#a life in the woods au | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thetomorrowshow · 1 year

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what to keep

Trust AU Masterlist - Previous

i couldn’t leave yall on a cliffhanger for too long :) here’s the next part of the trust au!

cw: blood, violence, vomiting, vertigo

They blindfold him first.

He’s not sure why—he’s seen the portal before, and he knows exactly where they are. It isn’t like spinning him around is going to make him lose his sense of direction in this instance. They spin him anyways. Too much. All it does is make him nearly throw up. He manages to hold it back, even if his stomach sloshes rebelliously.

At some point during his repeated swallowing, rough hands tear off his elytra. He doesn’t know who. He doesn’t know why they literally pulled through the leather harness instead of unbuckling it from around his chest. All he knows is that with a snap, the light wings are brushing against the backs of his legs and crumpling to the floor at his heels.

“Ready to go to the End, Jimmy?” Sausage crows, stripping off Jimmy’s long gloves and using them to tie his wrists together. They’d torn his veil to use for the blindfold, so he isn’t exactly surprised that no one thought to bring rope. He flexes his wrists at first, hoping to relax them later and slip out of the binds, but Sausage pinches his hands until he stops.

He supposes they really want him to stay out of the way while they fight the dragon rumored to be on the other side—otherwise, they wouldn’t bother to go through all this trouble when every person in this room has beaten Jimmy in a fight and could easily take him down if he were to try to escape.

The End is also supposed to have a lot of Endermen, isn’t it? Maybe the blindfold is because they don’t want him looking in the eyes of a stray Enderman, bringing it upon them and causing chaos.

Which would actually be a decent plan, and Jimmy’s kind of ashamed that they clearly thought of it before he did.

He doesn’t answer Sausage, aiming for an enigmatic and proud presence. Even if his pride is currently in pieces on the floor, he’s not the angry fry he once acted like. He’s a hero to his people, a cod of great importance. He can at least pretend to be worthy of that.

“Gosh, whatever Scott did to him made him so boring,” drawls Joey, close enough behind Jimmy that he can feel his breath on his neck. “He’d usually still be fighting right now. I miss that.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t have that kind of time, honestly,” fWhip says. He sounds distracted, and Jimmy wonders for a brief second what on earth fWhip could be focused on that’s more important than this. “We can go beat the crap out of Smajor after this if you want a fight, okay?”

A sigh. “Fine. Let’s go, then! Can’t keep my XorXor waiting!”

Jimmy doesn’t have a chance to share his thoughts (most of which consist of utter refusal and demands for freedom) before he’s shoved forward, feet finding nothing before him.

He falls, and falls, and falls—the air is thin, so much thinner than anything he’s used to—his heart drops into his stomach and he thinks he screams—

Then he hits solid ground.

He finally loses the battle to his stomach and vomits on hands and knees, barely able to catch himself. He reaches blindly forward and meets nothing, nothing but the edge of a platform and what could be a short drop or an endless void. He doesn’t know.

He spits a couple of times, clearing out any last chunks, then rocks back onto his heels, feeling all around with his bound hands together to see if there’s another drop-off.

Once he feels secure, he reaches up, intending to tear off the blindfold, but before he can do anything there’s a thud beside him and the sound of someone retching.

At least he’s not the only one.

Two more thuds come in quick succession, but nobody else throws up, which is probably for the best but would’ve felt like a small victory, if Jimmy’s honest with himself.

“Oh, wow,” fWhip murmurs, closer than Jimmy expected. “Look at her.”

I can’t, I’m blindfolded, Jimmy wants to snark back, but he restrains himself. He wonders, briefly, who it is that fWhip’s looking at.

Then he hears the heavy beating of wings in the distance and he knows.

“Sausage, bridge out,” commands fWhip. “Joey, when you’re done puking, help me with him.”

Jimmy only has a minute’s peace before he’s being grabbed under both arms, two people (ostensibly fWhip and Joey) dragging him to his feet. In the process, whatever knot Sausage had used to tie his gloves pulls apart, the binds falling to the ground.

