The Chained Watcher

Sleep found lacking

This particular chapter manifested from me wanting to play around a bit more with how Grian can use his transformation, along with a bit of silliness. For some reason, writing while tired makes me want to write tired or sleepy characters. Funny how that works.

Also, I wrote both POVs of this one, so yeah.

~~~

Circling around Xisuma's base, Grian can't help but sigh. As diligent as Hermitcraft's admin can be, sometimes he forgets that he needs sleep just like the rest of the Hermits. Heck, even Grian likes to sleep, despite not needing it to function.

Flying inside, Grian spots Xisuma working on several panels of code, with a cup of coffee on a nearby table. There's a bed in the corner, which he can hopefully convince the admin to use instead of working more. Walking up behind him, he takes a breath before speaking.

"X, what are you doing up?"

The admin looks up from his work in surprise, and Grian can see the bags under his eyes despite the tinted visor covering his face. Yup, he's not leaving until Xisuma gets some sleep.

"Oh, Grian? I'm just ironing out a couple glitches is all. Did something happen?"

"Hmm, no, nothing happened. I just heard that a certain someone hasn't been getting enough sleep lately," he cast a critical eye around the room, "or at all, judging by the amount of coffee I'm seeing."

Xisuma blinks at him for a second before looking at the overabundance of empty mugs sitting on the nearby flat surfaces. "Ah, I just forgot to clean those up. Once I'm done checking the code I'll go wash-"

Grian interrupted him. "No, you're going to go to sleep. I'm sure whatever not-quite-perfect line of code caught your eye this time won't explode just because you didn't address it right away."

This brought a frown to the admin's face, and he started walking towards the unfinished mug of coffee. Yeah, that's not going to happen. Stretching his wing out, Grian blocked the path to the coffee, raising an eyebrow when Xisuma looked at him questioningly. X then tried to walk around the outstretched wing, and he let out a sigh. Looks like this workaholic isn't gonna rest until someone forces him to.

Grian loosens his transformation, moving a newly manifested wing behind the sleep-deprived admin. He hooked it over Xisuma's shoulder, keeping him from walking around the wing in front of him or trying to grab any more coffee.

When X tries to duck under instead, he sweeps a third wing under him, and partially furls the three wings. This led to the Voidwalker being pinned between the wings, and with his feet no longer on the ground he was running out of ways to avoid the well-intentioned Hermit.

With one arm pinned to his side, X pushes at the wing in front of him with his semi-free hand. It doesn't budge, and he glares half-heartedly at Grian.

"Grian, let me go."

He grinned. "Nope! Not until you get some sleep." He wasn't too worried about anyone hearing them, since with the transformation still mostly in place, his voice only had a hint of an echo.

They maintained eye contact for a good five seconds, Xisuma glaring and Grian unphased, before X glanced away and started trying to do something with the server magic. Grian recognized it as some kind of teleportation, which would be a fairly simple way to escape the pin... if Grian didn't know what he was doing.

Not waiting for X to finish the teleport, he further furled his wings around his captive and wrapped a fourth over the top, completely cocooning X in feathers. This hid the panels the admin usually used to code from view, and also allowed Grian to disrupt the spell before it could do anything. There were a couple more attempts at accessing the server magic before X's muffled voice could be heard.