Archive of Our Own ^beta

Scar has never been this cold. Not in the desert. It wasn’t right. Grian had enough heat to spare for both of them, and it was too much. All of Scar’s kinetic energy had found its way under Grian’s skin in tremors, leaving Scar’s body completely still. He knew he shouldn’t ask- he wouldn’t get the answer he wanted- but the words swelled between the blood on his tongue and fell out of his bruised and cracking lips.

“Scar?”

Scar did not answer.

Grian dragged his knees through sand. His hands couldn’t get a steady grip on his partner's poncho, but tried regardless, giving the still man a shake. “Scar, get up. Scar. That’s enough. Scar, stop it. Scar! Stop. Stop.” His voice crescendo-ed and teetered out all the same. His words were wet and clunky. He couldn’t breathe quite right. He lifted a hand to Scar’s face again, just to be sure the first time wasn’t a fluke. His hand once again met marred, grey skin where old scars met new patches of purple and black blooming into new seams, but even the thick and unwelcome intrusion of red was now lukewarm at best. He stared. The cold sunk in. It sunk into his palm and right through to his stinging knuckles. It sunk into his gut. He stared, and stared, and stared. One moment, there was nothing, and in the next, everything began to exist. The sound of Grian’s wail came before the tears. He wasn’t expecting it, it just took over. He wailed, sobs wracking down his spine, making him bend like a willow over the corpse. His head found Scar’s chest. His head had been here before. Used to, he would be able to tilt his head down and catch a heartbeat, one that was never even and never predictable. He tilted his head down as his body rattled uncontrollably.

“I’m so sorry, Scar. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” His words mixed as watercolors through his bubbling tears. He clung to the body that was once Scar and let it all out, sputtering about everything and nothing in particular. His wings curled around them both to protect them from unwanted eyes. This was not for them. They would not get to see this. He hid his face and silently screamed.

But this moment was not his either. Nothing here was his, and he needed to not pretend like it was anymore. He let himself indulge for a long time, and all around him was a testament of his indulgence; the remains of sandstone and planks he once pretended were his home; a stony grave with a little hill of dirt in front of it, black banner hanging behind it; a moat of boiling lava he had complained about the entire time they dug it; cacti, everywhere, in rows and lines surrounding their poor excuse of a desert, a circle of it surrounding them- him, now; even the grip he had on the body before him was his own selfish desire. So he took a deep, painful breath in. It was like swallowing glass. He swallowed and inch by inch, finger by finger, worked his hands out of the fabric they sought asylum in. He couldn’t stop shaking. He figured he may by now, but if anything, the shaking and tremors only worsened as he pulled his arms away.

He stood, swaying. He needed to find a place to bury Scar before he left, and the thought hurt as soon as it existed. Tears threatened to spill again. He tried to take another deep breath, but he couldn’t breathe at all. He remembered how hard it was to form any kind of real grave for Pizza in the sand, how they had to haul in dirt from the forest nearby to get the hole to keep its shape. Bile rose in Grian’s throat. “Forgive me, Scar. I can’t bury you.”

He kneeled again, but just on one knee. He took Scar’s hand and lifted it oh so carefully.

There was something humming in the desert, something the ghosts watching couldn’t hear, but felt. There was a silence that settled over the world. The trees stopped moving, the wind stopped rustling leaves, despite it still howling in the background. The rivers did not roll to a stop as much as freeze all together.

The hum grew. “I-” his voice croaked. His throat was raw and unforgiving, but he pushed through. His free hand came up and pushed the loose strands in Scar’s face behind his ear, combing it down the best he could. Scar’s head lolled to the side aimlessly.

Grian’s lips met rigid fingers. There was something akin to the crumbling of sand and the crinkling of plastic coming from under the hardened skin. He folded the ungiving arm the best he could and kissed Scar’s palm. Grian smiled down at Scar, combing back his hair. “I have one more gift for you.”