Perfect. The first step to escape!

Like there’s anywhere to escape to, at this point. And he doesn’t get the chance to try, Joey pinning his arm to his body on one side and fWhip doing the same on the other. He’s well and truly stuck between them, no choice but to follow along with them.

They frogmarch him away from wherever it is that they’d landed, across what feels like cobblestone until they hit unfamiliar ground, ground that’s uneven in an unrecognizable way. He stumbles over it with almost every other step, toes getting caught in holes and ankles rolling over mounds. His companions do nothing to help him.

He can hear Endermen nearby. He doesn’t usually fight Endermen, preferring to let them mind their own business, so as long as those vwoops stay far away from him, everything will be fine. He’s blindfolded, anyway. He shouldn’t be able to anger them.

“Sausage, you take him,” Joey says suddenly, next to Jimmy’s right ear. His shoulders hunch at the unexpected noise. “I’m going to go start the summoning.”

There’s a roar overhead, and Jimmy ducks, turning his head this way and that, as if he’ll catch a glimpse of the dragon. fWhip chuckles, continues to pull him along. Joey drops away, a sturdier body taking his place.

Then, suddenly, they stop. With a smile in his voice, Sausage pronounces, “Jimmy, welcome to the End!”

The blindfold is pulled loose.

Before Jimmy is an endless void.

He gapes at it, at the little flecks of color floating in the blackness. It’s—well, it’s pretty, but not what he’d expected. He’d expected to actually see . . . something.

He looks down. The ground beneath him is made up of some sort of yellowish, holey, coral-like thing. It’s kind of gross-looking, honestly. And beyond is just—nothing.

“I don’t understand,” he says, voice oddly suppressed for such an open space. Sure, he’s never seen anything like this before—but where is the dragon? The Endermen? The rumored towers and pyres, the cities and creatures unknown?

This is just—nothing.

“How about we show you,” fWhip snickers, before shoving him hard in the back.

He very nearly falls. He stumbles, arms flailing, and he very nearly pitches headfirst into the abyss before him, but one of the odd holes in the ground catches his heel and helps him regain his balance, if a couple steps closer to the edge.

Just because he doesn’t fall doesn’t mean he didn’t come very close, and Jimmy’s suddenly sweating all over, stomach flip-flopping as adrenaline pumps through.

fWhip pushed him. fWhip meant to send him careening over the edge, into nothingness.

fWhip just tried to kill him.

And Jimmy isn’t inclined to believe it was a joke.

“This is it?” he whispers, horror gnawing at his insides. Forget that he gave away the location, forget that he lost the Codfather head, this is the end!

This is the End.

“This is the End? Death is the End?” he manages, glancing back toward fWhip and Sausage.

Sausage shrugs. “That’s one interpretation.”

fWhip feints forward, arms out to push him again, and Jimmy ducks away, left foot catching on the edge and throwing off his balance entirely. He windmills for a moment before properly regaining his footing, one eye on the void behind him and one eye on his captors.

Behind them, he can see a tower of obsidian. Several Endermen loiter around it. The End is otherwise unpopulated.

The only witnesses of his death will be his enemies.

His family isn’t here. Lizzie and Joel are probably fast asleep somewhere, not even aware that the jig is up and their brother is about to die. He won’t ever see them again, he won’t get to make up for his mistakes, he won’t ever get to hug them and let them know how much he cares about them ever again.

He’d never even told Scott he loves him.

It seems silly, now, how he’d danced around it. How he’d never outright confessed. There’d been so many perfect times, so many opportunities to share his feelings, but he’d been too scared of rejection to take the chance. And here he is, moments from his death, and Scott will never know how he feels.

He’ll never know that he was one of the greatest loves of Jimmy’s life. His savior. The first spot of light in an endless void.

“Why?” he asks, and he’s never felt more detached from a word.

