Secret Life Session One In A Nutshell

at least he tried lol

BADBOIS army dreamers :3 ( I cried while I was drawing this /hj )

if I don't read an angst wild life fic where grian blames Mumbo's death on Jimmy that culminates in a screaming match and Jimmy saying something like "it's different when it's someone you actually care about isn't it?" and him becoming more invested with the watchers and grian realizing that he wasn't kidding when he said he was going to pray I may implode. I may write one also but school is taking a lot of time

MOTHER SPORE

Part I

I know it's almost new year but I don't care, it's Halloween again people (this part was supposed to be posed in October but things happen)

Once again thank you @xmaruu11 not only for being the co-writer of the comic but also for doing the flat colors

Jimmy does it underground.

It’s not illegal, exactly, and They can’t watch him (that’s the whole point, after all) but it doesn’t feel right to do it out in the open air, among cheerful, lighthearted allies whose biggest worries this episode are their outfits and what fun little gimmick will be today. His hand trembles as he lights the first candle.

Seven candles in total — the first four a waxy yellow, two a starchy white and the last jet black, dyed with fresh ink from a squid he’d killed early that morning. The sixth one is short, more of a candle than a stub, but it counts. It matters.

Then, trembling, he dips his hand in the pot he’s carried all the way down here and draws the Symbol.

Enderman blood — difficult to explain having and even more difficult to get. It glows purple in the dark, making the Symbol shine eerily.

“Hello?” Jimmy half whispers, then winces at his own voice. He’s not sure how to begin a prayer.

(Is that what this is, then? A prayer?)

But to his surprisingly, the symbol whispered back.

Speak, ask, for your allies grow wary.

Speak, ask, our yellow canary.

The whispers are at once ancient and powerful, but overwhelmed with a feeling of greed and hunger. They rise above each other in a cacophonous wave, their harmony forming words.

(Jimmy shouldn’t be surprised. This is why he’s here, after all, to ask Them for something — but then why did They never answer his prayers?)

(The Listeners. He’d prayed to them, been loyal to them, but as promised, they’d only ever Listened. Listened to his pleas and prayers, listened to his cries of pain, listened to the pain the canary wings brought him, cycle after cycle.)

(Well, he’d had enough. Of course, he’d heard the warnings, but if the Watchers were really in charge, surely they could make sure Secret Life wasn’t a fluke.)

(Surely they could take away his wings.)

“Is my curse broken?” That seemed like a good place to start.

The Symbol flickered, presumably from one of the candle flames glinting off the enderman blood.

First to die, first to sing,

Your song is deadly, and chaos it brings.

But we have an offer, if you’re prepared to take it.

It will require sacrifices, if you’re ready to make it.

Swear off those meddling false gods of yours

And your life before another will be ensured.

His voice was shaking when he next replied. “Which gods?”

(He knew, didn’t he? He knew, deep down, that what he was doing was wrong. He could sense them.)

(They Listened.)

There are those that Listen, who value honour,

We are those you need, and we are Watchers.

Join us now, bird, parrot, canary,

Or this cavern of yours won’t be quite so airy.

They weren’t threatening the existence of his curse, Jimmy realised. They were threatening to invoke it right now, to kill him deep underground with no way of escape.

Maybe he shouldn’t have done it underground.

(But he remembered it later, when the news reached him: Mumbo was dead. Not a new canary — the curse hadn’t transferred — for his death hadn’t been an omen of chaos, but an accidental death. A mishap with explosives, a death alone from others.)

(A mishap, sure, but Mumbo knew his way around tech. Jimmy couldn’t help but wonder if he’d be slightly nudged to the wrong place at the wrong time, his hand guided by some all-seeing force. They waited, and their promise was fulfilled. Now for his end of the bargain.)

(They Watched.)

2023 october

LMAOOO

On April 25, Cellbit finds himself crashing onto a tropical island filled with the weirdest goddamn people he's ever met in his life.

(On one side of the glass is Cellbit. On the other is a man in a red hoodie who takes one look at Cellbit and winks before rushing to talk to the other trapped Brazilians.

For a moment, Cellbit swears there's a spark- a literal pink spark in the air directly between the two of them where they had locked eyes, and he swears that the man's eyes glitter the same pink just for a second.

But that's ridiculous. It's probably a concussion. Or something.)

On April 26, Cellbit wakes up to a heavy pain in his chest and back and a foreign weight to his limbs as he tries rolling over in bed. There's a pressure behind his eyes, all... all two of them.

Cellbit's eyelids twitch unhappily as a ray of incoming sunlight hits them from the window.

He hisses, and that's when he notices two very important things:

He doesn't have two eyes. He knows the familiar discomfort of keeping one's eyes closed when they're ready to open, and he can recognize the fact that this discomfort is multiplied by goddamn two. That makes... four eyes.

He isn't in his own bed. He went to sleep without a blanket or a pillow, just his hat and his jacket because, big surprise, spending most of the day in a cave didn't get him any luxuries besides a sore back and a definitely-not-dead child.

