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Safety was a difficult thing to describe. There were a lot of basic things that living beings needed to survive and to feel safe - warmth, food, water, shelter - but beyond that safety varied from person to person. For some, it was about location. For some, it was about family. For Grian, it was about being away from them.
Grian had felt safe for a long time. Xisuma had reassured him when he’d joined the server that no outside presence could reach him here - although he’d neglected to explain to his Admin quite how powerful the reach of the Watchers were. But as time had passed and nothing had happened, Grian allowed himself to relax. To trust those words were true. To feel safe. The feeling had washed over him like a warm blanket. He let himself forget what it felt like to be afraid, to be hurt, to have to fight. He allowed himself to laugh with his friends, to build incredible structures and create incredible landscapes. He allowed himself to prank and to be pranked. He had fun.
Even when he’d killed the Ender Dragon and had stepped through the portal, the pride he felt for achieving such a feat managed to smother out the apprehension he felt.
And when he’d returned home to his sister and his friends, to Pearl, Scar, Mumbo and Impulse congratulating him, he’d truly believed that he was finally safe. (Pearl seemed to think so too - she hugged him a little tighter than all the others).
Then the moon started to grow. Then the ground began to shake.
Then the message came from Martyn.
Third Life had been an interesting idea, and Last Life had been a natural progression. The servers were different to Hermitcraft but Grian was glad he’d played with his friends on both - and glad they’d all been able to talk through any issues that had crossed over between worlds. He’d been the Admin there, and he’d felt as if he’d kept himself, and the others, safe.
Everyone had made it back to their home server’s safely, most uneventfully, but Martyn had spoken with something, or someone, and Grian wasn’t entirely sure what those somethings or someones were (Martyn’s explanation had been rushed and hazy, and the moment it had been said, Grian had almost entirely zoned out).
He was never meant to be there, he was only meant to watch.
Martyn hadn’t fully understood the implications of the statement - more informing Grian just in case he wanted to know - and so Grian had done his damnedest to get out of that situation before he couldn’t conceal it any longer.
Grian was in his starter base, where he’d been since returning from the game, and for the first time in years, he didn’t feel safe.
There were two options in his mind, and he wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Firstly, the Watchers had found him. The Watchers had found him and they wanted him back. It could explain the weird goings on - the moon creeping steadily closer and growing in size, the sudden influx of earthquakes - and it would explain the haunting words Martyn had been left with. Maybe they’d tried to take him while he’d jumped between servers, maybe they thought they’d be able to sink their claws into him when he finally lost.
Secondly, he’d never escaped.
The Watchers were incredibly powerful beings, they were practically deities, they had far more reach and control than even Grian knew about. He thought when he’d come to Hermitcraft he’d been safe, but what if instead they’d simply returned to their former state? To watching him? What if they knew that he was only hiding what he was, and that eventually he would return to them of his own free will? What if that was how the games had come into existence - how else could he explain the sudden idea of staging his closest friends in a battle to the death?
He knew he should talk to someone. Pearl had been on Evo, Pearl knew better than anyone else, and Xisuma would stop at nothing to protect any of the Hermits - including him. If he told them, surely one of them would be able to do something, even if that something was only letting him stay with them until his fears subsided and he felt safe again.
Grian had never been the most sensible of people, though. He had never been one to actively seek out support when going through difficult things (it took a hell of a lot of time to work up the courage to ask Scar to help him with landscaping), preferring instead to stubbornly say he was fine and make his own way through whatever problem he was in. Sometimes, that went well. Sometimes, people would stumble upon the situation and help, but this… This was different. This wasn’t getting trapped in a cave, this wasn’t struggling to build a tree, this could be existential to him and to those around him.
Maybe, if it was the first, and he went back willingly, the Watcher’s would spare Hermitcraft. As many times as he’d been told that Evo hadn’t burned at their hands, he struggled to believe it, and risking such a thing happening to the Hermits terrified him.
If it was the second, then surely he would be doing the Hermits a favour by leaving. If he wasn’t who he said or thought he was then he could be a danger to those he loved most.
It all seemed to make sense in his head, it seemed like the best decision he could make at the moment. If he delayed it any longer, who knew what the Watchers would do?
Grian allowed himself a moment. Nothing more, and nothing less. Just a moment. A moment to feel everything before he shut it off. A moment to feel heartbreak at losing the family he’d built over the years (and the family he’d found after he thought it was gone forever), a moment to grieve and mourn never seeing their faces again, a moment to wonder how long it would take for them to notice his absence - and if they’d care. Would they be angry he’d abandoned them? Would they be worried? He hoped, whatever they felt, they had the good sense not to search for him. He hoped that in doing this, they would stay safe.
