#grian: woe is me....... i am ALONE in a time loop....

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober Day 11 - (alt prompt) Time Loop

title: you can't save them all.

fandom: 3rd life smp, life series

~

You can’t save them all.

It’s only his head telling him that, though, so Grian tells it to shove it.

All of them are here, and they don’t know how. That can’t be any good, can it?

They have three lives. That much is clear. Whenever they die, they go down a color. When they get to the final color—to Red—the bloodlust hits.

That . . . scares Grian, to be honest. He doesn’t know why it’s like that, and that’s what scares him.

He has admin.

It had been a shock, checking his communicator and seeing that his name was marked with the ‘A’. It doesn’t mean he knows anything. Not anything more than anyone else knows.

But he feels responsible, somehow. He’s the admin. It’s his job to make sure the server is safe, and he intends to do that, even if he doesn’t exactly know what’s going on.

Scar died first, then died again, and all Grian knows is that he can’t let him die a third time. There’s only three lives, he’s certain of that, but he has no clue what happens if any of them lose their third life, so he won’t let that happen.

They aren’t dying here. He’s going to save them.

You can’t save them all.

But then Jimmy dies.

Jimmy dies.

Jimmy dies, and Grian doesn’t save him.

You can’t save them all.

Scar finds him late the next night (it isn’t just Jimmy who’s died, Cleo died too, Skizz died too, they died and it was different), curled up in the demolished desert that had once been their lighthearted home.

“Hey, G,” Scar says softly, and Grian doesn’t look up.

He blew this up. He cards his hand through the sand, still warm from the baking sun, picks up a handful and lets it spill between his fingers.

Scar lays a hand on his shoulder, heavy and grounding.

“I didn’t save them,” Grian says, swallowing back the emotions (fear, anger, unquantifiable hatred for this situation), leaving his voice dry, not-quite solid. “I didn’t save them, Scar.”

“You saved me,” Scar offers, and it isn’t enough.

“I’m the admin. I’m—I’m supposed to save them.”

“I’m sure they’re fine,” Scar says.

Grian doesn’t call out the doubt in his voice.

He hasn’t expressed his feelings on this whole thing to anyone. Anyone but Scar, because Scar has the nasty talent of being able to wheedle anything out of anyone. As far as Grian’s aware, nobody knows how scared he is. Nobody knows that he thinks they might not go on living after this.

(They know. He saw the way Scott grieved. Bdubs’s horror. Ren’s howl of fury. That doesn’t happen on a normal world.)

(None of them know if they’ll ever see each other again.)

“I’m scared,” Grian admits.

Scar’s hand doesn’t leave his shoulder.

He could shut it down.

He could.

But . . . what if someone needs to win?

What if they only survive if someone wins?

It makes sense to shut it all down. It makes sense to destroy the world and send everyone home with his admin abilities.

He just . . . he can’t shake the sensation that if he does that, it’ll make everything worse. That Jimmy and Skizz and Cleo really will be lost forever, all because Grian hadn’t let the game continue to a winner.

“It’s okay,” Scar says eventually, and before Grian knows what’s happening, Scar settles down beside him in the shifting sand, wrapping his arm around Grian.

Grian sinks into Scar’s warmth, his bare side pressed up against Grian’s undershirt, and Grian rests his head against Scar’s shoulder and sighs.

“I’m here,” Scar promises, his fingers tapping a steady rhythm against Grian’s shoulder. “As long as you’re not going anywhere, I’m not going anywhere. You and me together, right?”

-

Grian doesn’t necessarily mean to win that one. But Scar—

Scar betrays him.

Scar promises to be there, to not go anywhere, and he betrays him—

And Grian wins.

And the world ends.

And a new one begins.

-

“Grian, dude?”

“Hm?” Grian doesn’t look up from where he’s darning the elbow of his sweater, tongue between his teeth.

“You’re admin, right?”

“Yep.”

“So . . . why don’t you send us home?”

See, Grian’s pretty sure the others don’t remember the world before this one. None of them had said anything when they spawned in a second world, with different-but-the-same rules, with new Players. None of them had taken up their previous alliances; enemies had even joined enemies and Grian had stared and wondered if they just weren’t talking about it, or if they genuinely had no memory of the first time.

