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Everything was fine. And Everything was normal. Not because it actually was. But because it had to be.
Joel knew that wasn’t the mindset that would get him through this season, but there wasn’t really any other choice. It had been months and progress on the rainbow seemed to have slowed to a sniffer’s speed.
Don’t get him wrong, Joel knew that it was okay that he wasn’t making as much progress on his base as some of his neighbors—no one was really making progress compared to the giant mountain he was next to—but sometimes Joel didn’t fully believe that.
He had come out with such a bang in his first season with the cyberpunk and Japanese base. It was like he had used up all of his ideas. Don’t get him wrong he loved his new base. All of the colors and all the different styles he was using. But sometimes it felt like there wasn’t any point to it. Like he was making everything colorful because all he felt in himself was grey.
His appetite was entirely gone, he had no urge to spend time with his friends, and he had barely been sleeping. Not that he wasn’t tired, but sleep never felt fulfilling. It was like his exhaustion was coming from somewhere deeper. He had stopped hanging out with his friends. Coming up with flimsy excuses for not going to group dinners or hangouts. He missed them, but he also just felt so empty.
Which was probably the reason he was currently falling off of his not even half-finished rainbow with a broken elytra. But he would never admit that. Instead, he choose to blame the creeper that was responsible for blasting him off in the first place. If he had been running on more sleep he probably would have remembered to spawn proof the dirt scaffolding he had placed down.
Joel didn’t even scream as he realized that he was about to plummet to his death. He was too blummin tired for this. Maybe he could’ve gotten to a water bucket or a hay bale to break his fall. But instead, he let out a deep breath and closed his eyes. Hoping the death would be quick because at the end of the day he wasn’t a masochist, he was just empty.
SmallishBeans fell from a high place
Respawning was never fun. It took a toll on your body, especially if you were as sleep deprived and slightly malnourished as Joel was. Even more so when your mind wasn’t fully convinced it wanted to come back. But there was always a split second of peace when your consciousness split from your body in the void.
Look, it’s not like Joel was looking forward to dying so that he could feel that peace. Those moments when he was completely free from all the crushing expectations he had for himself. Okay maybe he looked forward to it just a bit. But, for those handful of seconds when everything was quiet and the pain was gone he felt at peace. Joel knew that he shouldn’t feel like this. He knew that this was supposed to be the point where he realized something was wrong and that he should reach out to some of his friends.
But it wasn’t actually that bad was it? It’s not like he had done this on purpose. But he hadn’t stopped it from happening.
Joel wasn’t stupid enough to delay his respawn though, he knew that the hermits would be on him like rabid turkey vultures if he took any longer than necessary. They were very overbearing—caring—like that.
When he opened his eyes he was met with the sight of his parkour course. He had yet to reset his spawn anywhere else. It only took a couple seconds to feel the buzz of his communicator in his back pocket. He sighed as he pulled it out to read it still laying down in the bed. Maybe he should just stay here the rest of the day.
GeminiTay: don’t tell me you fell off that monstrosity
Etho: Everything okay Joel?
joehillssays: Need any help?
Joel let out a huff. Overbearing like he said.
SmallishBeans: all good, just slipped
In his mind slipping was less embarrassing then getting blown off his rainbow by a creeper because he wasn’t paying enough attention. Also, it was less likely anyone would come over here, people slipped off tall buildings all the time. Even if they usually had the motivation to save themselves before they went splat.
Joel swung his legs over the side of the bed and went to sit up but pain shot through his side, and he fell back to the bed.
“Jeez.” He huffed out to no one but himself. Maybe he was in a worse state than he thought.
Slowly and painfully, he lifted up his tunic to see that pretty much his whole left side and probably his back was covered in burns from the creeper explosion. Another downside of not being the healthiest, respawns didn’t exactly work perfectly. On top of the burns there were also small cuts from where the glass had exploded outwards towards Joel. He really hoped that none of the glass was still in him. His head was also throbbing, and he could feel the bruises starting to form everywhere.
With another wince he let his shirt drop down. Joel took a deep breath and tried to move all his weight to his right side before standing up. It was by no means easy, but he managed to use the wall as a crutch to get to the ender chest he had placed down for anyone attempting to complete his parkour courses.
He just needed to fish out a regen potion and then everything would be fine, and everything would be normal. Just like it always was. He would go back to building his rainbow until his body gave up and then he would try to sleep no matter how pointless it seemed.
“Joel?” Now Joel would love to say that he slowly and gracefully spun around to see who had said his name and to greet them with a smile.
In reality he tried to spin to his left and immediately stumbled and only managed to break his fall by bracing his hands on the open ender chest with a grunt. The respawn potion was still in his hand and luckily he managed to not drop it. It wasn’t a splash potion, and they were always so messy to clean up. He managed to raise his head and see the entirety of EGGZ standing in the lobby of his parkour course.
