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Xisuma was staring at the clock.
It was almost 6:00, the time where the hour hand and minute hand were farthest apart, one straight up and the other straight down while the second hand danced around them in circles.
Tic.Toc.
A few minutes to go, and Xisuma watched them pass. He knew Grian would arrive exactly on time, as he had every other therapy session before this one.
5:58.
Tic. Toc.
Normally, Xisuma wasn’t anxious for these. No, that fell into Gran’s department, who always arrived with sweaty hands and nervous smiles.
But this time was different.
It was the first session after the disastrous Server Hub trip. The trip where, as Mumbo had said, Grian had seen someone.
Someone from his past.
5:59.
It was now that Xisuma wished, more than anything, that he hadn’t been sick the week prior. If he had been the one to go, if he’d pushed through, then nothing would have happened.
Grian wouldn’t have had to see the man, the lord, that undoubtedly haunted his nightmares.
No, he would have stayed back, safe and sound, with Mumbo and Scar, while Xisuma went about his business and they never thought anything of it.
But that hadn’t happened.
6:00.
Right on cue, Xisuma watched from his seat as Grian appeared in the doorway, posture rigid, wings curled against his back in tight coils.
It was hard not to sigh at the sight, however expected it was. Grian had been coming to Xisuma’s sessions for a few weeks, now, and always, he entered the room like this.
Hunched. Defeated.
Scared.
“Hey, Grian,” Xisuma said, forcing his lips into a smile, hoping the expression would put the avian at ease.
Grian swallowed; he shifted on his talons. “Hey.”
He lingered at the threshold of the room for a several awkward seconds, biting his lip, until Xisuma finally gave in. “You can sit, Grian. You know you don’t need permission.”
Grian, if possible, stiffened more. Still, he crossed the room with hushed steps and slowly lowered himself into the chair opposite Xisuma.
He didn’t speak for a long, long moment.
Xisuma smiled again, trying to offer whatever pleasant feeling he could, even if his own stomach was swirling. “Nice day, isn’t it?”
It was a dumb, small question to start with, but Xisuma had blurted it out. A result of his nerves and barely hidden concern.
He was lucky that Grian nodded, finally relaxing the slightest bit. “Yeah.”
“How are you doing?”
That, of course, was Xisuma’s standard question. The one that kicked off every session, the first question he had asked in their very first.
“Good,” came Grian’s reply. That, too, was standard.
Except Xisuma knew that this time, it was a lie.
“Mumbo told me what happened on the supply run,” Xisuma said, gently, trying to keep his tone soft. Unaccusing.
Despite that, Grian flinched, hands fiddling with each other in his lap. He wouldn’t look at Xisuma; instead, his eyes trailed the walls and floor, like they were interesting pieces of lost art. “He, uh, he did?”
His voice sounded slightly betrayed.
Xisuma nodded, head tilted down for a moment before rising up again. “I asked him,” he admitted, watching Grian’s eyes take in the information.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Xisuma caved, pushing along. “His name was Lord Albin, wasn’t it?”
Grian closed his eyes, the fight draining out of him like water from a broken pot. “Yes,” he whispered, and his voice cracked.
Xisuma felt his heart pinch. He wanted to reach out, to grab Grian’s hand, but he stayed where he was.
Grian wasn’t a fan of physical touch, not unless he was the one who initiated it.
Did they have Lord Albin to thank for that?
“I’m sorry you had to see him again,” Xisuma continued, determined to keep the conversation going. If he lingered too long on one horror, he was sure his heart wouldn’t be able to take it.
(And if he got too hung up on the maybes and the what ifs, he’d be hunting down every trader and lord in the universe.
As it was, anger already boiled in his blood. It was hard to cool, hard to control, but he kept it in check as well as he could.
For Grian.)
The avian took a deep breath; let it out. He deflated with the air, slumping ever so slightly so that his wings brushed the floor. “I thought, I thought I could handle going.”
”What happened wasn’t your fault, Grian.” Pause. “It was unpredictable. None of us had any idea he was going to be there.”
“But he was,” Grian emphasised, waving his hand, going stiff again. Xisuma, if he looked hard enough, could see the frustration mounting in the avian’s eyes. “He was there, and I couldn’t handle it.”
Xisuma leaned forward on instinct, the desire to comfort too strong. He tapped his fingers on his knee to give them something to do. “Grian, not a single one of us would have been able to ‘handle it’ if we were in your shoes. What Lord Albin did—that was traumatic. Of course seeing him was going to trigger you.”
