joel sees martyn standing frozen at the edge of the battlefield. a wither and a warden have rampaged the land and the threat is very much still alive, but it’s so much. too much to process all at once. the sounds and screams and blood and wither rose petals scattered across the rubble— it’s a cacophony, and martyn is trapped Watching.
but joel sees him. joel cries out.
“Martyn— stay away, Martyn! We can’t lose another person!”
martyn can’t listen. joel maneuvers himself between martyn and the wither until the death blow is dealt and the danger passes.
grian and etho recount the tale. they laugh. they laugh. all of them, while martyn stands numb with shock and thinks of a chest with three bones inside and nothing more. nothing ever again.
all that remains of his fellow reds are grayed out names on a tab list.
martyn closes his eyes and makes a silent promise.
+
joel is no fool. he loves lizzy but her decision to ostracize herself and make enemies spelled doom long ago. meanwhile, joel has done what he rarely ever succeeds in: making allies that last longer than a few days in this wretched place. scar turned on him the moment he fell from grace in last life. etho’s attachment was artificial from the beginning in double life. the bad boys were a true bond, though he knew better, even then, than to ever trust grian completely. and jimmy—
—he can’t think about jimmy.
now, he has the mounders. pearl, and bdubs, and… mumbo. right. someone should go back to his base, collect his things before the scavengers come sniffing about. make a memorial, maybe. sideways. he’d like that.
but that just leaves pearl and bdubs, and joel can feel their eyes prickling the back of his neck. waiting. watching. an opportunity is all it will take for them to turn; pearl made her preferences clear, and joel can’t grudge her for it. he was a late addition to the mounders, after all. but that still leaves him cast out and alone in a server full of paranoid lunatics armed to the teeth.
he couldn’t let martyn join the ranks of the dead. it was too much. one more roll of thunder may have split joel’s mind like overripe watermelon and left him dripping and scattered all over the server.
maybe— maybe there’s room, up in that doghouse, for an ally. maybe martyn will take him in and let him rest somewhere he won’t have to keep one eye open. martyn could surely use the extra protection as he adjusts to being the only red for the first time in his existence.