand why you smile after naming it, but doesn't make a big deal out of it.
...
Some nights are especially cold. You cave in and let it sleep in the same bed with you.
You pretend to be sleeping, not wanting to let it know what you physically can't with it around.
It snuggles up to you and you hug it even tighter. You feel comfortable, despite it taking up almost all of the space.
When you're certain that it's sleeping, you carefully get up and go to your second bed, made for situations like this.
The cold air immediately hits your exposed skin and for a split second you miss the feeling of another body next to you. You're starting to grow fond of it.
...
You laugh when it mimics you and looks up at the swirling night sky.
It probably doesn't even understand the concept of stargazing.
You really want to glance at it just once, take a picture in your head of that moment, but you know better than to do that. So you just quietly admire the stars alongside it.
That is, until you hear a creeper behind you and don't have enough time to react.
Wow, you almost died, with only 2 hearts left. It makes a screeching noise and starts teleporting around in a panic.
You try to calm it down and tell it that you're fine. It helps you to your feet.
What you don't expect, is when it picks you up and starts to carry you. You're baffled, but don't fight it and lean into the touch. It takes you all the way back to your house, and the next thing you know, you're in your bed.
It finds a water bucket somewhere and splashes you. You're soaked now, but you assume it just wanted to help you.
You let it know that you're just fine again and eat a golden carrot in front of it.
It lets out a satisfied noise.
...
It starts raining in the most inconvenient place ever.
You're in a meadow with no trees in sight. And you don't have any blocks.
You immediately begin to panic when it starts making anguished noises after the first raindrops make it to the ground.
Hearing it pains you as well, and you try to come up with something quickly.
It starts sounding more desperate, and your heartbeat amplifies.
Think, think, think.
You finally seem to know what to do and start digging under it as fast as it's physically possible with your shaking hands.
You’re telling it that it's going to be okay and it meets you with another sound full of pure agony.
You make something similar to what you built when you saved it for the first time, just underground. You gesture for it to hide, and that's exactly what it does.
It stops taking damage and you're on the brink of crying.
It was so close.
You hug it and it makes yet another noise.
It almost died.
It hugs you back.
You tilt your head up, the realization that you almost lost it finally settling in.
You look at it.