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sparxwrites · 3 months ago

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Grian's Annual Review

vaguely part of the boatem pool au. also on [ao3]

“Oh thank goodness,” said Grian, as he watched Cub fly off. The weak, post-storm sunshine glinted off their new boss’ golden badge as he went. It was an inspiring, perhaps even heroic, vision – if one considered rampant corruption and abuse of force inspiring and heroic. Grian was on the fence about that; Skizz and Scar, on the other hand, had quite clearly jumped the fence with abandon and were now frolicking in the lush green fields of not giving a fuck and free dynamite. Bless them. “It was just Cub. Phew. Oh gosh. The letters were all just Cub. Thank goodness.”

“Hey! Cub is very scary, thank you very much.” Scar, indignant on behalf of his longtime partner in crime, crossed his arms over his barely-buttoned and too-tight shirt. “Show some respect for our new manager, mister!”

“Not as bad as the alternative,” said Grian, vehemently, with a grim relief. “Thought I was done for. Phew!”

“What was the alternative, G-Man?” asked Skizz. “Can’t think of anything that’d have your robust underpants in such a twist.”

“Thought I was going to have to do an annual review.”

“Oooh, ouch,” said Skizz, with the grim compassion of a man who’d endured many an annual review of his own before. “That’s rough, buddy. Glad you managed to dodge out of that one.”

“Ah, yes,” said Scar, with the air of a man who’d never been employed in his life. “I hate it when those dastardly bosses try and… and… review your annuals!”

“Those are a type of flower, Scar.”

“What, bosses?”

“No, annuals, they’re– look. That’s not important. What is important is that I don’t have to do an annual review, because it was just Cub sending those letters, and not my boss, and so I am going to go celebrate about it. Probably by drinking some of Cub’s fancy craft beer he’s got squirrelled away in his basement somewhere. He’s got enough of it he probably won’t miss any. Who’s with me?”

“Ah, now, see, as the law enforcement of this server, I do have to say that that doesn’t sound very legal to me, Sir Grian. …As your friend, though, that sounds great fun, let’s go.” Skizz chuckled gleefully, already removing his police cap and starting on the buttons of his shirt. Crimes were, apparently, perfectly legal on the server so long as no one involved was wearing a police costume.

“Hey, hey, no, wait, I want to know about these– these bosses of yours who are going to annually review you! I’ve never had an annual review.” Scar sounded, for some ungodly reason, almost hurt.

“Trust me, Sir Scar, you do not want one.” Skizz, shirt already undone, was starting on the button of his pants.

“No, but, well– what if I do, though? Who is it? Come on, G, you can tell me. Is it Xisuma? Is it Rendog? Oh wait, no, shoot, he’s not king any more, is it, uhhh– ooh, is it Cleo? Please tell me it’s Cleo.”

“Okay, well actually, Cleo could annually review me any time she liked, if you get my meaning, Sir Scar. Ooh– or Gem–”

“Skizz, can you please keep your pants on,” said Grian, averting his eyes. “In both senses of the word, thank you very much.”

“Nothing wrong with a man’s natural reactions, Grian, as I’ve said many times before,” said Scar, blithely. “You shouldn’t shame a man for his–”

“I’m not bloody shaming anyone for them, Scar, I’d just prefer it if you could have them in a different chunk to the one I’m in, that’s all!”

“Well that’s not what you said after we did all those body shots at–”

“Gentlemen!” announced Skizz. “I have good news. My shorts are re-buttoned. I am once again safe to look at.”

“Debatable,” muttered Grian, though he did stop shielding his eyes.

Skizz’s pronouncement was extremely debatable, as it turned out. The shorts – being very short, extremely skintight, and actually, now that Grian was looking at them properly, possibly made of latex – didn’t leave much to the imagination. It was extremely apparent that Skizz was still thinking about Gem doing his annual review.

Scar whacked Grian on the arm, though not very hard. “Hey! Pay attention to me. I asked you a question. About bosses. Who’s bossing you, and why are they reviewing your– annualling– reviewing anals–”

Grian breathed in through his nose very slowly, out through his mouth very slowly, and tried to ignore the background wheezing of Skizz’s incredulous laugh.

“So– it’s kind of backstory stuff, to be honest,” he said, when he was sure he could talk without howling or weeping or, worse, maybe laughing himself. He chewed on his lip, almost contemplatively. “You know where I was before Hermitcraft, right?”

“Yeeees,” said Scar, with the kind of supremely confident tone he only ever got when he was extremely wrong. “With the Viewers, right?”

“Uhh. Sure, you know what. Close enough. Yeah, The Watchers.”

