#watcher bigb

this is just a fun little festive drabble for Christmas (moreso day-after-Christmas) so don't expect too much!

word count: 1.6k

trigger warnings: eye horror, body horror, and weird gross flesh stuff

rating: teen and up (for horror and cursing)

characters: grian , bigb, misc. watchers (no shipping)

Grian thought he had escaped when he threw himself into the games. He thought that by ruining their grand project, they would cast him out and he could finally be rid of them.

He was sorely mistaken.

One moment he was in the midst of a battle on a snowy plain, getting his ass absolutely handed to him by a piglin brute, then the next he was at a dinner table.

The table was wooden, oak he presumed, the chairs were normal, the walls looked like ordinary house walls. The first odd thing he noticed were the portraits that lined the room; various eyes in a wide array of colors, shapes, and sizes, were framed individually and messily spread as wall decor.

The framed eyes seemed to move, jittering and twitching and angling towards the most recent movement in the room; which happened to be dust motes falling through the window.

Though, Grian couldn’t tell where the light from outside was coming from. It was angled directly through the window but there was no sun in sight, nor was there a sky. It was pure shifting blackness.

The air was thick, but not in any identifiable smell. The closest thing he could call it was metallic smoke. Whatever it was, it hurt to breathe in.

The only entry and exit point in the room was an archway which also appeared to lead to nothing but the abyss, except this time, Grian could barely spot the whites of eyes peering through the darkness. These eyes were still. They were not moving to the closest source of stimulation, like the framed eyes. They stayed completely motionless, just watching. Watching Grian, watching the room, watching the eyes that were watching the dust motes.

“I know you’re there.” Grian finally spoke.

He knew the moment he appeared in this place. The decor just made it more obvious, this place had Watcher written all over it.

“That’s no way to greet your family, Xelqua.” A voice sounded out from the arch leading to the abyss. It was ominous and melodic.

“You know I don’t consider you that. And you certainly know that’s not my name.” Grian didn’t move to look at where the voice was coming from.

“Right. What is it you go by now?” The voice paused for a moment, as if its kind needed to think. “Grain, was it?”

“It’s Grian.” He knew they were just trying to provoke him.

The voice made a sound that was supposed to sound like an amused laugh, but it came out sinister.

“Grian. What a funny name.” It mused.

Grian took in a deep breath. It was obvious the Watchers summoned him here for a reason, and the quicker he figured out this reason, the quicker he could leave.

“Are you going to tell me why you’ve brought me here?” He asked, deciding not to hide his annoyed tone, it would know anyway.

“Can’t we just want a pleasant family dinner for Christmas?” It sounded like a disappointed mother figure now.

“Christmas was yesterday.”

“Oh well, a belated family dinner then. Your friends did make quite the feast with the recent games.”

Grian finally heard the faint tap of footsteps, the the emergence of a figure cloaked in purple from the abyssal arch.

A line of more figures followed that one, all dressed in the same garb; a purple cloak with the distinct, simple Watcher symbol on the back.

Only one had their hood down, showing their face, still scarred from the sword strike that had killed them moments before Grian himself had died.

BigB took a seat on the left side of Grian.

He didn’t look at him.

That, more than anything else, sent a chill down Grian’s spine.

BigB sat stiffly, hands folded in his lap beneath the table, posture perfect in the way Grian remembered trying to be, once. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, like he was staring through the wood grain rather than at it. The scar across his face glistened faintly, as if it hadn’t fully decided whether it was just opened or a years old.

The moment BigB sat, the room tightened.

Not physically, but Grian felt it all the same, like an eye waiting to blink. The Watchers around the table leaned back in their chairs, some crossing nonexistent legs, some folding hands that didn’t quite match, giving him room.

Every inch of empty space felt intentional, curated. Like they were making sure there was nowhere he could press himself against, nowhere to ground.

BigB still didn’t look at him.

That was worse than the eyes.

The framed ones along the walls had abandoned the dust motes entirely. Each was angled now, subtly but unmistakably, toward Grian. Some blinked too fast. Others didn’t blink at all. The whites of the eyes in the archway glowed faintly, just enough for Grian to feel their focus like heat against the back of his skull.

He shifted in his chair and every gaze followed like a thousand lenses refocusing.

