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The meeting was over, and he had made it home. He was first out the door, unspoken pleasantries left in the sparks of the rockets as he flew off - but yet only just, collapsing on the last steps of the greatest of the temples. Pain ensnared his leg entirely, both in fleeting waves and unrelenting agony. With a prosthetic dragging like a ball and chain, the admin clawed up the remaining steps, opting to lean against the stony wall of the entrance. Every move exhausted him, muscles trembling as he pulled his body across the mud tile.
The voidwalker crumpled against the stone walls, whatever remaining of the winter cold in the stones stung the skin and scars on his back, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He lay motionless, the weight of his legs pressing into the dust and pebbles as if the ground, too, wished to torture him even through the armour plating. The pain wasn’t just a dull ache of overwork - it writhed and pulsated and bit like a parasite, filthy claws too embedded to remove. As it did, the admin followed suit, instinctually twisting away like it could throw the agony off. Icy needles knit themselves into his flesh, twisting inward and shredding the fibre of his body, his mind, his resolve.
A pop sounded in his ears, clenching his jaw as a sharp, sudden jolt of searing pain shot up his femur. Like a bolt of lightning, his body twitched and twinged automatically. The waves came in erratic bursts, dousing his lower half in gasoline aflame, only to have aftershocks follow, plunging it in frozen water, tingling with pins and needles. No respite came; it was as if greater powers found amusement in his suffering.
It hurt just as it had when the damage occurred. When the wheels of the convoy truck struck a mine. But Xisuma should be grateful. Grateful he made it out. Grateful that this was his suffering, and not that of the slow death of his brothers in arms; though in this moment, perhaps death was the greater mercy. Countless years had passed, and the day’s edges blurred in the passing, yet nothing could wash away the fear in the eyes of another dying soldier as he resigned to his fate, or the sound of one calling out for her mother in delirium, nor the sight of his own flesh, blood, bone; or the eerie peace that washed over him as he thought his own death near, inevitable. Sometimes the gun shots still followed him in his ears. The chill of the sundown over the soldier now felt awfully familiar.
The stump, the anchor, the empty space became an unignorable reminder of the cost of war, a price unpaid and unpayable. Another stab of hurt pulled him out of the dreadful space in his mind. The prosthetic - it had to come off - Xisuma couldn’t bear the feeling on his mangled skin any moment longer - his hands, shaky and clumsy, tore at the metal fastenings and padding until they fell away, no matter what state they were in. His helmet made an awful wheeze, filtering out the Overworld’s excess oxygen as fast as it could against the rapid intakes of breath so sharp. Only now he registered the groans and whines pouring from his mouth at every throb, every twinge of nerves. It sounded weak, like an animal in a corner, not the admin of the most impenetrable server, respected, not feared.
Xisuma only brushed against the mutilated tissue; His pads only grazed it, but pain shot through his body like a barrage of bullets. It throbbed violently as if the mutilated remainders were only just axed, still covered in ash. His fingers flinched away, warm, wet, and splattered with scarlet blood; It spurted and soaked into the mud floor, turning it an ugly colour. He looked at his palms. Blood covered both hands, simply dripping with it. He was not sure if it was only his own, which mission he was on. Its sickly metallic stench penetrated the helmet’s filters into his sinuses, so intense the thick putrid odour caught in his lungs, holding his breath hostage until it stung and burned. Grief, anger, weakness, vicious pain. Those four cruel horsemen circled, bringing apocalypse, plague, upon his mind - even famine and death as the blood drained out of his brain. Something tugged at his arm. Someone was talking. Maybe yelling. He didn’t care to check it when the ringing in his ears muffled all out in favour of consuming the soldier. Every void-born cell in his body screamed at him to run, as far as he could go, back away from enemy lines, to find Exsonia. But the moments of clarity granted to him reminded him he couldn’t - physically. Every texture touching him scratched against him, a prick of a million icy needles into his hide to worsen his agony. But then again, how in any hell could he escape when blackness crept into his vision and the wound gushing blood made his head light as clouds? The instinctual need to get up and out tightened at his ribs like a constricting python, crushing, twining unbearably; all the air pushed out of his lungs, wheezing silence. He still needed cover. But no, he was curled up against the remnants on the truck's cab, coughing out ash and blinking away the particles, hoping the firing of weapons wouldn't come any closer.
A hand grabbed his own. The shock brought the admin back to the present. His chest heaved against his armour plating with the strain of remembering. Doom’s jaws around him receded just a fraction, but not enough to lull the deafening, thrashing pound of his heart over the head-splitting ring. Two warm brown eyes calmed the weeping ache with a gaze when they met, as if cauterising a bleeding vessel.
A second pair peered over with eyebrows knit in concern, standing at attention whilst the other knelt with care. All he could notice was how they shined the brightest blue, even in the evening shadow, the colour that shimmered around void stars in X’s homeworld. If he went back, maybe he’d still remember the constellations he found peace in, staring up through endstone craters.
