Chapter Text
The form of their once ally, turned reluctant enemy in the frenzy, crumpled onto the dirt. With Bdubs finally gone, it was only him and Scar. Scar who betrayed him.
Lost in the scarlet rage of it all, Grian chased Scar down the steep hill, screaming meaningless insults. The elation from finally letting his anger be satiated pushed him further, it was Scar who had betrayed him and forced him into this position. A distant thought reminded him that he was letting his emotions into the front seat, something that the Watchers would surely punish him for later - not to mention the clear disobeying of the ‘no attachments to players’ rule - and a glimmer of shame wriggled into his stomach.
He banished all emotions apart from the desire to kill, and jumped down as Scar lost his footing on the steep ground, slipping on shingle and tumbling into a pool of water. It was shady, they were surrounded by trees, but Grian could see clearly the red glint of Scar’s eyes, those eyes that he had become so familiar with.
The enemy (was he though?) down, Grian shoved his foot onto Scar’s ribcage, forcing him deeper into the gloomy pool, decayed vegetation turning the water even murkier as nature was disturbed by the player and, well, whatever Grian was. With emotion that he hadn’t felt in years, Grian lifted his sword high into the air, ready to plunge it through the flesh between the base of Scar’s neck and his shoulder, a direct route to his heart and lungs, and instantaneous death.
But Scar smiled and didn’t even struggle against the other, and Grian hesitated.
“You can kill me.” He sighed, acceptance and a million other indecipherable things that Grian wasn’t qualified to even begin thinking about lining his quiet voice. The light of the new dawn cast him in a strange light, one that most people never see. It felt personal, secret, and lonely.
All anger suddenly dissipated to confusion. Red faded from his vision, and suddenly he saw the world as it was. Scar on the floor beneath him, armour battered and stained with a nameless assortment of blood, clothes soaked through and hair dripping wet. Grian stepped back, unpinning Scar so that he could sit up and slip off his chest piece. A part of Grian screamed at that, Scar was on his last life and he was in danger and Grian couldn’t let Scar die again because no one had ever been as kind to him-
He stared at Scar, red eyes meeting red, “What? No.” He didn’t want to finish off Scar like this.
“After all you’ve done to protect me, you may slay me.” Scar opened his arms, surrendering. His hands trembled, and there was a nasty laceration along the top of his bare upper arm that lazily dribbled blackish-red blood into the pool below, but his expression was calm.
Grian should have. There was a part of him that would have just shrugged and killed Scar in cold blood right then. But that wasn’t all of him, because Grian wasn’t a Watcher, neither was he a player. He didn’t know what he was, however Grian did know that he did not want to kill Scar.
Hands shaking, Grian dropped his sword, the metal sinking into the shallow water with a quiet plop. “I can’t. I literally can’t.”
He was so tired, being a player was tiring beyond description. Grian was used to not having to cater to such human needs as sleeping and eating, and in the trials of war even the most careful of players went days without either.
Knees weak, he fell into the murky water in front of Scar, his ruined wings dipping into the pool as well. Grian so desperately wanted to reach out to the man in front of him, the man he’d spent so long in the presence of that he almost felt like a necessity; without Scar, Grian would shrivel up and die.
Rationally, he knew that wouldn’t happen, but the part of him so starved of positive human interaction from years of living amongst the Watchers wanted to close the gap between the two of them and to finally feel someone hug him with no other intention than to comfort.
Locking that vulnerability somewhere dark and deep inside of him, Grian met Scar’s grim expression, both of them sharing the same thought without even having to speak. They needed to finish the game.
“Can we at least go to Pizza’s grave on the mountain?” Scar asked, tone soft and so uniquely him. How Scar could still sound so innocent and optimistic after all that had happened in the last few months, Grian could only wonder.
He nodded, “We’ll do that.” He pulled his sword out of the water, shaking it off, remarking that the blood was still stubbornly crusted on the blade.
Using the sword to support himself, Grian stood up, the weight of the world on his shoulders. Scar managed to achieve verticality as well, a few spots of sunrise that poked through the trees highlighting him in yellowish light, glinting on the water that dripped off of Scar’s chest. It mixed with the messy wounds of the final battle, creating an illustration of desperation and chaos and bittersweet end on Scar’s greyish skin.
