Oneshots! (Mostly Hermitcraft)

Attempted [Xisuma, Tango]

Inspired by Our Inevitable End by mayflowers07 on AO3 (link in the comments)

TW: attempted suicide that comes way too close

The word 'Hels' in this story is used as a curse similar to 'Hell'.

His hands dug through the garden bed, searching among the flowers for weeds. Gently, he seized one around its base and pulled upward, watching its roots begrudgingly come out of the ground, sprinkling dirt behind the little plant.

He threw it in the bucket beside him, along with the intrusive thoughts that plagued his mind. However, the thoughts kept returning, building and escalating each time he tossed an unwanted plant into the bucket. That's how it was with them: the more he tried to drive them out, the larger their hordes became.

He didn't notice the person behind him until their hand brushed his shoulder. He flinched, months of control making it nearly imperceptible. He sat back on his heels, having been on all fours as he searched for weeds, and turned to look up at the person who had interrupted his gardening session. In some ways, he was grateful for their interference. But the repetition is what kept him away from planning.

"Hey X," Grian whimpered, clutching his chest with one hand. His face was smudged with blood, probably from the nosebleed that still trickled onto his upper lip. "'M sorry. It just hurts."

"It's okay." Xisuma pushed a smile onto his face as he stood, knowing the tinted glass made it impossible for Grian to read his expression. He kept his voice level and soft, monotone with an upward tilt, falsely happy so no one could see the pain. Any more emotion, and he would have broken.

Grian sighed. He leaned into the Admin, holding back his sounds of pain as Xisuma wrapped his arms around him. Something in Xisuma wanted to break away, to run – hide, really – from the duties his position inclined him to. He resisted the thoughts, shoving them away as he cradled his precious hermit.

"What's the problem?" he asked, his voice distorted by the helmet providing him breathable air. He was homesick for it, yet he knew he could not return to its natural source. The Overworld's was too thick. The Nether's too heavy. He was avoiding the End. It was heavily ironic to the Voidwalker.

"F-falling b-blocks," Grian stammered. "E-every time. It hurts so much."

Xisuma hummed, resting his chin on the smaller hermit's head. "Where does it hurt?"

"Over my heart."

The Voidwalker broke away, placing his left palm on Grian's chest, directly over his heart. Softly, his hand glowed as he searched for the problem in Grian's code. It smoothed over, but the exertion left him temporarily breathless. He refused to show it as Grian hugged him in relief, flying off on colorful parrot wings.

Xisuma kneeled in the garden again, methodically pulling out weeds and placing them into his bucket. There were hundreds of them, having not been cleared since the beginning of the season. He hadn't understood why he had returned to the farms at Spawn, but he saw the underlying reasons clearly now.

Xisuma Void was saying goodbye.

He was losing his touch. He was unable to deal with the mounting problems on the server. The Mojang Gods had updated his world, and the chunks had refreshed. He pruned explored chunks religiously, trying to ensure the code would keep the server together, only to get an irritated message from iJevin saying he couldn't find his raid farm.

He'd cut it away like the rest of the chunks.

Barely weeks later, the server was straining. Wither skulls were slowed and frozen in place, looming menacingly above Scar's base. Horses, item frames, chickens, and eggs threw the code into loops as it struggled to prioritize what it loaded. Doc's dragon drifted. Ravagers glitched through walls. Conduits worked half-heartedly.