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MinuteTech still had a job to do. It was his duty, and if these were going to be his last moments on the server, he would make sure his death would be worth it.
So he kept himself planted by the spawn box, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, tail flicking restlessly.
He was scared. He was betrayed. He didn't want to lose the End. He'd made it his whole life. And he cared about it, dearly. It was home. And everyone out here was safe here, under his protection. What kind of guardian would he be if he just let Spoke take it over?
At the thought of the other voidling, his tail thrashed harder and he smacked it against the corner of the obsidian. He jumped as pain flared up and sighed. He needed to calm down.
The familiar sense of someone coming through the portal hit him and he tensed reflectively. More of the army? Reinforcements? No.
Wemmbu, of all people, popped into existence. For a heartstopping moment, Minute immediately assumed he was with Spoke. And then the purple demon raised his head and the thought was banished at once.
He looked… dishevelled. There was dirt smeared on his face and under his fingernails, his hair looked like it hadn't been properly taken care of in months, and the armour he was wearing was so torn up it was quite literally falling apart.
"Wemmbu?" Minute gaped. "What are you doing here?" He hadn't seen him since him and Egg had stopped showing up for their weekly meet ups a few months ago with no warning. He'd been hurt (okay, a bit more than hurt, but no one else needed to know that), but the man was always getting roped into stuff. It wasn't that surprising.
"Minute." Wemmbu croaked, and the voidling watched as he broke. His hands twitched, face crumpled, and then the sobs came out like he'd been holding them in for weeks.
His paternal instincts took over.
"Hey, hey, hey." Minute gasped, hurrying over and taking his hands. They were shaking. He gently pulled the man out into the courtyard.
Wemmbu pushed into him like he was an ice balm on a warm sunny day, and Minute let him, stroking his greasy, disgusting hair. At some point, it just turned into him trying to detangle it.
"Dad." Wemmbu whined, and that one word had Minute forgiving him for leaving and not giving him any indication as to why. He was also starting to realize it probably hadn't been exactly voluntary.
"You're okay, shhh." Minute hushed. This hadn't been the first time he'd helped the man from a breakdown, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.
He kept murmuring to him until Wemmbu quieted a bit.
"He's- I can't get- Arach- Minute!"
"Shhh, I can't understand you hun. You gotta breathe. Where's Egg, is he coming?"
The sobs came back at full force, Wemmbu actually buckled a bit.
Shit.
"Okay, okay." Minute soothed, voice a bit high. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. It'll- it'll be okay." Please don't let Egg be dead. He didn't think Wemmbu would ever recover.
"He's gone." Wemmbu hiccuped. "'N'd I can't get him back cause that stupid spider has him- and dumb Yungy- and- and-"
Ok. Probably not dead then. Thank god.
"Oh sweetheart." Was all Minute could say. He held the man a bit tighter.
"Arachni-nid is keeping him away from me, and I'm not ever allowed to see him, but I can't get him out because he has sixteen ender pearl stasis's set up somewhere, and so I can't do anything but do what Arachnid tells me to, because if I don't he'll kill him, but I don't want to blow up Highwater or Steampunk or Capital City, I want to get Eggy back and never let him go ever again." Wemmbu rambled.
Minute had to take several moments to process that information.
"So." He began cautiously, worried he'd set his friend off again. "This… Arachnid person is keeping Egg in some sort of prison. And you can't just go get him because Egg had to set a bunch of stasis's. And Arachnid is holding that over your head so you'll do what he tells you to, because if you don't then-"
"Egg will be gone." Wemmbu choked out. "He can't be gone. I need him. Eggy is mine."
"Yeah." Minute said, rubbing his back. "Yeah, I understand exactly how you feel."
***
Wemmbu tired himself out eventually.
He cried himself to sleep, and Minute couldn't stand watching it, because it made him wonder how long he'd been doing it before this.
The guilt for what he was about to do next clawed at him, but the plan had already been made before he'd came here, and he wasn't just going to send him back to the Overworld after that. Especially if he was being kept under control by some overlord back there. The End was safe. Well, it might not be anymore, but Minute knew how to hide. He'd been doing it all his life after all.
Wemmbu might not forgive him, but he was sure that Egg would want him out of the spotlight anyway.
The closing and destruction of the portal was easier said than done.
It took him a couple hours, and by the time he was done his back and arms hurt, and he was wishing now more than ever that time could be reversed and whatever had led to Spoke doing this didn't occur.