“Like I said, you’ve become an issue,” fWhip says, punctuating his words by stepping closer. “You had to go talk, get Scott in your little alliance and let him spread all those vicious lies about how cruel we are. Now Gem barely trusts me!”

“And Katherine doesn’t trust us at all!” Sausage pipes up. fWhip nods.

“See, Jimmy, you’ve got a good heart. And that makes people like you, and trust you, even if you are a bit hotheaded. You’re someone they care about. Taking you out will drop their morale real fast.” fWhip shrugs, then adds, “And you’ve just been really annoying lately. I kinda just want you dead.”

Jimmy swallows. His eyes and ears dart back and forth between Sausage and fWhip. He can maybe take one of them, but certainly not both. That had been proven in the woods back home.

And even if he did manage to squirm free, he has no clue how to get home. Joey and the demon would grab him before he could do more than get back to where they had started—wherever that was.

This is it. This is . . . this . . . this is the end.

fWhip pushes him.

It’s almost in slow-motion. His foot slips, his arms stretch out (as if to grab something and pull himself back up, but there’s nothing there, of course there’s nothing) and he’s falling, he’s falling, he’s falling into the void.

They laugh as he falls. There’s no regret in either of their expressions. They just watch, and they laugh.

He’s a swimmer by nature, and though the void’s air is a bit thinner than earth’s, when Jimmy falls, his back arcs gracefully, his fins and arms outstretched to provide whatever resistance they can.

Air rushes past him, battering his earfins and whistling in his ears, but he just closes his eyes

And doesn’t think

And falls.

And Jimmy ceases to exist in his mind.

The only sound is the wind. The pervading silence of the void presses in, becoming more and more invasive.

And it’s beautiful, in its own sightless way. Utterly incomparable, when this is all that has been and all that will be and the silence and the wind are the only reference points in history. The wind is still, constant, a low roaring that will never end even as time unravels. The silence isn’t still, but ever-moving, fluid, pushing and pulling and taking without giving.

It’s not too long before the void starts to hurt.

The pressure of the silence weighs down harder and harder, pulling away with a vengeance to strip him of what he used to be. It hurts, it burns with the blazing fire of nothing he’s ever known, and yet there’s nothing he can do. He has no voice with which to scream, stolen away by the silence. No control over what occurs. He falls, and all he knows is pain.

It’s not too long before he feels a fin on his arm pull away, the skin and scales on his neck and hands starting to flake off as his clothing pulls apart as well.

He forces open his eyes, even as it feels as though needles are pricking through the lids. The world above is a very small blink of light.

And that light illuminates something.

Something that’s quite quickly coming closer.

And then there are arms around him and shouting in his ear and the sound of wings and blue hair and—

“Hold on!” Scott yells, cracking through the silence, and it still hurts, it hurts badly to even think (and it’s affecting Scott too, his nose is bleeding and a patch of his face is bright red with new, scabbing skin), but what’s left of Jimmy does his best to pull the pieces of himself back together and desperately hold onto Scott.

It’s slow, of course, Scott’s wings stutter a few times but he manages to find the strength to carry Jimmy’s deadweight and lift him higher, until the light above becomes a more-defined place rather than just a pinprick in a sea of nothing.

Jimmy sucks in a breath that he hadn’t realized was in his chest. He hasn’t been breathing, he registers vaguely; it’s easier to not breathe, it’s easier to let the darkness claim him.

“I’ve got you, okay?” Scott gasps, voice cracking, and Jimmy just hangs there, limp, trying to remember how to breathe.

How much time has passed? How long has he been falling?

“You’re okay. You’ve got to be okay, all right? I. . . .” Scott trails off, his chest heaving as his wings work to support both their weight.

Jimmy doesn’t doubt for a moment that he’ll save them.

And after several long minutes of flying straight up, Scott collapses onto holey, coral-like ground, still clutching Jimmy to him.