It had been Gem who spoke but all of them were looking at them with the same amount of concern on their faces. And it was a very large amount of concern. You would think they’ve never seen someone have a whacky respawn before.
Joel tried his best to slap a smile on his face, but he knew it was shaky and barely wide enough to be considered a smile. “If you’re here to prank me, it might not be the best time, but feel free to come back later.”
“Actually, we came to try out your parkour, but it looks like there’s a more pressing issue…” Cleo trailed off.
Joel waved them off. “Don’t let me stop you, I’m all good. I’ll be in my storage room if you need anything.” He tried to push himself up and onto the wall again, but this time didn’t even make it to the wall before he fell to his knees in pain. He let out a strained groan as his knees met the wood planks.
Okay maybe he was not in fact “all good.”
Before he could do something stupid, like try to get up again, he felt two pairs of hands grab his arms and haul him up. Each of his arms were wrapped around the accompanying shoulders.
“What on earth did you do Joel?” Grian asked from one side and Joel hated to see his friend with that worried look in his eyes. There was nothing to worry about.
“Is your respawn corrupted?” Etho spoke up from the other side.
Joel shook his head which only served to send a wave of nausea through him. Okay maybe he had a concussion too. Wasn’t that just lovely. He opened his mouth to speak but Gem cut him off.
“I swear to god Joel if you say you’re fine one more time I’m burning down your moss landscape.” That got Joel to shut up. Everyone knew Gem wasn’t one to make empty promises, and it had taken so much time making and placing all of that moss.
Joel let out another grunt as Etho and Grian set him down on the edge of the bed he had respawned in.
It was Cleo who reached over and plucked the respawn potion out of his hand while Etho went to left up Joel’s shirt where he noticed small amounts of blood starting to bleed into his shirt. Joel let out a sound of protest at the loss of the potion and also tried to swat Etho’s hands away.
“Give me that back.” Joel tried to demand. It came out as more of a sad plea then anything else.
“A regen potion is only going to stop the pain for a bit Joel, you know it won’t heal you immediately and then you’re just going to go get more injured.” Cleo responded with a stern glare. They were a hundred percent correct but that didn’t mean Joel agreed with her.
“Let us help you Joel.” Grian’s voice was soft in the way that you spoke to someone you thought was a flight risk. Which Joel was very much so.
Joel didn’t say anything but also didn’t make any movements to show them the injuries. He wasn’t sure how it would happen, but he knew that nothing good was going to come of him showing them the injuries.
“Either you let us help you or we get X involved.” Joel squawked at Gem.
“What? No. We don’t need to get him involved. Everything’s fi-“ Joel cut himself off from finishing his sentence at the glare Gem was shooting him. “There’s no reason to get X involved.” Joel finished instead.
It’s not like Joel didn’t like interacting with their beloved admin. He quite liked his love for music and ability to create music, Joel could admit that X was probably better at making songs then him, but there was no reason to get the man involved right now. Joel just needed a regen potion and to get some sleep. He’d be right as rain come tomorrow. And eventually this ever-pressing weight on his chest would lift and everything would go back to being normal. Normal and fine. Those were the words of the season after all.
“Then let us help.” Etho replied once again going to left up Joel’s shirt. This time Joel didn’t stop him and instead just sighed. He wasn’t going to win this battle against his once soulmate.
“It looks worse than it actually is.” Joel rushed out when everyone let out various gasps and hisses at the sight of his bloodied and slightly charred torso.
“Joel…” Etho trailed off with a pained look on his face.
“You obviously didn’t just slip off you’re rainbow Joel, what happened?” Grian asked him as Etho turned away from Joel started to rummage around in his own ender chest for medical supplies.
Joel shrugged and didn’t say anything as he looked away. He knew that if he explained what had happened and how he felt they weren’t going to have the same reaction as him. They would do something crazy like suggest he needed help.
“Joel you look like you’ve been spun around in a tornado and landed in a fire, and you respawn didn’t heal you, you’ve got to tell us what happened so we can help.” Cleo voice was always stern but now it sounded fully like an order.
“It’s blummin stupid.” Joel’s voice cracked slightly as he attempted to deflect. “I just made a mistake it doesn’t matter.”
Etho turned back to him. “You need to take your shirt off so I can but this balm on your burns and wrap your ribs.” Joel sighed but did as the man said. Well, he tried, Grian sat down next to him and helped him to get his top off with minimal pain. His body was only starting to hurt more as his adrenaline fully wore off.
His lack of shirt did not help with the growing concern in the room as the full extent of his injuries was on display.
“I still think we should call X.” Gem spoke up as she stared at the still slightly inflamed burns that crept up his side. From the completely blank look on her face, Joel knew that it looked worse than he thought.
