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Joel sits on the grass, alone, swaying in the wind. His trap didn't work. He'd checked it multiple times – and it didn't work. Irritating. Nobody would have died even if they had gone in.
He sighs, sparing one last forlorn glance for the car next to him. It really was a beautiful car, one he'd built himself and one he'd be sad to leave behind. Still, he considered, there wasn't much of anything left in this world for him. No more Game, no more Wildcards, and… no more Gem.
Something seemed to squeeze his chest tightly at that, and although he doesn't shed a tear, regret blooms in his chest. Gem, his Family, his closest – and only, really, barring Grian who had turned on him in the spirit of the Game – confidant, who had died alone while he was halfway across the map. He'd cried out in despair, at the loss of his friend, but he hadn't had any time to mourn. There was a resolute faith she'd had in him to come out on top, and so he had. He never broke the promises he made to Family.
But now he was on top, and it was incredibly underwhelming. He wondered if the ghosts of the people he'd killed had watched him win, wondered if they prayed for his downfall and sighed with disappointment when he Won. A little spitefully, because despite his preaching he was still Joel, he mocks them vindictively.
Joel stands up. He could mourn now, drape Gem's barn in flowers and honours, and do that for everyone else – but he didn't really want to. It wouldn't bring them back, anyway.
His hair flutters in the wind. It's matted, the usual green streak a vibrant red. It's unnatural, and Joel would love to get back to his regularly scheduled life, thank you very much. He wants to see Lizzie again, see Gem again – and he could visit Jimmy while he was at it – and to do that he would have to get out of here.
He pulls an enderpearl out of his pocket, and considers it. He hums. Not a shabby way to die, if a little classless. Then again, when has Joel ever cared about class?
He throws it, and then another, and he doesn't bother to count the rest, but when he hits the ground for the last time, he feels nothing but relief.
[ Smallishbeans hit the ground too hard ]
-
When Joel wakes up, he's in the Void. Well – he isn't, obviously, seeing as he's still alive, but if it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, walks like a duck? Safe to assume it's a duck.
He considers ducks for a moment longer, barely connecting the dots of how he'd ended up thinking about ducks to begin with, when an Eye opens next to him.
And then another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
Countless more twinkle in the sky – sky? Void. Void-sky – behind him, offering a backdrop of pretty lights at the cost of no privacy and an uncomfortable amount of staring.
[Smallishbeans,] a voice says, and Joel absolutely does not flinch. Not at all. He'd been expecting it. Joel had just won a death game. He would not flinch at sudden creepy voices. He is not freaking out over the freaky eyes surrounding him, or why he isn't in his base at Hermitcraft, or why he'd respawned here. He wasn't.
“What the bloody heck is happening?” Joel shrieks, and okay, he might be freaking out. Just a little bit.
[Rest easy, Player. You have won the Game.]
“The Game?” Joel says, stupidly. “Yeah. The Game. I won. Let me go home now?”
The Eye – is it really an eye? How is it talking? – blinks languidly, and curves upwards in what Joel thinks must be a laugh. He abruptly comes to the apt conclusion that it's laughing at him.
[Soon,] it promises. [First, your reward.]
“Reward.”
It doesn't reply.
“Sure,” He laughs, putting on an air of false confidence. “Hit me. What is it? Diamonds? A fancy title? A trophy?”
The Eye crinkles, and this time he's sure it's laughing at him.
[No,] it croons. [Your reward is Memory.]
And then Joel is drowning.
-
The First time, Joel is alone. Well – not alone, exactly, he reconsiders, running his fingers through the soft fur of a nearby wolf. It was an unnamed one, one he had prevented himself from attaching to – the one or two he'd named and pet were already too many – but it lolled its tongue out at him, tail wagging with excitement.
Something sinks in his chest, at the easy display of familiarity and friendliness. For a moment, he longs for someone by his side. His fingers tremble in the wolf's fur, tangling when it pushes its head up into his palms, easily unknowing of his vile monstrousness.
