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All Alone

Summary:

Grian doesn’t remember a lot from his time with the Watchers, especially right after his…arrvial. Most of it is blurry and vague, almost as if They had tried to erase it, though Grian knows it was the constant pain that messed up those memories. Some of it comes back to him in his dreams; nightmares that make him wake up crying and prevent him from sleeping for a week.

Some of the memories, though, are crystal clear.

prompt fill for whumptober 2025: day 3 - "isolation"

Notes:

a short and sad one again, i'm sorry!
i promise there will be some longer (and sweeter) ones in here for sure. for now, come along and suffer with me!

Work Text:

Grian doesn’t remember a lot from his time with the Watchers, especially right after his…arrvial. Most of it is blurry and vague, almost as if They had tried to erase it, though Grian knows it was the constant pain that messed up those memories. Some of it comes back to him in his dreams; nightmares that make him wake up crying and prevent him from sleeping for a week.

Some of the memories, though, are crystal clear.

 

Grian is thrashing against Their grips, Watcher One and Watcher Two holding him firmly between Them and keeping him from moving. Not that he’d have anywhere to go, even if he were to escape Their bruising grips. Still, he keeps moving, trying to rip himself free from Their clawed hands. Though, as expected, it does nothing.

He isn’t sure where They’re leading him; he has only seen a handful of rooms so far and most of them are close to each other, so he hasn’t seen much of the rest of the compound either. When they stop in front of a pitch black door, Grian stops moving. In contrast to the vast darkness of the Void outside, most of the corridors and rooms are rather bright, with the exception of said Void peeking through the windows.

So, Grian is pretty surprised to see the black door. It’s easy to get lost in the Watchers’ home, even with how little he’s seen of it, so this door is something to note.

Watcher One loosens Their grip on Grian’s arm slightly - not enough to escape, never enough to escape - and swings the door open. Grian recoils slightly by the sight he’s met with. The room, similar to everything else, is white. Though, in contrast to everything else, there’s nothing in it. No chair or tables. Not even a window.

Grian doesn’t realize what is happening until They push him inside, causing him to stumble and fall to the floor, and slamming the door shut behind him. Grian immediately rushes to stand up, turning towards the door to start banging against it - not like that has ever helped him - but he freezes.

The door is…gone. Or at least that’s what it looks like, with how seamlessly it blends with the wall. Grian takes a shaky breath in as he turns around slowly. There’s barely even a way to tell apart from the wall and Grian stumbles a few times as he tries walking around the perimeter of the room. After walking around it a few times, hands firmly on the wall, Grian finally decides that there’s no way out.

He slides down the wall until he’s sitting with his knees against his chest, arms wrapped around his legs. The only color in the room is himself, so he keeps his eyes firmly on his hands as they fidget with the sleeves of his shirt. It’s not the same one that he came with, a deep dark purple instead, but anything is better than the blinding white he’s surrounded with.

Grian doesn’t know how long he stays in the room. He sleeps, sometimes, when his eyelids get too heavy and his body gives out on him. He eats too, though he’s not sure how the food gets to him. Sometimes it feels like all he does is blink, and the food appears, though sometimes it’s there when he wakes up.

Sometimes Grian screams, just to hear any sound, and he screams until his throat is raw.

Grian misses his friends; he misses hearing Mumbo ramble on about his latest Redstone project and hearing Pearl’s laugh. At some point, he even starts missing Their presence and it almost makes him nauseous.

Anything would be better than the deafening silence. Even their bruising grips and scathing words would be better than this.

And even when they finally get him and return him to Their training grounds, Grian can’t quite shake the feeling of loneliness that’s crushing his chest.

 

Even now, years later, Grian sometimes gets that feeling. Though now, there’s something chasing it away. Now, it’s easy to find Mumbo to hear him ramble about one of his Redstone projects. Or go to Pearl and make her laugh with one of his stupid jokes. And now, he even has Scar, who holds him tight enough that everything else just disappears.

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