“No.” Joel gritted out as Etho, as gently as the man could, started to put a slave over the burns and cuts.
“Then tell us what happened.” Grian pointed out. “Unless you want us to get X over here right now.”
The man drove a hard bargain.
Joel sighed and closed his eyes softly. He guessed he could tell part of the truth without sounding like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown. “A creeper snuck up behind me while working on the rainbow. It exploded some of the glass I was on, hence the cuts, and I fell. My elytra was broken so I hit the ground pretty hard.” Joel finished and opened his eyes. “Happy?” He sneered slightly. Joel wanted out of this conversation.
“Then why did your respawn not heal you?” Cleo questioned with a look on her face that told Joel that they already knew the answer.
Joel shrugged and looked towards the ground. Maybe he could get out of this without them getting to the root of the problem.
There were a couple moments of silence where Etho continued to work on healing Joel, and everyone watched tensely.
“Blummin heck Eefo.” Joel hissed and tried to pull away when the man prodded at what was sure to be a very nasty bruise on the non-burned side of his torso.
“You for sure have a couple of broken ribs Joel. It would probably be best to get you some actual medical attention. I’ll do what I can, but the damage is probably more extensive.” Etho had put the salves away and pulled out a couple different rolls of bandages.
“You’re telling me that it’s worse than it looks?” Grian questioned. “Because it does not look good.”
Etho shrugged and started on wrapping Joel’s torso and shoulder in bandages.
“You haven’t been taking care of yourself.” Gem stated.
Joel tensed and raised his head to meet her eyes. “What makes you say that?” He tried to sound innocent, but he was in too much pain for it to sound anything but strained.
Gem shrugged. “There’s only a handful of reasons that someone wouldn’t heal after a respawn. If there was something wrong with your code, X for sure would have known by now. So that leaves sleep deprivation, malnutrition, high stress, declining mental health, or general lack of self-care.” Joel looked away quickly. Too quickly. Everything was spinning and he thought he was going to throw up.
Grian seemed to notice and rushed to pull the closest trash can to him, but Joel could only dry heave as he couldn’t even remember he had a full meal instead of honey bottles.
After a couple of minutes of only heaving up bile, Gem spoke up. “And it’s starting to look like you’re falling into all of those categories Joel.” Her voice had an odd edge to it. It was like shad had finally out all the pieces together to a very concerning puzzle. And Joel did not like that. Whatever his mental state was, he would rather no one knew about it.
Which was obviously what people did when everything was perfectly normal and fine.
Grian pulled the trashcan away slowly. “Joel…” He trailed off. Joel turned slightly to look at the man as Etho continued to wrap his ribs. Diligent as always. “Joel did you do this to yourself.”
Joel could’ve sworn the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. Maybe thirty with the way that everyone froze. Etho’s hands froze on his chest, Gem and Cleo’s eyes snapped to him with expressions of worry showing through every pore. And Grian looked like someone who had stumbled upon something he had no idea how to approach.
“Of course not.” Joel rushed to defend. “I have no idea what happened or why it’s not healing.” Even to himself his lies sounded flimsy and fake.
“Joel…” This time it was Etho trailing off.
“No, no. you don’t understand.” Joel tried to push himself further back on the bed and away from everyone, but he winced in pain and Etho grabbed his arm to keep him in place before he could go anywhere. “I wasn’t trying to hurt myself. I’m all good. It was just an accident.”
Joel could see Cleo nodding to themself out of the corner of his eye before they spoke. “Either you start telling the truth or I’m calling X.” She pulled out their communicator to show that they weren’t bluffing.
Joel didn’t say anything.
“Come on Joel. We aren’t mad we just want you to be safe and not get hurt like this.” Gem took a step closer to him. “You can trust us we just want to help. If nothing’s wrong then I need you to look me in the eye and tell me that it’s okay without lying.”
Joel tried. He really did. He turned his head towards her, met her piercing gaze, opened his mouth to speak, and nothing came out.
He didn’t want to lie to Gem.
“Oh Joel.” Grian’s voice sounded so defeated that tears started to gather in the corner of Joel’s eyes. He just wanted to go to bed.
The sound of Etho tearing off the end of the bandage was clear in the silent room. Joel wasn’t sure when he had got it but Etho was holding one of his own flannels and handed it to Joel. It was a red and black one that Joel recognized from double life. He had always stolen it on the chillier nights in the relationship. It was slightly oversized and well loved. Joel looked up at Etho with a question on his face.
The man shrugged. “I don’t want you to aggravate anything by trying to get a shirt on over your bandages. And you look like you could use something warm.”
No one said anything as a tear slid its way down Joel’s face. “Thank you.” He whispered out. His voice cracking.
Joel took the clothing from him and slowly put his arms through the appropriate holes and buttoned up the front. He was slightly thankful no one rushed to help him. He didn’t want to be micromanaged right now.
