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Xisuma had committed gluttonous and decadent butter-shortbread crimes. He was only grateful that no one (as far as he could tell) saw him acting as though his pink armour was made to imitate a pig, rather than an axolotl.
But back to the beginning of this situation, to explain: the biscuit tin had been refilling. Which was a normal thing for a biscuit tin to do, usually. But Xisuma hadn’t been refilling it, and this particular tin was in his base, under his watchful eye.
So, someone had been entering his base without being seen, and, for weeks, done nothing at all that he could detect save for replenishing his biscuit supply. No note. No offhand mention of it from any of his friends. Not even one little prank.
Just biscuits and cookies and cute little tea cakes.
Which, not to get him wrong, were lovely, and surprisingly high quality, and appreciated, but it was just an odd thing for someone to do for no reason. So there must be a reason; but what it might be Xisuma could not fathom.
There had been little clarity to be found in questioning the obvious suspects; Etho was sneaky enough to do it, but when confronted he had done nothing but raise an eyebrow and deny it outright. He had spent the day with Xisuma afterwards never the less. Biscuits had replenished while they were together — ginger snaps, strongly spiced, just how he liked them.
Keralis had been disappointed to not have thought of it first, patting Xisuma condescendingly and saying something to effect of ‘you deserve it sweet-cheeks’.
False and Wels had likewise denied all knowledge, and there was no way it had been EX.
Xisuma trusted that he knew his friends well enough to know that they weren’t lying. But he had been out of obvious suspects, and had thus attempted — unsuccessfully — to resort to subterfuge for answers.
There was something that he was missing, some explanation for all this effort, and he wanted to know.
As the mysterious biscuit fairy continued to visit him within a day or two of his sweets supply running out, like clockwork, he had turned various strategies over in his mind.
He had been ready to make his move by the time he ran out of the latest batch (stained glass cookies that were almost too pretty to eat. The melted sugar had crunched so satisfyingly between his teeth.)
His first attempt to catch his biscuit bandit in the act had been simple: moving the tin to a shelf next to his bed, and rigging the door with an alarm that would wake him when it was opened.
It had been disappointing at first to find the still empty tin by his bedside in the morning, his sleep having passed uninterrupted. And then he had gone into the greenhouse to gather some honey from his beehives and been confronted with another, identical, biscuit tin sitting pointedly out on top of the hives.
The tiny honey cakes inside had been delicious, and admittedly distracting. When he’d returned to his main base in the evening the empty tin was gone from the shelf. His own home turf had been infiltrated in broad daylight while he had still been there.
Maybe a more elaborate trap was called for. Something less obvious.
So he’d set up an observer under the new tin (once it was empty of course, he had obviously still eaten it all. It would be rude to do otherwise.) The red stone mechanism would raise a cage around the tin once it was taken, and alert him immediately. He would rush to the scene of the crime and catch the perpetrator crumb-handed.
The alarm had gone off not even a day later, and Xisuma had hurried across his base in less than a minute, using far too many rockets. The cage had been empty and the tin gone before he even arrived. No sign of anyone other than the sprung trap.
The biscuit fairy was clearly prepared for anything. Nothing he attempted seemed to even phase his mysterious visitor, and he never caught so much as a glimpse. No evidence was left behind, he almost circled back around to suspecting Etho, if he hadn’t been so sure that he would have come clean by now if it had been him.
And then, he had walked into his trading hall one morning to the tin sitting there, smack in the middle of the floor, taunting him.
He had set his thermos down onto the floor and opened it to see what the offering was this time, and been confronted with rows of perfectly golden and flaky butter shortbread nestled in parchment paper.
He’d told himself that he would just try one before he got back to work, and reached for a biscuit.
+
That was how he had found himself here; lying on the trading hall floor, thermos of tea and biscuit tin both empty (except for the soggy crumbs at the bottom of the thermos) and discarded haphazardly as he waited for the consequences of his sins (aforementioned butter-shortbread gluttony) to settle. It had been worth the stomach ache. So worth it.
The warped plank floor of his trading hall still retained some of the heat from its place of origin in the nether, and the afternoon sunlight filtering in only added to the hazy warmth he felt, within and without. He closed his eyes. Surely it was fine to take a short nap right there on the floor. The villagers penned in their stalls wouldn’t tell anyone.
When he woke up an hour or so later, he resolved to just give up on catching his biscuit fairy with trickery. He did the polite thing, what he should perhaps have done to begin with; he wrote a note, inviting his mystery helper to tea, specifying times that worked for him, outlining when he would be at home, and then he shut the paper up in the empty container.
He left the tin where he found it, without looking back or setting any traps.
+
When Xisuma opened the door at the start of his (instituted in the last few weeks, nothing to do with the new wealth of biscuits he swore) afternoon break, he was momentarily confused to see Grian standing outside. And then he saw the biscuit tin clutched in front of the other man like a shield.
Grian’s grin was sheepish, and honestly, charming.
“You … said now was a good time?”
“Ah,” he stepped to the side and gestured him through to the kitchen, “so I did.”
Maybe he should have expected this outcome; among the hermits who were committed to mischief Grian was surely nearing number one. It made sense when he thought about it that way, but he hadn’t even considered it. He and Grian didn’t really talk often outside of meetings, and they lived on near opposite sides of the server.