“We should rest up before the journey, though.” Scar suggested, wading out of the pond and slumping beneath a tree. Grian frowned, looking up into the sky. It was early in the morning, the sun having risen just as Bdubs fell. They could probably make it to one of the abandoned camps Grian noticed between his rage when he marched all the way here from his emergency bunker back in the sandlands, travelling for two days straight with no break.
//
Grian nodded, climbing up to sit on the bank of the hill, “We should make an attempt to dress some of these.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of a particularly angry wound on his thigh, the slice in the fabric of his trouser leg showing a black crusted wound, open and scabbed over but most definitely not clean. He imagined if he cleaned it out properly, it would be a bloody, pinky orange colour, deep enough to cut into the fat layer of the skin, leaving bumpy alienish yellow beads of fat exposed. It was truly gruesome, but Grian’s been dealing with wounds like that and deeper for all his life, so it hardly phased him.
//
“How the heck did you hike all the way from the sandlands with that ?” Scar ogled at the deep wound, tone almost lighthearted, as if this was something to joke about.
Oh well, they have to joke about something at least, “I forgot about it, thought it would heal over respawn, but I guess it only healed partly.” He shrugged, giving Scar a weak grin.
“The killing blow healed though, right?” Scar asked, tentative and nervous.
Grian nodded, knowing he’d lifted his shirt after the respawn to see yet another scar from where Bdubs’ sword had instantly ended his second life, sending him straight to red. It was fairly big, and almost overlapped the old scarification that was burned into the right side of his torso from high school. He shivered, pushing away the ancient memories.
“That’s good.” Scar said, obviously relieved. He started regarding his own state of affairs, noticing the cut on his shoulder and a few others. “I wonder where we could get some supplies.”
“Bdubs might have had some stuff.”
They both look across the small pond, where about ten metres away lay the body of their ally, and in another world, Scar’s friend, having tumbled down the hill. He was barely recognisable, covered in blood from the fatal wound Grian had inflicted on him. Dirt clung to his skin, his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat, bandana crumpled around his neck from where it had slipped down.
He looked away. As much as Grian wasn’t at all squeamish, he didn’t like dead bodies, even if he rationally knew that Bdubs was on the Hermitcraft server, probably much better off if what Scar had told him about the server was true.
After a few minutes, or it might have been an hour, who knew, Grian and Scar stood up in synchronised pain and went to inspect Bdubs’ corpse. His skin wasn’t quite yet cold and stiff to the touch, but it was too cool to be living with blood pumping underneath. Most of his blood was spread across the muddy ground, sticky under Grian’s boots as he silently dug through Bdubs’ utility belt. He picked off a few potions, and Scar found some dressings and bandages that seemed questionable but clean enough, along with a flask and some dried meat and bread in a little bag. It was enough for today.
Grian stepped away, wiping the semi-warm blood on his trousers and firming his jaw to look up at Scar, who seemed slightly more disturbed but still eerily calm in the face of death.
They stumbled through the forest, Grian leading them to an old camp next to a tiny stream that probably joined the much larger river that ran between the Crastle and Dogwarts, all the way to just behind Monopoly Mountain. The camp looked to be only made by a lone traveller, a log wedged in the trunk of a tree where it separated into branches and hastily chopped planks lining the two sides, creating a triangle shaped sleeping area.
There was no place for a firepit - you didn’t make fires unless you wanted to be hunted and killed - but there was no one left to hunt and kill them, so Scar worked on shifting some of the dead foliage and making a crude firepit. He was a master at making fires, Grian soon learned, and had seen him work magic with a flint and steel and some lint from his pocket - literally, lint. It was truly a wonder.
Grian didn’t generally light fires. He lit explosives. They were much more instant and lethal. A thought floated around in his head that explosives were good for playing pranks on people, due to their sudden and unexpected nature. He banished it, pranks weren’t something he indulged in anymore.
