(WC: 2294
Category: Fluff, hurt/comfort, platonic shipping
Warnings: Panic attacks

Have some platonic Gridaph! I loved their interactions during HCBBS man, I hope they collab more in the future. This has been sitting in my drafts for a while, I just managed to finish it now, so sorry about the wait!!

Funny story about this oneshot: The original concept was written with the Dream Team, for a oneshot book that never saw the light of day. I lost the original oneshot sadly :(( But I listened to the song again a few weeks ago and got really inspired to write with it again, so here we are!

Also, yeah, Zed has little canon wings for me now :D

Enjoy <3)

Ever since he'd fallen down into the Void, Zed had tried to avoid the dark.

His Cave of Contraptions was meticulously lit up with torches in a neat pattern. He'd made sure that no dark areas—even underwater—were present. The hole that led to the void was patched up and lined with caution tape, just in case he was careless enough to fall in again.

Nowadays, just seeing a dark area reminded him of the Void. The darkness down there was worse than dead at night. Zed could still envision the light of the Overworld fading as he slipped and fell into the hole leading to the Void, falling further and further down, his wings useless...he didn't even want to go out at night anymore. You never knew what could be in those shadows.

Was he being overly paranoid? Maybe. But dying to the Void was different than, say, a death to a mob or fall damage. The Void slowly suffocated you, squeezing the life out gradually before what was left just kept...falling forever.

But there was nothing he could do to stop the feeling of dread whenever he saw darkness. The best thing he could do was take precautions.

So, Zed kept lighting up his Cave.

Then, HCBBS occurred.

The Hermitcraft Big Base Swap.

And Zed swapped bases with Grian, having to hand over his Cave of Contraptions.

And the mansion he received in return was dark. Very dark.

"Here it is!" Grian said, gesturing proudly to his grand mansion. From the outside, it was impressive. Zed could tell that Grian had put some serious time and effort into the exterior, and it wasn't even completely done yet.

Then, Grian had shown him the interior.

At first glance, it was just as impressive. The entry foyer was massive, with a chandelier made out of diamond blocks--which was honestly just showing off. The floor was a mix of crimson nylium and glazed terracotta, making a sort of large spiral pattern.

Gradient columns rose up from the edges, helping support the main room of the mansion. A fireplace made out of stripped warped wood was at the other end of the room, complementing the red floor nicely.

The wings of the mansion, however, weren't quite as polished yet.

The main thing Zed noticed was the sheer darkness that took up the walls. Grian had tried to torch-spam halfheartedly, but that didn't even begin to cover the dark. For a mansion of this size and proportion, lighting was a big issue. Mobs spawned every so often, but Grian just slew them quickly, like he was used to it.

Zed wasn't worried about the mobs, anyway. He was much more concerned about the darkness itself.

Grian didn't pick up on Zed's nervousness while showing him around. Instead, he continued the tour, dropping through a random hole in his base to get to the main part of his mansion--namely, his storage unit.

Zed couldn't hold back a sigh of relief when he saw that this part of Grian's base was well lit. He glanced at the multitude of shulker boxes lying everywhere, then at the giant sorting system that was built to solve this kind of problem.

"Erm, your storage system is kind of all over the place," he said.

Grian smiled sheepishly. "It's a habit, I guess. But, hey, it's your base! Your problem now!"

"So, this is the part of your base where you spend the most time, then?" Zed asked, shoving a shulker box to one side with his foot.

"Yeah. It's where I do all my trading, too." Grian gestured to a spot in the middle of the room where a small villager trading hall had been set up.

"Okaaay." Zed hesitated before continuing. "So...what's the actual mansion for, then?"

And do I have to go into that dark often?

"I'm planning to build some farms there." Grian held up his hands, drawing an imaginary diagram in the air. "A villager breeder, maybe. Melons and pumpkins for trading. Stuff like that. I was hoping you could build some of your contraptions there, too!"

Zed groaned inwardly. "Like...in the wings."

"Um, yeah. I mean, the foyer is occupied."

"Right, right. I knew that." Zed started to get nervous. Maybe he could back out of making contraptions at all. Maybe he could make them somewhere else. Anywhere else.

But Grian's hopeful expression made him reconsider his decisions. Cursing inwardly at himself, Zed gave him a smile he didn't really mean.

"Sure. I'll make some for you."

Bad idea.

A few hours later, Zed stood in front of the left wing of the upper mansion. His small white wings curled around his arms like they did when he was scared. He had to make a conscious effort to spread them again, but it felt much nicer when they were wrapped around him.

He clutched a lantern in his right hand. Even though it was one of the items that gave off the most light, it was nothing compared to the vast darkness in front of him.

Not only were mobs going to be jumping out at him from the shadows, but, well, the darkness itself was going to mess him up tremendously.

He hated to admit it, but he felt like the dark was tugging at him again, just like he had in the Void, even if it wasn't the same.

He did have an idea for a contraption, but it required space that couldn't be found anywhere else in the mansion. He didn't want to clog up the foyer, the back was out of the question, and the storage area underneath was chock-full of shulker boxes and chests.

He didn't want to swap bases back before he finished a contraption or two, that was for sure. He remembered Grian's hopeful expression when he quietly requested Zed to build a few contraptions in his base, and that made him feel worse. He didn't want to disappoint Grian, either.

"Alright, Zed," he lectured himself. "You can do this. This isn't void darkness. It's just...darkness. Plain old darkness! You're used to this! What's to fear about it, right?"

He paused, staring at the darkness again.

"...Right?"

