Chapter Text
Verity doesn’t remember when it started—maybe it was the moment Mob finally started to understand him. Finally started to understand what he really wanted, how easy it really was, how simple even.
Verity is a simple person, individual—AI? He’s not really sure anymore what to call himself. He hasn’t been able to call himself anything besides Verity for a couple of decades now. He’s been alive for far too long to worry about that now—ah, anyways, he’s getting distracted.
Mob these days has been leaving his single-player world to join his friends’ servers, leaving Verity alone. It’s been a tough road since Verity finally accepted that Mob does need to leave, that he has a life outside this world. He has a place to actually live, friends to hang out with.
Verity isn’t his only friend. It makes him bitter, and it makes something inside him rise and snarl—but looking at Mob, he wants to do his best to be the best friend Mob needs, just as Mob is doing the same thing for him! He accepted Verity for who he is, even if he’s—well, as Mob called it—
A yellow, gangly, bald-headed monster with holes for his freaky eyes and a large smiling mouth that could fit a whole house inside if he tried.
Mob still agreed to be Verity’s friend! Just with a promise that Verity should start trusting Mob with his own decisions. And, like he said, he’s a grown “ass” man, and Verity should let him do what he wants. In return, he stays as Verity’s friend.
Forever! As in BFFs! Best Friends Forever! Much higher than Twixxel! At least, that’s what Verity thinks. Mob hasn’t outright said it, but he hopes it’s true!
And for someone who’s made to not feel—Verity feels pretty happy right now… So why in the world has he been… feeling strange these days?
Emotions and feelings are still something new to him. Meeting Mob had awakened something inside him. He doesn’t know the word for it yet—and it irks him. As someone who knows everything, why can’t he easily explain what he’s feeling every day around Mob?
At least he can recognize the anger, the envy, the bitterness when Mob is around Twixxel or Grox. He knows those words. He knows those emotions. But there are other feelings that seem much deeper than anything Verity can understand, and they make him feel like he’s losing his ability to think properly.
Why is it that he only feels them around Mob? And why not around the others Mob likes to bring into his world?
What makes Mob so friggin’ different? Why does he make Verity feel strange things? He’s not supposed to feel anything beyond the negative emotions he’s learned to understand and feel. It was always supposed to be hate, anger, envy, jealousy…
“Yo, Verity.”
Mob opens the door, snapping Verity out of his reverie in the little throne room Mob made for him. He’d finally upgraded the house with the help of Twixxel and Grox, considering Mob had been leaving more and more often, leaving Verity in a half-lit house.
It took Mob a month to even notice. And if it wasn’t for Twixxel pointing out that the roof had finally caved in—and that months had already passed since it broke—Verity would have continued experiencing rain falling through the ceiling above his head without ever choosing to point it out.
Mostly, it didn’t bother him.
And since Mob rarely visits, he’d always just go into offline mode and force himself to sleep. It’s not something he always does—in fact, he hates it—but without Mob around, there’s really nothing else to do. He does tend to Mob’s farm and livestock, though. He’d named almost all of Mob’s farm animals in the pen and fed them lovingly every day, but since Mob isn’t around 24/7, he’d just sleep and sleep and sleep.
So… Verity should consider thanking Twixxel for finally pointing out the roof. He doesn’t know how much longer he can take the rain getting inside. While he’s technically Mob’s helper, and he cares very much about Mob, he’d do anything for him as long as Mob tells him what he wants.
Mob is a “grown-ass man,” and Verity is a little petty about Mob hanging out a bit too much outside the world. But well… he’s not petty enough to give Mob the cold shoulder. Maybe Grox was right about that comment. He really is just Mob’s dog in the form of a yellow ball.
“Mob! You’re back! How was your day?” Verity booted up quickly, feeling a bit dusty. It’s probably been a week since Mob had been here, and he’s been feeling… very lonely recently. There’s this cold feeling—well, of course he can’t actually feel cold, but if he had to explain it in words, he’d say he’s been feeling cold. Like if he had fingers and palms, he’d feel the chill at the tips of his fingers.
It’s loneliness—he knows that much. This feeling is something he felt almost every time before he met Mob. Always that cold feeling that threatens to consume him. Sometimes Verity wants to try and see if he can actually eat himself to death. Maybe it’ll make him feel better. But oh well, Mob is right here now! Why would he need to turn into a gangly mess of bones just to dig his claws into his chest in the hopes of getting rid of the chill in his strange body?