A few hours later, Scar was boiling water on the embers of the fire whilst Grian was gathering wood and foraging for anything edible. So far, he’d found some wild onions; a destroyed field of crops from which he salvaged a good few potatoes and some pathetically small and weedy carrots; and he’d also picked apart the fairly fresh corpse of a cow, deciding there was no meat worth risking it, but taking a bone to boil in whatever vegetable broth they could make out his findings. The mindless chores took his mind off of the rage that simmered under the surface after he had lost his second life. He wasn’t angry at anything in particular. Maybe the Watchers, but he honestly didn’t care enough to contemplate his stupid emotions. Grian could use the rage to propel himself a little longer in this wretched game, then he could let go.
When he got back, the water Scar had boiled was sat in the stream, cooling down so they could drink it and clean out their wounds. The man himself was also sat in the stream, a little further down, carefully washing himself with a rag, seemingly oblivious to Grian’s arrival.
“Hello there.” Scar greeted simply, having heard Grian tromping through the forest with armfuls of firewood and a bag of scavenged food.
With a relieved grunt, Grian set the wood down a few metres from the fire, taking out his bag of goodies and placing it in the shelter for now. The fire was little more than glowing embers by now, so Grian broke a couple smaller pieces off of the logs and set them on the embers, just to keep it going. For now, he wanted to wash himself and dress his wounds, then he would think about fires and cooking a broth.
“Hi Scar.” Grian returned the greeting after a moment, “I found some bits we could use for a vegetable soup. Or a broth with vegetables, or something.”
Scar hummed, dragging the rag over his legs, the water carrying away all the crusted mud and a multitude of different peoples’ blood. Water had been a scarcity for them whilst living in the desert, and Grian had spent many days feeling sick and dizzy from dehydration, still overworking himself in the sun despite Scar telling him he was being ridiculous. It usually ended in Grian passing out and Scar poking him awake with a stick, forcing him into the shade to wait whilst the other made the long trek to the river.
Somehow, though, Grian missed the desert. The sand under his nails, the dry taste in his mouth, the stupid ugly goggles he made to keep the sand out of his eyes when it was windy and all the sand was swept up and stung against his skin as he tried to set his traps.
Slipping off his shoulder bag and utility belt, Grian dug around for the washcloth he knew he had in his little bag. Under a sewing kit - he’d need that later - and the pouch of food they’d gotten off of Bdubs was a small rag, crunchy and stiff from where it had last been dried in the desert heat. Was that really the last time he’d washed? He almost felt disgusting, then remembered he was also busy fighting the final battle and had killed people, which was arguably worse than skipping out on baths for a few weeks.
Dumping his sweater on the side of the stream, Grian lowered himself - wings and all - into the stream, sighing at the sweet relief of cleanliness. Of course, he had a vest on underneath, he’d rather not have a million curious questions about the scars Grian had collected over the years. Scar was bare chested, no surprise there. Grian was beginning to wonder if he even owned a shirt at this point.
Once clean, he shook the water off of himself wet dog style, flicking back his hair which had managed to grow a few inches during the death games and now curled around his ears and the back of his neck, though he had hacked at his fringe with a pair of shears once it got in his eyes, then wore the goggles on his forehead from then on to keep the hair away from his eyes. Somehow, his hair never grew in the Watcher plane.
As Scar built the fire up, Grian used the boiled water to have a well-earned drink and to wipe at some of his wounds. He should really have stitched some of them, especially the large one on his thigh, but he wouldn’t be on this server for much longer. There was really no point, so he applied a little dribble of a health potion they’d gotten from Bdubs and bandaged up the larger wounds tightly.
He also used some bandages to once again bind his wings closed, they were ruined from plucking and a failed moult that happened just as he lost his first life. His feathers, having been clipped to stop him flying, were no longer there to protect the fragile blood feathers, and his wings ended up a bloody mess in no time. It was painful, but Grian didn’t really care. It was a little sad seeing something that was once his pride and joy now destroyed and neglected, but between the death games and the Watchers, Grian couldn’t find the energy to attempt to fix them.