It’s as if, suddenly, a bubble has popped. No longer is Jimmy’s world just the oppressive silence of the void and Scott’s breathing. Now there’s screaming, shouts of directions, the roaring of a dragon, explosions, and it’s so much noise—

Scott pushes away from him and sits up, and Jimmy sees tears streaking down his face, delicate hands coming up to frame Jimmy’s face. “You’re alive,” he whispers. “I got you. You’re gonna be okay.”

His whole body aches, stinging in patches where he’d begun to—disintegrate? Fall apart? He’s not sure. He’s not sure all that happened in the void, can barely comprehend some of it, so he pushes it to the side and places his hands over Scott’s, looking up at him from where he lies on the ground.

Scott’s hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat, blood dripping from his nose down his lips, his chest is rising and falling rapidly with every frantic breath, his eyes are wild and terrified and so very bright.

The beauty of the void’s silence pales in comparison.

“I’m alive,” he croaks, and he’s really—he’s alive.

Scott saved him.

As if struck by impulse, Scott leans forward and presses a kiss to Jimmy’s forehead, small and sweet and full of so many emotions.

And Jimmy didn’t die.

“I love you,” he blurts out, the rasp of his voice putting a strain on his vocal cords. He doesn’t care. He didn’t die. “I love you. I love you.”

There’s so much more he wants to say. He wants to explain that he had been about to die without ever confessing his feelings. He wants to tell him that it’s okay if the feeling isn’t mutual, because he nearly died and somehow that makes everything that once seemed important fall away.

He wants to tell him how he’s looked at him every day and fallen a little deeper into love, even as his heart breaks again and again.

He doesn’t, though. He can’t find the words.

“I love you,” Jimmy says again, even as his voice collapses on itself. “I’m in love with you.”

And Scott, to his credit, only looks utterly shocked for a moment before he bends down and kisses Jimmy on the lips.

It’s quick, and Scott’s lips are chapped but soft and warm, and it’s a lot to feel for someone who had been convinced he’d never feel anything again as he fell into a comfortless void, but it’s got so much love behind it, and when Scott pulls back, Jimmy sees stars in his eyes.

“I love you,” Scott tells him, his fingers digging into Jimmy’s cheeks in a way that’s almost painful but mostly grounding. “We’re talking more about this later. I have to—Xornoth—”

Scott shifts as if to leave, but his hands don’t let go of Jimmy’s face. Jimmy squeezes his hands briefly, pushes him away. “I’m fine. Go,” he rasps, using Scott’s hands to pull himself up into a sitting position.

Scott nods, brushes Jimmy’s knuckles against his lips, then runs, feet pounding against the uneven ground.

There’s a battle beyond Scott. The dragon twisting furiously through the air while figures throw potions at it. People running to and fro, destroying strange floating crystals or replacing them. A dark presence atop one of the obsidian towers. So much shouting and screaming.

And Scott loves him.

There are black spots on his vision when he stands, and his legs and arms don’t feel quite like they’re where they belong, but at least he can stand. At least he’s alive.

One step at a time, he heads toward the battle, until the steps become easier and easier and he doesn’t feel as though the ground is going to collapse beneath him, sending him once again into that peacefully horrible void.

He’s exhausted. He’s bleeding all over, patches where his skin had disintegrated now raw and painful. The air of the End, again, is thinner than the Overworld, making it hard to get a good breath in and leaving him a little lightheaded. His limbs are still shaking from the trauma of falling to his death just moments ago, adrenaline and despair still crowding his brain.

But he has his people to think of. And his family. And Scott.

Jimmy dives headfirst into Sausage, knocking him away from Shubble, who had been facing away, easing a strange floating bundle of crystals to life.

They both hit the ground hard, and what little breath Jimmy had gained is knocked out of him, making his vision fuzz as he rolls on top of Sausage, pinning his arms to his side with his legs.

Sausage’s eyes widen when he sees Jimmy, face going from determined to complete shock in a matter of milliseconds. “I—but you—fWhip—”

Jimmy runs a hand under his nose, wiping away a trickle of blood, and does his best to grin, despite the way he feels his lip split with the motion. “Think twice before trying to kill me next time, yeah?”

