#i loved the part when they said it’s boatem time and boatem’d all over the place

[kayawolfhorse]

Everything You Thought You Knew | Read on Ao3

—☾—

The moon’s big.

Really big, in fact. Its edges encompass and stretch beyond what’s possible to carve out of the observatory’s dome roof without cutting into the wall that supports it, and while being crushed by a ginormous moon isn’t Grian’s choice of death, he might prefer being buried in rubble even less.

Well, that’s not quite true. If it were only the observatory to collapse, the rest of the world would go on as usual, and Grian would respawn and laugh over a silly death with the silly friends that he calls his family. Just about anything is preferable to death by the big moon, anyway.

By Grian’s unscientific calculations—and unscientific they are, if one wants scientific they ought to approach Cub—the moon is going to crash into and destroy the server in its entirety tomorrow night. That puts just about twenty four hours on a particularly gruesome clock hanging over their heads. Grian doesn’t wear a watch, but Impulse, he knows, does. Grian wonders if Impulse feels their impending doom with every tick against the pulse of his wrist.

There’s no reason for Grian to linger; the observatory’s usefulness outlived. The etches on the ceiling have no new information to give him, and it’s been a long time since he’s needed the telescope to make out details upon the moon’s surface.

Taking flight, Grian beats his wings and tries to feel some semblance of control over the floaty feeling that grabs hold of him in the current bout of gravity-weirdness. And the sound. Grian’s half-tempted to plug his ears against it. The terrible groan and crash of the earth tearing itself apart holds a sort of building crescendo to it; this is far from the worst it can get.

Even so close to the end of the world, even as blocks of the natural terrain are lifted upwards and dropped back into place beneath the ever-looming moon, Boatem is beautiful, and Grian can’t help but admire it as a wave of affection washes over him. An entire rainbow of build styles and personal touches create a vibrant conglomerate full of life and love, its chaos harmonious in its own way. He’s proud of what he’s made this season, what they’ve all made.

Down below, in front of her starter boat, Grian spots Pearl, swerving to avoid a levitating block while balancing a stack of shulker boxes in her arms, only her fluffy antennae visible above them. Swooping down, Grian lands in front of her and jumps up to relieve her of two of her boxes.

Peeking around a grey shulker, Pearl smiles when she catches sight of him. “Oh, hey, Grian!”

“Hi, Pearl,” Grian greets back, and is surprised to find his voice so tight. “Moon’s big.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.” Pearl’s banterous sarcasm doesn’t often fail to lift Grian’s mood, an opportunity to trade a quip of his own and laugh together as their conversation grows more ridiculous, but it does now, and Pearl notices, her smile tipping downwards as she places the boxes at her feet.

Pearl isn’t one to prompt, not like how Scar and Mumbo tend to when someone’s upset. She stands and she waits, and it doesn’t take long for Grian to say, “The world’s ending tomorrow.”

“I know.” She does, everyone does. The entire server can feel the tension breathing down their necks.

“I don’t know if there will be any survivors.” This isn’t like jumping into the Boatem hole or flying into a wall too hard or dueling with a friend. The server protects the hermits; softens the pain of dying and negates the permanence of it. If the server itself is what’s being killed? Grian doesn’t know.

“There will be. We’ll find a way.” Pearl’s looking at him, her expression determined, but the fear that squeezes Grian’s chest is reflected in her ocean-blue eyes.

“How can you promise that, Pearl?” Grian thinks he might sound like he’s pleading, but his voice is tinny within his own ears. “I’m sorry, this isn’t how it was meant to go, this is your first season and it’s ending like this—”

Grian’s head is eased into Pearl’s shoulder, and arms wrap around his middle. Her starry pajama shirt is soft against his face as he presses into it, soaking up as much of Pearl’s solid warmth as he can.

“I’m going to call a meeting,” Pearl says from above him.

“In the Boatem hole?” Grian asks. He’s not sure they have the time to set up another meeting room, nor if it matters at all.

Pearl pauses. “…No. In my base. My mega one. I just finished the interior. It’s very cozy, you know.”

The arms around Grian tense slightly as Pearl types into her communicator, messaging the other three members of their little group. Grian knows the message has been received when the communicator vibrates thrice against his back, assumedly from confirmations of assent.

Pearl hums and holds Grian a bit closer, and Grian squeezes back with all he has.

—☾—

The interior is cozy. Despite the white walls and high ceilings, Pearl’s added enough warmly colored carpets, potted plants, and wooden accents that the inside of her lighthouse palace feels wonderfully welcoming. Grian could definitely stand to live here forever.

Not that forever is a term he can longer afford in this doomed world.

Soft murmuring floats from the room beyond the entryway, and Pearl and Grian step into it to find Scar, Impulse, and Mumbo settled on the large, curved living room couch, talking quietly amongst themselves. Boatem is a lot of things, but quiet isn’t one of them. The moon doesn’t weigh on Grian’s mind alone.

“Hey, gang.” Grian raises a hand in a wave as three heads turn towards him and Pearl.

Impulse grins, but it’s strained around the edges. “Hey, guys! Great to see you.” Grian saw Impulse last about three hours ago. Still, he agrees—it is nice to see them. The knot of anxiety in his chest loosens ever so slightly.

Once Grian and Pearl have settled onto the couch with the rest of them, Pearl hugging her knees between Impulse and Mumbo and Grian leaning on Scar, Mumbo asks, “So, Pearl, what’s the meeting for?”

Grian expects her to propose an escape route, or go over the grim inevitabilities of the day to come, and from the look on everyone else’s faces, so do they, but instead Pearl says, “You’re all invited to my sleepover! Happening right here, right now.”