And then he pushed aside his emotions, swallowing back the surging feelings and shaking his head until his mind was devoid of anything. He would step through the motions, he would do what he needed to do, and he would leave without a trace. Maybe a letter would be a sensible idea, maybe a note, but he worried if he paused to put words to paper he’d get stuck in the emotional side of it all and be unable to continue. Pearl would understand. Everyone would understand.
He had to do this, it was the only way to be certain that the Hermits would be safe.
Grian packed few supplies. He didn’t know what, if anything, he’d need, beyond a little food to sustain him on his journey to spawn. Normally he’d fly, and maybe he still should, but as much as he tried to focus on the logic of the situation his heart still yearned to wander the paths of the continent one last time. Maybe he’d be able to see a few of his friends - Mumbo trudging all the way to a Pass N’ Gas with experience to mend his elytra, Tango setting up another fake bedrock prank, or Doc fundamentally breaking something - or maybe he’d make the final journey alone. His bag was filled with a few pieces of bread, and some small memorabilia that he’d taken from server to server. Everyone had something, and his… Well… Grian turned the mask over in his hands, the purple lines still sharp and the white porcelain still untouched by time. It had been a while since he’d worn it, but he’d never let go.
Maybe he’d always known it would come to this.
Shimmying the bag over his shoulders, Grian reached out for the door of his home for the last time. Everyone was going to be working on their bases, there would be no one waiting on the other side to convince him not to go, but part of him hoped. Part of him wanted someone to just sense that there was something off, to go to Xisuma with him, to find a solution that didn’t mean going back to them. Even if he went willingly, even if he spared the Hermits, he doubted he’d be treated with any sort of kindness.
He opened the door. There was no one there.
Grian nodded to himself, stepping outside and closing the door behind him. It clicked shut and he let out a breath, and he suddenly felt like a stranger to the world around him. He didn’t quite feel there, like the grass was just too far out of reach, and the Boatem Pole just a little too foggy to be real. When he walked, his footsteps sounded distant, and he wondered if this was the Watchers’ doing. He wondered if they could read his thoughts, if they knew what decision he’d made, if they were already beginning to suck what little soul he had left in his body from him to claim him as their own once again.
Spruce trees turned to dark oak, and forest eventually opened out into marshy swampland. With every step Grian took he regretted more and more not exploring the server as much as he should have done. If he’d known his time was going to be quite so limited, maybe he would have interacted with others more, maybe he wouldn’t have spent so much time working on his alleyway. He could see False’s eagle high in the sky, Stress’s beautiful Cathedral, and Gem’s Woodland Palace. They were beautiful builds, and he had half a mind to inspect them more closely. He wanted to see the details, he wanted to know what kind of block pallets and gradients they’d used up close.
He wanted to stall for time.
Grian continued onward, lowering his head, focusing his gaze on the ground before him so he didn’t fall. He counted his footsteps, trying to concentrate on anything else. It was enough that he almost didn’t hear his name being called.
Almost.
“Grian!” Gem yelled for what was clearly not the first time. When Grian looked up and toward the source of her voice he could see her face - something resembling worry - and his hands came to grab hold of the straps of the bag tightly. He stopped walking to look at her but didn’t approach, a choice that only seemed to deepen the ridge on Gem’s forehead, and she came down the path toward him.
“Grian! Are you alright?” She asked him, and he wondered if he’d responded when she first shouted with a smile and a wave if she would have felt the need to ask. Maybe, in trying to block everything out, he’d made it harder for himself to leave.
He plastered a faux smile onto his face, and hoped that his eyes would light up with it.
“I’m fine, how are you Gem?” He asked, but Gem clearly wasn’t here for small talk or deflecting. He didn’t know her as well as some of the other Hermits, but the look on her face was clearly one of a woman that knew a lie when she heard it.
“Is this a conversation for the path, or is it a conversation we need to have back at my base? I have cookies, freshly baked this morning, if that will convince you?”
Grian hesitated. He wasn’t meant to be allowing himself to get distracted, he wasn’t meant to be feeling things, he was simply meant to be leaving. But if he was going to join the Watcher’s again then the simple joy of a warm, homemade cookie was something he’d never experience again. It had been obvious that he’d never get to do the big things again but the little things had slipped his mind. He opened his mouth briefly, preparing to reply, preparing to refuse, and then Gem placed a hand on his shoulder. Her fingers grounded him, her touch made him feel real, and he felt tears well in his eyes as he took a sharp inhale.
“Come on.” She said, a reassuring smile on her face. “Whatever’s on your mind, we’ll fix it. If cookies don’t sort it out, we’ll find a way.”
And that was exactly what he’d wanted to hear. It was exactly what he needed. Remaining silent, Grian nodded his head quickly, and he let Gem begin to lead him away from the path toward spawn and instead on the path to her starter base. The bag on his shoulders suddenly felt an awful lot heavier, the weight of what he was thinking of doing pressing down on him, and it suddenly felt difficult to move.