He wasn't that surprised that Wemmbu was still sleeping. He'd looked so exhausted that Minute honestly expected him to sleep a full day, at least.
Before long, it was time to go. He knew Spoke would be back, and the book he'd written for him was stuffed under the layers of obsidian he'd put over where the once portal lay. Maybe some day, the voidling would realize that what he was doing was wrong. But for now, Minute had to take Wemmbu and go.
The purple demon was concerningly light. Minute would've loved to sit him down at the kitchen table and make sure he ate until he was maybe even overfull, but now their resources were finite.
He picked Wemmbu up onto his back, freezing at the small pained noise that the younger made. Somehow, in the rush of everything going on, Minute hadn't even thought to check for injuries. He set his jaw. It would have to wait.
Thankfully, they made it through the gateway portal and out into the End islands without a hitch, and Wemmbu stayed snoozing on his back. Only a couple million more blocks to go.
***
He'd been right. Wemmbu had slept all through the day and a few hours into the next one.
He'd stirred a couple times, but Minute supposed the rhythm of being carried on someone's back as they walked made it harder to stay awake.
Flying was a little harder. He had to transfer the man to his front instead and keep a tight grip on him because it meant the purple demon was right above the void, helpless, but he made it work.
Thankfully, Wemmbu did him the grace of fully waking when they were holed up underground.
"Hey there." Minute said when he looked up from comm and saw him staring back at him. He forced his grip to loosen from where it had been squeezing the device so hard the metal creaked.
"Hi." Wemmbu muttered. "Um. Where are we?"
Minute winced. "As much as I love your presence Wemm, you didn't exactly show up at the best time. We're hiding out a long ways out from the main End Island."
"Hm." Wemmbu stretched his legs out. "I don't really want to go back right now anyway." He admitted quietly. Minute swallowed through his suddenly dry throat.
"Right." He agreed. "How are you feeling?"
Wemmbu's expression shuttered and then promptly closed off. "I'm fine."
"Aw come on, don't do that." Minute scooted across the floor so he could be closer to the man. "You can trust me."
Wemmbu bit his lip. "I know. I just don't want to think about it."
That was fair. "Alright." Minute sighed. "I know you're hiding injuries under that armour of yours though. Let me see."
Wemmbu rolled his eyes. "I've been gone for months and you haven’t changed a bit. I told you I'm fine." But he obeyed, sliding the pieces off with relative ease even though he winced with pain. "Oh."
"Oh?!" Minute yelped, somewhat hysterically. "Your whole shirt is dark with blood!"
Wemmbu had the audacity to roll his eyes. "T's just cause it was bleeding for a while." He pulled off his shirt with a bit more effort. Minute grudgingly admitted to himself that he was right. The wound wasn't terrible. Not even top ten of the worst ones he'd had. (One of the highest ranked had caused him so much guilt and panic, but it had ultimately led to one of the best days of his life. There was a reason Wemmbu called him "dad" sometimes after all).
Minute still set down his ender chest and dug out his first aid kit. Wemmbu grumbled, but allowed himself to be patched up.
It didn't take that long, but there were lots of new scars that hadn't been there the last time Minute had seen him, and it made his heart squeeze painfully.
After he was finished, Wemmbu brought his knees up to his chest and set his chin on them. The voidling tossed him a few baked potatoes. "Eat." He commanded.
"Yes sir." Wemmbu grumbled, taking a bite out of one. His tail inched closer to Minute's, almost as if the younger didn't want him to notice. Obviously he did, and he simply laid his own over top of it.
This seemed to cause the purple demon to relax a bit, and he finished the rest of his potato, and the piece of porkchop Minute threw at him, contentedly.
When he was finished, he leaned back against the endstone wall and stared up at nothing. Minute watched him for a bit, but then turned to give him a semblance of privacy.
"Why aren't we at the base anyway?" Wemmbu asked finally. Minute froze from where he was packing his things back into his e-chest.
"Like I said." He responded slowly. "Not the safest there right now." Or anywhere here. "But I wasn't just going to leave you there, so I took you here with me to hide. Sorry." But you don't really have a choice anymore. I hope you'll forgive me.
I can't lose anyone else.
Wemmbu hummed and sat back up to stretch. "As long as you're not keeping me hostage it's chill."
Minute took too long to respond to that one. By the time he'd stuttered out a "ha, right, of course not," Wemmbu's eye's had sharpened and he was staring at him pointedly.
"Right?" He checked.