“I thought they were called the Listeners?” interrupted Skizz, who had stopped laughing in favour of being nosy.

“Nope, that’s, uh, that’s something different. Kind of. It’s complicated. How’d you know about them, anyways?”

“Oh, well, you know. I’ve been known to talk to Jimmy, on occasion. You know. One sheriff to another, that sort of thing.”

“Okay, well, one, his name is Timmy, so jot that down. Two, that’s a terrible idea, and you shouldn’t do that.”

“What, talk to him?”

“I meant feed his delusions that he’s a sheriff, but yeah, also that probably. He’s like a weird, sad little limpet. If you’re nice to him he just sort of– latches on and never lets go. It’s terrible.”

“Now, now, Grian, that’s unfair,” said Scar, wagging a finger. “Timmy is a very nice young man, who just needs a little bit of a boost in the self-esteem department–”

“Yeah,” said Grian, darkly, “that’s how he gets you.”

“I still think he just needs to, you know! Realise he’s enough. Just as he is. Little bit of a pep talk, a good haircut, a dance number, some abs… it would do him the world of good. But anyway. Enough about Timothy. You were with the Viewers–”

“The Watchers, Scar, yes.”

“–and then they killed all your friends, which was very sad–”

“Yeah– no, hang on, wait, what?”

“–and then you came to Hermitcraft! To escape them!”

“No. Scar. Wait. Back up. What do you mean, killed all my friends?”

“Yeah! You know, like Martyn and Jimmy and Pearl and uh. Tortoise?”

“Who told you this?!”

“Chat! They were telling me about it the other day. They know all sorts of lore, apparently it’s all written down in some mysterious library they have access to in their realm, called Archive of Our–”

“No! Nope. Okay, first off, do not say that name. I do not want to invoke that sort of thing on the server, thank you very much. It’s bad enough with Bdubs running around trying to summon Dark You-Know-Who, rhymes with shitter, every other– anyway. Two, Scar, you know better than to trust Chat! Why would you believe Chat? They’re dirty little liars who lie.”

Scar pouted. “My Chat would never lie to me,” he said. “They’re nice! They love me! …They listen to me talk about Disney, and Star Wars–”

“Scar,” said Grian, with infinite and terrible patience, “think. Please, think for a moment. You have met Martyn. You have met Jimmy. Pearl is living on this very server as we speak.”

“Well– alright– okay– well!” sputtered Scar. “Well, what about the tortoise, then? Huh? What about that?”

“I’ve never owned a tortoise in my life, Scar.”

“Oh.” Scar visibly wilted.

“Don’t you worry, Sir Scar.” Skizz, rallying valiantly, rubbed Scar’s shoulder in an encouraging and mildly homoerotic sort of fashion. “Happens to the best of us, gettin’ hoodwinked by criminals. Why, it’s even happened to me before! Me! Skizz, the best of the best, the greatest Poe Poe ever to live. Don’t you worry though. We’ll be on the look-out for any more skullduggery and criminal intent from that Chat of yours. And if we find it, well, we’ll do what us officers of the law do best, and we will enforce that law and arrest every last one of those liars and cheats!”

“…You’re going to arrest Chat,” said Grian, flatly.

“I sure will! If they’re goin’ to go around tellin’ lies to officers of the law, I’ll have them in handcuffs– pow! Right before they can speak.”

“Chat.”

“The very same.”

“You’re going to put Chat in handcuffs?”

“I surely will, if they’re steppin’ out of line.”

“The metaphysical entity, Chat. The weird incorporeal disembodied phenomenon. Chat. The thing that has no body and is legion? The chorus of a hundred thousand voices and the font of profane and dubious knowledge. That’s what you’re going to arrest?”

“Hey! Hey. Look. We’ll make it work, somehow. Won’t we, Sir Scar?”

Scar, still looking deeply morose, heaved a sigh and nodded unenthusiastically.

“Aww, Scar, buddy, man, don’t be like that. No shame in it! Happens to us all.”

“No, no, it’s not that.” Scar heaved another deep sigh. “It’s just. I wanted to see photos of the tortoise, that’s all.”

“Photos of the– Scar, there is no tortoise! Come on. Scar. Focus. I’m trying to tell you about my tragic backstory. Please.”

“It’s true. Annual reviews are pretty tragic. I gotta agree.” Skizz nodded sagely.

“Tragic because there’s no tortoises–”

“Anyway.” Grian clapped hand hands together, cutting off any further reptile-related whining. “Backstory. Pre-Hermitcraft, I was on this server called Evo – tortoise-free, thank you very much, and also pretty much everyone who was on it is still alive, thank you very much–”

“Pretty much everyone?” asked Skizz, enough alarm creeping into his voice that his police accent dropped for a moment.