“We need to get you some actual food Joel. Not just the honey bottles you’ve been surviving off of.” Grian mostly said to himself as he pulled out a shulker box out of the ender chest. “It probably needs to be something light.”
Joel wasn’t sure when Cleo and Gem had left but they were walking back in the door holding extra blankets and pillows. Etho was working on covering up most of the windows. It seemed they were all content with keeping Joel in this room but making it more habitable.
He was okay with. He really was proud of the building and the design of the parkour courses.
He must have spaced out for a handful of minutes because suddenly Grian was standing in front of him holding a plate out. There was fresh bread and some lightly cooked vegetables and a couple chunks of chicken on the plate. Nothing much, but Joel’s heart clenched slightly. It had been so long since he had let himself be around his friends. Let alone let them do anything.
The room had considerably darkened but there was still some soft light from frog lanterns Joel knew had come from Etho. There was a stack of blankets on his bed as well as another couple beds placed near him. The scent of freshly baked bread was strong now that Joel paid attention. Maybe he had spaced out for longer than he thought.
“Joel?” Grian prodded softly. “Do you think you can eat a bit?”
It was impeccable timing that Joel’s stomach choose that minute to announce how hungry the man was. He nodded and took the plate from Grian who sat down on the bed next to him. Their shoulders brushing.
“I’m sorry we didn’t realize you were struggling sooner.” Grian clasped his hands in his lap and looked down at them. “We should’ve done more when we realized you were retreating away from everyone.”
Joel took a bite of the bread. It was amazing to taste something other than honey. “It’s not your fault Grian. I wasn’t even sure how bad it was. I’m still not sure.” Joel took another bite.
“Could you try to describe what you’re feeling?” Grian hesitantly asked.
Joel took a minute to eat the rest of the first slice of bread while he thought his answer through. “It’s like when you’re building something and you start out with all the bright colors. But you start to run out of the blocks, so you switch to the more common neutral ones. You try to use the colorful blocks sparingly because you don’t want to run out, but before you know it you’ve switched to only using the neutral blocks. The grays and the beiges that simply blend it with everything.
He let out a small breath before continuing. “You don’t realize you’ve lost all the color until you look back at how the building started. And by then it’s too late to do anything but commit to the monotony of the grays.” Joel shrugged. “I don’t know if that made any sense at all.”
Grian nodded. “No, that actually made a lot of sense. Have you ever felt like this before? Or talked to someone about it?”
“This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this…numbness. But it usually passes quicker than this. And no, it’s never gotten bad enough to talk to someone.”
Grian frowned at his response. “Joel the fact that you’re feeling it all should be reason to talk to someone. And I would definitely count this,” he motioned to Joel’s body. “as bad enough to require you getting some actual help.”
Joel started to pick at the pieces of meat on the plate. “I wasn’t trying to hurt myself you know. I really wasn’t.”
“But you didn’t stop it from happening.” Joel looked up from his plate to see Cleo standing in front of him. Gem and Etho were still walking around the room and changing various things to make it seem cozier. String lights and paintings—Mumbo Jumbo originals of course—had all gone up in various places.
He wanted to disagree. To deny it, but he knew they were right. He could’ve found a way to live. He had just let it happen.
“I know you’re not trying to die Joel, but right now, you wouldn’t stop it from happening. This whole thing proved that. And that means that you need to get some help. Because we need you here on this server and we need you to want to live, not just put up with living.” Cleo had walked closer and crouched down in front of Joel.
“I don’t know what to do.” He admitted softly to the two of them.
Grian softly set a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Right now, you finish that plate of food and get some rest. When you wake up we’ll work on getting you the help you need.”
Joel thought that over. Rest did seem like a good idea. “What if I can’t be helped? What if this gray is all I feel for the rest of my life?” That was what he truly feared. Because some small part of him did want to get better and that part was growing. But what if it was all a waste? What if he got better just to get worse again?
“Then we’ll be here to pick you up again and again.” Gem’s voice was firm with conviction. Joel looked up from Cleo’s face to see Etho and Gem standing behind them.
“We’re going to get through this Joel. Together.” Etho nodded as he spoke.
In the morning, after Joel had slept for twelve plus hours, the four of them would take him to Xisuma’s doorstep. The admin would take him into his home and make him a cup or two of tea with open arms. They would talk and they would get Joel the help he needed.
Eventually the color would start to return to Joel’s life. He would finish the rainbow, and he would be so proud of it.
He would stop isolating himself and start reaching out to the other hermits again. He would tell them what had happened and they would all promise to be there for him whenever he needed it.
That would be the future.
For now, Joel was content with finishing his food under Grian’s watchful gaze. And when he was done, he would lay his head down on his pillow surrounded by his friends and have some of the best sleep that he had in a long time.