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Xisuma sat slumped over in his desk chair, a bleary eyed glare set on his admin screens. It was well into the night, the actual time being something he lost several hours ago. He was occasionally startled by the screech sounds of the phantoms that had been circling his base for a good while now. But really they were nothing more than an annoyance. They couldn’t reach him inside of his base so the only thing he hoped was that they weren’t loud enough for Hypno or Jevin to hear from their bases. There were things that he had to get done and he knew from experience (many experiences) that Hypno would have no qualms about putting him to sleep should he find out he hadn’t been getting enough. (Either that or Jevin would call Keralis and neither or those options were exactly favorable). Of course, someone would confront him about it eventually if he didn't sleep sometime soon, and they'd find a way to get him to rest whether he cooperates or not.
But that was a problem for later. Tonight he was going through the player codes of all of his hermits that were taken for the most recent game. Since a lot of them were healed as much as they could be at this point in time, and out of the medical bay he actually had the time to check their specific player data. He really wished he had a chance to do this earlier but with them all coming back at once, for reasons he still hadn’t figured out (Though he fully intended to talk to Grian once he was up for it), he had to be focused on helping to heal them. Not to mention the child that appeared the same time the rest of them came back, that he'd been trying to figure out the why and how of. It wasn't a coincidence, he knew that. Nothing happened by accident when They were involved and as much as he wished he didn't, he knew they were, even if he didn't know why. Much to his chagrin, he didn't have the time nor the resources to solve that now, or possibly anytime soon. But that was a thought that wouldn't bode well with him being productive. And dwelling on it would only worsen the creeping migraine in the back of his skull he was trying to ignore.
A migraine would only distract him from his work, which wasn't an option. At least he could do his Admin work, it wasn't much but it was solid footing when he was useless everywhere else. He couldn't stop the games, he couldn't stop the pain and trauma they caused. But he could do everything in his power to help in the aftermath.
He'd help to heal them physically as best he could and he'd be a shoulder for them to cry on if they needed. And now he could check their codes for anything that may have gone wrong, specifically looking for glitches that endangered their life force.
It hadn’t happened many times, only twice, but it was enough to ensure he checked everything thoroughly . He caught it in Pearl quicker, thanks to Grian “sensing” something wrong with her code but recovery still wasn’t easy. And it was even worse when it happened to Tango.
After recovering, Tango admitted that he felt something off before it hit. But, as they all knew achingly well, Tango had a hard time asking for help on the best of days. Especially right after the games when he has a tendency to hide himself away from everyone else. Xisuma was just thankful Tango was in the main part of his base and not secluded in a hole somewhere when the server finally caught onto the fact that something was wrong when Tango collapsed. He doesn’t want to think about what would have happened if they weren’t able to get to him as quickly as they did.
Even after all the checks he did, and the countless hours of research he spent on the issue, Xisuma still had no idea why they came back glitched or what could have possibly caused their code to just collapse like it had. It was just another of countless unanswered questions that certainly weren’t helping with his growing migraine.
When he was done checking their codes to the point that he felt they were in the clear enough for him to stop, he checked the clock to find it had hit a little past three a.m.
If he went to bed now he’d only be able to sleep a few hours anyway since he didn’t want to sleep well into the morning and throw off what little sleep schedule he had. So he decided to stay up, doing basic bug fixes that were a bit annoying to do. They weren’t necessarily difficult, they just tended to be tedious since the ones that did manage to get past his firewalls were ones that normally had to be manually removed, healing the code they’d infected as he went. It was a long process but he needed to get it done. Especially since bug fixes were moved to the back burner over the last couple of weeks.
So focused on his work (and trying to keep his eyes open) he almost didn’t hear the ping from his comm. Though he did clearly hear the next two that followed in rapid succession.
Mumbo whispers to you: x could you xome to my base
Mumbo whispers to you: i think i need help
Mumbo whispers to you : im sorry
Nevermind , bug fixes would have to wait. He stood up without a second thought, server glitches already long forgotten in his mind. After sending a message back saying he would be there in a few moments, he grabbed the medical shulker he kept in his ender chest. He hoped that he wouldn’t need it, that maybe Mumbo was just calling for support after a nightmare as he did on occasion when they got too bad. But that final message, the preemptive apology before he’d even arrived had his heart thrumming a little faster in his chest.
Mumbo had a tendency to apologize after any sort of breakdown that any of them comforted him from, convinced he’d bothered them by seeking solace in their arms. A habit X and several of the others had been trying to break since Mumbo joined hermitcraft back in season two. It hadn’t gotten much better to be entirely honest, he still over apologized but, at least now he wasn’t near as afraid to ask for help when he needed it. Which was good enough in Xisuma’s eyes, it was easy to insist that Mumbo have no reason to be sorry after the tears had dried. It was much harder if he hadn’t asked for help in the first place.
But the apologies usually came after , not before. What has he done that he would feel the need to ask for forgiveness for?
He shook away the countless possibilities filing into his mind, each worse than the last, stressing about it would do no good. Especially when he had one task to do right now, get to Mumbo.