He’d been asked Mumbo’s question, the first time. After Scar first died, and they realized they didn’t know what would happen after (not that anyone said that, specifically, though).

But Mumbo wasn’t here last time.

“It’s a game we don’t understand at all,” Grian explains. “We don’t know who’s running this, what kind of power they have. What if quitting isn’t the right play?”

He pulls his knitting needle through the elbow again, frowns when it snags. He hasn’t fixed up his clothes in a while—his sweater had been discarded fairly early on the first time, abandoned for the desert’s heavy heat, and his trousers had somehow escaped serious damage most of the game. Here, though, he tore a hole in the arm while swinging onto Scar’s horse (a loose thread had caught on the saddle) in the first couple days of this world, and now he’s faced with the consequences of his own actions.

“We don’t know anything. What if they track us back home?”

“Right, makes sense, I suppose. But—but if you got us out, could you put us in a, like, safe world? Just for long enough that we can contact someone who can help us.”

It’s too risky.

Grian has to save them.

You can’t save them all.

He failed the first time. He failed, and he paid, and he had to punch Scar’s battered body until his ribcage caved and blood spilled from his mouth as the man smiled, and Grian had to face that failure and know that it was a cruel twist of whatever put them here.

He had failed.

He didn’t think he’d be given a second chance, but he’s determined to do it right this time.

“I just can’t be sure,” says Grian. “I’m working to figure it out, really. But nobody can die, okay?”

“Hate to break it to you, mate, but you’ve already died.”

Grian sets down his sweater, looking up at Mumbo for the first time.

Mumbo’s abandoned his suit coat, the sleeves of his button-up rolled up, but his collar is buttoned and his tie tight. His slacks are held up by suspenders and his knees are reinforced by some leather pads buckled on, matching the thin gloves buttoned onto his hands. His hair is a little bit stringy, too long without a shower, but brushed, his mustache neat, though a little out of place against the stubble beginning to grow. Somebody has got to get the Southlands a semi-functional bathing set-up. And teach Mumbo how to shave without a safety razor.

His cheek has a smear of redstone across it—not out of place for Mumbo, but in this world, in these times—

Grian forces a smile, and Mumbo returns it, perhaps a little confused.

“A final death,” he says. “Nobody can die on Red, all right? I’m afraid of permadeath. Until then, I’ll keep working through options.”

“And if someone dies on Red. . . .”

“I’ll work through . . . other options.”

-

After all his trouble, it’s Grian who kills Jimmy.

He’s frantic in his defenses afterward, because Jimmy did attack him and definitely deserved it—even if the flash of fear in Jimmy’s eyes had almost made him reconsider—but that means that they’re right back where they were the first time and Grian can’t risk losing even one person.

If he tried to end the game now, send everyone home, would they ever get Jimmy back?

The first time, they all came back. They played the game through and everyone died but they all came back for round two, so if. . . .

Grian plunges his blood-soaked sword into Mumbo’s chest and hopes he knows what he’s doing.

-

“Nice ranch you’ve got here!”

“Best one in town,” Scott says, smirking a little. “Are you and Scar interested in coming by, still? I’ve already had several satisfied clients. They left good reviews and everything.”

“Eh, our relationship’s fine,” Grian waves him off. He hikes his backpack up a little further on his shoulders, fingering the strap. “I’ve actually got him doing some work around the house, for once. We’re all good.”

Scott raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure BigB would beg to differ.”

Grian chokes. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t you have some sort of, like, doctor-patient confidentiality policy?”

“I’m not board-approved, by any legal means,” laughs Scott. “Not like we can contact anyone outside, you know. No board to approve me.”

Grian looks away. If he really got his hands in the code, he probably could set up some sort of outside contact. He hadn’t thought it possible at first, but the longer he stares at the form of the world, the more he thinks he could manage something like that with only a bit more trouble than normal.

He doesn’t even try. The fact that it would take more trouble means that there is something that doesn’t want him to do it, and he isn’t trying to bring any sort of wrath down upon them. He turns a blind eye to that, and to any other roadblocks he finds to be less block-y than he originally thought.