“Almost no one perma-died, thank you, now, if you’ll let me finish– server, Evo, these guys called the Watchers showed up, all very cloak-and-dagger, set us all these puzzles and riddles and traps, blew a bunch of my stuff up, made these crazy bedrock portals… It was kind of weird, but it was fun at the same time, you know? Anyway, bottom line, when we got into the End finally, they approached me and asked if I’d like to intern with them. And, to be honest, I didn’t have a lot going on, so I said, sure. I’ll intern with you.”

“They blew up all your stuff, and you went to intern for them?” asked Scar, bewildered. “Why on earth would you do that!”

“Game recognises game, Scar,” said Grian, solemnly.

“Ah. I see,” said Scar, who did not see at all.

“Wait,” said Skizz, who still had yet to recover his accent or reduce the amount of alarm in his voice. “Now wait just one second, I’m still a little bit caught up on the almost no one died thing–”

“Now honestly–” Grian raised his voice over Skizz’s. “–honestly, it wasn’t what I’d expected. I thought I’d be out there, blowing stuff up and messing with people, you know? And instead it was like… data entry in the Deep End, basically. They still had everything on paper. Can you believe that? Paper records. And just little ol’ me, set to digitising all of them, for six months straight. Terrible. If I never have to see another list of names that all start with X, it’ll be too soon.”

“Why’d they all start with X?” asked Scar, tortoises forgotten in his curiosity.

Grian shrugged. “Aesthetics, I guess.”

“Ahh, yes. Aesthetics.” Scar nodded sagely. “Very important in a cult. That’s where Ren and Doc went wrong, you know, in Season Eight? Didn’t have a strong enough aesthetic. Now, if I had been running that cult–”

“Sir Scar, are you not hearing the bit about how some people perma-died–”

“Now, now, Skizz, accidents happen.” Scar flapped a magnanimous hand at Skizz. “The important thing is, Grian’s very sorry and he won’t do it again. Aren’t you, Grian?”

“Scar,” said Grian, very carefully. “How many of my death games have you’ve taken part in, at this point?”

“Well, now, I don’t see how that’s relevant! See, Skizz, he’s very sorry and he won’t do it again. Hurry up with the backstory, keep talking, chop chop. I want to get to the bit with the tortoises.”

“Look, Scar, there are no tor– okay. Okay, okay.” Grian pressed his hands to his face, and then briefly together, as though in prayer. “So, anyway. Internship, data entry, Deep End, super boring, but paid better than running some server no one had ever heard of. And when the internship was up, they offered me a job, and I thought, what the hell, you know? Might as well. I’ve got nothing else going on.”

“I’m sensing a big ol’ but here, Grian. Skizz, what about you? You sensing a big ol’ but?”

“I am indeed, Sir Scar,” said Skizz, with audible reluctance, but the accent was back at least. It was, after all, hard to resist such low-hanging fruit as a big ol’ but. “I’m not just sensin’ it, either, I’m picturin’ it, I’m seein’ it, I’m feelin’ it–”

“Mmm, feeling the but.” Scar closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. “Soft. Round, plush–”

“Can you two stop that, please,” said Grian. “You’re making me very uncomfortable.”

“No need to be ashamed of a big round butt,” said Skizz, cheerfully.

“No, nothing to be ashamed of at all!” Scar’s pointed glance at a certain part of Grian’s anatomy was brought to an abrupt halt by a brief flash of a sword, into and then out of Grian’s hand. “Ah. Ahem. Anyway! Anyway. Continue.”

“Thank you. So the but is, I accepted the job, and that’s right when Mumbo messaged me and was like, hey, pal, long time no see, what’s up with you, nothing much going on here, just wondering if you’d like to join this little thing called Hermitcraft, no pressure, just thought I’d ask, anyway, toodle pip and cheerio, I’m off to wax my moustache now, hope you’re well, much love and neck kisses, Mumbo Jumbo.”

“Great Mumbo impression,” said Scar, applauding enthusiastically. “Excellent work. Other than the neck kisses. That’s Joel’s thing.”

“And they’re only for Etho,” added Skizz.

“And they’re only for Etho. Excellent point, Skizz.”

“Mumbo likes neck kisses too,” said Grian, “more than Joel, actually,” and then, before either of them could ask any follow-up questions about that, “so you can see my dilemma, right?”

“Big didlinger,” said Scar, solemnly.

“Almost as big as the but,” added Skizz.

“Indeed, Skizz, indeed. …Um. Does anyone wants to clarify what a de-lemon is–?”