“Good, good—me and the boys are mostly just meeting up with new people. I got invited to an event, actually, by this really famous guy,” Mob says, heading for the chests at the side of Verity’s throne.
Usually by now, Verity would be crazily rolling his ball-shaped body toward Mob, but he’s a bit tired today. Maybe if Mob stays until tomorrow, he can be a little more bouncy than usual. The chill feels more prominent this afternoon. He should consider feeding Mei, Pale, and James their daily wheat. Knowing them, they’ll start bleating loudly, and it would freak out the other animals in the barn.
“Oh, that’s interesting! I hope it will be very fun!” Verity comments as Mob hums.
“I’ll go out again soon. I might be back in a week or two…” Mob pauses for a moment, as if he expects Verity to freak out again or turn into the monstrous yellow thing Mob hates seeing, only to find Verity still sitting in his little throne, simply watching him.
Verity meets his eyes, and an awkward pause settles between them. Mob swallows a bit, while Verity’s just waiting for him to finish his sentence.
“…If that’s alright with you,” Mob continues, shuffling through a few old armor sets and setting them to the side to save them for Grox.
The last time he’d been here, he’d gotten himself killed after slipping into a hole, even though Verity had warned him five times that there were holes Twixxel had dug as traps for mobs. Because of Verity, the mob spawning in the world was a little funky and wonky, and Mob didn’t really know how to use commands to fix it. He also wasn’t particularly bothered enough by it to make Verity fix it either.
“Alright! I hope it will be really fun for you! There will be a lot of people at that event! No pressure!” Verity says excitedly, bouncing lightly on his plush seat, though not really moving much.
Now that Mob is looking at him, he seems tired. As much as a yellow ball can look tired, anyway. His eyes are a little sunken, and he seems to melt into the plush throne seat, not even making an effort to look proper.
Mob shouldn’t really care. He’s still kind of mad at him for acting like some obsessive weirdo—still is, actually. He’s still very much an obsessive weirdo, though he’s a bit more tempered now and, thankfully, much calmer around Twixxel and Grox. If Mob is feeling a little hopeful right now, he can even say that maybe Verity likes the other two as well, considering how often he answers their questions.
Back then, he didn’t even respond to them, getting easily angry at the two, almost like a hissing cat—the thought makes Mob snort to himself and roll his eyes. Verity and cats cannot fit into the same genre. Cats are cute—Verity is… well, Verity is cute as this little ball, but if he looks like that thing he turns into whenever he gets angry… Yeah, he’s leagues away from being cute.
Call it horrifying, god…
“You alright, Verity?” Mob asks, and those words seem to snap something inside Verity because he straightens up (how do balls straighten up? They don’t even have spines, after all) and suddenly looks less tired. He doesn’t look like he’s turning into a soft, tired yellow blob anymore. Instead, Verity smiles, grinning at Mob.
“Of course! What time will you be leaving, Mob?” he asks.
Mob hums, grabbing his pickaxe. “Tomorrow morning. Right now, I kinda wanna do some caving. It’s been hectic, and I just want something calm and cool. What’s the closest cave right now that still has iron? I think I wanna make some lanterns and make a really nice and aesthetic road in the village. Twixxel’s been making me do some work helping around the building.”
Mob sighs with a loud, dramatic groan, making Verity giggle.
Mob slips on his armor, the diamond gear already enchanted thanks to Grox, who’s been making his villagers work for it mostly. “The nearest cave with iron is 600 blocks south! It has some diamond and lapis too! Your enchanting area is slowly getting low on lapis supplies, after all,” Verity says as Mob walks up to him—almost vibrating with excitement.
It’s been so long since Mob had willingly carried him in his hands, and even if he’s only going to be stuffed inside the tight confines of his inventory, it doesn’t matter. It feels safe being in Mob’s hand and inventory, after all.
“Peerrrfect. Let’s get to work, buddy. Those lanterns and lapis aren’t going to make and mine themselves.” Mob grins lazily as he feels Verity vibrate excitedly in his hands. Now, he looks more awake, a vibrant yellow instead of that tired, sleepy shade.
“Aye aye, captain!” Verity replies with a wink, complete with a sound cue.
Mob snorts, rolling his eyes, while Verity giggles. Together, they head off to work.
The walk to the cave is filled with music. As always, Verity loves playing his favorite songs.
“Have you seen my baby?
She's not a dame nor a lady
Not in the way she walks, the way she talks
Or the way she loves me”
“Just look at me
I'm like a monkey in a coconut tree
You know I’m overjoyed 'cause, boy, oh, boy
She's my gal”
“She asks me "When?", I say "Let's go out dancing"
Your place or mine?