He re-equipped his armour and elytra and rushed out the door, rockets firing in the air even before he was fully outside. He flew through the night sky towards the cherry biome that had been dubbed “magic mountain”, begrudgingly having to take pauses to bat off the phantoms circling him. As soon as the blossom trees came into view he sent off another message to Mumbo asking where specifically in his base he was (part of him really hoping it was not in the, admittedly, very odd starter base he’d created at the beginning of the season).
After receiving a message that he was in Big Ron's, the first building in the town he’d built, Xisuma landed and headed into the old-timey electronics store, not having to search for him for long before finding Mumbo on the floor, curled up in a corner behind the front desk, tears streaming down his face. The world stopped for a moment as his eyes caught ahold of what was in front of him.
Mumbo’s suit jacket had been taken off and set on the floor, leaving the bright red wounds scattered about his arms in full view. Next to him was a bloodied pair of shears, the sight of which was near enough to bring Xisuma to tears.
“Oh Mumbo .”
A sob tore through his body, shoulders shaking with whatever was weighing him down, muttering unintelligible apologies over and over .
X took a deep breath, steading his own racing emotions before sitting on the floor next to him, covertly removing the shears from the scene, letting them disappear into his inventory to discard later.
“Hey, Mumbo,” Xisuma greeted, voice soft, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around him.
“I’m sorry, X,- I didn’t- I just!” He blubbered out, words clipped by his hyperventilating. “I’m sorry! I- I just- I’m sorry- I had to- I had to make sure !”
“Hey, it’s okay,” He soothed, “You don’t have to apologize, not to me. I just need you to take a few deep breaths.”
“ Hurts - I’m trying, I-!”
“I know you are, you’re doing good, just follow me,” He guided, tapping the numbers in morse code as he went. “In, two four six… Out eight ten twelve…”
Counting wasn’t good for helping everyone calm down, for some people it tended to stress them out more, but it worked for Mumbo. Numbers were one of his favorite things, they followed a pattern, were easily predictable and something that always made sense to him even when everything else didn’t.
Eventually, after many shaky, incomplete breaths, Mumbo began to follow the pattern, tapping with him as his breathing slowly steadied out. The tears were far from gone, still falling freely down his face, but he was no longer hyperventilating. Progress. They’d get there eventually.
“Let’s get your arms patched,” Xisuma suggested, pulling the medical shulker he was very glad he grabbed from his inventory. “We can talk about this after we get you cleaned up, does that sound alright?”
After several seconds of waiting for a response, Mumbo started tapping on the floor. Y in morse code, which X knew to mean, yes. It was a system they had set up years prior, an easy way for Mumbo to communicate when he was overwhelmed and had a hard time speaking verbally. Y for yes, N for no. It was simple but it worked for them, and it allowed more clear answers than just shaking their head.
Xisuma pulled bandages, washcloths, and a few water bottles from the shulker before turning back. “Can I touch your left arm?” He asked, waiting while Mumbo tapped out another Y before starting to work.
There weren’t many wounds so to say, three on his left arm and two on his right but they were quite a bit deeper than X’s original impression.
“Sorry,” he murmured as Mumbo winced with the touch of the cloth. “I have to get these cleaned up but I’ll go as quickly as I can.”
Mumbo just nodded, face notably turned away from the damage on his arms.
“These are gonna need stitches I’m afraid,” He informed him softly, squeezing his hand a bit when his crying picked up again. “We don’t have to worry about that right now, though. The bandages will do for tonight, we can go to someone else tomorrow for that.”
Mumbo gave a shaky nod in response. From there X worked in silence, carefully cleaning the wounds before wrapping them with cotton and medical tape, only speaking to ask for permission before moving onto the right arm.
After each cut was bandaged, cleaned, and out of sight , Xisuma grabbed Mumbo’s hand and helped him stand up, intent on moving him away from where everything seemed to have happened. They walked to the back of Big Ron’s where he had set up a makeshift bedroom space while his base was still in progress.
“Do you feel up to talking about what happened?” X asked once they got sat down again. They would have to talk about this eventually, Mumbo hurting himself like this wasn’t something they could just pretend never happened, but it didn’t have to be tonight if he wasn’t feeling up to it.
To Xisuma’s surprise, Mumbo nodded, though there were several seconds of silence before he spoke again.
“They kept bringing us back.” He whispered eventually.
“What do you mean?” Xisuma asked, trying to keep his tone level.
“After we lost our last life, we didn’t go home like usual. We just kinda stayed, floating in the void- I think? I’m not sure, I don’t really remember much of that. Anyway- eventually a new week hit and with it a new gimmick that included the dead coming back as zombies.”
He winced as he talked, as if being physically hit with the memories he was speaking of. Xisuma didn’t say anything, just listened, let Mumbo talk as much as he needed and was willing.
“It was me and Skizz as the zombies for most of it, we er, both died pretty quickly.” He shook his head, like attempting to throw the thought away. “But it wasn’t like a respawn. We weren’t alive. We- it's like our minds were alive but our bodies weren’t. I could-” He cut off with a sob before continuing, pushing the words past. “I could feel my body rotting. My skin separating itself from my bones, I didn’t have any blood, it was so cold . I didn’t know I could hear my heartbeat normally until I couldn’t.”
