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“I know where your BASE IS–”
Shutting and barring the door behind himself, Mob shook his head.
Yeah… yeah, Verity just knew everything, didn’t it? His shoulders shook under his armour, the dirt in his hands and weapons in his inventory trembling in tandem with his own skin.
He mumbled under his breath, trying to draw up something akin to courage as he told Verity just the same: “–you just know everything, apparently…”
His base– the other one; the lookout– wasn’t too far away, but it was out of render distance and then some, which would hopefully confuse Verity enough…
Then again, Verity knew of the villages…. It knew this world better than Mob did for sure, and Mob had hinted at his lookout’s location when Verity had asked about his favorite place before…
His boots dug into the ground hard, leaving indents as Mob turned heel. The other direction looked far more pleasing to his hearts, all of a sudden… it wasn’t the devil he knew, but it also meant it wasn’t something Verity could expect of him.
He wasn’t dumb. Not– not that much. If the music stopped, that didn’t mean he was safe. It meant he pulled himself together and kept running like his life depended on it, because it did. If Verity said ‘I know where your base is,’ Verity probably knew where it truly was.
Annoyingly, Verity had never lied to him. Just because it showed its hand too much didn’t mean it was going to start lying now. Maybe… hopefully.
God, he hoped.
Digging himself in a 2-by-2 might be smart, but it would also be blocking himself in if Verity broke in… Mob opted to swing his axe against a few more oak trees. Swirling turning logs to planks, he began to build a wall.
7-by-7-by-2, he encased himself in planks. Spamming jump for speed, he placed down a crafting bench. With trapdoors in his inventory again, he made another pit, only 5 blocks deep, at the edges of his walls.
The night reigned outside, seemingly ever-ending. It made Mob regret not having commands on, idly wondering if Verity did… Could Verity keep it night, forever? He shivered.
He watched, from a 1-block hole, the stars move against the sky. Watched the square, bright, white dots shimmy down, unaware of Mob’s racing heart as he held onto an oak plank, ready to plug the hole up at any moment.
The stars sank down and down, until they began to slowly, steadily, fade. White, to grey, to light blue and orange hues, as the skyline began to bleed color, too.
He exhaled, the straps of armour feeling for a moment as if they’d come unbuckled with the sudden lack of weight on his chest as it unwound. A delirious giggle wanted to claw out, but he swallowed it down roughly; like a ball in his throat.
His helmet shifted over his hood, and his scarf, with its wide red rim, slipped a little under his heavy, exhilarated breaths. His eyes themselves felt manic as he stared outside, onto the rising sun, scouring the landscape.
His feet trembled, although if those were the trapdoors he was standing on or his body, he didn’t know.
It was over.
Day broke.
It was over.
…right? It had to be…
Ttnch!
He blinked, and before his head connected ttnch with trapdoor, he hit the bottom of the 5-block hole, half a heart stripped from him.
Yelping, he turned, and, fucking Chirst– screamed.
“Verity!” He cried, stepping back rapidly as the thing– as Verity, long and thin and fractured-looking, matched him, step by step by step by step by step by step.
“I told you, Mob, you’re mine–” Verity growled, maw opening with cracks and sounds of bone breaking echoing out, “I tried to warn you.”
“V-Verity, wait!”
Sunlight poured in and down the hastily dug hole, showing off the dents between Verity’s bones and the crevice of skin on its wide lips.
“Wait, Verity, let’s talk–!” He tried, desperately, pleadingly. His voice broke: “Verity…”
“You could’ve stopped this Mob,” Verity winced a little itself, still stalking forward at a steady pace; “If you had just. Stayed.”
“S-stayed?” He echoed, “You wanted me to stay?”
It stopped. He stopped, features slowly fattening out, dip by dip. His figure shrank, rounded out until he was just 3½ blocks tall.
“Of course,” Verity said, almost hopeful sounding, “I want you, Mob. Do you not see that?”
He started to slim down again, dips making themselves unknown as if he were tensing, only much more freakish, and much more deadly.
“I– didn’t,” he admitted, “B-but I do, now, Verity! Please… let’s just, go home, okay? Together.”
“Together?” Verity echoed through his maw. It was freaking horrifying, but Mob swallowed, almost wanting to blur his sight or change his FoV to ignore it, but it’d be pointless. Verity knew his settings.
“Together.” He nodded, swallowing thick air, “I’m… sorry. I thought you wanted– wanted to kill me.”
Slowly, slowly, Verity shrunk, now only 3 blocks. He shook his significantly more round head, “No, no…”
2 and a half, and Verity stepped forward. Mob flinched, but his back was against a corner and Verity was periodically looking to the wall behind him and the floor, so he didn’t catch it. Thank goodness…
His– hands, yellow and broken looking and oh-so long, reached out and Mob did every single thing he could to calm himself. To not flinch as Verity grabbed him by his shoulders, long fingers digging into the sweaty skin underneath his hoodie and armour.
He felt the iron creak and crack under the pressure.
“Never,” Verity promised, sliding forward like… like slime, almost draping itself. And it did, drape himself, that is, as his left hand slipped down and instead his– neck, maybe? Jaw? Mob couldn’t tell where which ended or began. It leaned on his shoulder, mouth on top of his shoulder pads.
With hands Mob forced himself to stop shaking, he, cautiously, tentatively, hugged back. Placed his palms on Verity’s fattening back as it shrunk back to ball-size.
“You are mine, Mob,” he murmured, turned his head, and, of all freaking things, shrank himself to a block and some so his head could fit in the crevice of Mob’s neck, and placed a soft, motionless kiss. Just rested his lips on it, but it was a kiss nonetheless.
“Okay…” Mob squeezed his assistant, mostly out of the urge to squeeze himself for comfort, as he repeated, a few more times: “okay.”
Resting against the stone wall, with Verity leaning on him and leaving motionless kisses, occasionally scraping his sharp few teeth along Mob’s skin– something the former apologized for when Mob shivered and tensed, quietly and desperately– he breathed, Verity’s chest only rising and falling with his own.
It didn’t take too long for Verity to return to ball-size, gently cupped in Mob’s hands. Sitting down on the cold, pebbled floor, Mob looked at Verity.
The latter blinked and smiled– the normal smile; the original– “I’m glad you’re staying, Mob.”