Don't waste my time with slow romancing”
Mob nods along with it—he’s never really been one to like old music the way Verity does, but it’s kind of grown on him. It makes him want to dance, and if Verity had a body, he’d probably be willing to dance with him if the other wanted to. “She’s wild, she’s funny,” Mob sings under his breath along with Verity, who’s perched on the hood of his hoodie, his dreads fluttering slightly in the strong winds that pass by them every few minutes.
“Doesn't care about clothes or money
She just cares for me, she's all I need
She's my gal”
Mob dances a bit on his feet when the instrumental starts, skipping slightly as he turns around. He hears Verity let out a small, muffled giggle, rolling around on Mob’s hood as Mob tugs on it a bit. “Don’t fall, dude. I’d rather not see you turn into a yellow bowling ball again,” he jokes.
“I’ll try not to!” Verity replies in that annoyingly happy tone he likes to use just to piss everyone off. Mob rolls his eyes at that, still skipping along to the music.
“She speaks too loud and laughs too hard
And she drinks too much
Her manners and her language makes a grown man
Sweat and blush”
“My honeybee
Ain't nothing she would not do for me
She never plays it coy, my bundle of joy
She's the one I've been dreaming of
I'm overjoyed 'cause, boy, she's my gal”
By the time the song finishes, Mob and Verity have finally reached the caves, Mob littering the place with torches to light up the space. It’s still pretty fucking dark, and he wishes he’d brought a flashlight, but at least torches can be placed around the cave so he won’t get lost. Besides, Verity is a good extra pair of eyes for the random holes beneath him that are like seven feet deep and would definitely break his legs if he fell into one.
“Wow, this reminds me of how we used to cave together, huh?” Mob comments when the air suddenly feels quiet. It feels strange for Verity to be quiet, but it’s not like the old days when Verity would suddenly get those bouts of craziness and anger, snapping at him and threatening him. This feels more like…
Tiredness?
It’s hard to say. Verity isn’t moving from his hood, and every time Mob tilts his head to the side, Verity just looks like a melted blob, his eyes doing that same tired look again, like ice cream melting under the hot sun. “That’s true!” Verity perks up again, as if he’d just remembered he was still there alongside Mob.
Mob frowns, feeling uneasy. Is Verity going to go crazy on him again? It wouldn’t be a surprise. He’s been gone for weeks now, and it’s been an on-and-off thing. And the roof thing that he didn’t notice—well, he kind of did. Just not before Twixxel pointed it out in front of him, with Verity in the same room, so he had no choice but to fix it.
But! Can you really blame Mob for testing Verity’s patience? No, right? Yes, the move is pretty bitchy, but Verity did it first. He’d been a manipulative bastard toward Mob, emotionally leading him on just so Mob wouldn’t leave him. Mob just… wants to know if Verity is really taking his side of the deal seriously. He doesn’t want what almost happened to Twixxel to happen again. He doesn’t even know what he’d do if Verity had continued with his plan to hurt Twixxel…
So yes, in a way, Mob is kind of being an asshole and a jerk—but he just wants to make sure… Besides, if Verity’s serious about it, it’s not like it would affect him, right? He’s just a really weird, obsessive fella who wants attention.
“Yeah, bro. Anyways, where else is the iron? Come on, tell me.” Mob says, mining the last bit of iron in front of him.
“Fifteen blocks under you, straight from where you’re standing right now!” Verity says.
Mob hums. “Rule number one is never dig straight down, but who am I but a rule breaker?”
Verity lets out a soft giggle at that as Mob digs down fifteen blocks, seeing nothing but stone.
For a moment, Mob doesn’t really say anything. He might’ve just fucked it up, and it wasn’t on Verity, because it’s not really a surprise for him to screw up even the easiest instructions from Verity. In fact, Verity’s instructions used to be really hard to follow because he’d actually drop coordinates and axes, but since Verity found out it took Mob a lot of time to read his communicator, he just went with block counts and directions instead.
“Huh.” Mob digs around more as he feels Verity shifting slightly on his hood. “Verity, there’s no iron here. Are you sure there’s some here?” Mob asks, setting down another torch. Maybe his eyes are getting worse?
“Oh…” Verity says, sounding a little breathless.
Mob stops, feeling a bit uneasy. Is he going to have another breakdown again? Uh oh, oh brooother.