Scar’s palm disintegrated beneath his kiss. Poppy flower petals sprouted from where Scar’s palm used to be, lifted easily by the wind. Another kiss. This skin was once golden and soft with life, full of blood and bone. Grian remembered the way it clung to the heat out here so quickly. It was like getting hugged by a furnace, and when Scar used to wrap an arm around the avian- usually to whisper conspiratorally in his ear or make a joke about somebody literally a foot away from the pair- he always found a way to brush the fox of a man off, maybe give him a jab in the gut. He had eventually accepted that Scar was the clingiest man alive, and that he was doomed to always have Scar lounging on his shoulders like he was furniture, but now it all felt so small. He regretted every playful push. He would give everything to feel Scar lean on him again. Instead, Scar had become made of clay. Grey made way for Poppy red. A nauseating panic was setting in.

Grian tried to cling to Scar one more time, but it was no use. It only made the transformation move faster. He trailed kisses up Scar’s arm, pausing at the crook of his elbow, then over his bicep. It opened for him willingly. His lips ghosted over the other’s shoulder, then sparsely to his chest, right above where his heart once was. He kissed Scar’s collarbone. He kissed Scar’s lips, and it was nothing like how he imagined it to be. Petals swarmed around him. He didn’t know where he was kissing anymore. He didn’t know where he ended and the flowers began. Was it even Scar anymore? Was Scar’s body even there?

His arms slowly wrapped around the mass of petals, meeting together where a spine used to be. He leaned into the mass and suffocated himself in it. His lips found something stable enough to feel. He left one, long, unending kiss. He had connected with a familiar spot. It was the end of the large tear that found its home over Scar’s left eye, right next to the man’s lips on his cheek. With his eyes closed, he could see it so clearly, see where the dimple folded it when Scar grinned.

Within seconds, it was over. Grian’s eyes opened to petals being led away from him. A ball was forming in Grian’s throat again.

“Scar?” There was no answer. Grian hugged himself, wings folding. He watched as they danced in the sky. They swirled in an imperfect circle, playing amongst themselves, knocking gently into each other. Something tickled his shoulder, causing it to twitch. He looked down. A single petal had landed there, lounging, not caring that the rest of its brothers were leaving it behind. He carefully scooped it up and closed his hand around it. “I hope you are somewhere safe.” He stood once more on shaky legs and walked to the cliff looking over the desert. He couldn’t watch the petals anymore. He had no more goodbyes in him. He would not turn back.

“I hope you are somewhere safe and loved.”

He could feel the eyes of more than the ghosts of his friends on him. The rivers moved again. The trees moved, the wind blew like usual. A black liquid slowly dripped from his nose.

“God knows I’m not.”

“She’s dead Scar. You’ve won.”

He was sure it was Grian who had said it. The sentence had formed itself in his head, a foreign presence amongst his own thoughts. It was an invasion in his mind, yes, but a welcomed, familiar one. It had been awhile since they spoke, like really spoke. The games blend and warp in Scar’s mind these days, existing in windows into moments rather than separate games with clear, individual rules. There was a very distinct possibility that much of what he remembered was real. Sometimes he could see Grian sitting close, still feel the knitted pattern of a red sweater pushing its impression into his skin. Scar stopped walking, looking at his arm with a confused whine. A phantom touch had brushed itself over his arm, from the crook of his elbow, to his bicep, all the way up his shoulder and beyond. Sometimes, his memories did this too; got ahead of themself before they could fully form in his mind. The memory- if it was a memory, rather than a dream- slowly put itself together piece by piece, restoring what it could. He could see a blurry painting unfolding before him: Grian, younger than he was recently, knuckles and face bloody to a near pulp, wailing over somebody. That was the first sign to him that it wasn’t real; Grian never cried. The Grian he knew would never howl like the one in his vision did, not for anyone, especially not Scar. The Scar in front of him was grey and cold, but not for long. Scar reached his hand forward as if he could catch the poppy petals from his vision.

He blinked himself back into reality. His head slowly turned down. “Oh! Right… sorry Pearl, you know how I get sometimes.”

