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The whispers possessed him to venture back into the dungeons. The Watchers’ whispers, proud of their current crime, the vex they’d secured.
Curiosity his vice again, Grian crept down the stairs, bunching his robe in a fist to keep from tripping on the damned thing. The only blessing this place had given him was the vision, although all that granted was a clearer sight of the never-ending purple-and-gray walls.
When he emerged into the actual dungeon room, quiet talking surprised him.
Chained in the corner was the vex. Grian could tell by the faint blue light emanating from sharp, silvery wings, but other than that, and the horns curling from chestnut hair, they looked mostly human.
Not exactly one of the overlords being bragged about upstairs, then. They were more likely just someone trying to live, and had been abducted by Watchers for no reason.
That sounded familiar.
“My coords don’t say anything, it’s blank,” they were saying into their comm.
“Okay, stay calm. I promise we’ll find you,” a crackly voice returned. Grian tilted his head, and leant against the wall. The vex wasn’t paying enough attention to their surroundings, so until that happened he elected to eavesdrop.
“Thanks, X.” They let out a shaky breath. “Why do they want me? I don’t understand.”
“There’s been a feud between Vex and Watchers for many millennia,” ‘X’ explained. “I expect they think you can be used as a bargaining chip. Which means they won’t hurt you, Scar, I need you to remember that.”
“Okay. Okay, I can remember that.”
“Are you sure you still don’t want me to tell anyone you’re missing? Even Cub or Mumbo?”
Grian froze. Every inch of him crawled.
“Practically everyone on Hermitcraft has had bad experiences with Watchers, I don’t want to trigger anyone,” Scar emphasised. “Especially Mumbo. You know he still can’t talk about who he lost.”
Him, Grian realised distantly. Mumbo had lost him, just as he’d lost Mumbo. And everyone else.
“They’d rather know, though. And you could talk to them while I work on finding you.”
“I’d really prefer for Cub to not try and take on the entire Watcher kingdom single-handed. I’m fine, X, if you have to go.”
“I hate that I can’t call off-server and edit the code at the same time. Call me back if anything happens, you learn something, or you want to talk to me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Grian watched Scar hang up the call, then slip the comm back into their pocket. They then pulled their knees up to their chest, tipping their head back against the cold wall.
“That kind of day, huh?”
In some other universe, Grian would have handled that a lot more delicately.
Scar shrieked, wide-eyed with a hand flying to their heart as the other one flailed, a greatly enjoyable scene.
Grian snorted. “Sorry, I get very little entertainment here.”
“How long have you- wait. You speak common? None of the other Watchers spoke common.”
Grian grimaced a little, under his mask. “Let’s say I’m not a Watcher, then.”
Scar stared, concern etched into his eyes. “Are you?”
“Am I?”
“Huh?”
“Let’s start over,” Grian decided. “Hi there, what are your pronouns?”
“Um. He/him. Do you not want my name?”
“I already know it, Scar.”
“Shoot, you did hear that.” He chewed on his lip. “Any chance you accept bribes?”
“Oh, always. But I’m gonna be real, they do not understand communicators in the slightest, you’re perfectly safe. Well, not all that safe, since you’re in the unfortunate situation of being a hostage to the most unhinged powerful motherfuckers in existence, but, like, you can still take a selfie, text your besties, all that.”
“Um…” Scar ran a hand up and down his leg, blinking at Grian. “Who are you? I’m not getting massively ‘Watcher’ vibes, even though you’re wearing the same stuff as them.”
“I’m one of the poor unfortunate souls to get abducted by the Watchers, and the first one to survive the process of being turned into one. A guinea pig, basically. They let me trail around the Deep End as long as I show up to be studied and taught how to be corrupt, and I can never ever leave. It’s so romantic, honestly.”
His smile, under the mask, quivered. But his voice stayed light, that was the important part.
Still, Scar was gazing with a new light, something more somber.
“I’m sorry. How long have you been here?”
Grian shrugged. “No way of measuring time. A little while. But! The good news is I was an admin, so if you trust me enough to borrow your comm for a second I might be able to send you back to wherever you were abducted from. You’d have to run to get back to Hermitcraft before they notice, though.”
“No way. You could do that?!”
Scar pushed himself to his feet, bracing against the wall.
“I can. Woah, you okay?”
“Er. I usually have a mobility aid. A cane, a wheelchair on bad days.”
“Sit back down, dude, this will take a while. And I think I’ll need to go before it’s done, if I miss a lesson they’ll kill me.”
“Will you come back?”
“Of course.” Grian moved closer, reaching out to Scar’s arm to assist him, but hesitated.
