Watcher's Admins

Chapter Eight

<XisumaVoid> Martyn and Jimmy will be staying for a while, make them feel welcome
<XisumaVoid> and don’t scare them off guys
<WelsKnight> No promises
Xisuma sighed and looked at Jimmy and Martyn, who looked nervously back. “Don’t worry. They’re crazy but they’re family.” He smiled. “I’m heading to the Institute to update the council and bury my nose in the books in the archives.”
“No. you’re going to sleep like the rest of us then go there.” Scar shook his head. “We’re all running on fumes right now and you especially.” 
“I’ll be fine I won’t even be gone long then I’ll sleep as long as you want me to Scar.” Xisuma huffed and left quickly before Scar could argue. 
“You two can bunk here. The rest of us will end up doing it too…since with how Grian is it puts us all at ease. I’m sure he has extra beds somewhere…” He muttered and started rifling through Grian’s chests.
“I don’t like the look of this…” he muttered and opened more chests, before quickly typing in the chat. 
<GoodTimeWithScar> Stress, you were online with Grian last night right?
<StressMonster101> Yeah why?
<GoodTimeWithScar> come over for a sec mama bear
“What’s going on?” Hypno asked, reading the chat before looking at Scar.
<StressMonster101> Coming
“I don’t think Grian slept last night.” Scar motioned to the chests. Martyn looked at them before starting to open them. Hypno and Jimmy did too before looking at Scar. 
Stress tumbled inside the house, knocking over XB. Everyone started laughing quietly before helping the two up. “What’s wrong with the sun child?” Stress asked, brushing herself off. Everyone gave her a confused look, which made her sigh. “Grian means sun in irish guys…jeez.” she snorted.
“You said you slept over last night.” Scar asked. 
“Yeah. I dropped by and when he answered the door I saw his hand bleeding so I patched him up. I was sort of dripping wet because my elytra broke over the lake and I had to walk the rest of the way so he dragged me inside and dried me off. We talked for a while…and then he had me stay the night so I wouldn’t get ambushed by mobs. I went to his room after he insisted on sleeping on the couch, and I saw dirt and small chunks of a pot and a broom laying on the ground so I finished sweeping up and went to bed. Why?” Stress recounted the events and blew a flower from her face. 
“We don’t think he slept last night…well… not much.” Hypno said after blinking. She did that in a single breath, holy cow. He thought. 
“He organized all of his chests. To the T.” Jimmy muttered. 
“You don’t think he got everyone blocks for their shops or builds, do you?” Stress asked, looking at the Hermits and the newbies. 
“It makes sense. You said they just showed up right? And if you and Grian were the only ones online and you were asleep…” Jimmy nodded and rubbed his eyes. 
“When something’s bothering Grian he does things to  distract himself. Build, pull pranks, do things he normally wouldn’t do.” Martyn huffed.
“He did say things were hectic….like he felt himself drowning in it…” Stress murmured, hugging herself tightly. “Is he okay?” She turned to Doc and Zed. 
“He’s alright. He’s warm and just sleeping right now. Pearl’s sleeping upstairs with him. Have you seen how chaotic they sleep? It looked like a hurricane ran through the room.” Doc laughed. 
“All tangled and falling off the bed? Oh jeez.” Stress sighed. She looked at them quietly, squinting her eyes. “You guys all look exhausted. Come on, it’s getting dark anyway, get some sleep.” She smacked them all on the back of the heads, including Jimmy and Martyn, before laying out beds and stuff. 
They looked at her before thanking her and waved her off. They talked for a while, before eventually, one by one, falling asleep. 
Grian shifted in bed, his muscles so tight it hurt to move. He was going to fall back asleep after he turned fully to his stomach, before he heard Pearl grunt and a thud. “Grian mate!” 
    “Sorry Pearl….I forgot you were here. Why didn’t you get another bed?”
    “Maybe because you had me trapped under one of your wings, you bird brain.” 
    Grian sat up rubbing his eyes, shaking his wings to settle his feathers. He looked at the clock on the wall and fell back on the bed groaning. “It’s four in the morning…” 
    Pearl groaned and got up plopping on the bed by him. “How much do you wanna bet the others are laying around downstairs?”
    Grian sighed softly, “They really don’t have to fuss about this.” He muttered and got up stretching his body out, and shaking the heaviness of sleep out of it. Pearl got up and looked at the clock before sighing. “Well you’re kind of stuck with us while you go through this.”
He elbowed her harshly and went downstairs rubbing his eyes. “Yup. They’re down here…” He murmured and leaned against the wall. His body, though thankful for the rest, was still feeble. He felt like if he used his normal amount of energy, his body would collapse. 
His legs felt like jello and pins-n-needles crawled up through his body from his claws to the tips of his wings. Each feather’s calamus seemed to be vibrating within his skin. He huffed looking at Jimmy, half off the bed and slowly made it fully down the stairs. 
“You seeing this?” He looked over his shoulder at Pearl who was snickering silently. “How about we fix these dummies, and then go for a walk.” She suggested and they set off fixing their friends, all of them didn’t seem to sleep in a bed normally. 
After they tucked their friends in and left quietly, letting them sleep. “So Jimmy and Martyn…” He sighed looking at the landscape. 
“We had them come for a bit when you collapsed, hoping they had any theories of the Watchers themselves…I told Xisuma to show them our books so they could help then I went to check on you…” 
“Then you fell asleep so you don’t know how they reacted to that…god I don’t even know what to think.”
“Do you know why you collapsed like that?” Pearl asked softly, pulling her hood up. He didn’t answer for a moment, before nodding. “I felt a really unfocused gaze on me, before cold searing pain and my wings shut automatically. I tried opening them twice before I blacked out.” 