It's easier like this, he says to the wolf that doesn't understand him. I won't have to betray anyone.
But then he gets wronged anyway, and maybe he's still desperately longing for someone to be near, because he goes ahead and aligns with the first person to reach out.
He dies alone, surrounded by wolves that snarl and bite on behalf of the only one to show them kindness, and in his dying moments, Joel thinks he might have adopted some of their mannerisms after all.
Joel comes back wrong, like he always does; the madness that clouds his judgement is pungent and overpowering. The Red King and his Hand invite him into their ranks, but he deigns not to stay too close to either. When he defects, he does it without remorse. He charges into battle, teeth bared like the wolves that gather at his heels, and he does not regret the Redness that runs through his veins.
When he dies for the last time, unfulfilled, the Red in his veins still screaming to Kill, KIll, KILL, all he feels is a sense of foreboding.
-
(On the horizon, above plains of bloodied sand, the Sun rises.
Let there be Life, he says, and let me save the ones I hold dear.)
-
The Second time, Joel is less alone, he thinks. He has an ally, a friend, perhaps, and the wolfish part of him that bares its fangs and growls danger, danger, danger silences. He does not remember loneliness and wolves and silence and betrayal, and all is well.
The Curse – the general one, not the ones imprinted on his soul that he unknowingly does not yet escape – strikes him like a sledgehammer, a taste of what is to come when he comes back wrong again. He mourns the loss of his only friend. He spends days alone, and when he feels the phantom brush of fur against his legs, he simply puts a thicker pair of pants on.
It feels lonelier this time, he tells the Red Sun. Because there was someone there before.
He goes throughout the day with blood still under his nails, hair matted with gore, and eyes bloodshot and blood-red. It's torture, he would think, except he doesn't think at all through the urge to kill and maim and hurt. Pink flutters in and out of his peripherals, never close enough for him to sink his bloody fangs into. Perhaps it's better that way.
In his last moments, the sharpness of clarity hits him hard, and he stills a moment too long. Perhaps he had known it was his time, and he'd been granted one last moment of clear sight. In that brief second, he feels everything: the stickiness of his palms and the metal on his tongue, the wetness of his clothes and the pain of his wounds. This, he insists, is worse than the madness.
Embrace it, the voices whisper, Feed us.
So he does.
-
(Somewhere, in the midst of towering forests, the Star ascends.
Let there be no more betrayal, he says. Let love prevail.)
-
The Third time, Joel isn't alone. For real this time. He hears grunts of pain as others flinch from phantom wounds, listens without much sympathy as they bemoan their lives which are not entirely their own, but quietly he feels satisfied. It's reassuring to know that somewhere, there is someone who shares his heartbeat, who shares his heartbeat and shares his pain as he shares theirs. He knows them intrinsically, inside and out, before they've even met.
Etho is a breath of fresh air. He's the perfect compliment to Joel, calm where he is angry, scheming where he is direct, and fox-like where he is wolfish. They make a good team. Joel finds himself smiling more often, laughing despite the somber mood of the Game. Love is in the air, after all, and he has nothing to fear. Etho will not leave him.
There is a distinct lack of pink in this Game. Joel doesn’t know why it bothers him, but it feels like something is missing, still. It's strange. He has nothing to miss, doesn't he? He has no recollection of loneliness and madness, of silent company and bloody love. All he has is Etho, their ship, and the thrum of anticipation under his skin, begging him to turn Red.
When they wake up, madness in their veins and murder in their palms, Etho stares at him in horror.
Is this what you feel? He asks.
Joel says, truthfully, I have never felt this before, but it feels at ease in my veins, like it was meant to be.
Etho looks at him with something akin to pity. Not for the first time that Game, Joel wonders what he could be missing. He has no issue sharing his madness with Etho, because Etho is an inextricable part of him, and what he feels is what Etho feels. When Etho ducks, he slashes – when Joel turns his back, Etho guards it. It's nice, he decides. It's very nice.