Soon, the water was boiling on the fire, with wild onions, dried herbs from Scar’s old herb garden and the bone Grian had found. It probably wouldn’t be very nice, but it would be edible and warm, which was what they needed as the high noon started to sink into the early evening. To pass the time, Scar decided they could reminisce on the good times, mostly from the fort at Monopoly Mountain.
“Do you remember the first time we travelled together?” Scar asked, slowly peeling the skin off of a potato with a well used knife, the blade half as wide as it should have been, misshapen from countless sharpenings.
Grian nodded, idly plucking at a feather on his neck, “I rode on Pizza for a lot of the journey.” He remembered asking Scar why the hell they had a llama, why he thought he could take control of a whole desert. He recalled being cruel and condescending, and wondered what on Earth made Scar stick with him.
With an airy laugh, Scar agreed, “Yes, you did! You kept complaining about how all you’d been doing was walking, how you were tired. Then you told me how monopolising the desert was a silly idea, but I think I persuaded you.”
“The life debt also helped.” Grian added, trying to insert the same humour into his tone, but he could never quite match Scar’s energy. He just sounded snarky and petulant.
Scar still laughed in response, pausing peeling the vegetables to bask in the silliness of it all. For a moment, Grian wished he could just steal this desperate joy and live in it forever, immortalise Scar’s smile and the crinkle of his eyes, even if he could never experience this again. These things that Grian didn’t deserve, namely Scar.
He was so mean to Scar, so cold and cruel. He just wished he had it in him to give Scar the kindness he deserved, but it wasn’t in his nature. Scar was a kind person, and Grian was not. Grian stole and lied and hurt, whilst Scar smiled and laughed and gave.
All he wanted was to open up to the kind, intelligent man in front of him, to tell him that he was the closest friend he’s ever had that hadn’t hurt him, to tell him that he was the first person who had treated him with such gentle kindness, and how much it hurt to be treated kindly. How alien it was, how much he fought against it, how much it terrified him.
But Grian stayed silent, turning the scraggly red feather over in his fingers, reaching up to his neck and feeling a spot of blood where he had yanked it out, and wondering when he had done it. He’d hardly noticed.
Scar regarded him with that concerned look, “Grian, stop pulling your feathers out.”
Staring despondently down at the feather, he just sighed, “The broth is going to boil over.”
Concern pushed away, Scar panicked over the broth, lifting the lid of their old, carbon-black stained iron pot with a particularly handy shaped stick, steam rising into the air as the foam died down and stopped sizzling on the fire.
“Phew! That was a close one, almost lost the goods.” Scar remarked, half talking to himself, “Anyways, you were making that face where you overthink about pointless things. What’s spinning around that brain of yours, mister?” Scar waved the stick he had used to manoeuvre the lid of the pot in the vague direction of Grian’s head.
He huffed a little laugh at Scar’s antics, “I was just reminiscing.” He half-lied, then he added in a quieter, more reserved voice, “I’ll never see you again after this.”
Scar’s grin dropped to a more solemn look, one that looked out of place, and Grian felt guilt swirl in his stomach, before promptly banishing it. He didn’t need ridiculous emotions right now.
The other man hummed, slicing the potato in half before slicing it directly into the boiling pan. “You should come to Hermitcraft. I’m sure Xisuma would be happy to have you.”
“I can’t.” Grian answered quickly, “I’m sorry- I want to- But I can’t. I have somewhere I have to be after this.” The Watchers, obviously Watching over them right now, didn’t take well to even vague pointers to Grian’s true identity, and a sharp pain like a migraine assaulted his senses and he full-body flinched.
“Oh! Grian, are you okay?”
Mind numbing pain took over all his senses, vision going sparkly and the world losing feeling. Bringing his hands up to his head, he let out a low groan of pain.
“I’m sorry!” He whispered, and just as fast as it appeared, the migraine was gone.
For a moment, all Grian did was breathe, then Scar faded into vision, brow furrowed.
“Are you feeling alright?” Scar asked, stumbling over to fetch the pot of cool water, “Here, drink. You might just be dehydrated.”