"No, Wemm." Minute soothed. "Never on purpose."
That was the wrong thing to say to an already highstrung Wemmbu who's best friend was being kept in a jail cell away from him. He stood up so fast he almost fell over and tried to hide the wince of pain that came with it.
"Minute." He said sharply.
"I'm not keeping you here Wemmbu!" Minute defended, raising his hands in surrender.
"So I can leave right now with no problems. You won't try to stop me." Wemmbu's tail was lashing now. Anyone else would think he was furious. Minute knew his pseudo-son well though, and he could see the terror in his eyes.
He nodded, not trusting his voice for once.
"And I can leave the End with no issues."
Minute opened and closed his mouth multiple times like a fish.
"What did you do?" Wemmbu half demanded, half cried, pulling at his hair.
"I didn't-" But that would be a lie, because he had and no one else but him had taken part in it. "There's- it's not safe." He said weakly. Wemmbu stared at him like he'd just been deeply betrayed, and he couldn't have that. "Okay, sit down."
"No." Wemmbu declined stubbornly. "What are you gonna do about it?"
"Nothing, just-" Minute sighed. "You need to know what's going on and you're still injured and tired. Sit."
"Don't try and pull the dad card right now, MinuteTech." Wemmbu snarled, and the voidling flinched like he'd been struck. There was a small flash of guilt in the other man's eyes, but he didn't back down. "Tell me what the fuck is going on, and then I might not do something I'll regret later."
Minute silently considered whether he'd be more ok with a death to someone he considered family than a death doing his duty.
"Okay, okay, I will." He said shakily. "Just give me a second to think of how to say this."
Wemmbu hunched over and crossed his arms, lips tightening to a thin line, but he let him think.
"The End…" Minute started carefully. "Is being taken over." Wemmbu's eyebrows raised a fraction. "Before you came through the portal, Spoke got here first. He must've had thousands of people in his netherite army. He told me that the End was going to be his now, and I could either let it happen, or they would kill me and destroy everything. Obviously, I wasn't just going to let that happen."
Wemmbu swallowed, looking a little less angry. "But it was still-"
"I'm not finished yet." Minute snapped, harsher than he needed to be. It was hard not to though. The End was his. It had been his for years. He was it's Guardian, and now he felt useless because he was hiding out in a hole instead of tracking down Spoke to try to work things out. "We fought, and then he let me go for some reason, and took his men out to the outer islands to start their kingdom or whatever. But my job is to guard, and so I did until you came through."
Wemmbu was looking sympathetic now. Somhow that was worse than when he'd been mad.
"After you fell unconscious I set you down and destroyed the portal." Minute admitted quickly. Wemmbu's mouth fell open. "And then I covered it in obsidian. I can't let Spoke out of the End now, because I know the next thing he'll do is go right to the Overworld and try to take that as his own as well."
"The Overworld already has enough of that." Wemmbu huffed, face dark.
Minute swallowed when he didn't say anything more. "So uh. You've heard me out now…" He prompted.
Wemmbu rolled his eyes. "Can't you let a guy think? Give me some time to process, jeez Dad."
Minute slowly untensed. He was still dad? Really?
"So… Spoke wants the End. And then he wants the Overworld. By extension, he'll also probably want the Nether too. So he's taking over the world then. Good to know." Wemmbu stepped back and flopped back onto the floor.
"If I keep him trapped in here then he can't do that." Minute reasoned, slowly sitting down again as well.
"Yeah I got that." Wemmbu waved him off. "And you didn't intentionally make it so that I couldn't leave."
"Of course not!" Minute exclaimed. "The timing was unfortunate, but I already knew I was going to get rid of the portal regardless. It was intentional, but I didn't want you stuck here."
"Okay." Wemmbu said. He scooted over and dragged Minute into a hug. "I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I still want you to be my dad. If this was any other time I wouldn't have been so upset, I would've probably been ready to fight on your side immediately, but you're right that this isn't great timing. But I'm just worried about…"
"I know." Minute murmured, swallowing past the lump in his throat.
"What if Arachnid kills him because I'm nowhere to be found? Would he do that? He still wants me under his control, but he could easily just kill Egg now and lie and say he's still alive. I-" Wemmbu's hands flexed and he buried his face in Minute's shoulder. He sighed. "This sucks."
"Yeah." Minute huffed. "It does, doesn't it."
Wemmbu was quiet for a moment. "At least we're together."
Minute smiled. "At least we're together." He agreed.