His madness is a curse, he sees, when Etho shudders viscerally through each fit of addled murder.
Tone it back, he tells himself. Or you'll be lonely again.
When they die, they die side by side. It's the final confirmation Joel needs: he doesn't want to be alone, not again. Never again. He burns, but he burns alongside someone else, and they've achieved all they needed. The ship burns, everything burns, after all – even them.
-
(Upon the Star's death, marred plains under the night sky, the Moon rises.
Let there be carnage, she curses, and let them suffer against their ephemerality.)
-
The Fourth time, Joel tries. He really does. He makes friends immediately, – the Canary and the Sun – Jimmy and Grian. He makes an effort to mask his insanity, quenching the thirst for viscera through increasingly foolish acts of rebelliousness. He pulls on fingerless gloves, a studded leather jacket, and dons a stupid pair of sunglasses.
I'm fun, he screams. I'm no danger to those who ally with me.
He tries his hardest to ignore how Grain eyes him warily, pupils contracted with suspicion. He does not know why – does not recall days spent in an mindless haze with only the Sun by his side, eager to destroy together lest they destroy one another instead. He focuses instead on saving those that matter to him, snarling and biting at those that dare to reach unclean hands at his Boys. A wolf through and through, he snarks, even though he does not know why it amuses him so.
He tries his hardest, but all fails eventually. Jimmy dies, the Canary's wings failing – the warning is sounded, and Joel has a front row seat. It's devastating in a way it has never been before. Jimmy, who he'd barely known past the facade of false rebelliousness he wore, dying as thunder boomed and lightning split the clouds.
Try as he might, the madness takes all, eventually.
He knows Grian has left as well, found better, safer allies – and as much as he wants to feel hurt, he can't help but understand why he would take the outlet to escape Joel's curse.
I don't want to be alone again, he whispers to no one. I don't want to go mad again.
It happens anyway.
This time, his madness is mercifully short, cut by his own stupidity. In a way, Joel has never been so intelligent. He dies with Grian nearby, but their fingers do not meet as he reaches out desperately once again, and he dies with unspoken words on his lips and cowardly madness thrumming beneath his skin. Unsaid, but curled around his heart, he vows to never fail again. Next time, he will ally with those he can protect with his Life.
-
(In a pool of salty, coppery blood, never truly alone, Mars opens his eyes.
Let there be deceit, the untrustworthy (the possessed) spits, and let them keep their secrets.)
-
The Fifth time, Joel makes friends. Friends he has tradition with, friends he can depend on. He has allies, and the pink he finds so vaguely familiar turns out to come from a gorgeous woman with fragile wings splayed out behind her. He'd been preoccupied, to start, and he almost screams when he realises he had not managed to make friends in time – and then he does. And it's wonderful. It's nothing like he's ever known, not that he's known much.
He dreams about the sea breeze and fire, of lightning and feathers, but he forgets it all by the time he wakes.
Sometimes he regrets living so far away from his allies – his friends, fearing that it pushes up a wall of alienation that he can never truly escape. But they wait for him, every morning, while he makes the trek to meet them, and they visit him and ask about him – and he wonders why he ever felt lonely to begin with.
Lizzie is beautiful, eyes kind with a spectacularly cheeky mischief in them and a bright blue that reflects the sky. Her wings titter nervously behind her when she lies, but he pretends not to notice. They're allies in all but name. He wishes they could be more – thinks they could be, if they had the time.
He'd follow her to ends of the earth, link her fingers between his and hold on forever. He holds her when she laughs, through tears, and he vows to protect her, even though she doesn't need it.
He's wrong. She does. She did, and he failed.
This time, it's Pearl that holds him as he sobs, but her warm fingers feel too much like hers, so he pulls away. There is an insistent wrongness in Lizzie being gone, without a trace – she's dead, but she shouldn't be; not yet, and he can't figure out why it irks him so much.