“You can touch me, it’s not catching.”
Grian gave him a flat stare. “Dude. I am extremely touch starved, this is entirely on my end.”
“Ah, right. Sorry.”
Grian rolled his eyes, then remembered about the stupid mask.
“I’m rolling my eyes at you, just so you know.”
“Alright. How come you only have two of those, by the way?”
“I prefer two. I prefer anything that makes me feel human again, to be honest. Did you want to give me that comm, by the way? If not it’s chill, trusting me is probably the worst decision you could make.”
Scar paused. “I was gonna give it to you, before you said that. Why is trusting you a bad idea?”
“Oh, I’m an absolute menace, and proud of it. Nothing that will get you killed, don’t fret.”
Scar gave a soft smile, and handed over his comm.
“Cheers.” Grian slid down to sit beside him, kicking his robes out the way. “Mumbo used to call me a goblin, but I prefer enigma.”
Scar’s head snapped to the side. “You know Mumbo?”
“Oh, did I not introduce myself? My name’s Grian. He/him.”
“Holy shit,” Scar murmured.
“Yeah. So we’re besties by association.” Grian gave the code his middle finger as it refused to cooperate.
“Besties by association,” Scar murmured. “You’ve been here for six years.”
Grian’s hands slowed, momentarily. Then he picked up the pace. Had to get Scar out of here.
“Have I?” He asked, measured. “Huh. Anyway, I’ve done some of the code but I gotta go, pinky promise I’ll be back.”
Scar swallowed. “Alright. Pinky promise.” He reached out his hand.
Grian didn’t let himself pause, hooking his finger around Scar’s.
“Call your admin. But I don’t want Mumbo to know I’m still alive, if that’s okay. False hope is worse than resignation.”
Scar’s eyes widened. “You said you’d be able to get us out.”
“I can get you out, that’s easy. I’ll explain when I’m back, I really need to go.”
Grian felt bad for how fast he left, but he only barely made it on time to the ‘lesson’, which was just another attempt to brainwash him with their views on humanity.
So Grian nodded and hummed and itched to leave, until finally he was dismissed.
Scar was talking when he returned, hastily quietening.
“Just me,” Grian called, skipping over. “Are you on a call?”
“Yeah, this is X.”
Scar handed over his comm and Grian gave a little wave to the helmeted admin on the screen.
“Sup. How does my coding hold up?”
“It’s… impressive. May I ask a little about you?”
Grian blinked. “Oh. Yeah, sure, but I promise I’m not gonna hurt Scar.”
“That wasn’t what I was thinking about. You’re Mumbo’s Grian, aren’t you?”
Inside him, something melted.
“Yeah,” he murmured, then cleared his throat.
“From Evo. You were abducted, six years ago.”
“So I’m told, I don’t know how to know how long it’s been. Yeah, these jerks took me from Evo and turned me into one of them.”
“Is your code the same as theirs, then?”
“I don’t know. I should still have a human base, but each line would have been changed.”
Xisuma hummed, scribbling something on a notepad. “Hmm. What you said to Scar about you getting him out but not yourself — what does that mean?”
“It’s how it’s gonna go. I can get Scar out easily, and they’re unlikely to search for him that hard — sorry, dude.”
Scar snorted. “I’m actually pretty okay with not being wanted by Watchers, but I appreciate the concern.”
“Will they search for you, then, Grian?” Xisuma asked.
Being called that name continued to stir emotions inside him, things that had been bottled for years.
“Yeah, I’m their favourite lab rat. I, um, tried to escape, pretty early on, and I was back here within, like, ten minutes. The punishment wasn’t worth trying again.”
He shrugged in an attempt to lower the weight of his words, but Scar still turned to gaze at him.
“Hermitcraft has protections. You can check the code, but it should allow you in, and not actual Watchers.” Xisuma’s voice had softened, caring.
“They’ll fight for me.”
“We’ll fight back.”
Tears welled. “You don’t even know me,” Grian urged, voice cracking.
“We know enough. I’m sending you the code, send it back with any amendments, then when the two of you get out of there you book it for the portal. Got it?”
Grian pulled his legs to his chest, like Scar had before. “Got it,” he murmured.
“Awesome. Am I good to end the call, so we can begin?”
Scar gave a thumbs up.
What followed was Grian desperately trying to focus on the code, rather than the spark of something like hope popping within him. Scar was a steady presence by his side, chattering away about Disney, which was surprisingly nice.
“I gotta catch up on watching stuff,” Grian hummed, checking over the code one last time.