Grian absorbed the words in silent vexation. “I know,” he said after a moment. “But—”
“Birdie.”
Grian’s eyes met his. He hesitated, faltered. “Yes?”
“You are one of the strongest people I know.”
Grian blinked, staring at Xisuma with wide, round pupils. “What?”
“You are one of the strongest people I know,” Xisuma repeated, matter-of-fact, leaning back into his chair.
“I don’t understand.” Grian sounded heartbreakingly, genuinely confused. His head wings kept flicking to the side, feathers ruffling in bafflement. His nose scrunched.
“Lord Albin treated you awfully,” Xisuma clarified. “You had a normal reaction to seeing him, Grian. Anybody would have freaked out. But you still stayed strong. You didn’t let him break you. You let Mumbo and Scar help.”
He let that linger before continuing. “That was brave, Grian.”
“It was?” His voice was so timid, so soft, that Xisuma wouldn’t have heard it if he hadn’t been paying such close attention.
It broke his heart.
“Of course it was, Birdie.” The admin hoped his own conviction was stronger than it felt.
The words hung in the air, and Xisuma watched as Grian grappled with the declaration.
And then he did what Xisuma most expected: he changed the subject. “Do you remember when I always called you Suma?”
The admin blinked, momentarily caught off guard. “Yes?” It came out like a question.
The memories were bitter-sweet. Meeting Grian for the first time had been. . . a ride. He’d been so scared, so confused. So fragile, sitting on the couch in front of Xisuma, entire body tensed like something horrible was about to happen and he had to be ready for it.
And he hadn’t been able to pronounce ‘Xisuma’.
So they compromised. Grian could call him something else, so long as it wasn’t ‘sir’, like he kept doing.
And Grian chose Suma.
Months later, when the avian finally learned how to say the admin’s name, the endearing nickname faded to the background, picked up and dusted every once in a while but mostly left untouched.
“Sometimes,” Grian began, drawing Xisuma out of his thoughts. “I miss those days.”
“When you first got here?”
He nodded, up and down and up and down, twice. A fluid motion. “Yeah. It seemed. . . easier.”
Silence met them again, and Xisuma didn’t speak. It was like that during these sessions, sometimes. Grian needed the quiet, needed to let it prompt him to keep talking. If Xisuma tried to talk now, Grian would likely retreat and crawl back into himself.
The strategy worked, and Grian spoke slowly. “Back then, I didn’t know any of you guys, and it was scary. But now. . .”
“Now, we know you,” Xisuma filled in, finally understanding. “And that’s worse.”
The avian didn’t have to agree; Xisuma could read it in his eyes. Still, Grian responded, “Got me there, Suma.”
Suma.
“It’s a good thing, Grian—that we know you,” Xisuma told him, tilting his head, letting his eyes close for just a moment.
“I know.”
He opened his eyes. “So why does it scare you?”
This was part of Xisuma’s job, even if the question felt a little personal. It was hard to counsel Grian without violating the Background Rule, but the avian had agreed that it was necessary. That he wanted the sessions, wanted help.
Still, the query burned Xisuma’s tongue. Grian was fragile; that was evident. It didn’t take much to send him spiraling, to send the many threads holding him together unraveling. Xisuma hated to push the limits.
“Just. . .” Grian waved his arm, grappling with an answer he couldn’t quite form. “It’s, like, it’s hard to explain.”
“Take your time. Deep breath.”
Grian complied, pausing to suck in oxygen, holding Xisuma’s gaze through the visor.
“Start again. You got it.” Xisuma kept his tone gentle, his voice soft.
“You know me, now,” Grian said, the aforementioned thought hanging loosely in the air. “But back then, you didn’t—you guys didn’t know me at all. It wasn’t so, I don’t know, it wasn’t so personal."
The realisation hit Xisuma, and his posture sagged.
You’re afraid of being known. You’re afraid of personal relationships, of people seeing you for who you truly are.
Because if they know you, they can use that against you.
Xisuma felt his heart break, the smallest bit, the information wafting in Grian’s distant eyes.
“If people know me,” Grian whispered, “they can hurt me.”
A quiet confession, like most are.
Xisuma cleared his throat, fighting to keep the emotion from his voice, the protectiveness from crashing in. “So that’s why you were so distraught over Lord Albin.”
He said the name carefully, aware that anything—anything—could be a trigger.
(There was more than one reason Grian had been distraught, after all.)
