Mumbo, still trembling, closes his eyes and ignores everything he can see despite them being closed. He ignores the uncountable sensations against his skin, the mix of burning-cooling-itching that all blends together into something that is simultaneously so painful it’s numb and so indescribable it hurts. He ignores the howling, tending, tearing at his ears, and he most certainly ignores the scent of pure memories that pull him in and out of the moment every time he fails to.
He mustn’t think. He can only bear to think in the brief gaps between the noise. If he lets himself think too long, he will realize that he doesn’t have to have his eyes open to see, because the thing he’s trying to look away from doesn’t exist on that sort of plane of existence. He will realize he can hear the endless fractal shapes of wings and eyes around him. He can taste it. He can feel it. He does not need eyes.
He keeps them shut. Grian had told him, once, that if he ever got confronted with his true form, he must keep his eyes shut. Mumbo is doing that now.
“It’s okay,” he mumbles. “It’s okay."
He gets the scent of someone saying 'Mumbo', a shout, panic, pain, not pain. He screws his eyes shut tighter. An overwhelming sensation that he should flee courses through him for a moment and he nearly runs into one the walls of their cell. Unfortunately, those walls are designed to hold in Grian, so Mumbo just bruises his nose.
"We can't leave. They drugged you and locked us both in, remember?"
The sensation is overpowering for a moment. For a moment, Mumbo loses hold of whatever sanity he's holding on to and every part of his body screams fear. He needs to leave, he needs to leave, he needs to leave, he can't leave, he doesn't know what to do, it's a deep and true sensation of doom and panic and then--
Acceptance. Mumbo finds himself curled on the ground.
"You were drugged," Mumbo mumbles. "You can't help it."
Mumbo hears the sound that happens when he's dying, he thinks. Then he hears sadness.
"I won't. You told me what to do. All, all I've got to do is hang on until, until either whatever they gave you gets out of your system, or, or someone rescues us. I mean, the other hermits, they'd certainly be rescuing us, right? I imagine they're already tearing, um, wherever we are? They're already tearing it to pieces. Skizz and Impulse are nearly as frightening as you, and, um, we both know what Doc is like angry, and it's okay, it's okay."
Mumbo does not want to have to be the reasonable one. He keeps his eyes shut and lets the feeling like hundreds of sharp feathers cross his skin as Grian tries harder to simultaneously surround and not surround Mumbo, tries to figure out how not to hurt him.
There is not a way for Grian not to hurt Mumbo. Mumbo has known this since they were first shoved in the same cell and Grian lost control.
He can't say that, though, because the moment Grian panics, he will actually kill him. He won't mean to. That's the truly terrible part. Grian will not mean to. He will not try to. He will try not to, in fact.
It's just. A god and a mortal should not be held in the same cage.
So Mumbo has to be the reasonable one. Just a little longer. Or Grian will never forgive himself.
Mumbo breathes. It makes his lungs feel like they're full of blue and purple and syrup and needles. It makes him feel like crying again. It also makes him feel like curling up and feeling nothing, which is the particularly dangerous bit.
"We'll figure this out. It's okay," he lies in his most soothing tone of voice. Somehow, he doesn't think Grian believes him.
They've just got to both pretend a little longer.