In front of the man was a line of fifteen graves, all close, but distinctly their own. Each had been carefully dug- not anything more than what Scar believed to be six feet- with fourteen of them now covered with thickly packed dirt. A sunflower stood near each hand-made tombstone. He fixed Pearl’s red hoodie before carefully lifting her up and gently settling her down to rest. He placed some of her items with her, one by one, then took a moment to simply stare at his friend. His back and legs ached from all the digging. They begged him to rest, but it wasn’t his turn. Not yet. This moment wasn’t about him.

“Goodnight, Pearl. Thanks for being my friend this time.” It shouldn’t have taken him long to bury her, but he took his time anyway. He didn’t want to disturb her. Afterwards, he picked up his shovel and swung it over his shoulder. “One more to go.”

He walked- a bit aimlessly- looking for Grian’s body. He would stop and stare into space, not saying a word, just staring. Every now and then his eyes would wander, like he was watching somebody move in front of him, like they were talking to him. But they weren’t, so he did not say anything in return. He stopped once again, but not for an apparition or a memory. Sprawled before him- a few feet away from the steps leading up to Gem and the Scott’s base- was a field of lilac. Has that been there before? Scar didn’t know, but it was beautiful, in a sad way. His gut folded in on itself.

“Forgive me, Scar. I can’t bury you.”

Scar whipped around. He could smell the faint scent of sand and burning. His feet moved without command to do so. He walked up the half destroyed pink stairs hugging the mountain. Petals falling from the trees flitted and curved around him. He held out his hand, letting one find solace in his palm as he pushed onwards. He dipped his head into each house; first Scott’s, then Impulse’s, then Gem’s. He kicked open the hatch and climbed down.

It was a straight path down from here, but Scar was never a fan of the narrow walls of underground tunnels. He sometimes dreamed that the Earth would fall in on him, if he stayed underground too long. It just seemed like the type of thing to happen to him. He would only take a quick look down here.

He followed the roughly carved out path down, and down, and down, all the way to a familiar black portal. Part of it had crumpled off to the side, leaving streaks of black across the dimly lit cobblestone. It wasn’t hard to see what had taken the obsidian to its knees. In front of said portal was the ghost of violence past; quickly placed rails led down a hobbled together escape hole. Wide, sweeping streaks of red stretched beyond where Scar’s eyes should follow. Scar followed.

Scar could prepare for many things. He has been here, many times over again. Finding and burying friends was not new and it was not novel. In fact, at this point in his existence, it had become somewhat of a therapeutic experience. It had a rhythm to it that could soothe him from a red haze. Find the body, carry it, dig a hole in soft but not muddy soil- stay away from trees, their roots wander- bury them, maybe with somebody, maybe with something, if there is anything left- and pack the dirt tight. The carnage he found both enemies and friends in did not make his stomach turn or surprise him anymore. The nausea of it all fades fast after the first handful of times.

It was not the things he shouldn’t describe that made his guts twist, or the overwhelming dark crimson that coated the surrounding rocks, or the smell of the beginning of rot filling the partially closed space. It was the position Grian died in that made his stomach lurch.

He had died with his back to the wall, hunched, an animal backed into a corner. He had no chance of making it, and Scar had no chance of helping him. Perhaps if they were allies this time around, he could have done something. Perhaps not. Probably not. Grian’s wings were bent in all the wrong directions, bones and feathers equally snapped. The avian’s sword was well used and still laying in his slackened grip. His head was slumped to the side, but not far enough. Not enough to hide his face.

Scar groaned like he had been hit. He stumbled back and shot his hand out to the wall for any kind of stability. His other hand flew to his mouth. His legs couldn’t hold up as the Earth crashed in on him. Scar’s slid and scratched down the wall. The smell was too much. It was all too much. It was pungent, and then it was warm, mixing into a horrible concoction with the memories of sand and gun powder. A watery chuckle escaped his mouth. “Good god Gri.. you really got yourself into a predicament, didn’t ya?” He asked, despite knowing he shouldn’t.

Grian did not answer.