But Grian didn’t break. He just nodded again, sadly, biting the inside of his lip. “I guess so. It’s, like, you know some—bad things happened to me. But you don’t, you don’t know everything.”
And I don’t want you to.
An unspoken sentence that was just as loud. Xisuma heard it in the way Grian wouldn’t look at him head on, in the way the avian fiddled with his fingers.
“Why not?” Xisuma addressed the silent statement, aware that he shouldn’t.
Grian took a moment to think about it. He fiddled with the ends of his sleeves. “It’s just that, if you know everything, you know how. . . like, how weak I was.”
Xisuma froze. He stilled completely in his seat, eyes slipping shut like that could block out the horror he felt.
Weak.
“Grian—”
“Yeah, I know what you’re gonna say,” he interrupted, tucking his knees to his chest so that his talons rested on the chair and he was hunched over. A self hug. “What I went through didn’t make me weak. Lord Albin is a terrible person.” A small, inappropriate smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I agree with that last part, at least.”
Xisuma sighed, watching Grian deflect, dodge, try and avoid the truth. “But. . . ?” He prompted.
“But,” Grian emphasised, until he, too, was sighing. He brought his talons back to the ground; hug over. “It feels like it did. Make me weak, I mean.”
“How so?”
“Xisuma.” He said the name as a warning.
Because Xisuma already knew how it made Grian weak. He already knew it made it so Grian couldn’t be touched without warning, it made it so Grian hated his avian instincts, it made it so Grian hid his inability to read for years. It made it so that the smallest thing could set him off and bring the memories back, so that still, all these years later, he woke up soaked in sweat from a nightmare.
It made it so his present was a haunted form of his past.
“I wish it would go away,” Grian admitted, voice softening, cracking around the edges. “I don’t want to live like this anymore.”
“It will go away,” Xisuma told him, glad to finally have something to say.
“When?”
The admin swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Three little words.
For a moment, it looked like Grian was going to say something to that. He opened his mouth, formed something, but then at the last second changed his mind and formed something different. “I remember Doc taking out my stitches.”
The subject change did not go unnoticed, but it wasn’t up to Xisuma what they talked about. That was entirely Grian’s choice. And as long as Grian was talking, then the admin was just along for the ride. “Do you?”
“Yeah. He numbed it.”
He had. It had been a syringe, long and pointed, and Grian had shied away anxiously, leaning into Xisuma. Ultimately, Doc had coaxed Grian into moving forward and accepting the shot, but it had been a difficult few minutes.
“It scarred,” Grian said, and Xisuma watched as the avian traced the path across his stomach. “I saw the scar. I flipped out.”
He had. Grian had taken one look at the new mark littering his torso and he’d sobbed, so suddenly that Xisuma had been paralyzed, unable to move.
“Birdie, Birdie, what’s wrong?”
“Too many—t-too many—”
“I offered you the code to hide them,” Xisuma prompted, trying to stay in the present.
Grian nodded. “You did.”
Honestly, that was a decision that Xisuma still wasn’t sure about. He didn’t really think it was healthy for Grian to alter himself like that, but at the same time, it was better than the alternative. . .
“You accepted it.”
“I did. And then I flipped out again when it worked.”
True. Xisuma had typed up the code and scanned Grian, sending it in. And Grian had watched the scars fade, had watched them disappear and become smooth, silky skin.
And he’d launched into another panic attack.
Something about the Watchers, about how they altered his code, about how he was one of them one of them on fo hem oe of em o f m—
Needless to say, that night had been very, very long.
“But you got past that,” Xisuma jumped in, taking the opportunity to steer the conversation. “Just like you’ll get past this.”
He waited for Grian to meet his eyes. “It takes time to heal, Grian. That doesn’t make you weak. Taking those steps, fighting, those things make you strong.”
“Strong,” Grian repeated, like he was testing the word.
“And brave. And resilient.”
“Brave.” The monosyllabic word was quiet. “Resilient.” A pause. “Suma, what does resilient mean?”
The question was a small reminder that despite all Grian had been through, he still had very far to come. “Resilient means you can withstand things. And heal quickly when things hurt you.”
He watched Grian swallow, watched him process. “You really think I’m resilient?”
“I know you are,” Xisuma said, not missing a beat, firing the response back immediately.
Grian took that in, mulling over the words.
“Scar forgot my birthday,” he blurted out, a second later, shattering the moment, his tendency to ruin good things creeping in.
