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Exhaustion feels like an old friend of Planet’s.
It’s a home he hasn’t visited since, what, Season 4? And back then he would never want to feel it again. It was such a trudge, everything was an uphill climb from the hearts and the constant resource gathering and the exploits and the—
Well, he still doesn’t want to revisit the feeling now. But he supposes he deserves it.
Maybe it’s because they’ve fought a hopeless battle before (and lost) that he gives up now. Maybe they burnt their quota of keep fighting! there’s light at the end of the tunnel! back when there were three of them. Maybe he’s done with all the fighting and the patching up of ground and blocking holes to nothingness. Maybe past him would be disappointed.
He definitely would.
We don’t betray, Bacon had said. He stuck with it to the end, with a few exceptions. And what about them? Planet stepped into the next season making a corpse out of his teammate from last season. And this season.
Loneliness is an ancient friend of Planet’s. It’s a fossil that surfaces in brief stints, at the beginnings where he dies and dies and dies until he finds someone. This time he’s dug it up himself. It starts to look like his own skeleton.
They take the long way, though they shouldn’t. They take in the scenery and the flowers and trees and remembers this could be Void. Could, if The Abyss wanted it to. They were right in that you can’t patch up bedrock permanently.
He sees a village in the distance. Why not?
They’re expecting the sight of a ruined one, to different degrees. It’s Lifesteal after all. Villages are worth what their trades can give and, if it’s back in early game, the wood and stone their houses are made out of. But that’s not what they see. It isn’t just not destroyed, no, it’s been developed. Not the way bases are either, (not the way his is,) but as if the structure itself grew. Farms and coops and a sillo and a barn.
Really, he knows the only person who would do something like this. He tastes iron in the back of his tongue.
“Planet.”
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Only a sinner can bring forth one, after all.
Spoke is there, in the middle of one of the farms. He holds a basket of produce in his arm and seems to be digging through a composter. No armor on except a leather chestplate, probably one from a villager. Planet’s still wearing his usual armor.
(him defenseless and you at max capacity, isn’t this familiar?)
He stops all activity, looking at Planet straight ahead. “Spoke,” they creak out. Throat painfully dry, numbing pain in their fingertips and ribs and eyes. They feel like they’re going to die.
(should, shouldn’t you?)
There are no words to be said. Every possible combination have all been spoken through whispers and messages, in the middle of the night to the aftermath of a battle to the middle of doing chores. Never spoken to each other—one doesn’t let himself and the other wouldn’t allow themselves. The conclusion is always the same.
It feels like there’s something more though. It should.
(there isn’t.)
“I was on my way to Spawn.” Planet says, if nothing else.
Spoke pauses for a moment, “It’s Void.”
“Exactly why.” The armor he wears is heaving down on him immensely. The golden apple he ate a few minutes ago is waning in effect. “… I’m tired, Spoke.”
Then there’s a change in his eyes. Not soften, no. Something Planet can’t really put a finger or a sword on. But it changes everything, the atmosphere, the dissonant hum between them, Spoke’s receptance to it all. It isn’t lighter. Just merely… is. He thinks it’s recognition. He thinks it’s like a chord struck.
Spoke drops the basket and approaches Planet. Stops when they’re a few blocks from each other; pupil-less eyes staring into theirs. They meet the gaze. He feels so vulnerable and so suffocated and so, so tired.
“I’m on one heart.” They mutter, because it’s kinda funny. He holds his hearts in his hand, as if to prove it true. Spoke wouldn’t care, a part of him muses, flat and rust. With how weak he feels (exhaustion, care to stay?) it’s so easy to rip it off his hand. Planet isn’t as scary as he was back then. The Abyss sucked all of that out of him. (we can chat for a bit, old friend.)
There’s a flash of mean irony, of something close to vindication, and exactly distrust. It’s the only way to laugh at that. They can see the scathing remark tucked in Spoke’s molars, just barely concealed by teeth. But again. Every combination. Dice rolls and betting on red. But the house always wins; and neither of them are it.
“That’s pretty risky,” as neutral as can be.
“What can I say? I’m used to it.”
Of course they both know what he’s talking about. It’s buried beneath the new world they stand on but Planet still has the scar and Spoke can still taste the power. Sometimes Planet grips at an imaginary totem, sometimes the sound of more than three heartbeats in him gets too loud.