Cellbit opens his eyes, all four of them, and he's only a little surprised to see that he is not, in fact, in his own house.

"What?" he croaks.

He grimaces. Sore throat, almost like he'd been screaming in his sleep. Nothing he isn't used to, but it doesn't feel right in this body. In... whoever's body this is.

He pushes himself so that he's sitting up and against the wall. His chest pulls with every movement of his arms, muscles twinging in pain, and it almost reminds him of the War, almost. (He caused wounds like this, anyway. He didn't get hurt like this. He was too good.)

He looks down. Spider-Man boxer briefs. Naked chest, huge scar cut across the middle of it over his heart. Hairy legs, bruised arms and knuckles.

Vaguely, he thinks that he recognizes the house. Kinda. Sort of. Maybe? But he'd only seen the outside, and it would be crazy if his soulmate turned out to be that guy.

But, well. There's only one spider hybrid on the island that Cellbit knows about. Maybe there are more, but he's pretty sure that he met everyone yesterday. (He thinks; he was pretty distracted by the whole what the fuck I have a child now??? thing.)

Cellbit should be happy. And he kinda feels like it, in a distant way. But it's with a sense of numb fear that he grabs Roier's communicator off of the bedside table and opens a new message with... himself? His comm. That Roier has. Because he's in his body. At his house.

[iRoier whispers to Cellbit: I think we have a problem]

-

When Cellbit had finally officially turned 16 years old, Bad sat down in the middle of a warzone and told him that, one of these days, he might wake up in the body of one of his enemies.

"What?" Cellbit had grimaced, blood coating his face and crusting under his nails. "Why? Is that a new origin or something?"

Bad shook his head. "No, you goof. It's a soulmate thing. You know. Soulmates."

And that's when he realized that Cellbit's amnesia really was, in fact, amnesia. Of course he wouldn't have remembered his parents giving him the Soulmate Talk, Cellbit- at the time- didn't believe that he even had parents. ("I was born from blood, and to blood I shall return," he said when Bad tried asking, so Bad stopped bothering after a while.)

And so it fell to BadBoyHalo to give Cellbit the Soulmate Talk.

"When you turn 16, the universe assigns you a soulmate," Bad had explained. "And when you meet that soulmate, you'll both switch bodies with each other overnight. It'll only last 24 hours, though, so it should be fine if you meet your soulmate out here."

Cellbit had blinked, confused. "What? Ew, no."

Because, as romantic as the idea of soulmates sounds, Cellbit was a 16-year-old boy. Why would he give a shit about his soulmate when he could be thinking about, like, blood and violence and stuff.

By the time Cellbit was arrested, he had finally warmed up to the idea of having a soulmate if only because having someone assigned to him by the universe meant that there'd be someone on the outside willing to break him out of prison and help him get his revenge on all the fuckers who had dared try and mess with him while he was in there.

But then, after prison- after everything, Cellbit had realized that maybe he wasn't meant to have a soulmate, after all. Why would he? Why would the universe be so kind as to give him someone to care about who would actually love him back? Who would like him back?

Whoever his soulmate might've been, Cellbit had always hoped that they were dead. They'd be better off dead than stuck with a monster like him.

-

By the time Roier makes it to his own house, the sun is high in the sky and Cellbit has managed to find a a shirt and a pair of shorts to throw on on top of his underwear. (On top of Roier's underwear?)

Bobby is still asleep upstairs, Cellbit thinks. At least, he hasn't heard anything from him. Should he be worried?

But then Cellbit looks out the window and watches his body trip over itself on the dirt and faceplant, and, well, Bobby can wait.

Roier's body is... heavy as Cellbit pulls a pair of shoes on. It doesn't want to cooperate, but that can't be right, it's supposed to be natural. Or something. Cellbit thinks. Maybe.

So he doesn't actually know how soulmates work, but it's supposed to be natural, right? That's how he remembers Bad explaining it, but he also remembers Bad having as much emotional awareness as a rock.

Vaguely, he wonders if the problem isn't with the fact that it's Cellbit being in Roier's body but that it's because it's Roier's body and that this is just how it is for Roier all the time. But that's none of Cellbit's business.

(Yet.)

(Maybe.)

(Eventually?)

(Turn the detective brain off, fuck.)

Whatever!

Cellbit runs out the door and goes to help Roier up. He isn't hurt at all as Roier swears at him and grumbles and pushes himself up onto his knees.

"I'm fine," he insists. "See?"

He gestures towards himself with a sharp-toothed grin, eyes squinted shut, and, wow, it's weird for Cellbit to see himself smile. His body doesn't really... do that. It's unnatural. Kinda creepy, like looking into a fucked-up mirror.

Cellbit offers an awkward smile in response, and it hurts. Not his face, no, his soul. Well, not his soul, because that would be silly, but some weird little part inside his Everything stings and pulses with a dull, throbbing pain so sudden and harsh that his throat chokes up and tears threaten to well up in Cellbit's eyes.