“Dude, we can have a movie night! Encanto is first on the list,” Scar decided. “The three of us are gonna be such besties, I can’t wait.”
Grian reached a hand under his mask to wipe a tear. “This can’t be that simple. There’s no way your server will want me joining, knowing what I am. Mumbo gonna hate me, you’d probably hate me if I show you what I look like.”
“Mumbo would never hate you. Show me what you look like under the mask if you like, I’ll be the judge.”
“Under the mask I’m human, that’s why I’m not allowed to take it off. It’s this part that isn’t.” Grian opened his extra eyes, the ones on his skin and his feathers and all over the air.
“Woah,” Scar said. His eyes roamed. “Is it weird that I find that a little bit attractive?”
Grian flamed, shoving him. “Yes! Very weird! Dude?!” He shut his bonus eyes, turning back to the comm. “I’m going to move on from this conversation. How are your legs, will you be able to get to the portal quickly?”
Scar rubbing his calf, grimacing. “It will hurt, but I can hobble pretty quick. Unless there’s some way for you to code a wheelchair into appearance when we land.”
“Not quite how it works, I’m afraid. Ready?”
“Um. Yeah, alright, ready.”
They held hands.
And Grian clicked.
Mumbo was missing Scar. That was probably one of the reasons he noticed Xisuma’s shiftiness during their meeting, his constant fidgeting to rival Mumbo’s and checking his comm every five seconds.
“And, er, obviously when… since it’s the start of the season and all, um… everyone’s decided which district they’re basing in, right?”
“That was agreed at the end of last season, X,” Cub stated. “What’s going on?”
“Huh? What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“Well now we know something’s wrong,” Ren said, ears flattening.
Mumbo chewed on his lip as Xisuma didn’t respond.
In almost perfect synchronicity, their comms pinged, twice.
Xisuma was out the door before Mumbo and all the other Hermits had even glanced at the join messages, one by Scar and the other glitched, fractured, the name blocked out.
“What on earth…?” Somebody muttered.
Mumbo slipped from his chair and hurried after X.
Spawn was where he found three figures. Xisuma was sorting out the wheelchair, Scar lay on the grass giggling, and the third person was throwing handfuls of the lawn at him.
Mumbo hesitated. There was a lot to take in about this.
First, the unmistakable familiarity in the strange figure.
Second, which maybe should have been first, was that they wore a cloak to their feet and had a mask on their face. Smooth, white, bearing a purple symbol that haunted Mumbo’s dreams.
But thirdly, was how Scar and Xisuma seemed completely at ease.
And fourth was what they did next. Shrugged the cloak off their shoulders, spread a pair of pure white wings which bled into fantastic primary colors. Before he even had the mask off, Mumbo was approaching, heart in his mouth.
“Very rude of the sky to not be blue when I’m finally out of the void,” Grian remarked as Mumbo stumbled towards the little group.
“At least the grass is green,” Scar pointed out, brushing blades off himself. By now, Grian had discarded his mask, tossing it into a bush with a wrinkled nose. “Oh, hey, you look like the picture on Mumbo’s bedside,” Scar commented. “And his comm background, I think.”
“Well, I haven’t changed that much like this,” Grian shrugged. “X, how long do we have until everyone comes and finds us?”
“Honestly, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already,” Xisuma remarked, locking the wheels of the chair. “I left them in the middle of a meeting.”
Scar was the only one of them to actually look. But Mumbo only saw his spreading grin out of the corner of his eye; he was fixed on Grian.
“G,” Scar whispered.
That moment, that split-second where Grian glanced over and lit up, Mumbo would treasure forever.
Time barely passed between that and Grian flying into his arms. The force on his chest, squeezing around his back and the tickle of hair under his chin felt like home.
Mumbo buried his face in Grian’s hair, desperately failing at not crying.
“Grian,” he managed.
“Mumbo,” Grian murmured into his collarbone.
Mumbo slid his hands under Grian’s wings, the way he always had, and the man went limp, a sigh escaping.
“I’m never going to stop hugging you,” Mumbo told him, voice cracking.
“That sounds nice,” Grian replied. “Fuck. I missed you. So much.”
“You were alive,” Mumbo breathed. “All this time.”
“I hope you gave up on me.” Grian pulled back and grabbed Mumbo’s face in both hands. “If you refused to live your own life without me I’ll never forgive you.”
“I lived,” Mumbo answered.
A soft smile that made Mumbo ache grew gently on Grian’s face.
“Good,” he said simply, reaching in and kissing the tip of Mumbo’s nose.