“A problem, Scar, it’s a problem.” Grian pinched the bridge of his nose, pressed his face into his hands again. Like he had a headache forming behind his eyes. “I’d just said I was going to take this stupid, boring job with the Watchers, I’d signed the contract, standard business we own your soul for a hundred years blah blah blah clause–”

“Hey, now, wait a second,” interrupted Skizz, “that’s not a standard–”

“–and now Mumbo’s over here inviting me to join this super cool and exclusive server that I really want to join. Proper nightmare.”

“So what did you do?” asked Scar, and to anyone who knew him only in passing, it would have looked like he was hanging onto the story with breathless anticipation. Grian, who knew him entirely too well, suspected he still hadn’t quite given up on the whole tortoise thing. “Did you escape? Did you dramatically quit? Did you smuggle yourself out by dressing as a washer-woman and putting on a fake accent, like ooo, deary me, excuse me, just a little old lady coming through–”

Grian stared at Scar like he’d grown a third head, and briefly considered addressing literally any of that, before deciding he valued his remaining braincell far too much. “Uh, no. I thought for a bit, and then I went to my boss, and I said, hey, you know how you’ve been talking about us needing to diversify our portfolio of worlds that we’re Watching, and you know how said I might be ready for more responsibility because I’ve been doing really well recently at not blowing anything up–”

“You were blowing their stuff up, and they didn’t fire you?” asked Skizz. He sounded lost.

“To be honest, I don’t think anyone had ever set off TNT in their offices before,” said Grian, with a shrug. “So I don’t think they really knew what to do. Didn’t have a policy for it. Anyway. Basically, I hinted that I might have access to a whitelisted and firewalled server, very exclusive, very high end, and that it would look really good for their upcoming performance review if we had someone on that world, Watching, you know.”

“And also you wouldn’t be around to blow any more of their stuff up?”

Grian paused. “...Yeah, I might have, uh. Implied that that would also be a benefit.”

Scar raised a hand, politely. “So you told your bosses you were going to come here and watch us, which clearly worked out great, because you’re here! And now maybe its time for your anal review–”

“Scar.”

“–and I don’t really see what the problem is!”

“You have to be doing that on purpose. You’ve got to be. There’s no way. I swear, I swear, there’s no way–”

“The problem, Sir Scar,” said Skizz, patiently, over the top of Grian’s pained noises, “is that he hasn’t been doing any watchin’, now, has he?”

“Nooo, he’s been doing loads of watching! Isn’t that right, Grian? Why, only last week, you and I were there, with Ren and the others, watching Doc and Cleo do that thing, with those little rods. Wow, that was really something. A frightening something! For sure, a frightening something, my balls nearly climbed clean up into my–”

“Scar. Scar.” Grian held out his hands. “I am begging you to stop talking. I will pay you to stop talking.”

“Watchin’ Doc and Cleo do what thing? Hey!” Skizz threw his hands up in the air by way of objection. “Why wasn’t I invited?”

“Because you’re new,” said Grian, at the same time that Scar said, “Skizz, did you know that a man’s penis is capable of–”

“Scar.”

“Wait. They were having sex? And you guys were watching?!”

“Oh no,” said Scar, cheerfully. “It was way weirder than sex. And more upsetting! Doc’s poor penis may never be the same again.”

“Doc’s penis was just fine when I bumped into him and Ren in the shopping district yesterday,” said Grian, darkly, “so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“There are people having sex in the shopping district?”

Grian waved a dismissive hand. “Calm down, Skizz, it’s only when you’re not online.”

“What? Hey! Why! Why not when I’m online? What if I wanna see the sex too, huh?”

“You do not want to see what Doc and Cleo get up to, trust me,” said Grian, darkly.

“Do not worry, Skizz, my padawan.” Scar, voice suddenly deep and serious, set a heavy hand on Skizz’s shoulder. “Your time will come soon, when you are worthy.” And then, in his usual breezy tone, “Or whenever Xisuma gets round to sending you all the forms to fill out. There are so many forms. It’s the worst.”

Skizz, apparently lost for words, held out his hands, palms up, helpless. “You mean all I have to do is fill out some forms, and then I can– you know–”

“With Gem?” suggested Scar, helpfully.

Skizz went a very dark shade of pink, all the way up into his hairline.

“Oh Skizz. Buddy,” said Grian, pityingly. He put his hand on Skizz’s other shoulder. “You don’t have to fill out any forms to have sex with Gem. The forms are just there for the weird stuff.”

“Like Cleo doing frightening things to Doc’s penis in public!”