Grian had been set on leaving. He was going to leave. Vanish without a trace. He was going to abandon the people he loved most rather than reaching out and asking them for help, rather than telling them the painful truth of his past. He was going to let a moment take everything away from him. Until Gem, wonderful Gem, had been in the right place at the right time and offered him something so small. To her credit, she didn’t turn to look at him when he sniffled, the shaky breath louder than he wanted it to be and giving away the fact that he could no longer hold everything in. When he blinked, tears streamed down his face, and he found himself once again fading away from the present. The trees all began to look the same, the wildlife all blurred together, it wasn’t until the creak of a door opening in a clearing in a birch forest pulled him back that he realised anything had changed at all.
He did nothing as Gem led him inside, her touch finally leaving him as she closed the door and busied herself with little things: taking off her jacket, slipping his bag from his shoulders, wandering to find the promised sugary treats.
“Should I call someone else?” Gem asked him, still thankfully treating him like a person. He wanted to be cared for, but he didn’t want to be coddled, and she seemed to be walking the unspoken tightrope perfectly.
“Pearl.” He managed to say. He could tell Xisuma eventually, or maybe Pearl and Gem could retell the story on his behalf, but he needed nothing less than his sister in that moment. Gem nodded, taking her communicator from her pocket and typing out a message quickly. Grian heard the sound of it being sent and then listened to the clatter of plates and glasses before Gem appeared in his vision again: a plate stacked high with cookies and three glasses half full of milk. They were placed on a table before Gem helped Grian to sit down, and he felt her eyes on him as he toed his shoes off and crossed his legs like he was a child. It felt right to sit like that, it felt safer, and even if it made him look all the more vulnerable he didn’t particularly care. He couldn’t care now.
“She’s on her way.” Gem said softly, interrupting his thoughts for a moment, before leaving him to go back to his own mind. It didn’t take long for him to do just that and once more the world around him vanished until noises distracted him enough to remind him that he was real, and living, and conscious. He heard muffled voices, heard shuffling footsteps, and then he felt the sofa he sat on dip as another person joined him. A hand came to rest against his back, thumb moving slowly to provide a little more comfort, and a new pair of concerned eyes looked at him intently.
“Grian?”
Pearl.
Hearing her say his name was all it took for the floodgates to well and truly be released. The tears this time weren’t quiet, they weren’t pretty, they weren’t something that could be ignored: Grian’s entire body twisted so that he faced his sister and he leaned into her with the first sob. His eyes scrunched tightly shut as tears began to leave them, mouth opening to properly let out all the anguish held inside, and the single hand on his back became two arms wrapped around him and pulling him close. His head was moved beneath her chin and he was held tightly in place, given comfort, reminded that he wasn’t alone as he was permitted to cry.
As the sobs continued to leave his lips he felt fingers in his hair, Pearl beginning to speak in whispers that only he could hear. Her words were nonsensical, they were nothingness, but they were a steady rhythm and they were comforting.
As the sobs grew louder and he grew more desperate to let out more emotion his hands found the bottom of her jacket, balling the fabric up into tight fists and squeezing as tightly as possible.
When it became too much to support himself and he slumped into Pearl’s arms, she didn’t seem to mind. She just placed a kiss to the top of his head and turned her own so her cheek rested atop his hair.
The Hermits were his family, and Pearl might have been blood on top of that, but such an open and emotional display was an incredibly rare occurrence. Pearl had possibly seen him like this once before, and Mumbo had possibly seen it once, too. There was so much that needed to be let out that even as his sobs subsided, the tears kept going.
By the time he could sit up straight and of his own accord, the world outside the windows was dark. Pearl had stayed with him throughout it all, and by the looks of things Gem hadn’t strayed far - perhaps to fetch more cookies or to message people concerned by his sudden absence from his home. He didn’t know, and he didn’t mind. What mattered was that now, there were people here, and he wasn’t going to be left to make this choice alone.
At least if he still went through with his plan - if leaving was the only way to guarantee their safety - he would have had the chance to say goodbye.
Pearl’s grip on him tightened one last time, one final squeeze, before she pulled back. Grian could only imagine what she was faced with: bloodshot eyes, dark bags, tear stained cheeks and a puffy face. He’d covered her jumper with snot and he knew that if he hadn’t been so upset, she’d never have let him live it down.
“Can you talk about it, Griba?” Pearl asked softly, not pushing him, but clearly desperate to be of assistance. Grian took in a breath. He knew if he said no, no one would scold him, but he knew it meant he would be alone again and feel like he had no choice all over again. Pearl was here, ready to listen, and Gem had gone out of her way to help. He owed them the truth if nothing else.