“Oh gosh,” Mumbo said, averting his eyes. “Grian.”
The man giggled, an adorable grin that punched Mumbo’s breath away once again.
It was Grian, not Mumbo, who remembered they weren’t alone and separated them, tucking his hand into Mumbo’s.
“Oh, right,” Mumbo said, glancing over at Scar and Xisuma. “Er. Sorry about that.” Grian’s wing curled around his shoulders.
“Don’t apologise, you ridiculous man,” Scar laughed. “That was adorable.”
“Cheers,” said Grian, squeezing Mumbo’s hand. Mumbo returned it with a soft look.
“So, G-man,” Scar grinned. “Welcome to Hermitcraft. Come on, you’ve gotta meet everyone! They’re in the meeting room, right X?”
“That’s where I left them,” Xisuma answered with a warm smile.
Mumbo’s eyes, still damp and stinging, caught on him. “Can he stay?”
It wasn’t much more than a whisper, a beg, but they all heard it.
“Of course,” Xisuma answered.
Grian blinked rapidly. “Woah, wait. Are you inviting me to Hermitcraft? Actually?”
“Why not?” Xisuma said warmly.
Grian glanced between the three of them, between Mumbo’s tears, Scar’s grin and Xisuma’s friendly smile.
“Um- I’m pretty sure there’s meant to be a process for this,” he commented with a small laugh, still reeling a little.
“Everyone voted you to join for season three,” Scar revealed.
Both Grian and Mumbo stared at him for that, responding “What?” In unison.
Xisuma chuckled. “We held a vote, after Mumbo was talking about you twenty-four/seven. It was unanimous. We had meant it to be a surprise for you both.”
“But- all you knew about me was from Mumbo!“
“That was enough,” Xisuma said simply.
“But it was before- I’m not exactly me anymore.”
“Yeah you are,” Scar scoffed. “You’re just more traumatised. Which obviously sucks, but doesn’t make you any less eligible for Hermitcraft. If anything, it’s the other way around.”
“Scar,” Xisuma chastised.
Mumbo’s hand had grown tight around Grian’s.
“Traumatised?” He murmured.
Grian squeezed his hand. “I’m okay now. Watchers aren’t the most hospitable, I’ll go into more detail later. The main part is that I literally am a Watcher, you should not be accepting me into your server.” To prove his point, his spread his six purple wings and allowed eyes to bloom around him.
Mumbo made a punched-out noise.
“You wouldn’t be able to be here if you were more Watcher than Player, the code would block you,” Xisuma said. “Besides, you rescued Scar, that’s enough reason for me. I would advise you don’t tell everyone immediately, though — we have a no backstories rule in place.”
Grian dropped the features. “I don’t believe this. Highest security, they said.”
“Stop complaining,” Scar admonished, grabbing his free hand and wheeling swiftly with the other. “Come meet everyone! I for one wanna see Cubby, it’s been way too long and I’m pretty sure he knew I wasn’t just on holiday.”
Mumbo followed in the train of their joined hands. “Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t just on holiday?”
“Didn’t want to worry you,” Scar shrugged. “It all worked out, anyway.”
Mumbo glanced back at Xisuma, who was tapping his comm as he followed and spoke without looking up. “I was reluctant. That wasn’t a situation I’d anticipated, unfortunately.”
“Right,” Mumbo said.
Most of the Hermits were milling outside the meeting room when they got there, and Scar released Grian’s hand so he could cup them around his mouth like a megaphone.
“Guys, we have a new member!”
As all heads shot over, Grian sighed.
“Cheers, Scar.”
“You’re welcome!” Scar grinned brightly.
“That was sarcastic.”
“Oh my god, are you Grian?” Someone asked.
A small smile grew on one cheek. “Yeah, that’s me. Hi.”
Then they were all on him, completely overwhelming but the most normal Grian had felt in years.
Throughout it all, Mumbo was holding his hand, squeezing every so often as a reminder. When Grian glanced over, he was always gazing, not taking his eyes from Grian for a moment.
“Alright, settle down,” Xisuma called. “Back in the meeting room, the lot of you. Someone grab a chair for Grian.”
Everyone headed back inside, throwing him grins.
Xisuma had to repeat his request for quiet several times before they actually listened, once seated.
The meeting went on quite a while, but all the time Grian sat with his hand in Mumbo’s, Scar on his other side.
Eventually, the decision would be made. He’d be whitelisted and grab a spot in the ocean close to Mumbo’s starting island.
Eventually, he would prank his friends and fly in the sun and laugh like he meant it and never sleep alone again.
Eventually, he’d move on.
He was free.