Scar took in a trembling breath. “I’m.. I’m gonna move you now, okay? I’m going to bury you now.” Scar did not give himself much time to recuperate or mourn. This wasn’t about him. He used the wall to help himself stand, and stayed there until the swaying of the world was at least manageable. He walked to Grian with his hands up to show he meant no harm. His good knee met wet rock as he kneeled. He unclipped his cloak and began to wrap it around the smaller, colder man. He used one hand to lift Grian’s stiff and broken back from the cave wall to pull the fabric around him. The wings were hard to fold manually, and impossible to do without an awful pop every now and then, but he managed. His jaw wound itself shut into a tight grimace. He clipped it shut and pushed his arms under Grian’s body before he stood once again. One of his hands moved up to the back of the avian's head, fingers finding familiar dirty blonde strands. “Shh, I know. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Scar had never been to a real funeral (that he knew of); there was never time. This felt like the closest he might get to one. He marched alone up the cliffs and round a riverbed, a corpse curled in his arms. He did not walk to the line of fourteen graves; instead, he turned, walking to a closer spot that would not leave his mind.

The field of lilacs welcomed him with open arms. He stepped between them, silently apologizing for disturbing their peace. He laid Grian down on a bed of them and squatted next to the corpse, staring. His hand reached out. He brushed hair out of Grian’s face. Scar felt a foreign sting to his eyes. The feeling was an old- and unwelcomed- friend. He blinked it back the best he could. Nothing prepares you for just how cold the body becomes when it's empty.

“Forgive me, Scar. I can’t bury you.”

“I forgive you, Gri. I always do. I always do.”

Scar pulled himself away to dig the grave. This one was harder to dig than the rest. His body was aching from the morning of shoveling dirt, and his legs promised to give out soon. He would shove the tool into the dirt, pushing aside rocks and roots of flowers in his way, tossing the dirt in a pile to the side, and then stop to use the shovel as a pillar, body hunching over it. This pattern went on, and repeated every five to ten minutes, for gods knows how long. It didn’t help that he could once again feel eyes on him, only this time it was not just from the sky. With his back turned to the husk of his friend, his imagination took over. He imagined Grian sitting up, moving like a puppet on strings, head bobbing all around as he was forced to move by something that was not Grian. Those inky blacks were digging into Scar’s back. Just staring. No emotion, no judgement or playful glances or mischievous glints. There was just the promise of nothing, forever.

The grave was dug. He turned and fumbled his way back to Grian. Grian’s body was not staring at him, of course. He did not pick the body up again, not yet. He went around and plucked lilacs up until he had a solid mass of them. He climbed down into the new hole and began spreading them out like one would a sheet. The sun was threatening to set soon, so he picked up the pace. He could’ve spent forever picking all the right flowers and laying them down perfectly, but he didn’t have the time. He never had the time.

Scar pulled himself out of the dirt and returned to the body. He wasted no time in cradling the man and toting him to his grave. It had to be like pulling a band aid. He folded Grian’s arms over his freshly scarred chest and laid him to rest one last time. He grabbed the shovel, grabbing a scoop of dirt- he held the dirt above Grian’s gave- and he stopped. He just… held it there.

Scar lowered the tool.

“Gri?” Scar’s voice croaked. A wind whistled through the trees and past his ears. For the third time today- for the fourth time in his life, that he could recall- he kneeled for Grian. Both knees slammed to the ground. Pain radiated from his legs and stabbed needles all the way up his spine. It didn’t affect him much. “I, um.. I hope…”

“Let's be safe and loved together, okay? I can’t-” His laugh sounded all wrong. “It’s not right without you.”

He scolded himself for drawing it out. If a few tears escaped him while he covered pale skin with dark Earth, who was to say? Those who watched now could not speak. Nobody spoke to him while he worked. He packed the dirt in tight, just as he was supposed to, and in twenty minutes time he was done, collapsing next to the freshly dug grave. He sat, slumped over himself, back turned to the grave. He couldn’t look at it anymore, tired of seeing it after hours of work, after days and weeks and years all inevitably leading to its creation. He did not turn back.

The wind picked up. Purple petals swirled and swarmed together, flying overhead, waving a final goodbye to the man in the field. He let out a slow and long breath.