There’s a game he’s supposed to play, he’s sure of it. They have to make it to the end with all of them alive. It seems impossible, but it can’t be. It’s just another roadblock that will soon be proved to be no more than a casual obstruction.

He’s going to keep them all alive. Starting with his soulmate, probably.

“I should get back,” he says finally. “Scar’s probably about to burn something down.”

He turns, starts the walk home, under the giant ‘R’ marking the entrance to the Relationship Ranch.

“You can’t keep running away, Grian,” Scott calls after him, and Grian freezes.

His heart goes still in his chest.

Scott doesn’t know anything. He can’t. None of them know. None of them are aware that this is the third time they’ve been through this. He’s happy to let them live under the delusion that this is the first and only game, that he’ll get it all sorted and they have nothing to worry about.

He hasn’t felt so alone in a while.

How could he not, surrounded by the very people he was trying to save, unable to explain a thing to them? Unable to tell them how helpless he feels, how he can’t seem to figure it out?

It’s easier to turn away from them. It’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t really care. Or that he cares about someone else.

He has to save them, and no one else knows it.

Scott doesn’t know it.

Grian doesn’t look back at him. He swallows, then says, voice falsely cheery, “You’re right. As hard as I try, Scar always manages to find me. Might as well find him first.”

A beat passes.

“Sure,” Scott says, voice utterly unreadable, before brightening. “Have fun! Let me know if you two need a session!”

Grian leaves, and he returns to his base, and he resolves to make it work this time.

You can’t save them all.

And he doesn’t.

Jimmy dies again, and everyone else follows.

-

In Grian’s defense, Jimmy’s been making annoying jokes all day, so it’s well-deserved when he laughs at Jimmy tripping.

His stomach swoops in the worst possible way, though, when Jimmy’s arms reach back up as he tips backward off the bridge, confusion and fear flooding his face as he falls off Bread Bridge.

Grian moves to help, but he’s too far away—Jimmy died first last time, just like the other times, it’s an established pattern in the loop and if Jimmy falls now he may lose enough time to go down to Red and that’ll put him firmly in the realm of first death which would mean Grian’s failed again—

But Joel grabs Jimmy by the arm of his jean jacket, heaving him back up onto the bridge, and Grian’s left to just take Jimmy by the collar and pull him toward their base, not sure what else to do with all this sudden adrenaline.

“Timmy, you can’t just fall like that—what on earth were you thinking, Martyn put all that blue glass down there—lucky we were there—”

“I’m just—” Jimmy pushes Grian off of him as they cross into the loaf of bread that Grian had built for his few possessions, one hand on the doorknob. “I’m fine. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”

Well, obviously not, seeing as Jimmy managed to fill Grian with more dread than he’s felt all game in that one moment, and if he’d been thinking he wouldn’t have done anything like that.

“Leave off it,” Joel tells Grian, one hand resting on Jimmy’s shoulder. “You good?” he asks Jimmy, who shrugs.

“Got a bit dizzy.”

Joel’s eyes narrow, his face takes on some sort of protectiveness that Grian doesn’t see often, hasn’t seen since last game, with Etho and that stupid ship.

Did Grian miss something?

“Dizzy, sure. Did you sleep last night?”

Jimmy shrugs again, but he sways just slightly, and his eyes slide guiltily to the side.

“Right,” Joel declares. “If you didn’t sleep—”

“I slept!” protests Jimmy. “I did, promise! I’m just—”

“You didn’t sleep?” Grian butts in, feeling a little left out. “Tim, come on.”

Joel sends him some sort of—some odd look, almost . . . almost angry, or something. “Grian—”

“We’ve got to stay well-rested, and all that,” he continues, ignoring Joel. He’s in charge of the Bad Boys, after all. “You’re bringing down the team, Tim. I wouldn’t do that to you guys, would I?”

It’s supposed to be a joke, kind of, but nobody laughs. Nobody rolls their eyes, groans, or mocks Grian.

Jimmy glances at Joel. He looks more than exhausted, for that brief second—like the weight of the world is on his shoulders, not like he’d just missed a night of sleep.

Joel grimaces back at him, and squeezes his shoulder, and Jimmy just sighs.