Mumbo leaves. It feels familiar in an almost disturbing way. He sits beside Bdubs and Pearl as they share stories of what they used to be.
When he comes back, he comes back wrong. There's adrenaline in his veins, insanity in his blood, but it feels different. With no exact point of reference, he cannot make a comparison, but it feels… quelled, almost. He thinks it shouldn't feel like this, but it does, and he can't find it in himself to be anything but relieved.
At least I succeeded in something, he murmurs to the bone Scar had given him. You'll be back. I'll wait for you.
Joel dies, as he always does. This time, it's suspenseful. He'd managed nothing, did nothing with the life he had. He lost, and lost, and lost some more. It'll change, he swears. In his next Life. He isn't sure when he started realising there was more to come.
-
(Alone, crumpled at the boundary of stone and grass, the Earth weeps.
Let them feel what I felt, he sobs. Let them know how it feels to have the very world as their enemy.)
-
But Joel has always been spiteful, and the world has always been his playground, and madness is where he excels.
Change, he'd sworn, and so he did.
The Sixth time, Joel thrives.
The Sixth time, Joel wins.
-
(Free and unrestrained, reveling in his glory, Uranus grins with sharp teeth.
Who cares? He laughs. Let them do whatever they want. Let them be free.)
-
Joel drowns, and then he resurfaces.
He remembers everything. As his eyes oscillate between the Eyes that crowd him, his mind races through his new – old, but forgotten – memories.
(Laughing with his lover and his closest friends, giggling as they disappear right before explosives rip through the acres of land they used to rule–
Escaping into the wilderness as the remains of his religion burn behind him, leaving even his remorse smd humanity behind–
Surviving alone as everyone he knows dies or leaves, and watching with nothing short of dread as they come back different–
Always managing to flee from disaster, moments before or just after, sometimes being the destruction himself–
Finding a place in the world, reconnecting with old friends, finally being at peace, finally being able to stop running–
Only to be, at the end of it all, caught for the first time.)
“You,” he gasps, heart thudding with so many different emotions that he may as well feel nothing at all. “You all did this.”
[We are the Gamemasters, yes.]
“Shit. What– why would you– why take our memories?” he groans, the dull throbbing of a headache reverberating in his skull like war drums.
The Eye squints in a distinctly careless way. [Players miss what belongs to them, even if they never know it's missing. It’s… incentive, if you will.]
“Incentive… to win.”
[Incentive to win.]
“That's sick,” he says through the pounding in his head and the nausea in his chest. “You're sick.”
And then it manifests. Just one, the one that was speaking to him, but it's enough. Immediately, the sheer presence of it makes Joel clamp his hands tightly against his ears, as if he could protect them from the booming voice that emerges from the cavity behind the Thing's mask. It sounds – not angry, but irritated, as it pulls layers upon layers of purple fabric from what seems to be the abyss. It pools around the empty space as if floating, and the eye that he realises now was tiny compared to the real deal disappears behind a fanged mask. And the wings – the wings stretch almost three times the arm span of the Being, and there are six sets of them.
[Know your place, Smallishbeans.]
“What–” he says instead, ears buzzing with static at the sound. They come away wet with a colour he can't quite see, everything too draped in purple to make out.
[You are a Winner, yes. But We will not be disrespected.]
“I get it,” he gasps. His heart is pounding in his ears. He thinks it might explode in his chest. “I get it!”
He squeezes his eyes closed, but all that remains behind his eyelids is purple, purple, purple.
And then as suddenly as it happens, it's blissfully silent once again. He forces his sore eyes open and drinks in the blackness surrounding him. When his eyes fall onto the Thing in front of him, it simply inclines its now more regularly sized head at him.
[Apologies,] it says insincerely. [I forget that even most deities cannot withstand that much of our essence.]
“Deity,” he scoffs. “I'm as good as human. Don't you know worship is power? There is nobody left to worship me.”
