#joe finds his notebook. cleo realizes they've already spent more time here than they did there

[theminecraftbee]

When Cleo arrives at Joe's base, they discover him leaning over the increasingly large lockbox he uses to take things between seasons.

(At one point - when Cleo had first met him, actually - the thing had been tiny. Not much point taking that much between super hostile worlds. After they'd gotten onto hermitcraft, they'd discovered the box he'd used to carry stuff from season one to two was a bit larger. Now, she's not sure whether they should call that thing a 'lockbox' or a 'safe', honestly, but whatever it is, it's still liftable, so probably not a safe? It's not important. They share space with him, because they'd never felt the need to get one of their own, but occasionally...)

Anyway. When they find him, he's in his pinball back box, surrounded by shulker boxes he's not using, leaning over the lockbox, staring at something.

"Hey, Joe," she says.

"Hey Cleo," Joe says, not looking up.

"Did you lose something between here and Empires?" Cleo asks. "I didn't see you bring that thing with you to the Rift."

"No, no," Joe says. "I, uh - honestly, was looking for something else, got a bit stuck. Forgotten I'd... I mean, it doesn't really matter, I think, I'd just forgotten I'd put some of these things in here. I didn't have that much time to - well, no, I guess we had like, two months to think about it -"

"...lose something from season eight, then?" Cleo says, and they don't quite succeed in leaving their voice quite as light.

Joe shrugs. "Was actually looking for this thing Scar gave me after six, but..."

"Yeah?"

Joe picks up a notebook. It's dirty, but at least it's not singed, the way Joe had laughingly told Cleo half his clothes were, after. Cleo had laughed back and made a comment about dusty endstone. Both of them had made new wardrobes.

They suppose it wouldn't be. If he hadn't put it in the box before the moment of...

Joe flips through the pages. He shrugs, a tiny little hesitant motion, and gestures at the last page.

Cleo grimaces. They'd forgotten just how... messy... Joe's measurements had gotten over time. The ink is splotchy and inconsistent. There's a strange air of finality to the numbers, just as much as there's a strange sense of resignation to the observations he'd written to the side of them.

The date on the measurement is December 21st.

It's the last measurement.

"Oh," Cleo says.

"I really wasn't looking for it," Joe says, and his voice is tiny.

"I didn't think you'd keep them," Cleo says helplessly.

"I have - the castle floorplans are in this," Joe says.

"Oh. Right. And you kept -"

"I wouldn't not."

"Of course."

The two of them look at the notebook again for a little bit.

"It's really been a year and I didn't notice?" Cleo says.

"I mean - I mean, we didn't really think about - dates are a social construct," Joe says.

"It feels like the kind of date I ought to remember, is all," Cleo says. "Given."

"Christmas is in three days," Joe says. "We didn't do anything last year. That's why I was looking for - I mean, obviously we didn't do anything last year. What with the, you know, everything. But I was looking for some of the stuff I had - Scar gave me this thing after season six that I was gonna hide for him during the party."

"Are we having a party? All of those people are here," Cleo says. "Oh, god," they say after another moment. "Just because I forgot the date doesn't mean... all of them are here. Do you think someone ought to warn them that..."

"I mean, uh," Joe says. "I mean. We both forgot..."

He looks up. Cleo looks up with him. The sky is blue. It's lightly cloudy. It's a cold day. Everything is on the ground that ought to be on the ground, and everything in the sky is the place in the sky it should be, for a lightly cloudy, blue-skyed morning.

"You should put that away," Cleo says.

"Now I'm not gonna," Joe says.

"Joe," Cleo says.

"Help me finish my Christmas gifts?" Joe says.

"Fine," Cleo says, and they don't talk about it. Joe puts the notebook carefully up on a shelf, flipped to the page with the floorplans. All of the chairs and beds and tables they'd never got to put in are sketched out on the pale pages, and it strikes Cleo all at once that in some ways, Atlantis is already more finished than the castle got to be.

They resolutely decide it doesn't matter. The date isn't the thing that'll remind them, anyway.

#hermitcraft #joe hills #zombiecleo #moon big #one year ago today. merry moon big #a bee fic #i feel like the date wouldn't hit them the day of. it's not an anniversary they'd remember #i think it would just strike them all of a sudden in little things #joe finds his notebook. cleo realizes they've already spent more time here than they did there #something smells a little too much like smoke and despair #you know what i mean?