“I’m gonna go . . . rest, I guess,” Jimmy mutters, turning back toward the door. “Take a nap. Sorry.”

He leaves, the door clanging shut behind him, and Joel watches him go before huffing loudly.

“Really?” Joel asks, turning on Grian with—with aggression, aggression that feels wildly out of place for some lighthearted teasing. His eyes have gone hard, totally empty of the protectiveness they’d held for Jimmy. “You can go on and on about resting and supporting the team and all that, but we all know you’re full of it.”

What?

Now he really feels like he’s missing something.

“Dude, I just told him to rest,” Grian says, dumbfounded.

“Rest won’t help, and you know that. It’s your fault he almost fell, anyway—good I was there—”

“My fault? I—he’s just tired, he said he was tired!”

It must be the wrong thing to say, because Joel blows up.

“Yeah, Jimmy’s tired!” spits Joel, face contorted with anger. “He’s tired, I’m tired, we’re all blummin’ tired, Grian! We don’t want to be here!”

Grian gapes at him, utterly lost. He thought they were talking about Jimmy not sleeping, not—whatever this was?

“I’m sick of waiting here, like somehow it’ll all work out if all of us kill each other over and over—yeah, we’re tired! And it’s all your fault!”

“I—how is it my fault?” Grian tries to reason, still not quite sure what Joel’s on about. “I’m just trying to make sure—”

“Don’t you feed me that bloody—” Joel glowers at him—if Grian didn’t know any better, he’d say that Joel hated him—and shifts forward slightly, as if he’s about to strike him, but after a moment’s indecision he turns on his heel and strides back out the door, slamming it shut behind him with such force that the whole structure shakes.

Grian hears his heavy footsteps get further away, then the slamming of another door, before he’s left in silence.

“. . . What?” Grian says, a full minute after Joel’s stormed out, staring at where he had been.

What was that about?

It sounded like—well, it couldn’t be, but it sounded like Joel was referring to . . . everything. The loop, so to speak. Which is impossible, because, well. . . .

Nobody else is aware of the loop. Grian’s certain at this point that he’s the only one aware, because nobody else has ever brought it up or referenced one of the past games, and he’s been met with stares when he suggests old alliances reform (like the way Etho had raised an eyebrow this game when Grian suggested he team with Joel, or the way Martyn had dismissed Ren with a totally blank face in the second game, or Jimmy and Scott’s light rivalry last time with no recognition for their once-bond), and everyone seems to be focused on winning more than any real problem-solving.

So there’s no way that Joel was referencing the loop. He doesn’t know about it. None of them know that this is the fourth time that Grian’s gone through this, and no matter how tired they are, he’s got to be more so.

Right?

Right. Of course he’s right.

And he’ll figure it out. He really will! He can’t be too far off, really. He hasn’t even looked at the code of this world, yet, but he already knows this song and dance. He’s so certain that if he can get everyone to survive, they’ll have passed whatever cosmic test they’ve been set to.

He just needs to find a way to stop people from dying, and he’ll be set. Which, of course, starts with Jimmy, because Jimmy’s died first in the past three worlds and he’ll die first here, too.

Unless Grian can prevent it.

And Grian plans on preventing it.

You can’t save them all, whispers that voice in the back of his mind, and it sounds almost like Joel.

And when Jimmy dies first, he doesn’t.

-

It’s the fifth time through, and Jimmy doesn’t die first.

It—

That can’t be possible.

In fact, it’s Lizzie who dies first (and he’d been so relieved to see her in this game, knowing that he lost her before), followed by Mumbo (Grian had actually cried to see him on the playerlist, another that had been gone, lost to who knows what, suddenly returned without question or complaint), and then Jimmy.

Grian thinks he might tear his hair out, because Jimmy—Jimmy was the connecting thread, Jimmy dying first was one of the few patterns that he’d discovered, and losing this pattern is dashing all of his hypotheses to nothing.

Jimmy’s dead, but not first, and Grian isn’t going to save them this time around.

-

Grian peers over the edge of their makeshift fort in the sky, down toward the ground—though in the darkness, he can’t see anything more than vague shapes.