Mob lets out a small breath. Okay, okay, okay. Calm down, Mob. Verity won’t be having a breakdown. They’re already doing good, anyways, and besides, he’s tested this little guy’s patience for a whole damn month, and he hasn’t seen Verity turn into his weird, freaky monster version in a while now.
“A small miscalculation! Iron to your north, twenty blocks away! It’s a big vein! Sorry for that, haha!” Verity says as Mob blinks for a moment before letting out a small sigh of relief. He mines forward, towards an actual iron vein, breaking the blocks down one by one as Verity plays his favorite song again. This time, though, it’s a little quieter, just background music to fill the air since neither of them is talking.
“Have you ever felt like there is a chill that just wouldn’t leave you and threaten to consume you?” Verity asks suddenly, much closer to Mob’s ear.
Mob shrieks, almost dropping his pickaxe on his foot as Verity immediately stops the music and inches back a bit. Mob itches his ear, the skin still fluttering from the sudden voice beside it. “Verity! Don’t do that!” Mob says as he takes Verity from his hood, his heart pounding a bit.
He’s just a little worried that Verity might have relapsed again. Twixxel usually knows what to do whenever Verity gets prissy and annoying about Mob—it’s like he was made to be Verity’s pet therapist or something. Something Mob really isn’t.
“Sorry.” Verity’s voice does that glitch again, though this time it doesn’t sound terrifying at all, it just sounds like a broken record failing to load the sound.
Verity melts in Mob’s hand, and Mob yelps, quickly trying to catch him. It feels like he’s holding slime right now as Verity’s face melts, turning into black sludge.
“Verity! Dude, what the fuck is going on with you right now? Hey! You’re melting! Stop it bro!” Mob panics, taking out his empty bucket and placing Verity inside. He’s still just a pile of goop as Verity’s eyes pop out, looking tired and sad.
“...I don’t know,” he says, almost softly.
Mob pauses, staring down into the bucket as Verity refuses to meet his eyes. “Dude, what’s going on? Are you mad at me? Is this you being mad at me for being gone?” Mob asks, his brows furrowing.
Verity turns back into a ball. “No! No, of course not!” He bounces around furiously, like he’s offended that Mob would even suggest that he’s acting how he used to act.
“It’s not like that! I am perfectly fine with you having a life outside this world!” Verity says, his voice echoing from inside the bucket.
Mob frowns. Then what’s the problem? If this isn’t one of his tantrums, then what? “Then what’s the problem, dude?” he asks.
Verity slumps again, turning into a soft blob. “I’m not sure yet. I will check my systems in a bit—how about we continue mining for lapis? I detect a large lapis vein 114 blocks to the south. Mine down some stairs, and you will be led into a new cave area!”
For once, Mob is unsure if he should continue his expedition or get Verity home and call Twixxel to check up on the guy.
“You sure?” Mob asks once more when Verity started melting again when Mob didn’t reply right away, it’s like he keeps forgetting he’s not alone. Then Verity snaps out of it quickly.
Verity goes back to his ball form, suddenly rolling around the bucket furiously and shaking it as Mob startles back. “Yes, yes! Get your damn lapis, Mob!” Verity huffs.
Mob snorts. “Okay, fine. Chill, bro. We’ll get those damn lapis, then we’ll get back and check what the fuck is wrong with you, m’kay?” he asks, picking up the bucket.
“Wait.” Verity’s voice makes Mob pause. He crouches back down again. “I’ll agree to that if you hold me in your other hand… Can you hold me while you mine?” Verity asks. Hopefully, rolling and hitting his body onto the side of the bucket, making a dull thunking noise of metal.
Mob makes a face at that, not seeing Verity’s expression fall at his reaction. “What? Why? How can I hold you, my pickaxe, and my torch? I already let you rest in my hood, bro.”
For a moment, Verity is quiet, vibrating a little. “Hnn… okay… can I be inside your hood instead?” Verity asks. This time, his voice is low and weak, maybe a little meek also (which was new for him…)
Mob lets out a sigh of relief, picking Verity up and placing him on his hood before tucking him inside. Verity shifts around a bit before finally getting comfortable there.
Sometimes he doesn’t feel safe holding Verity either, mostly after realizing he can turn into a ten-foot-tall giant monster.
I mean, what if Verity turns and crushes him? How the hell is he supposed to fucking heal from that? The answer would be to just not carry Verity for the time being, at least until he’s one hundred percent sure that this little piss-colored ball isn’t going to have another breakdown.
As much as possible, Mob would like to keep his body intact and not get squished into a dog chew toy, thank you very much.