There are a lot of things in life that Jimmy finds satisfying—squishing and molding slime with his fingers, running a hand over burlap sacks full to bursting of grain, skimming along the surface of the ocean with a pack of dolphins—but none of them even come close to punching Sausage square in the nose.

Sausage howls, trying to wriggle out from under him. Jimmy would’ve hit him again—he really wants to, after all—but before he gets the chance, there’s a bone-rattling roar from behind him and the force of it sends him and Sausage flying meters apart, both scrambling for purchase on the holey ground.

It’s enough to start his head spinning, but Jimmy starts to get back up, a bad taste in the back of his mouth.

There’s a rush of wind and a figure lands beside him, pulling him into a hug before he can even register what’s happening.

“Don’t you dare do that again!” Joel practically screams, gripping him so tight Jimmy can’t breathe. “Lucky Scott was awake—you could’ve died, you idiot—”

Joel cuts off his rambling when Jimmy buries his face in his chest, weak hands gripping him as tight as he can.

“Hey—it’s all right,” Joel says awkwardly, though he makes no move to detach himself from Jimmy.

Jimmy can’t bring himself to speak, just does his best to not cry. He’s alive, but it had been so close. He’d been mere moments from never seeing his family again, and now Joel is here and real and—

“You look terrible, Jim—why don’t you stay out of the way, yeah, and when we’re done here—”

“Sorry,” Jimmy chokes out, but he doesn’t let go. “I didn’t mean—it was—”

Joel shushes him, pats his shoulder lightly. “I’ve got to get back to it, but—stay here, yeah? We can talk later.”

And then Joel’s gone, and Sausage has run off too, and there’s so much going on that Jimmy doesn’t even know where to look.

And suddenly, it all explodes.

Not all of it, certainly, but the dragon does, rising into the air and bursting apart into little pops of light, creating a rather morbid fireworks show.

Across the battlefield, Jimmy sees Scott fall to his knees. Katherine shields her eyes to look up at the dragon. Pix lets his sword hang at his side.

And past the sounds of the dying dragon, Jimmy can hear a horrible, echoing laugh.

He may be alive, but they’ve lost.

None of the other emperors blame him. When he tries to apologize, they wave him off, say that it would have been found eventually.

He can see the disappointment in their eyes, though. Whatever his intentions, Jimmy has caused the rule of the demon.

It’s Pix who carries Jimmy to the Ocean Kingdom infirmary, who sits by his side through all the hustle and bustle and impromptu meetings of rulers, gathered in the infirmary both for Jimmy’s convenience and for treatment of various small wounds.

It’s a solemn gathering, bereft of the three on the other side, with Gem hovering awkwardly near the door as if she shouldn’t be here.

“It’s my fault as much as it is anyone’s,” she admits when Jimmy first tries to own up. “I knew they had the Codfather head, I’m so sorry, Jimmy—they told me they wanted to put it in the End, so I helped look for the portal. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“They shouldn’t have taken it in the first place,” Joel points out. Lizzie is beside him, radiating such powerful levels of anger that no one has been brave enough to meet her eyes, for fear that her ire will fall on them. “That was a violation of the House Blossom Alliance, and probably like, a declaration of war, honestly.”

“Jimmy—why didn’t you tell us that they took it?” asks Katherine, face twisted in a grimace as she applies pressure to a small but deep cut on her arm. “That seems like a very important piece of information. We could’ve helped!”

Jimmy avoids looking at Scott. “Political reasons,” he mutters. That doesn’t satisfy Katherine, though, so he amends to say, “To save face, mostly. Admitting that one of the most precious treasures of the Cod Empire had been stolen? Terrible for PR, and makes us look like a target.”

Gem knows something, Jimmy realizes with a sinking feeling as she shoots him a look, then glances away. Sausage must’ve shared with the rest of the Wither Rose Alliance the importance of the Codfather head.