Xisuma blinked, surprise working through him. “What?”
“Yeah. Well, not just Scar. Everyone, I guess.” He sounded so sad, so acceptant of that horrible truth.
“Oh, Birdie,” Xisuma breathed, hand going to his visor, covering where his mouth would be.
Xisuma had—Xisuma had missed—
He felt like he was going to be sick.
“It’s not a big deal,” Grian rushed to say, maybe seeing the beginnings of panic and shame swirling in the admin’s eyes.
“No, it is,” Xisuma shot back, unwilling to let this go. “Grian—when was it? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“A couple months ago,” the avian answered, pointedly ignoring the latter question.
Xisuma didn’t let up. “Birdie.”
Grian sighed at the nickname, looking towards the ceiling, shifting in his plush seat. “I just. . . I wanted to see what happened.”
Xisuma felt like his heart had been dipped in oil. “You wanted us to notice,” he whispered.
There was no point denying it, so Grian didn’t. He just nodded.
Guilt, crushing and severe, found Xisuma, and he leaned forward so that his head was in between his knees. He sucked in breath after breath, thoughts swirling, heart aching.
He had missed it. He’d been so caught up in everything else, in finding out that Grian couldn’t read and his past and the new season that he just—he hadn’t—
“Oh, my stars,” Xisuma said, needing to speak, to make his thoughts audible. “Grian, oh my stars, I am so, so sorry.”
The avian was shaking his head before Xisuma had even finished speaking. “I’m not mad at you. You, out of everyone, have the most excuse.”
“But that doesn’t make it right,” Xisuma argued. A headache was flaring, and he remembered that he had just been sick last week. “I still hurt you.”
We all did.
He left those words out, but he was sure Grian could hear them anyway.
“I set myself up,” Grian responded, changing the topic a little it, steering it away from Xisuma’s blame and onto himself.
“You did,” Xisuma admitted, slowly, careful not to make it sound like Grian’s fault. Because it definitely was not . “Self destructive, a little bit.”
Grian allowed himself a small smile. “I knew you would say that.”
”But,” Xisuma jumped in, before Grian could continue, “it was still my responsibility. I’m Admin, I’m supposed to know these things and remember them. That’s literally my job. I’m sorry I didn’t do that, Grian.”
The avian looked, slightly, like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?” Xisuma asked, incredulous.
Grian waved a hand. “For, you know, for not telling you guys. That was my fault. There’s twenty-five people on this Server. That’s a lot of people to remember.”
True, again. But Xisuma didn’t care. He should have remembered, he should have known, he should have paid closer attention.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
“Grian,” he started, slowly, “how’s about we throw you a birthday party?”
The avian winced at the last word, eyes darting to the side. “Not a party,” he affirmed, chest heaving with a deep breath. “Please.”
Xisuma cocked his head, curiosity and sincere worry filling him.
But he didn’t question it, his mind trailing back to the early days of Grian on Hermitcraft. The time he had thought a Server Meeting was a party, when he had offered False a feather. “Not a party, then.”
Grian finally cracked a smile, meeting Xisuma’s eyes for the first time in a while. “Then, yes. Yes, please. Scar already mentioned something like that.”
Xisuma found himself returning the grin, however small it may be, however guilt ridden he felt.
Grian shifted in his seat, suddenly awkward, before slowly, slowly, he opened his arms. He wouldn’t meet Xisuma’s eyes, instead choosing to stare towards the side, but Xisuma knew what this was.
An invitation.
Permission.
Xisuma had no trouble crossing the distance between them, wrapping Grian in a tight hug, pulling the avian as close as he could and trying to shove the bad feelings away.
Grian clung to him too, wings flicking to the side, burying his face in Suma’s shoulder, heaving a shaky breath.
That single breath alone said more than either of them had that evening.
“Thank you,” the avian whispered, voice caught, and Xisuma hugged him tighter in response. He wasn’t quite sure what Grian was thanking him for, but he didn’t dare question it.
Some things you just had to let go.
Grian squeezed back tighter and Xisuma suddenly hated himself for forgetting Grian’s birthday, for not realising what the avian was doing to himself.
Grian had already been through enough. He didn’t need to feel like no one cared, like no one was paying attention to him.
And now he did. Because of Xisuma.
Xisuma winced and shoved the thought away as far as he could, trying to focus on the situation in front of him, the little avian curled in his arms.
From now on, he would be better.
He swore it.
(And, by the stars, Grian was going to celebrate his birthday.)