The fans dotting his armour slowed along with the rise and fall of his chest, and metal ceased its creaking as muscles untensed below, and the world grew quiet as the sun receded once again. The cavity in his chest should be burning with shame, indignance, some people-pleasing hysteria, like Xisuma would, not the soldier he was. Indifference suffocated those out. Not empty, like the silence between the three, but a kind of apathy, a torpor.
The man he could recognise now as Keralis turned to the other, Wels, hurriedly muttering something about potions - it’s not like listening was his primary concern right now. At least, the brunette’s intense, almost scathing gaze no longer burned his skin. Instead, the scraping and chinking of metal plates and chain replaced it. Sounds pounded in his ears like a meat hammer to flesh with every movement; it softened quickly, though, muffled by walls and floors as the blonde ran deeper into the admin’s base in search.
Most of the pain had ebbed for now - only occasional sparks lit up over the resting ache - but nonetheless, the disdain for his prosthetic and its cold metal and ice pick equivalent of an anchor, overrode any need to move. Adrenaline had drained out of his bloodstream, and the desperate urge to make off went with it too - all that remained settled into the holes in the marrow, the spaces between ribs, the fluid around every joint like deadweight. Like lead resolved to drag him into the floor, sinking him into the armour exoskeleton. Even pulling his head up where it leaned against the stone bricks felt herculean.
Xisuma reached to grab his buzzing comm.
“Why didn’t you say anything, sweet face?” Keralis broke the quiet.
No response came. The voidwalker’s hand stilled, too.
“Can we at least get you inside?” he asked, eyes creased in worry, “Can’t imagine it’s comfortable down there, Shishwham.”
“…please, K. Can help me get to-”
Hurried footsteps heralded Wels’ return, this time free of armour. Clinking glass echoed off the temple walls as the blonde rounded the corner, tunic sleeves rolled up, satchel thrown over his shoulder. “Sorry I was slow, had to brew a bit more,” he said, turning to Xisuma, “Do you need a hand up?”
“Maybe a little more than that, to be honest,” the admin replied, dark eyes flicking away. “I’m sorry - really I am - but I’m not putting the leg back on.”
The knight shrugged, reaching to grab it. “No need to apologise, dude, I don’t blame you.”
Keralis wasted no time, his hands calloused but steady, the builder’s trademark, as they slipped beneath Xisuma’s arms. “1-2-3 and up we go, sweetface,” he said. His fingers curled under the paint-chipped edge of X’s chestplate. Wels took the other side wordlessly. The admin’s face burned in embarrassment, bracing himself as he was lifted.
Another wave had begun, a cry tearing itself out of his throat — each movement was punishment, white-hot anguish radiating from the old wound all the way up his spine. His muscles buckled before they could tense, giving way to a shudder, his weight leaning against the other hermits, sharp edges probably digging in. In a way, the hopping was demeaning. But just a glance at the fake leg in Wels’ hand told him it was the far better option.
“We’ve got you, dude,” Wels murmured, catching X’s shoulder just as he tipped forward — it had been a long time since he needed help. Together, the hermits half-carried him into the dwelling part of the build. Somewhere in his mind, he thought how funny it must have looked; while not quite short themselves, he still had a few inches on each of the two, so to see them holding him up stirred a ridiculous scene in his mind.
They eased him down, sitting on his bed, where the shroomlights were soft on his tired eyes. On the plush wool, it was a relief to no longer fight gravity. Inside, finally, he could breathe without his helmet; the airtight clasps came away easily under his fingers, tossing the thing somewhere he didn’t care to look. The first deep breath of fresh end-air was cool, soothing, like a balm on his lungs.
Keralis tucked in behind X, anchoring him with that dearly familiar presence alone. Even if X couldn’t see it, he knew K was worrying his lip. Digging in the bundle for a moment, the blonde pulled out a healing potion — thick, almost soupy, sparkling and scarlet. The scent of herbs and acrid tinctures wafted from the uncorked bottle, sharp enough to sting the sinuses but somehow grounding. He pressed it into X’s hand. “Drink, please, it’ll block the nerve signals until they stop.”
Xisuma didn’t hesitate to tip it back. It settled warm in the voidwalker’s stomach, like Ren’s chicken broth for a sore throat. He hissed, a breath that barely qualified as a sound. “Thank you, guys, really, you didn’t have to do this-”
“We’re your friends, X, it’s literally what we do.” The knight said, pulling himself up onto the end of the bed, brushing against Xisuma’s good foot.
“Wels has a point, you know. You practically bleed yourself dry for the rest of us, Shashwhammy, it’s only fair you let us help.”
X shook his head, a fond smile on his unobstructed face.
“Cmon you can’t even deny it,” Wels prodded a weak point in the admin’s armour, ice-blue eyes crinkled with a smile. At least his hands were warm.
“You can’t stop me denying it!” Xisuma protested, giggling and leaning back into the builder behind him. Wels didn't respond, but reached over to resettle the admin's hlmet hair. Thank all the gods he escaped to Hermitcraft, all those years ago.