With a shuddering breath, Cellbit drops his smile and his eyes. He looks at the ground, and he says, "Uh. We should talk inside, maybe?"

He doesn't wait for a response before turning on his heel and walking back into Roier's house. He does hold the door open, though, remembering that Roier's house has that weird security thing on the door that keeps everybody but him out.

"Your legs are too short," Roier complains as he brushes past Cellbit and walks into the house. "I keep tripping over shit."

"...I'm sorry?" Cellbit offers. (He internally smacks himself. No, stupid, why is he sorry? He can't control his genetics, fuck!)

Roier waves him off. "Nah, it's fine. It's just for today, right?"

He sits at his table with a groan, eyes slipping shut and head tilting over the back of the chair. He looks so... calm. Which means that Cellbit's actual real normal face looks calm, and that's weird. He doesn't do calm.

Hesitantly, Cellbit joins him at the table. He sits directly opposite him, leg bouncing nervously, hands clasped in his lap.

And then? Silence. Absolutely nothing but the slight rattle of the table as Cellbit's (Roier's?) knee bumps against it and the quiet sound of snoring from upstairs. (So Bobby is still asleep. That's normal, right?)

Cellbit glances at the goggles still firmly on his body's head.

"Thanks for keeping them on," he lamely says.

Roier hums a question mark and cracks an eye open, following Cellbit's gaze. He smiles, then, small and clearly fake.

"Hey, man, it's fine," he replies. "It kind of hurts, but it's fine."

Cellbit winces. "I mean, you can take them off! It's fine, it's just us."

Roier shrugs, but he doesn't move to take the goggles off.

Quiet again.

This is... fine. It's fine! Cellbit's soulmate is just a guy who probably maybe dislikes him, that's all. It's nothing he wasn't expecting from his soulmate, he knows how he is as a person. Roier is probably just disappointed, that's all.

"We don't have to do anything, you know," Cellbit says after a moment.

He looks back down at the table as Roier sits up to look at him.

Cellbit wrings his hands together, fingers hooking together and pulling-pushing and they throb from the bruises, and where did Roier get them, anyway? From the pattern, Cellbit would say Roier had punched something, but here are also small cuts indicating the involvement of glass, and-

(Detective brain. Off.)

"I mean, it's crazy, right?" Cellbit laughs weakly. "Us, soulmates? We don't even know each other."

"I mean, yeah, but that's normal, I think. You don't know your soulmate until you meet them, that's how it works."

"I guess? But-"

"And!" Roier interjects. "I know you better already! You sleep with your sword and you have cat ears, that's more than I know about half of my dates!"

Cellbit winces at the mention of his ears, but he manages to huff out a quiet laugh. He even feels himself smile, though it hurts bad enough for him to force it away after a moment.

"Okay," he breathes, and he looks up to meet Roier's (his own?) eyes. "So... it's fine?"

"What the fuck do you think I've been saying, pendejo?" Roier exclaims. He reaches across the table and lightly taps Cellbit on the forehead between his top set of eyes. "I know my body isn't deaf, so start listening."

He sits again, continuing speaking before Cellbit can say anything:

"I don't know you, and that's fine. You don't know me, and that's fine. You threatened my son yesterday, and that's fine. I'll threaten your son to make it even."

"Hey!" Cellbit protests.

Roier ignores him and keeps talking. "We're stuck on this island, Cellbit. We aren't allowed to leave. If we try, Osito Bimbo shoots us. So that gives us plenty of time to get to know each other."

Cellbit's eyes widen in alarm. "We're what?"

He thinks he remembers somebody mentioning that to him and the others yesterday, but there was so much going on that he didn't really register it. Prison, again? At least it's open-air this time...

Roier shrugs his concerns off with a literal wave of the hand. "So see? It's fine. We'll figure each other out, and then we'll kiss and have sex and stuff. Right?"

"Um," Cellbit stammers, the tips of his ears going red. "Maybe just the kissing part."

"Sure, sure. Point is..." Roier stands out of his chair and leans across the table, reaching down and pulling Cellbit's hands out of his lap. He holds them and looks Cellbit in the eyes and gravely asks, "...Cellbit, will you be my soulmate?"

Cellbit rolls his eyes and gently pulls his hands away. "I don't think I get a choice."

"Aw, come on! You're no fun," Roier pouts.

"There, that's a third thing you know about me."

"Shut up, what the fuck?"

And as the argument continues, the weight in Cellbit's heart slowly starts to lift. Just a little, because it's just the beginning, but maybe... maybe having a soulmate won't be that bad, after all.

-_-_-_-

A/N:

Thank you so much for reading! Please reblog maaaaaaaybe with a comment or a tag and tell me what you think! Or send an ask, I'm fine with anything!

I absolutely love your Joe design💚!! It’s not much but here’s some drawings of him :3

Ohhh my god he looks so cool! :D I love it, thank you so much!

Also I love the detail of the neon green fishnet gloves, if I had them I would have given him some with that outfit but alas, I had none.