“A sleepover?” Impulse asks, incredulous. The purple of his bowtie makes the circles under his eyes appear darker. They’d all given up this Mooner business a couple days ago, when it was apparent that nothing would change for it, but the lack of sleep had yet to leave most of their faces.

Pearl shrugs. “The moon’s going to crash into the world tomorrow night. Might as well enjoy the last good one we have, right? Cousin or not, I’m not going to sit around and let it ruin a night that could be spent with friends.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Mumbo says. “If anything, it’s another night of rest.”

“Tactical sleeping, I like it!” Scar’s eyes aren’t marred by darkness. Grian silently harrumphs at this.

“Not just sleeping!” Pearl laughs. Quieter, she adds, “I was thinking we could grab snacks and watch a movie, or something.” A distraction, and something to drown out the awful noises outside.

“A movie sounds good,” Grian says. Anything to stop hearing the world falling apart beyond Pearl’s arched windows.

Impulse and Pearl move to set it up, Pearl crouching in front of the cabinet the movie collection is stored in, Impulse fiddling with the remote, while Mumbo and Scar raid the pantry and Grian stacks extra pillows and blankets on the couch.

After deciding on one, Pearl hands the movie disk to Impulse, who slides it into its player beneath the television and presses play. The screen remains dark and silent. Grian can see his reflection within its glassy surface. He looks terrible.

“Ah.” Impulse heaves a sigh that floats upon something heavier. “Of course it’d affect all of the redstone; all of my overworld farms have stopped working, too.”

This is news to Grian, whose most complicated farm this season had been a couple beehives in front of dispensers with shears, and he hasn’t checked that thing in ages.

Pearl rocks back on her heels. “Well, that’s a bust, then. Why the redstone?”

Impulse shrugs. “Beyond me. Guess there’s no precedent for all of this; anything goes.”

“At least it’s only the redstone—imagine if it would’ve done something like sponge up all the water or blow out all of the torches!”

In unison, all three of them glance up at the lanterns hanging above the couch.

“That would’ve been hilarious,” Grian admits, after the lanterns remain unsurprisingly unchanged. Impulse and Pearl nod their agreement.

They share the news with Mumbo and Scar, who return with an armload of candy courtesy of Impulse’s factory, potatoes Pearl had sliced and fries into chips, and whatever other junk food they’d managed to find.

Looking utterly perplexed, Mumbo says, “That explains why my door stopped working. Ran straight into it the other day and died!”

“Oh, redstone, you frackle thing,” Scar muses in sympathy with Impulse and Mumbo, nodding solemnly.

“Frackle—? Fickle. Fickle thing, Scar,” Grian corrects, shaking his head, but the corners of his mouth lift in a way they hadn’t all night.

“Of course, of course,” Scar agrees and smiles back, and a bit more of the burden nestled next to Grian’s heart dissipates.

“Failing a movie,” Impulse ventures, after a moment, “What could we do?”

After a brief trip back to their own bases to change into proper pajamas, a nest is made on the couch and the snacks are piled onto the table in front of it, soft light from the lanterns illuminating the tired faces of the Boatem crew from where they sit around the curve of the sofa. Even as the end of the world roars outside, conversation comes to them easily, and naturally turns to reminiscing on the season they’ve lived.

Mumbo tells stories of end crystals and terraforming, of potatoes and the time he briefly spent moonlighting as a vigilante that quickly fell apart with no real laws to uphold. Impulse recounts a narrative of magic pigs and candy shards, the road to perfecting the server’s best candy bar and the joy of sharing it with friends. Pearl speaks of llamas, clock heists, magic pumpkins, and the instances completely unrelated to her in which all of the animals were mysteriously turned upside down.

Scar weaves a tale of fantastic sales owed to his patented traveling Swaggon. “Everyone loves the Swaggon!” he proclaims, after sharing a deal that, if it were offered by anyone else, would have never been accepted.

“Everyone loves you, Scar, which is how you got away with that one,” Mumbo says with a laugh. The rest of the group laughs with him, and Scar waves a bashful hand.

When the attention falls to Grian, he talks about the G-Train and the Midnight Alley and the lengths he went through to collect mobs for the Magical Menagerie, charged creeper shenanigans with Scar included. He talks about pretend-sleep adventures and mini-games and everything in between.

Most of all, Grian talks about Boatem. From the first stacking of the Boatem pole, to the many Boatem hole-related antics, to the chaos of every meeting and prank, the Boatem crew has become family, as the village has become home.

“I’m gonna miss it,” Impulse says.

“It was all really fun.” Scar smiles, and the corners of his eyes are crinkled with sadness-tinged fondness.

“Now, don’t be saying that like a goodbye, mate,” Pearl says, and her voice is crinkled with it, too.

“It’s not a goodbye to us,” Scar clarifies. “Boatem will live on forever. We’ll all find each other again in that great, big, beautiful tomorrow.”

“Promise?” Grian asks.

“Promise.”

—☾—

Morning drags forward after a night of cuddled rest. Grian’s the second awake, beaten only by Pearl, who stands with her hands braced around a mug at the kitchen counter, looking out across nothing.

“The world’s to end today,” Grian says.

“Yeah, I know,” she responds. “Coffee?”

(They make it, in the void following the end. On another world, an alchemist, an elf, an alien, a dwarf, and the server’s richest man huddle together atop a nest of blankets within a giant mushroom the alien calls home. Laughter dances in the air around them as stories and snacks alike are swapped between them, catching up on what this world has become beneath their hands. The moon hangs high and small above them, a beautiful cloudless night. The world carries on as usual. The Boatem crew is safe.)