Cleo sighs from somewhere near. Grian likes having allies—Cleo’s here, slumped against the wall as she yawns and waits, and Etho’s beside her, sorting through his potions and arrows to make sure he’s ready for the upcoming battle.

They should both be sleeping, really. Grian can take first watch and switch off after a few hours, and then they’ll all be better-rested in the morning.

He can see, though, off past Etho, that lights still burn up on the hill at Gem’s place. . . .

The fight might come before sunrise.

“Have you tried just . . . banning one of us from the server?” Cleo asks sleepily, pulling their cloak up a bit higher on their shoulders.

Etho clicks his tongue. “C’mon, Cleo. He’s tried everything, otherwise we wouldn’t still be here.”

“What?” Grian asks, not realizing, at first, that Cleo was addressing him.

Cleo waves vaguely. “You know. Banning one of us. Get us out of this hell.”

Grian swallows, looks away.

Has he tried banning someone?

He doesn’t think so. For a lot of things, he’s checked the code to see if it would be possible theoretically instead of just going for it, but he doesn’t remember looking at the ban command at all.

“Well, I can’t do it right now,” he reasons. “Some of us are already dead, you know? I don’t want to leave them cut off.”

“I’d prefer it to this, I think,” Cleo mutters, and Etho nudges her with his foot.

“It’s not too bad,” Etho says fairly. “But I do want to get out, Grian. Need any help on that front?”

Grian shrugs. “I’ve looked at everything,” he says (lies, he lies, he never even opened the code on this world, he barely touched it on the last one). “I feel like I’ve hit a bit of a dead end, you know?”

“Maybe a fresh eye would help.”

“Maybe later.”

There won’t be a later. Etho won’t remember this conversation.

Grian makes the mistake of looking up to meet Etho’s eyes, then can’t tear his gaze away as they lock, stuck in place.

Etho frowns.

“Okay,” he says, tone far too light. “Soon, then.”

Grian finally looks away, toward Cleo, who rolls their eyes.

“I’m just tired of seeing your face,” she gripes. “Next time, I’m gonna kill you. I don’t think I’ve gotten the chance to, yet.”

“We’re on Red,” Grian waves off. “There won’t be a next time.”

“I mean, next-next time,” Cleo says casually. “Whatever the next gimmick will be. Then I’ll kill you.”

Grian’s stomach goes cold.

What?

No.

No, that can’t—that isn’t—

“What—Cleo, what are you talking about?” Grian asks, forcing his voice not to tremble.

Cleo and Etho exchange a look (and Grian is reminded of last time, of Joel and Jimmy grimacing at each other).

“Do you—Grian, do you not remember?” Cleo asks.

“No, of course he remembers.”

“Right, but what if he doesn’t? It makes sense, doesn’t it? Of course he’s not figured it out yet if he can’t remember.”

“What don’t I remember?” demands Grian.

There’s no way they’re talking about this being the fifth time, there’s no way. He’s the only one who remembers it, he’s the only one tracking the patterns, it just isn’t possible.

There’s no way.

There’s really no way.

Cleo opens their mouth, but before they can say anything, an arrow whizzes over their head. She ducks, already grabbing her bow, and Etho leaps up, peers over the edge.

“I didn’t think they could reach,” Grian says, dropping the discussion of the moment prior for the matter at hand. “Can you see them? Who is it?”

Cleo shoots him one last look that Grian doesn’t attempt to understand.

They don’t remember. If they remember, it means that everyone remembers, and everyone has remembered this whole time. That means they’ve been playing along, waiting for him to get them out, looping with him.

No.

No, no no no no no.

He won’t—he can’t believe that. He has to save them, he has to get them out of here, and that can’t happen if they know how he keeps failing. He can’t fail them all!

They don’t remember. He decides that, he ignores every little moment that hasn’t added up—Mumbo’s confusion, Scott’s ominous words, Joel’s anger, and this—and he fights, because next time he’ll save them, next time he’ll win this stupid game, and none of them will ever know how long it was.

He’ll save them.

You can’t save them all.

-

Respawn?

Yes.

Are you sure?

Yes.

Will you fail?

Yes.

You can’t save them all.