“Like Cleo doing frightening things to Doc’s penis in public,” agreed Grian, solemnly.

“Okay, okay!” said Skizz, louder than was strictly necessary, shaking both their hands off and taking a deep breath. It didn’t help with his flush. “Enough about that! Enough! I want to hear more about the, uh, this dilemma you’ve found yourself in, Grian, you should tell us– tell us more about that.”

Grian took pity on him, and graciously changed the topic. “Uh, not much else to say, really. I just should’ve been Watching this whole time, and I think they’re gonna be kind of mad with me when they check back in and realise I haven’t been.”

Scar raised a hand.

“No, Scar, the voyeurism isn’t really enough to count as Watching.”

Scar pouted.

“I’m supposed to be causing trouble, setting trials, making challenges, stuff like that. I think, anyway. Gonna be honest, I told them I’d read the handbook before they sent me over here, but I hadn’t, and I thought, oh, that’s okay, I’ll have loads of time to read it after I arrive, but then it was all pretty chaotic, and then I, uh. Misplaced the handbook.” Grian rubbed the back of his neck, head ducked self-consciously. “Way back in Season Six. Been missing for ages. So– that’s that, really.”

“Grian. G.” Skizz looked disbelieving. “Buddy! Tricks and traps? Challenges? You mean, like the whole Life servers thing we all keep doing? That thing you run?”

“Yeah, those aren’t really technically on this server, so I’m not sure they count–”

“Oh!” Scar waved a hand in the air again, like they were in a classroom, and promptly did not wait in the slightest to be called upon. “What about Demise? That was on this server. And you did that twice, too. Very thorough with the, uh, Viewing.”

“Watching, Scar. It’s Watching, please, can you–”

“And you and Gem burned all my stuff a few months ago because I wasn’t fast enough at jumping,” added Skizz, petulant and aggrieved.

“That was for a good cause, though. Your parkour was embarrassing.”

“Hey! I was attached to that stuff! But that’s not the point, the point is, G, that you’ve done plenty of tricks and traps and challenges. Sounds like you’ve been doing a great job of Watching, to me.”

“Both kinds of Watching,” added Scar, helpfully. “They might both be helpful!”

“They might be…” Skizz looked thoughtful. “Probably won’t hurt, anyway. Unless they’re all prudes. Then maybe don’t bring that one up.”

“I’m gonna be honest with you, guys,” said Grian, “I don’t actually know if they know what sex is. I don’t think they’ve got genitals.”

“Wel,l there’s no need to let that get in the way of some good, clean fun,” countered Scar, with a remarkable confidence that left both Grian and Skizz raising eyebrows at him. He did not elaborate.

“...Anyway,” said Skizz, when it became clear that the conversation – which had never really been on the rails to begin with – was now less of a conversation and more of a smoking trainwreck. “I think the point is, G, that it sounds to me like you’ve fulfilled all your contractual obligations to a T. Fulfilled them with flying colours, even. Like a professional. Why, if I was your boss, and I’d tasked you with causing mayhem and mischief, well, I’d be proud to call you my employee.”

“Yeah. Yeah. You’re right! I’m a great Watcher. I’m great at Watching, and I’m gonna have a great annual review when it eventually comes around, because I’ve done so many crimes against all of you for the whole time I’ve been on this server. Thanks for the pep talk, guys. I really needed that.”

“Always happy to talk a friend up, G. Any time. Happy to help.”

“Great. Now what do you say we go back to our original plan, plan numero uno, and go steal a bunch of Cub’s beer and get really drunk. Because I still think that was a great plan. …So long as Skizz keeps his trousers on this time.”

“Hey! Apparently you can be naked in public all you want on this server, according to you and Scar. Why do I have to keep my clothes on?”

“Only after you’ve signed the forms, Skizz. No forms, no public nudity. Trousers stay on for now, thank you very much.”

Scar heaved a sigh, and looked up towards the sky, police hat held against his chest.

“Scar? Everything good, buddy? You don’t wanna go get drunk?”

“Look, I’m just still a bit sad about the tortoise, okay? Give me a little bit to process my grief, you guys. I’m grieving.”

“For the last bloody time, Scar, there is no tort– wait. Wait. No. You don’t mean– do you mean Taurtis?”

“Hah! So there is one! There is a tortoise! I knew it!”

“Taurtis, Scar, Taurtis, he’s a– he’s a man, he’s a whole entire person, he’s not a–”

“You show me those pictures, mister, or, oooh, I’ll– I knew it. I knew it! My Chat would never lie to me.”

#hermitfic #hermitshipping #crackfic #the boatem pool #hermits crafting #this is very very very silly and i will not apologise

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