It hums pensively. [The frivolities of human life.]
A pang shoots through his chest. Frivolities. That's what the death of his people, twice, maybe three times, meant to these Things. The deaths of countless friends. The death his friends suffered because of these monsters.
“Enough about that,” he says, because anything other than a deflection and he will end up bleeding from his ears and the purple will envelop his senses once again.
“I remember now. Why am I still here?”
It frowns. [Uranus, your victory was… unsatisfactory.]
“Unsatisfactory?”
It nods gravely. [Yes.]
“What are you bloody talking about?” He scowls. “I don't care! Send me back.”
It blinks in warning, colours shooting up in saturation.
He tones it down. “It's over. There's nothing to do about it now. Can you send me back?”
It doesn't acquiesce. Instead, it says, [Smallishbeans, human, turned low-deity at the creation of his own religion. Married. Participant of all six Games. Player's unstable tendencies have made him amongst the most useful. Cursed with Madness.]
It pauses. [We drove you towards Victory in hopes that you would Feed us. You did not. Tell me, Uranus, what reason did you have to be so delighted?]
Joel swallows weakly. He was cursed with Madness. On the bright side, he jokes half heartedly, he has a real reason now. And he was driven to Victory. What was that supposed to mean? What did that mean for him, for all the times he suffered? In the end, was his progress not his own?
[You did not betray, you did not suffer. It is because of you that the games were not fulfilling.]
“I'm sorry,” he winces, because it feels like the right thing to say even if he doesn't particularly care. His mind spins, preoccupied with thoughts of what-ifs and whys.
[This is a warning, only because you have fed us well thus far. Watch yourself, Uranus. Do not let your behaviour slip next time, or there will be Hell to pay.]
His throat is dry.
“Got it,” he croaks weakly.
When he blinks, he's back in Hermitcraft.
-
Immediately, he flops back onto his bed. It's plush, and it soothes his aching muscles – he never wants to get up again. Still lying on his back, he considers the Being he'd just met, briefly entertaining the idea that it had been a hallucination. He catches a glimpse of the blue orb now tattooed on his wrist, and dismisses that idea immediately.
That had really just happened. What the actual fuck.
Making a decision, he packs all the newly acquired information into a box to unearth and break down over later, and sticks it deep into the recesses of his mind. Overhead, neon lights dance. Huh, the lights were on. It's night-time. It was day-time when he Won. He goes back to sleep.
When he awakens next, it's to a face extremely close to his.
“Aah–!” he yelps, shooting upright. Grian stumbles back with a cheeky grin, even as he cradles his forehead.
“Welcome back, sleeping beauty.”
“Grian,” he glares, “You're going to regret that.”
He snickers. “I don't regret seeing you shriek like a small child.”
“What? No,” he feels his face flush. “It was a completely normal reaction to waking up and seeing your ugly mug.”
“Rude,” he huffs. “Especially when you look like shit.”
“I never look like shit.”
“Sure, Joel.”
There's an uneasy silence that settles between them. Now that Joel is aware, or more correctly that he remembers, he is acutely aware of how uncomfortable he is in Grian's presence. So much history, and exactly how much of it did he remember? Until a while ago, absolutely none. And shit, Grian had won the first Game.
How long had he gone carrying this knowledge? How long has he been hiding this from them?
Grian sighs impatiently, and sits down on the far end of his bed. “I was in the middle of something, and then you came online. What did They want?”
“Them,” he mumbles around the thoughts he chews on. “Right. Who are They?”
He doesn't blink. Almost certainly, he's had to explain this before. “The Watchers. They're… I'm not sure what they are, really. Their own thing, I guess. They live in the Void, but they're an invasive species.”
“The Watchers. And they have the power to do,” he gestures at himself, his four walls, even Grian, “this?”
Grian's mouth sets into a hard line. “Joel, they can do almost anything.”