Katherine, on the other hand, gasps. “Wait—your engagement, though! Was that just a cover-up, to make your empire appear stronger than ever? You guys tricked me?”

Right on the money. Jimmy opens his mouth, about to concede, but Scott interrupts.

“No,” Scott says firmly. Everyone looks toward him—leaning against the wall, hair messy, the permanent bags under his eyes heavy and dark. His eyes are fixed on Jimmy, who can’t seem to look away.

Scott loves him.

“The betrothal was rushed, for certain reasons, but I still intend to marry Jimmy,” Scott continues, and the way Jimmy’s stomach flips—

“Our betrothal may be put on hold to deal with recent developments. That does not mean we are not fully committed to each other, nor is it indicative of the legitimacy of our relationship. I will not be saying any more on the matter.”

Shubble changes the subject pretty quickly after that, but Jimmy can’t keep hold of the conversation. He just . . . gazes at Scott, Scott who loves him. Scott who just risked his life to save Jimmy, who held him and kissed him and said that he loved him.

He can only bask in the wonder of it for so long before it’s just too tiring to think of. His eyelids start drooping, and someone must notice, because at some point he blinks and the infirmary is nearly empty, just him and an attending nurse.

He should probably be involved in whatever discussion is going on without him, but he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to even get up, let alone walk to a meeting and stay awake for the entirety of it.

Instead, he leans back and lets his eyes flutter shut, happy to sleep. He can deal with the nagging guilt later. He needs rest right now.

He’s not sure how long he’s asleep, only that the lights are low when he wakes again, no sun shining through the windows.

That doesn’t tell him anything—when they’d returned from the fight, it had still been in the early hours of the morning. Has he been asleep for an entire day, then, and it’s night again, or has it been maybe an hour, the sun not yet risen?

There’s a creak beside him, and Jimmy starts, turns to look.

“Sorry,” Lizzie whispers, in a chair at Jimmy’s bedside. “I was on my way out, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

It’s Lizzie. It’s his sister, and he almost died and never saw her again and somehow he’s been so lucky as to have a second chance.

He struggles to sit up, his body so stiff it feels as though he’s been sleeping for a thousand years.

“Don't hurt yourself—” Lizzie moves to help him, hands steadying Jimmy’s shoulders. Jimmy, however, doesn’t lie back down—instead, he wraps his arms around Lizzie, holding her as tightly as his unforgiving muscles will allow.

Lizzie doesn’t react for a moment, but when she does, she sits on the bed beside him, hefting him partly into her lap and enveloping him in her arms.

And there, in the hold of his sister, Jimmy finally cries.

He’s alive, and his sister is alive, and they’re here together.

He’s not sure how long he quietly cries into Lizzie’s shirt, but when he raises his head at a sound, cheek sticking to her briefly, the room is still empty, door clicking shut. It’s just him, crying, and Lizzie, rubbing his arm comfortingly in a way that only family knows how.

“Sorry,” he croaks, wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Lizzie hushes. “You just survived certain death. Scott said—” her voice breaks— “Scott said it was really close. That must have been traumatic.”

Jimmy nods. It was traumatic. And if what he’s been saying to Scott lately is true, then it’s okay to not be okay after such an ordeal. It’s okay to take time to get back to normal.

“And you know what?” Lizzie continues, squeezing his arm. “We may not admit it, but we all would have done the same. Scott showed us the messages he sent you. We all would have fallen for it.”

Jimmy doesn't want to think about that. He doesn’t want to consider how he’s caused many deaths and years of darkness.

He just grips Lizzie a little tighter, numb fingers curling in the fabric of her shirt.

“Sleep, please. You look exhausted.”

He needs to talk to Scott still. They need to figure out exactly what they are now, what that means for them in the future.

But not right now. Right now he can feel sleep pulling at him, allowing him to relax in the safe embrace of his sister.

Jimmy falls asleep, alive, and his family watches over him.

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