Xisuma wrapped his arm around him, what in the void is he supposed to say to that?
Mumbo leaned into him. “And we had our minds, technically, but we were ‘summoned’, I guess, by one of the others and if they told us to do something we didn’t have a choice. We followed no matter what. It was Cleo mainly, who had the power to bring us back and we had to do whatever she said, including killing some of the others. And I don’t blame Cleo at all! It wasn’t their fault! It was- gods it was awful. ”
He paused, having to take several deep breaths before continuing. “We couldn’t feel any pain though. The others killed us several times but we never felt it, we couldn’t even bleed . We’d just ‘die’ and come back over and over again.”
“So is that what happened tonight?”
Mumbo nodded, “I had a nightmare, I was back there, I was dead. And then when I woke up it was like I actually was, my body didn’t feel like mine, I couldn’t feel anything.”
“So you hurt yourself to make sure you could still feel.”
He winced at the blunt words but nodded, “I had to make sure I was still alive. I didn’t even feel the cuts until the last one and then it was like they all started hurting at once. I didn’t want to hurt I swear-! I just needed-”
“It’s okay,” He interrupted the panicked rambles. “You don’t have to justify it to me, I understand.”
Mumbo sobbed again, falling into his arms. “I don’t wanna go back,” he cried. “Please, I don’t like these games, I want them to stop please.”
Xisuma held him tighter, tears of his own falling beneath his helmet as he tried to push down the anger in his chest that had been brewing ever since his hermits returned from the first game. It wasn’t fair . They didn’t deserve this, none of them did. All for nothing, no good reason could ever justify it. No player could hope to understand why the Watchers did what they did, but there was no possible positive motive for the carnage they’ve caused.
Anger wasn’t an adequate description for the way he felt towards those things. He wondered if any retribution would be enough to pay off the debt they’ve acquired hurting his players. Despite this, he was careful to not let his frustration show so that Mumbo wouldn’t think, even for a moment, that it was aimed at him.
From there the two of them settled in, Xisuma pulling the weighted blanket over Mumbo who was laying against him, nearly asleep.
“Thank you, for calling me,” He said before Mumbo fully succumbed to sleep.
“Thank you for coming.” He tiredly murmured back.
“Of course, always Mumbo, always.”
The next day Xisuma woke to the sun shining in through the windows, immediately having to reduce the transparentness of his visor so that his eyes could handle the bright lights of the overworld in the daytime. He got up before Mumbo did, moving to the small makeshift kitchen to make them both something for breakfast. Though he quickly realized Mumbo had no food, something he would have to rectify a bit later. For now though, he just decided they could grab food from the shopping district, since that’s where the medical building was anyway.
“Good morning, did you sleep okay?” Xisuma asked as he spotted Mumbo coming out of his bedroom.
“I did, thank you.”
“Of course. Is there something wrong, Mumbo?” He asked after noticing the nervous look on his face.
“We’re gonna have to tell someone else aren’t we?” Mumbo muttered, looking down at his hands with embarrassment, shame , very apparent on his face.
“Unfortunately yes,” X admitted with a slight sigh, “I don’t have the knowledge to put in the stitches you need. We can ask Cub, Joe, or Doc, they all can.”
Mumbo stayed silent, eyebrows scrunched together, pondering his choices.
“We don’t need to give them any details. And none of them will judge you for this, I promise.”
“Joe,” He decided eventually.
“Would you like me to message him for you?”
“Please. I don’t even- I uh, don’t even know what’d I’d say.”
“I will. Would you be up to going to the medical bay or would you like me to ask him to come here?”
His eyebrows scrunched together again, looking conflicted.
“There is a private room there you can use.”
“I’d rather go there then. I wanna go sit with Grian and Tango anyway.”
Xisuma smiled, internally very happy he chose to go considering they’d have to give him some sort of anesthetic and he would feel a lot better knowing he was surrounded by people who could keep an eye on him. “Why don’t you go grab anything you want to bring with you, I’ll message Joe and then we can fly over together okay?”
Mumbo nodded, leaving Xisuma alone at the front of the store where he pulled up his comm.
You whisper to Joehills: Joe, could you meet Mumbo and I at the medbay in a few minutes? He’s got some wounds that need stitches and when I asked who he’d like to help he requested you
Joehills whispers to you : Of course! What happened? Mumbo didn’t have any open wounds when we cleared him from medical?
You whisper to Joehills: He hurt himself last night after a nightmare, he doesn’t want too many details shared. There’s five cuts, all decently deep.
Joehills whispers to you: X would this have anything to do with stuff Cleo told me about regarding the games?
He wasn’t surprised at the message, he’d long ago given up on trying to understand why or how Joe Hills has the tendency to just know things.
You whisper to Joehills: Yeah, it would. But he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore than he already has.
Joehills whispers to you: No problem, I’ll meet you guys in the shopping district.