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When Martyn dies, his senses are full of the heat of the end crystal exploding. He spends his last few moments thinking about how much Mumbo would've loved to see him die this way; he told him as much as often as possible.
Mumbo was always fascinated with these crystals, and, well. Martyn's been using them as much as he can— in his husband's name, he supposes— since he died.
If anything Martyn's glad he died to his own crystal, because if he won he was going to kill himself using it anyways. Y'know... for Mumbo. It's all kind of been for Mumbo.
There's nothing after the heat dissipates. No pain (deep down, he wishes there was still pain). He's dead, isn't he? That sort of thing takes a minute for your brain to recognize. He's done it once before— the whole death thing— and this feels familiar, even if he doesn't remember last time very well.
It feels like a disconnect from your body (not just your corpse, the incorporeal one). He has hands, and maybe if he looks past them the rest of his body will be there, too, but he cannot feel them; not until they touch something else, but touch feels like it's through a blanket. Distant.
There was darkness for a moment after the blast, and faint memory of a voice, but Martyn doesn't think he's supposed to remember much of what happens after death, so maybe things disappear quicker. The voice he heard was probably just Scott gloating over his corpse (Martyn spawned in the Southlands, he wouldn't hear Scott from beyond the grave, but that answer makes sense in his muddled brain).
It's still dark, but in a way that feels like reality, despite Martyn's disconnect from it. It's night time, isn't it?
Martyn stands up— though there isn't really such thing as standing when your body is barely existent— and makes his way to the hole in the wall of whatever building he's in. Steps feel strange, like his feet are extending past the floor, or like he doesn't need the floor to walk at all. There is vague sensation with every collision, like when your foot falls asleep.
He's not entirely sure where he is, but it's in the same way he isn't sure if he really exists right now. There's a sense that he must know the answer, but his brain (if he has one) struggles to grasp it. How can you grasp anything with no fingers?
Crickets chirp in the trees, but how can Martyn hear that? He might be able to feel the grass— it's burnt in some places— at his ankles.
Is he home? Whatever comes the closest to a home, when nothing is permanent. He looks back at the building behind him, the wall, the blown-up side of the bunker. It's hard to see it all through the darkness and the snow in Martyn's vision.
The bunker's home, isn't it? It's where his spawn was set, at least. It's where he'd sleep every night— if he did; it was always hard to sleep when he had to stay awake to protect Mumbo. It's where Mumbo was.
Where else would home be, if not where Mumbo was? Where is Mumbo now? Ren had been there, after he died, last time, hadn't they?
Mumbo's... probably watching Scott and Ren. The finale is important, so every dead player is likely over there (wherever there is, Martyn can't remember for the life of him).
Martyn crumples on the grass, despite the lack of feeling, his legs still feel too weak to hold him up for much longer. They probably could, and his mind is just clinging onto reality when it no longer exists, but maybe it'd keep him sane(...er) to cling to what he can.
Time is hard to keep track of when you aren't real. Maybe it isn't even passing at all. So why bother? Martyn closes his eyes (or lack thereof). Maybe he sleeps, or whatever there is that's close to sleeping. He finally can, without having to worry about dying while he's vulnerable.
“What are you doing on the floor?” Mumbo's voice breaks through a fog, after Martyn's been sitting there for... well, it's pointless to estimate how long.
He looks up (if up is something that exists) at Mumbo. His eyes aren't red, is the first thing Martyn notices. He isn't even sure if he can perceive colour right now, but to Martyn's best guess, they're brown.
“...Are you real?” Martyn asks, instead of answering his husband's question. Normally he wouldn't question it, would just be sure that Mumbo isn't real, because he's dead. Even if at the start he'd been in denial, and wanted to believe Mumbo was truly there... he never stopped seeing him once he faced the truth.
But this Mumbo could be real. Martyn's dead after all.
“Maybe.” Mumbo responds. Martyn appreciates that he didn't lie. Nobody can be sure they're real, especially in this purgatory. Mumbo crouches down beside Martyn in the grass, and his hand touches Martyn's thigh.
It... actually touches him. The sensation is so faint, but to feel any inkling of Mumbo again after these weeks is enough to convince Martyn that this may be heaven. None of Martyn's hallucinations have ever been able to touch him, as much as he may have begged and prayed for them to, to give him anything close to his husband.
Mumbo's hand lifts Martyn's chin up, looks him in the eyes. If Mumbo's are brown now, are Martyn's blue again? Mumbo had mentioned wanting to see Martyn's real eyes, once.
Last time Martyn saw Mumbo (alive, that is), he was so disheveled and erratic. This Mumbo isn't that Mumbo. He's cleaned up and looks miles better than Martyn's sure he does— the respawn doesn't do much to fix physical appearance, besides injury.
It takes a (metaphorical) minute for Martyn to realize Mumbo's wearing his hoodie. He's going to bring it home (his real home, not this one with Martyn) to Hermitcraft with him.
“Who won?” Martyn asks Mumbo, even though he doesn't really care. Maybe when he was alive he would've been cheering Ren on, but there isn't much for Martyn to care about when his mind is so detached.
“I don't know,” Mumbo answers. “I started looking for you as soon as you died.” Martyn can feel his heart clench at that, even if he shouldn't be able to. Maybe he'd assumed Mumbo would be done with him after the season ended, or been angry with him for all the stupid shit he did before Mumbo died.
He wants to cry, but he doesn't have the tear ducts to make that possible. He thunks his head against Mumbo's chest, and his husband wraps his arms around Martyn's back. It still so distant and yet it's the most real thing Martyn's felt since he died.
If this Mumbo isn't real, it'd just be cruel.
Mumbo pulls him closer, and Martyn's surprised his hands didn't just phase through him. He can't cry, but he sure does shake. Neither he or Mumbo has ever been one for comforting words, but they know how to hold one another, so that's what they've always done.
It was already so hard to tell what's real when Martyn was alive— he sinks his face into where the fabric bunches around Mumbo's neck. He doesn't smell like anything— so he has no hope of doing so now.
His brain is probably just making this up to cope. Telling him Mumbo's here, and that he loves him, so that the trauma of his death will be easier to bare. Mumbo's probably not real.
But his hand in Martyn's hair, soothing, feels real enough to Martyn's scared little brain, he finds he does not care.