Still, Grian almost skipped right in, peering around the kitchen as he circled the table to the far side seat before setting his tin down in the middle.
“I can’t imagine there’s anything in here that you haven’t already seen. There isn’t any need to pretend.” Xisuma paused, pulling out his favourite mug from the cupboard, an old gift from Keralis, “this one alright?”
Grian smiled, the afternoon sun gilding the edges of his honey-coloured hair fetchingly as he inclined his head, “Sure.”
Xisuma picked out a pink mug for himself to match his armour, and then set the teapot next to the biscuit tin before sitting down across from him.
Grian turned the mug over in his hands curiously, admiring the dark green glaze, “Where did you get this? I do some pottery myself you know—” he hadn’t known “—I don’t think I could have managed a colour this nice with what I’ve got on the server.”
“You’d have to ask Keralis, he bought it at some market off server, said that the colour reminded him of my old armour.”
“Maybe I will then,” he hummed, “he’s got a good eye. I can interrogate the potter about their suppliers.” He sounded gleeful at prospect.
“I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you. You’ll have to show me your work some time if you do.” It would be nice to have the excuse to chat more. It occurred to him that if Grian was making pottery on the server then there must be a pottery studio tucked away somewhere; Xisuma suddenly found himself curious to see it. It was always lovely to spend time with his hermits when they felt comfortable showing him their hobbies. He had spent many an afternoon in the corner of Cleo’s sewing room, watching them at work and chatting away. It was easy to imagine doing the same with Grian. He wanted to do that.
He wondered if Grian would like to listen to him play the guitar some time. Grian liked to commission music sometimes didn’t he?
They sat quietly for a moment as the tea steeped. It was more comfortable than he would have expected a silence to be.
When the tea was ready Xisuma took his helmet off and set it aside, avoiding eye contact as he poured the tea.
Glancing up from setting the mugs down he saw that Grian’s expression as he looked at him was nothing but warm and open. Admiring even. The scars didn’t seem to bother him at all that he could tell; he knew logically that there was no reason to be nervous, but something in him still settled to see it.
Grian opened the tin up to reveal … more butter shortbread? This time shot through with little flecks of something dark. Was it …? His heart swelled with hope, but best to make sure.
“Oh? What’s that?” He asked playfully.
“Earl grey cookies,” Grian supplied cheerfully, with an elaborate flourish of his hands as he presented the tin.
It was. Xisuma knew his grin was probably bordering on goofy, but he didn’t have it in him to care about that, or about being polite as he stuffed the first cookie directly into his mouth. The flavour of the tea was subtle, and the flaky biscuit almost melted in his mouth without any need for dunking. It was perfect. He sighed happily as Grian looked on fondly, wrapping his palms around his warm mug as he chewed. It really didn’t get much better than this.
“I asked Etho for intel; he said these were your favourite.” Grian admitted at length after drinking some of his tea and taking a biscuit himself.
It felt good to share, it seemed that there would be more shortbreads soon in his future if he was reading this correctly.
“Actually I wanted to ask you what this was all about. Not that I’m unhappy, not at all, it’s just been… unexpected. Why go to all the effort?”
Grian looked away to the side as he took another long sip, “I just think that — you’re always working really hard. Taking care of the server for everyone on top of participating that is.” He paused, “The others are always so happy spending time with you, but you’re always so busy. I never really got the opportunity. I wanted — I just wanted for you to be able to take a break? Have something nice, you know? As a token of appreciation.” He rushed the explanation out, as though he’d lose his nerve if he slowed down and though about it, “And maybe I wanted to spend some time with you too?”
The warm feeling pooling in Xisuma’s stomach wasn’t just from the tea; “Well you don’t need to go to such lengths, you’re always welcome. If you want to spend more time together just say so. I’d be happy to.”
“Sure,” he acknowledged, uncharacteristically shy for a moment, and then with more of his usual mischief, “but it was also kind of a fun game, so I might keep it going for a bit if you don’t mind it?”
“Of course, I also like a bit of a game,” he shared a conspiratorial look with Grian, leaning over the table to be closer and taking another biscuit in the process, “by the way though, since I have you here, how did you get out of that cage trap so quickly? I never figured that out. It was barely a minute, I should have at least seen you leave.”
It had been eating at him a little, he could admit.
“I took the tin and logged off as soon as the trap triggered. Then I waited for you to reset the trap and leave for something else before I logged back in and walked off. Spent an hour or so over on my own server.” He shrugged, eyes glinting.
Xisuma leaned his elbow onto the table and then put his face in his hand, “You combat logged on my trap?” He asked incredulously. He hadn’t even thought about that. Tricky little fairy.
Grian muffled his laughter into his sweater, giggling not a little maniacally.
Everything was warm and light in that moment at the kitchen table, and Xisuma cradled his face in one hand and his mug in the other as he watched the other man fail to contain his mirth, feeling much like a cat in a sunbeam. He felt like he could live in this moment forever.
That was alright. More than alright, he decided. His mouth tasted like tea twice over. Maybe he would taste it four times over before the afternoon was over, if Grian was willing.