Here happens another change in Spoke’s eyes—his whole body, actually. It’s a shutter click snap and it’s like he just pushes everything slightly off kilter. Planet can’t find it in himself to mind.
Suddenly, Spoke turns to the farms again. At his basket on the ground, at the compost. After a moment he says, “I’m going to feed the chickens,” and he leaves.
Planet stares at Spoke’s back, getting farther and farther away. Does he go? Does he deserve to? It isn’t an invitation but he also isn’t shooing him out of there. There isn’t outright denial, but it isn’t trust either. It would never be and he’s fine with that.
… Planet supposes he’s familiar with doing things against Spoke’s wants. He follows.
They’re half taking in Spoke’s base and half keeping an eye on Spoke. Out of comfort, than anything, because it’s been one of the sparse times they’ve seen him and it’s… it’s nice to see him again. Even if he shouldn’t. Even if this could be the last for this season.
After a while, Spoke hops over a fence into the chicken pen and starts to feed them. Planet watches. There’s nothing else they do. The fence is a line he will not cross, doesn’t deserve to cross.
(it’s so so familiar, this sight. spoke doing something painfully mundane while planet watches, latter a beacon of violence in the armor he wore and sword he held. hurts.)
Suddenly, Spoke tosses a portion of the seed. “Here, if you wanna help. There’s an awful amount of chickens.”
Planet blinks.
He tries to flip the offer in his head, turning it around and putting it under a microscope as if there was some hidden reason for why. It’s not pity, because Spoke doesn’t do those, and if he did Planet would rather walk away. It’s not even an olive branch yet. It’s just something that is.
Slowly, Planet reaches to the clasps of his armor and takes it off. Each piece thuds to the ground one by one until he’s left with nothing. Then, he hops into the pen with Spoke and picks up the seeds.
Spoke’s eyes already snapped to him the moment the first clasp clicked off. He holds his stare steady, wide in that way that Spoke’s eyes usually are. It feels like a predator’s gaze. It functionally is; Planet is one punch away to being banned. It isn’t so much as showing a predator your neck and belly as it is showing it your exposed heart attached to silly string and expecting it to not detach it.
And is Planet expecting it? They don’t know. The chickens look really hungry.
(would you regret it?)
(no)
(yes)
(maybe)
(so what. i’m tired)
The grass feels nice. It’s almost comforting, the leftovers of dew and sun rays sprinkled on your skin. Planet barely has any time for any of this, between the Abyss and the Foundation and the overwhelming everything. It’s nice. He wants to cry.
It’s stupid to get shaky when you’re surrounded by chicken and can smell pig shit. But it’s a moment so fragile and rare he’s scared he’ll break it all until it’s shards digging into his nails because all he can do is hurt and hurt. If he closes his eyes then he can pretend it’s the start of the server and Spoke is whining at them about using an anvil one thousand times and drags them when he catches a funny fish and would die for him. He would die for him.
(and he did)
But they don’t deserve that, do they?
It’s afternoon when they finish, sky bleeding warm and sun soon setting. The two exit the chicken pen and Spoke’s eyes sweep over his farms.
“Gonna make beetroot stew for dinner,” he says.
And maybe it could be the same thing as the chickens. What Spoke is saying isn’t inherently an invitation, just a statement, like he’s talking to himself—and maybe Planet can tail behind him like a sorry duckling and maybe Spoke won’t tap on him too hard. Maybe for one day they can pretend and take the heavy gaze of Spoke’s in as much stride as they can.
But they don’t. Because nighttime will come and all Planet will want to do is dance a dance with an old friend called exhaustion and sleep and not wake up.
“I hope it’s good,” they say, and they mean it. “I have to go.”
Spoke turns to him slowly. Planet has already worn his armor, placed everything where it needs to be. He really is ready. There’s that silence whenever he’s partially weighing his words, then, “It’s about to be night soon.”
It’s always statements, Planet notices. Factually correct sentences that are easy to assume but don’t really imply anything, because it’s Spoke, and he’s Planet. He shrugs, “And it’s a long way back.”
“Not that long,” Spoke refutes, pragmatic.
“It is to me.”
Planet watches the way Spoke’s shoulders rise in an inhale. Watches the way he thinks, messy little cogs in his head as his eyes aim just to the right of Planet’s, off to nowhere in particular.