He nodded, shifting his right hand so it went a little into the sleeve of his jumper before bringing it to wipe the last tears from his face.
“They came back.” He whispered, feeling himself almost immediately choking up again. “The Watchers. Martyn said… He was told… After Last Life... “ He couldn’t get out full sentences even if he tried - not that he really knew what he was trying to explain beyond a few vague ideas. “Everything here’s weird, it has to be them.” He said, and saying the words aloud filled him with fresh terror. It was one thing to think it, it was another to say it. His voice shook as he continued, but Grian still continued. “Was gonna go to them, I thought they’d stop.”
Grian felt Pearl’s hold on him return, her fingers tightly wrapping around the wrist of his free hand, as if letting go of him meant losing him forever.
“I had to protect everyone. I thought if I left--” He hiccuped. “--I thought it would all be better.”
The whimper that left him felt pathetic, and the exhaustion that hit him as he leaned against Pearl’s shoulder left him yearning for sleep. Gem and Pearl said nothing at first, and Grian assumed it was because they were trying to process everything he’d managed to spit out. He didn’t have the strength in him to look up and see if he was being judged, or laughed at, or anything else his mind could conjure.
“You can’t… You can’t leave.” He heard Pearl whisper, her voice quiet and broken, and it felt like an arrow in his heart. Had he really been planning on leaving his little sister without a goodbye? Without an explanation? With nothing? It would have been as devastating for her as it was for him, and he internally cursed himself for being so selfish.
“No, Grian, it’s okay, you’ve done nothing wrong.”
Gem’s voice chimed in, her hand finding a shoulder blade and again providing that extra bit of touch he needed to be grounded. Clearly, his words had come out. He was more drained than he’d first thought. Maybe he needed to rest, maybe he needed to sleep.
“That’s a good idea.” Gem encouraged. “I think sleep will help. You’ve had a long day, and I think that’s more than taken it out of you.” She whispered, her gentle voice almost lulling him into unconsciousness. “You and Pearl are welcome to stay the night.”
Grian nodded against his sister ever so slightly, feeling her hold tightening even more. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to shake her any time soon, but he didn’t want to. Pearl hanging onto him was for her sake - it was her way of reassuring herself that he was still there - but it helped him too. It reminded him he wasn’t alone, it reminded him that there were people that would help him and people that would fight for him.
Gradually, he felt their bodies drifting to the side, until instead of his head resting against her shoulder they were both lying on the sofa, their heads fighting for space on the arm rest, their bodies closer together than they had been since they were young children. Pearl, it seemed, had a much easier time falling asleep than him. His body was exhausted, he’d let down his guard, but his mind couldn’t stop racing to pick apart every what if of him staying on the server. He was only pulled from that when he felt a cool breeze and blinked, focusing his eyes just enough to see Gem shaking out a blanket to cover the pair with.
“Don’t mind me.” She said quietly, trying not to wake Pearl (who now had Grian’s head locked between the crooks of her elbow, one hand almost covering her own face and a thumb close to her lips. They were adults who lived separately - Grian barely saw the more vulnerable side of his sister anymore). “I just didn’t want you to get cold.”
Grian nodded understandingly, trying to adjust the blanket as it was placed atop them to keep them both as comfortable as possible. It was difficult with his limited movement, but he managed, and Pearl only unconsciously kicked him once.
“In the morning, when we’ve all had a good night’s sleep and we’ve all had some breakfast, I want to talk to Xisuma about this. If you want me to say everything you did, I can, or if you’d like some help trying to piece it together into a more logical explanation then I’m sure Pearl and I would be happy to help as much as we can. Don’t worry about a thing for tonight, but the last thing I want is for you to wander off while we’re sleeping. We’ll help you, Grian. Do you trust us enough to let us?”
The question wasn’t one designed to make Grian feel as if he hadn’t trusted his friends before, and he knew that. The question was supposed to remind him of what he had, and who he had. It was supposed to affirm that he was believed, and that he was loved, and that he would be helped.
He nodded, just enough for Gem to see, and the smile on her face sparkled brighter than anything else had done that day.
“Good.” She said. “I’ve put the milk away, but you’re free to help yourself if you’d like it. The cookies are all yours, I highly recommend warming them up just a little bit so the chocolate chips are all gooey and melted.” Grian nodded again, and Gem seemed content with his silent answer.
He listened to her movements for a few more minutes. Washed dishes were put away, shulker boxes were organised, armour was moved to its proper place. When the lanterns were turned down low and Gem stood at the bottom of the stairs before heading to bed herself, she gave one last sleepy glance toward the siblings and Grian pretended to be asleep - pretended he didn't notice it, or hear her parting words.
"You're safe with us, Grian." She whispered. "We'll keep you safe and sound."