“You’re fidgeting,” said the voice at the head of the table. “You always did that when you were uncomfortable. And we tried our best to make you oh so comfortable this time.”

Grian froze.

“Did you not notice? We made sure to replicate human housing to perfection. Don’t you feel right at home?” It asked.

The question seemed innocent, but as it waited for a response Grian could feel the pressure of a million eyes pointed directly at him. He could feel each and every part — the cornea, the iris, the lens — analyzing his very being. The flow of fluids in the ciliary muscles was almost auditory.

Before Grian could respond the weight of the eternal gaze lifted as food appeared on the table. Though, he wouldn’t call it food.

It wasn’t flesh, not exactly. It was thick and sluggish despair pooled in a bowl, dark and glossy, surface rippling with half-formed expressions that vanished if he tried to focus on them. Another plate held something like meat, though it pulsed faintly, each slow throb accompanied by a thin, keening sound, like a breath pulled through clenched teeth.

“This is sick,” Grian muttered.

“Oh, don’t be rude,” the first voice said, now seated at the head of the table. This one had chosen a face that was vaguely human though it was smiling too wide and its eyes far too numerous.

One of the Watchers reached forward. Their hand split open down the middle, fingers peeling back like petals, revealing a single large eye embedded in the palm. It lowered itself into the dark substance and scooped some up, the eye rolling blissfully as it did.

They ate with their eyes. Grian knew this, he’d seen it himself a few times by now but he still wasn’t used to the horrifying scene.

He saw BigB move out of the corner of his vision.

The scrape of his chair was quiet, but in the silence it sounded deafening. He reached for a plate with deliberate care, like he was afraid of knocking something over, like the room might punish him for a mistake.

His hand trembled as it hovered over the pulsing meat. For a moment his fingers curled like he was about to pull away.

Grian leaned toward him instinctively. “BigB,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to—”

BigB’s head snapped up and his eyes met Grian’s at last. Though they weren’t fully his anymore. The brown was still there, but threaded through it were veins of violet light, branching and crawling like cracks in glass. His pupils were elongated, stretching vertically, twitching as they focused.

“I do,” BigB said, his voice forcibly steady.

“They said it’s easier if I participate,” he continued, picking up a piece of the meat with careful fingers. It squelched softly. “They said you struggled because you fought it.”

Grian swallowed. “They’re lying to you.”

BigB smiled before responding.

“They told me you’d say that,” he replied, and lifted the food to his face.

It didn’t go into his mouth. Instead, it dissolved before it met his lips. His shoulders relaxed as it did, tension bleeding out of him like he’d just been allowed to rest for the first time in years.

The Watchers watched him with open approval.

“Our replacement is adapting beautifully,” one crooned. “So much more compliant than you ever were.”

Every eye turned back to Grian and the pressure returned, heavier now. He felt it in his chest, in his throat, like invisible hands urging him inward, folding space around him despite the distance.

A plate slid toward him, pushed by nothing.

It stopped just short of touching him, leaving a precise inch of space between ceramic and fabric.

Grian saw himself reflected there, not as he was, but as they wished to see him. Smiling too wide, standing too tall, watching people fall and telling himself it was for the story, for the game, for them.

“This is what family does,” the head Watcher continued, spreading its hands. “We share. We sustain one another. You left us starving when you went rogue, Xelqua.”

Grian stood and the pressure intensified, the air growing thicker, burning his lungs.

“Then choke,” he spat.

The moment the words left his mouth, the room felt smaller. The ceiling pressed down. The walls crept closer, eyes multiplying in the corners of his vision.

“You don’t belong at this table anymore,” the Watcher said gently. “But you’ll always be part of the meal.”

Eyes slammed shut and burst open again. The walls warped, wood grain twisting into veins. The Watchers rose as one, robes billowing, eyes blazing.

BigB flinched at the noise, hands flying to his head.

Grian reached for him without thinking, barely brushing his sleeve. For just a second, BigB’s eyes cleared.

“Run,” BigB whispered.

Then the table split down the middle, spilling despair like spilled wine, and the abyss rushed in to swallow Grian whole.

And somewhere behind him, amid the screams and the feeding and the watching—

The Watchers laughed like a family enjoying dinner together.