Then he watches as Spoke rummages in his inventory, and tosses seven golden apples. For a moment Planet’s too much in shock to even take it. The item twirls softly on the ground, gleam covered orange and tinted blue as the night sky creeps in.
They look over to Spoke, as if they’re asking permission if it’s okay to. Helpless thing looking for guidance. In turn, Spoke’s demeanor reveals nothing, no encouragement or a secret want for him to not take it, just. Is.
Planet feels like they’re about to throw up. Like if they took one step closer it will be stalagmites piercing through their calves and if one step farther the ground will fall below them, down to the Void.
Maybe it’s never about deserving. Maybe Spoke didn’t deserve a second chance with someone he put a bounty on. Maybe Planet didn’t deserve a final day with his day-one teammate after he betrayed him. Maybe Planet deserved to kill Spoke for causing the bedrock-patterned scar on him. Maybe Spoke deserves to kill Planet now.
Or maybe not. Because Lifesteal is a mess of impulsive people doing things and it’s always a case of take what you can get and do what you do. Planet knows both those lessons very well. And they’re so, so tired.
It shouldn’t matter to Spoke if Planet dies here or there. And yet. This isn’t forgiveness—they know that—but it fills Planet with equal measures of relief and agony. It will be enough. It has to be.
(it will)
He really wants to cry.
He steps forward, kneels to pick up the apples—when Spoke was a god the trio had called themselves atheists jokingly. Now… well, the lines blur. They’re both too defaced to be anything but player doing things. It’s cold in his hand, stings so much, the gold smooth beneath his fingers. It doesn’t really add to the amount he already has. Still, he separates them.
Planet thinks of saying thank you, then waves it off. It wouldn’t mean much. Every combination. So instead, “Maybe in another life, Spoke.”
He wants more than that, of course (always will, will you?), but he’ll take what he can.
He hears teeth clack. “Another another life,” and it sounds like a correction.
Planet nods, though he doesn’t know what and which he agrees to. Then he turns, and starts his journey again. He wants rest.
Spoke doesn’t make stew that night. He shoves the beetroot to a corner of his kitchenette and tosses some fish on the campfire like every other time he doesn’t want to make something. It ends up charred, maybe a bit undercooked in some places, but he doesn’t care. He only falls asleep once it’s midnight.
He wakes up late. He’s groggy and sweaty and his clothes stick to him too much and he’s getting dizzy from the heat because he forgot to take his leather chestplate off. It’s a sensation so unpleasant he spends another half hour wriggling and agonizing in bed before he gets up proper.
His first meal of the day comes at lunch. He remembers the beetroot he left, and shit, he really should cook that. So he does. Some stale bread and under-seasoned stew. It is what it is.
He’s so hungry. Some part of eating slightly raw fish is getting to him—his stomach feels bad, which is stupid, and he doesn’t wanna eat but he has to. He has to. One spoonful at a time. Tastes bad. Like ash, like rot, like snakeskin and worms. He has to continue eating. His hands aren’t clean but he wants to kill less and do less than what he did last season because last night— yesterday—
PlanetLord fell out of the world
PlanetLord was banned
PlanetLord left the game.
The spoon drops with a dull thud.
He shouldn’t be surprised. He isn’t. He isn’t, really. Planet came to his base and the moment he saw the exhaustion in their eyes Spoke already knew. Suicide note written in neon colors, stars pointing at it, galaxy swirling with it at its center. It’s something so familiar yet painfully not, because last time he saw Planet that tired he was still fighting. Last time he killed them.
He shouldn’t be shaking this much, because he knew. He shouldn’t, he knew. He knew. Repeats it in his head like a chant.
The bell rings throughout the world. Another player is gone. Planetlord is gone. The vibration is so dreadfully low he thinks for a moment the ground shakes and maybe he’ll be the next to die in the Void.
The sound gnaws through Spoke’s skull like acid, echoes in his head, broken record player. Between that and the clothes sticking to his skin and the stew and the bell and the message and the exhaustion in Planet’s eyes it’s always there he sees it he knows it he knew he knew—
Spoke stumbles out of his chair, barely gets outside of the house and throws up. Clarity only blurs back once he’s heaving on the grass and the sun beating down on him high in the sky. The stew is cold. He won’t finish it.
… He needs to feed the chickens.