“Do you think it was them?”
“I don’t think so. Last I heard, they didn’t have enough power from overtaking the sigil at spawn.” He shrugged thinking. “It was a familiar gaze, it didn’t feel malicious though. I think my body reacted that way because it was different. Must’ve just put my body into shock. I froze.”
“We should tell Xisuma that….speaking of which I think I saw a note from Doc saying Xisuma went to the Institute, even wrote the time he left.”  Pearl furrowed her brows tilting her head. 
Grian looked at her before they opened the tab to see who was online. Everyone who was online was still online, except Xisuma. “I’m going to have to go get him aren’t I?” He groaned, searching his pockets for his seal.
“For someone who has been here for as long as him, he still seems like a kid huh? Bring him back to your house so he can sleep because pete sakes knows he hasn’t even taken a nap there.” Pearl crossed her arms. She would go get him herself if she was able to. 
“I’ll drag him back. Make sure Martyn, Jimmy and Scar don’t blow up the place.” He nodded and bolted off with a large flap kicking up dust. 
He glided towards the portal, letting the wind minimize the use of energy. He landed with soft clicks of his talons against the hard cold obsidian and closed his wings tightly to fully step through the portal. “Where is he…” He huffed looking around the hub of the Institute as his Admin robes flitted into existence around him. He saw some of the lower admins look at him before continuing to walk and do things they needed.
He rubbed his eyes and walked, crossing his arms in his sleeves looking around thinking. He wasn’t paying attention to his full surroundings until he bumped into another Admin., one with red hems and a ruby inlaid seal on their chest. “Sorry.” They said quickly as he blinked and steadied himself. 
“It’s alright. Uhm…have you seen a Jade Admin, with the name of XisumaVoid around here recently?” 
The red admin dusted themselves off before looking at him. “Ah yes…yes. Xisuma has been in the library…I just came from there a-actually.” 
Grain huffed and rubbed his eyes before thanking them and ran towards the library, grumbling under his breath. He apologized to others as he ran past them and skidded to a stop in front of the large library doors. He leaned against them for a moment coughing in his arm catching his breath for a moment.
He slowly opened the door before letting it close behind him. “Xisuma Void.” He said in a stern quiet tone once he saw Xisuma hunched over some books. Xisuma tensed and slowly turned to face him. “Hey Xel….” He murmured as Grian walked towards him with his arms crossed and his lips in a thin line.
“Don’t hey me. Get up, come on. You were here for six hours X.” He shook his head and grabbed him, pulling him to his feet. He was sore, aching horribly, and wanted to go home.
“Alright…should you even be up and about right now?”  Xisuma asked, closing the books and looking at him.    “I can’t sleep any longer and Pearl and I went for a walk while everyone else was asleep until she said you left.” Grian huffed and they walked to the hub quietly.  He elbowed the Jade Admin into the portal and followed behind, yawning in his arm. 
“That doesn’t mean you should be out of bed, Grian.” Xisuma sighed once back into the Hermitcraft server and turned to him.
Grian was silent, looking at the sky for a moment, before looking at X, a crooked sneer on his face and his lifeless eyes gleaming a bright purple. “Well well well. Look at the little Admin being so…caring.” He chuckled and circled him, clicking his tongue. 
Xisuma  froze, staring right at those lit eyes, his body tensed, he couldn’t speak. “Oh come on…Voidwalker. Cat got your tongue?” The Watcher asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. It brought him back to the present. 
“How are you….” He started before shaking his head. “How are you here? What do you want with him? Get out of him.” He clenched his fist around his sword as it started to manifest. 
“It wasn’t easy. That's for sure. What we want from him is…well…his help. His skill.” The Watcher sneered and stepped forward tilting his head to the side. “His bloodlust at the drop of a hat. He needs to return home.”
“He is home. This is his home. You are not his home. You stole him, tormented him, and at one whiff of him being unfaithful to you, you locked him up, exiled him and left him for dead. You do not get to say this isn’t his home.” Xisuma snarled, raising his sword. 
“And yet he is alive and well. Wherever we are.” The Watcher snickered and pushed down the blade towards the ground. X tried to keep it upright, but this wasn’t Grian’s strength. 
He was in a standstill, though he was thankful that the being in Grian was just standing there, curiously looking at him. If they had decided to become violent, he would be done for.
“Wait. You don’t know where he is? Then how are you projecting yourself through him?” He asked, cocking his head to the side, lowering his sword. He watched as the other skipped around him looking around thinking. 
“No. We managed to tap into him by scrying through his candle. I ended up here, but even with his power, I’m limited. So talking and moving is all I can do, Jade Admin.”
As he explained, Xisuma noticed his eyes. The bright purple fiery eyes started flickering. Dying out, returning to his dead doll eyes. It looked like Grian was trying to shake the Watcher out of his head. 
“So it’s not just us that use candles then. Let me guess…even though you stick to one color for everyone in the academy…one day you found Xelque’s had turned red?” Xisuma asked. Needing to give Grian time to escape. To shake the horror from his mind.
The eldritch laughed at his question. “Yes, but we decided to leave it. It makes him easier to keep an eye on.” 
“We didn’t do that. We replaced it I want to say three times, before giving up. Then when you took him, you took our memories of him so we didn’t know why that single red candle was there among our black candles.” Xisuma nodded, watching him pause and stumble. Xisuma bolted forward and grabbed him as Grian blinked with a groan. “You okay mate?” He asked softly, keeping him steady. Grian only nodded yawning and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s get you back home G”