He sighed to himself and plunged into the darkness quickly, holding his lantern in front of him like it was the only thing stopping him from getting lost in the pitch black. Which, in a way, it was.

As soon as he was surrounded on all sides by darkness, Zed started to panic again. Even though his feet were grounded to the floor, he still felt like he was plunging down a small tunnel, entering an infinite plane of suffocating dark every direction he looked.

He couldn't get out, his wings wouldn't save him here, they were useless, the dark was too much, stop, stop, STOP being afraid of the stupid dark--

Zed gasped for air, his fingers clutching the lantern's handle so tight that they were turning white. The flame inside flickered uncertainly, like it was picking up on his fear. He tried not to imagine what would happen if the flame died down, because he'd be all alone in here, like he had been in the void all those months ago, in the dark, and...

"...Zedaph?"

Zed turned slowly to see Grian standing at the entrance of the left wing behind him. He was only two dozen blocks away, which really put into perspective how unreasonable he was being. He lowered his lantern, and the flame swayed back and forth nervously as he brought it to his side.

Grian cocked his head to the left, looking concerned as he tried to read Zed's expression. "Hey...are you alright?"

Zed wanted to lie, to plaster on a smile and laugh it off like he usually did when people asked about why he was overreacting when it came to the dark. But being surrounded by pure darkness again, and the panic he'd felt as he stood in it, he suddenly felt the urge to let it all out.

He didn't know Grian as much as, say, Impulse or Tango. But he was the only one who would know why the mansion's darkness was making Zed panic so much--he'd built it, after all. He'd had to deal with the darkness here, too, more than anyone else.

"Sorry," Zed muttered under his breath, surprised at how honest he was being. "It's just...the dark. Earlier this season, I asked Impulse to break a hole in the bedrock so I could experiment with what's underneath the world. I ended up falling into it multiple times, and...."

He trailed off, not being able to explain what he experienced in the void out loud.

Thankfully, Grian seemed to understand immediately. He walked over to Zed and took his arm gently, leading him back towards the sunlight emanating from the mansion's foyer.

"It's alright," he said as they walked. "You don't have to say what happened if you don't want to."

That little show of support made Zed feel more grateful than he cared to admit. Grian didn't ask him for extra details, or look at him weirdly for being afraid of something as common as the dark. He was just...there, for support when Zed needed it.

Grian gently pried the lantern from Zed's hands, placing it on the ground. Zed had forgotten he was holding it. To distract both of them from what just happened, Grian took a seat on the ground and started talking about what he was doing to Zed's Cave animatedly.

It was a one sided-conversation--Grian did all the talking, and Zed didn't say anything, save for a small nod or smile every now and then. The sunlight streaming from the main room felt comforting after the suffocating darkness, but he couldn't help but glance back at the mansion wings occasionally.

"Hey, I'm sorry for asking you to build some of your machines in the wings," Grian said once he noticed Zed's glances to the left. "I didn't realize..." he vaguely waved his hands towards the dark.

Zed shook his head quickly. "No, no, it's not your fault. You didn't know."

Grian shrugged a bit. "If I'd lit up those areas before you came, we wouldn't be having this talk."

"You also wouldn't have any of those creeper craters scattered around," Zed noted. "Or skellies shooting at you from the upper rafters."

Grian smirked at him. "Those, too."

After a bit, he spoke up again as something occurred to him. "Hey, if you want, I can make some space by the back of the mansion. For your contraptions, if you're still up to building 'em. No pressure, though, of course."

Zed thought for a bit, but then shook his head again. "It would be better in the mansion's wings, I'd say. I'll build them in here, it's okay."

Grian looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. "But what about the dark?"

"I should get over that fear, anyway," Zed said, shrugging, hoping it looked casual when he was really worried about doing this all over again. "It's stupid, and it's been around for too long."

"You can't just get rid of a fear like that," Grian protested. "I've almost died to the void, too, you know. One time, when Scar and I were End raiding at the start of the season, I fell so far down that I could feel it starting to slowly suffocate me. The only thing that saved me were my wings, and it was a very close call.

"If what you've experienced is ten times worse than what I felt down there, there's no way you can just get over your fear of the dark that easily. Hell, I still get shaken whenever I fall a far distance down, and that incident was well over a year ago."

Zed was surprised. Grian knew more than he let on. He opened his mouth to protest more, but shut it just as fast.

"I'd hate to have you do all this work to my old base and for me to do nothing but be afraid of the stupid dark," he finally said.

"It's okay to be afraid of something as common as the dark," Grian insisted. "And if you really want to still add something to my base in the mansion's wings, at least let me help light up the area. I don't want you to go in there alone again. I saw what happened last time," he added quietly.

Zed's face flushed at the thought of Grian watching him panic over a dark area. But he was glad Grian wanted to help, because--as much as he didn't want to say it out loud--he couldn't go back in there again by himself.

"...Okay," he said after a bit. "Thank you."

Grian developed a small grin as he thought of something. "Hey, is it possible to make a contraption that will do the lighting for you automatically?"

Zed's mental gears started turning like they did when he was faced with a fun Redstone challenge. "Hm...maybe. Let me see if I can think of someth--"

"No, no, no!" Grian got up suddenly, spreading his wings excitedly. "I want to design it! It shouldn't be that complicated, right? Oh, this is gonna be fun, I've never designed a machine like this before...or a machine, ever..."

"Oh, god," Zed muttered as he watched Grian fly out of the mansion quickly.

He allowed himself a small laugh, grateful that Grian had managed to make him feel better and distract him from what had just happened. Then, he spread his own wings and flew after Grian, determined to stop him before he accidentally built a machine that blew up the whole mansion.