Joel sighs, and lets his head fall into his hands. He's exhausted. He hasn't slept in Notch-knows how long, his head still pounds with the afterimages of things that have already happened – flashes of colour fly through his peripherals and occasional sounds spook him into flinching. And now he's learning about the ultra-powerful parasitic things that have been kidnapping them to play horrific death games.
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Grian nods. “Shit.”
“How long was I gone?”
Grian hums, dark eyes owlishly blinking as he counts.
“Grian.”
He stops pretending to count. “Everyone else got back three days ago,” he says automatically.
He pauses when Joel doesn't cut in. “What happened?”
Joel swallows. “They said my Victory was… unsatisfactory.”
Grian doesn't look perturbed. Instead, his mouth quirks up in an odd little smirk. “Good,” he laughs breathlessly, “That's a good thing.”
“Is it?”
“Very much so. Those Things are bad, Joel, bad with a capital ‘B’. If they don't like you, it either makes your life way better or way worse.”
And that strikes Joel as incorrect. “They do like me, Grian,” he drags a palm down the side of his face which makes his antenna spring down and back up again, “that's what I'm worried about. Either way, it sounds like it's bad in general.”
“It is,” he continues. “It is bad in general, I guess, but They said some very, very concerning things.”
“Yeah,” Grian sighs. “They do that.”
He doesn't have the time to unpack Grian's strange familiarity with the Watchers. “They like me. They were disappointed that I wasn't… up to standard.”
“‘Up to standard’,” Grian echoes. “What, did you not kill enough people?”
“Hell, maybe. They said I was ‘too happy’, or some bloody stupid crap like that.”
“Oh!” Grian scoffs. “They did that to Scott as well. Silly, isn't it?”
“Shit, Grian. Don't tell me I have something in common with Scott now.”
“They're like petulant children,” Grian laughs, ignoring him and his impotent rivalry. Rude. “Complaining that their toys aren't properly distraught.”
“Maybe they've got a point, though. Bit weird to be blooming tickled at winning a death game. That's mad, it is.”
A smile tugs at the corner of Grian's mouth. “Calling yourself mad?”
Joel smiles jauntily, waving a hand around. “I've always been a bit mad,” he dismisses. “Scott, though? Lad's got no excuse.”
“Oh, no. I think Scott's was more a defiance thing. Yours was like a… breaking the cycle thing. Different scenarios, they are.”
“Great. Sure. So Scott's just a rebel, while I get to be insane.”
Grian laughs. “Scott's always been a bit rebellious. He's just so Scott that you don't really notice.”
“Oh I noticed, alright. He's been a pain in my arse since way back when.”
A smirk. “He told me about that, you know,” he pauses, “Jeremy.”
Joel groans, but the effect is disrupted by his incredulous laugh. “Oh, don't bring that up! It's so embarrassing. Can't believe I let Scott best me. Insane.”
“He's bested you plenty, Joel.”
“Hop off his dick now, why dont you?” he huffs with mock irritation.
Grian howls with laughter, clutching at his stomach. Joel cracks a smile himself. He knows Grian is just distracting him, trying to help him stop thinking about the Game. It's working. They know each other well, after all.
Then again, it wasn't as tragic as he made it out to be.
“I should go see Gem,” he says absently. “Tell her I won.”
At once, Grian stops laughing. His face falls, uncharacteristically somber. “Joel,” he winces.
He pauses. “What is it, Grian?”
Grian stills for a moment, uncomfortable with the way they've segwayed into the more emotional side of the conversation.
“You know,” he starts. “She won't… erm. She won't remember.”
The world halts.
“Oh.”
“The Reward is being able to remember what happened in the Games. She hasn't… she didn't… Win.”
Joel swallows. “Right. Yeah. Okay.”
Gem doesn't remember. She doesn't remember sitting together in his car, singing along nonsensically to pop songs that cut out so often on his shitty radio, doesn't remember laughing as they ate anything they could get their hands on, doesn't remember how they splayed out on the grass at night and spoke about how they both saw the way others looked at them – like they were were assets and weapons and danger to be repurposed – and decided it didn't matter, that they were going to live the way they wanted to, just the two of them. She didn't remember.
