MCYT One-Shots

relapse | angst

Time and Setting – Late season 6, post demise

Focus Character(s) – Grian, Mumbo Jumbo, Iskall (mentioned) Stress (mentioned), Doc (mentioned)

Ship(s) – n/a

Trigger/Content Warnings – explicit description of eating disorders and disordered behavior (primarily anorexia (and minor bulimia)),  and minor suicidal idealization

Background – at the beginning of season 6, mumbo helped grian start to recover from an eating disorder. grian was managing recovery well through out most of s6

Not a request

A/N: theo projects onto hermits; part 4 (i think)

anyways uhhhh hi its been a while, might start writing hc fanfic more  now that ive rewatched s6 again. make no promises tho. anyways, vent fic pog ive been having a not great time recently and projecting onto fictional characters is the only way i can cope in a healthy way

with that said, i should be fine dw abt me lmao

---

This had never been his intention.

Of course it hadn't, why would he willingly have chosen this? He'd never wanted to spiral like this. Especially not after he'd been doing so well.

Almost two years. Almost two years in recovery, and now he'd gone and fucked it up.

Nothing in the season had managed to make him relapse. Not the games involving death, or the literal war. No, it had to be something stupidly small and insignificant. He could almost guarantee that Doc would forget about it too; after all, it wasn't Doc's fault.

How would Doc have known? Nobody else really knew, aside from Mumbo. Doc wouldn't have known that one comment would have bitten into Grian's skin, never letting him forget. After all, Doc and Grian frequently bantered.

That didn't stop it from hurting, and sending Grian spiraling.

---

It started off relatively small.

First he started wearing baggy clothes again. At the peak of his recovery, he'd gotten Stress to make his signature sweater made in a smaller size; he'd been more confident with himself, so why wouldn't he?

Of course, nobody noticed when he started wearing the bigger size again. Not when Grian lied that he'd accidentally ripped the smaller one. Stress had told him she could make him a new one, but he'd waved her off with a smile and a laugh and thanked her for the offer.

And since the server was starting to wrap projects up and start preparing for the move, Grian would take those chances to skip meals. Iskall, Mumbo and Grian had a tendency to get together frequently for meals, especially for big occasions. But with projects needing to be finished, Grian could excuse himself by claiming he needed to finish up some of the details on his base.

He pretended not to see Mumbo's messages asking if he was okay, or Iskall's worried glances.

But it was okay, because the work from building and Grian restricting his intake was helping him make progress again. He'd gained weight over the course of his recovery, but his new routine was helping him lose that weight. And hopefully he'd manage to achieve a new lowest weight.

It would just take some time, bit by bit. But he could do it.

It slowly got worse over time. At first he was just skipping one or two meals. It was tolerable.

Then his self imposed limits grew smaller in number, so he was eating less. He had to keep that control, and the only way he could prove that he had the control over himself was to limit himself further.

And if he ever overate, and lost the control he'd spent so long training himself to have over himself, (which he'd thrown away when he recovered, such a stupid move,) he'd erase the evidence. Grian was well aware that purging was one of the worst things he could do, but that wasn't going to stop him.

Grian knew the facts about this disorder. He knew that he'd likely die, but that wasn't going to stop him. A small part of him hoped that it would  kill him.

He didn't let himself dwell on that for long.

All he had to do was keep limiting his intake as much as he could, and that would be enough.

---

Nobody should have been surprised at Mumbo's worry. But what surprised Mumbo was everyone else's apathy towards Grian's obvious problems.

Perhaps it was just that Mumbo had experience in this field, after helping Grian through the same thing years ago. Perhaps it was that Mumbo knew the signs and nobody else did.

Regardless, nobody else noticing anything felt strange, and Mumbo felt quite uncertain about what he should do. If he were entirely honest, he should have realised that something was wrong from the start. Grian rarely skipped meals, especially when he was supposed to be eating out with the Sahara trio.

So Grian blowing them off to build should have been a red flag. But Mumbo hadn't wanted to believe it. He wanted to trust that Grian genuinely was finishing projects before the end of season. And unfortunately for Mumbo, it seemed like Grian was, but something still felt wrong.

And as time progressed, the signs grew worse, and more familiar to Mumbo as the days progressed. Grian got worse again, and Mumbo watched helplessly.

This wasn't like last time, where Grian didn't even realise his own faults. This would have been a conscious decision. Mumbo knew how Grian tended to react to his disordered thoughts, and he actively tried to ignore them. He much have let them take control again.

It was rather ironic, in some twisted way. Mumbo couldn't quite explain it.

Grian was ignoring his texts too. And it was difficult to see him around the server now, almost like Grian was intentionally avoiding Mumbo. Maybe he was, Mumbo didn't know for sure, but it hurt, and every time he'd see Grian out and about, it hurt even more because Mumbo couldn't help this time.

There wasn't anything he could do about the red stained cloth he'd find in Grian's base, he couldn't do anything about how the red sweaters Grian wore had started to grow looser and looser, he couldn't help.

Not this time. This wasn't like last time.

Mumbo couldn't help Grian.

And he hated it.