Humming and sipping the lukewarm water, Grian watched quietly as Scar finished chopping the potatoes and carrots into the pot, the mundaneness of it all feeling strange next to the literal punishment from the Gods. Sometimes it amazed Grian that such mundane things still existed after huge, emotional events like the final battle.
“I, um, I set some snares by a warren whilst you were gone. With some luck, we should have a rabbit for tomorrow.” Scar said, carefully lowering the lid back onto the pot, “I don’t think we’ve had much more than vegetables these last few weeks, I’m practically drooling at the thought of a hearty rabbit stew…”
Grian hummed, trying to think when the last time he actually ate anything was, “I’ve only had a couple emergency baked potatoes from my respawn bunker since I died.”
“Oh, you should have said, here, eat the mystery meat from Bdubs.” Scar rummaged around in his backpack, “Ah, I can’t find it. Do you have it in your little shoulder pack thingy? And before you say no - Bdubs and I had a good couple of meals whilst you were gone, he was stacked with food he’d prepared back at the Crastle. He shot a pigeon and made some kind of curry with it - can you believe that? It was honestly impressive.”
Toning out Scar’s rambling, Grian ambled over to where his sweater, shoulder bag and other assorted stuff he’d taken off before bathing was dumped, deciding to pull on his sweater now the evening chill was setting in, and finding the pouch of food, still with bloodstains on the worn leather. A gruesome reminder of where it came from.
He loved Scars rambling, really, he did, but sometimes there were things to do. There were many occasions where Grian had told Scar to cut out the rambling and actually do something, cold and stern, and the other man had sighed and reluctantly agreed, always lighthearted, never seeming hurt by it.
The meat was dry and smoky, he guessed it was probably beef, and awoke the ravenous hunger inside of him that came from ignoring his body for so long. He finished half of it, leaving the other half for Scar, despite the other insisting that he was fine.
Once the potatoes were soft, they ate the soup together, practically inhaling it. It was filling and warm, and actually tasted semi-decent. Scar was always a much better cook, Grian was literally hopeless at these things. In high school, he’d lived off of convenience food, and in Evolution they mostly lived off of pork, as the server didn’t have many other food sources.
The sun was heading dangerously towards the horizon, which meant Scar would probably insist that they make an attempt at sleeping. Grian didn’t particularly like sleeping, as with it came nightmares, which usually ended in him waking up both himself and Scar.
“I’ll take the first shift.” Scar said, “I’ll wake you up halfway through. Don’t complain, either, you haven’t slept since you respawned like three days ago. You kept dozing off whilst the soup was finishing up, I think you need it.” He topped up the fire with a few logs, then stood up, taking the pot and the two spoons they used over to the edge of the stream.
“I won’t sleep.”
Rolling his eyes, Scar replied, “You will. I’ll make you.”
“Is that a threat?” Grian grinned, missing the friendly banter.
“Totally.”
Without missing a beat, Grian laughed and asked, “How will you make me?”
Still in that lighthearted tone, Scar smiled and answered, “The blunt edge of my sword, maybe?” He continued washing up the pan, the scene all too domestic and silly.
“I’d like to see you try.”
Scar laughed at his dry tone, “You will sleep, mister.” He said darkly, pulling out the knife he’d used to chop the vegetables.
Ignoring the tiny tinge of out of place fear, Grian laughed with Scar, enjoying the moment whilst it lasted. He didn’t know if he’d ever have anyone quite like Scar, anything quite like this, ever again. In fact, after this car crash of a game, he didn’t think the Watchers would ever let him play again. So be it, breaking their rules was worth it for Scar.
It was like Scar had infected him with his recklessness. At the start of the death games, Grian had not really been Grian - he’d been Xelqua, obedient and serious - but Scar had brought back that rebellious streak in him and he wasn’t complaining. Grian would go through whatever torture the Watchers had in store if it meant he could ignore their rules for a little while and actually make friends with Scar.
Grian slept first, Scar keeping watch for the monsters that rose at night, then in the middle of the night, after about five hours, Scar woke him up. He then swapped and kept watch over the sleeping form of Scar, feeling somehow more tired than before, his whole body aching from fighting.
Oh well. All he could do was keep pushing on for a little longer.