His only ally, his only confidant, who had stuck with him the whole way through.
On the bright side, he considered, she wouldn't remember her suffering. Wrenching an eye right out of her socket on behalf of the Watchers, being a weapon of the Curse – she would forget all of it. She had already forgotten all of it. He just wished she didn't have to forget him along with it.
He laughs, empty. “Guess I won't be seeing her, then–”
“ –You can!” Grian yelps, as if desperate. “You can still see her. I'd encourage it, really – Notch knows how much avoiding Scar after my Game hurt us both.”
“I'll get over it,” he insists. “Nobody has to know anything happened. If I could speak to Etho, I can speak to Gem.”
“That's not the same thing.”
Joel doesn't blink. “I'll make it work.”
“Joel,” Grian says pleadingly.
“The Watchers make the Victor decide the premise of the next Game, right?”
“Joel–”
“And I didn’t really give them anything to work with.”
“Joel…”
“Do you think they'll be mad at me for that too?”
“Joel!”
“I kind of get it now, you trying to win it all again. If it keeps them safe from knowing, right?”
“JOEL!”
Joel sighs.
“What?”
“Don't do this,” Grian implores. “I know how it feels, trust me. I'm no good at all this emotional crap, and neither are you – but trust me when I say that pretending nothing happened never works out.”
“I know,” Joel scowls. “I'm not stupid. I've tried that already.”
“‘You know’,” Grian frowns back. “You know, but you're going to do it anyway.”
Joel looks away. “Maybe I don't want it to work out.”
Grian shifts closer to him. The blanket spools out from where it bunches out on Joel's lap, as a result. He watches it, unwilling to look at the other.
“Don't be childish, Joel.”
“I'm not being childish.”
Grian sighs impatiently. “You are— whatever. Make this easy for me, won't you?”
Joel grits his teeth so hard he hears them grind against one another.
“I won it for her, Grian. Her and Lizzie.”
His eyes soften. “I know.”
He drops his head into his hands. “She believed in me. She understood how it felt to be dangerous. To be feared. We didn't fear each other.”
“Yeah Joel, I know.”
“Shit, Grian. She doesn’t remember.”
“Yeah.”
“Lizzie doesn't remember either,” he realises, the shock of it thrumming though his veins like lightning.
“Lizzie doesn't remember. I can't— Grian, I can't let her forget me again. Never again.”
“She still knows you, Joel,” Grian placates, though he knows it sounds empty. “She still loves you.”
“She forgot me once,” Joel says regretfully. “Now she's forgotten me again.”
Grian swallows his needless consolations, this time. There's nothing he can say.
“I wish I never won. Then I wouldn't have to bloody remember, either.”
Quietly, Grian agrees.
“I wish none of us did,” he mumbles.
Joel looks up. “You're right,” he laughs, voice cracking. “This is all so stupid.”
He sobs. “Fuck, this is all so stupid.”
Grian cracks a small, shaky smile. “It is, but at least we're in it together.”
Through the tears blurring his vision and the whirling thoughts in his head, Joel can't help but agree.
And so they sit, the first Victor and the latest, wallowing in the misery so few of them understand. It's an indelible mark left on their bodies, their souls, and their minds. What they are, now – Victors, irreversibly – will haunt them in the dead of night, in the light of day, at the borders between. For as long as he lives, for as long as they all live, they will Remember. And really, that is more punishing than any Victory should ever be.
But they're in it together, the six – seven, as he later learns – of them. The Sun, Star, Moon, Mars, Earth, Pluto, and Uranus. One day, Joel almost grins, but not quite – one day they'll have a full solar system. And then the twelve of them can suffer as one.
But for now, he thinks, as Grian awkwardly pats his back, he'll just have to make do with this.