“I hope you’re safe.” He whispered, to no one. His eyes closed. “God knows I’m not.”

Scar could always be found returning to the fields of sunflowers. Venturing too far into abandoned bases felt like trampling on graves, and the world- though small compared to many, was too big for one man- so he stuck to what he knew. He did not know how long had passed since the world had stopped, but he had a pretty good idea. Sometimes, when he looked in the river, he would see an older version of himself looking back. Nothing more than ten years, maybe, but enough to leave streaks of gray in his bangs and small sideburns; his hair was long enough to braid now, a braid that brushed the small of his back when it wasn’t lounging on his shoulder; bags had now turned into permanent lines drawn down from his eyes; there was the ghost of facial hair, despite shaving just last night; it was all evidence of the time slowly marching on.

The flowers surrounding him were evidence of it too; they now crowded both the inside of the walls and out, and piles of sunflowers cut down laid defeated in piles behind Trader Scar’s. Trader Scar’s had grown with the fields around it with a new, matching tool shed, attached to it by a path of rocks. The courtroom still stood proud, even as vines sought to reclaim it. Scar was in constant war with those damned vines, so he decided to wave the white flag (so long as they stayed away from his house). Around the yard were various projects he picked up as he needed to, random ones to serve as much, much needed distractions. He left the walls- cane and a tool basket in tow- and let the sunflowers fade into lilacs. He had spent a long time making a dirt path as a direct connection from his base to the lilac field, but not from any real effort to. The trail had formed as a result of his walks to and from. He walked the trail twice everyday; one as the sun rose, and once just before the sun fell. The purple flowers had grown out to greet him all along the path, so he had grown sunflowers up to meet them halfway.

He hummed a song that did not exist as he approached his dear Grian’s memorial. It now had a hand-carved tombstone to mark it against the flora. Laying on top of the light gray stone was a now wilting bundle of poppies and lilacs. Scar picked them up and tossed them into his basket before replacing them with a fresh one. “Good morning Grian. Sorry I’m late, I wasn’t feeling up for the walk. You know how it is.” He subconsciously rubbed his left leg.

The wind howled a low response. His hand froze on his leg. No other part of his body moved, not an inch. The only tell his body gave of the change in him was the dilation of his pupils. The feeling of being perceived swam to the front of his mind, growing from a looming threat over his head and blooming into a presence, one less than a hundred feet behind him. Petals brushed the backs of his arms. He swallowed it all down.

“And good morning to you.”

“You’ve already said good morning to me.”

“There’s plenty of people you could pretend to be, you know. You don’t have to sound like him.”

Grian’s black feathers bristled, but he didn’t bother arguing. It would be a waste. It always was.

Their first reunion was burned into Grian’ s mind. He knew it wasn’t going to be pretty- Scar and Grian never made for a good combination- but nothing could have prepared him for the visceral state Scar had been left in.

Grian had slipped his way in through a rip in the world when he first returned to Scar. Splotchy code made for a perfect entrance. The problem was not getting back into the world; the problem was being Witnessed. There was very little in the universe They did not see. It was not their lack of ability that he was counting on, but their boredom. It took energy and will to Witness everything at once, and if the entities over this universe were anything, it was restless. He had learned in his early days what things piqued their interest, what they looked for. Love, family, connection, intimacy- anything they could sharpen into weapons when it all came crumbling down.

So, when he first rushed to Scar, he did not approach the victor directly. Maybe it would’ve helped if he did.

Grian had lingered in the edges of forests, witnessing. At this point, Scar had not built up the base, or bothered to tend to the sunflowers. He had instead spent most of his time at the base of the secret keepers statue, and it had not been pretty.

Scar’s hair was a tangle of unkept knots and grease. He hadn’t bothered putting his old sunflower cloak on, not yet, leaving his arms and neck sunburnt and peeling. He had lost his shoes at some point. His shirt and hands were torn up. He was laying against the podium holding the reroll button, arms wrapped around it like he was in the rapids of a river. A large pile of red papers had scattered themselves around the man. Grian felt nauseous. The way he was slumped on the ground brought him back to bloody knuckles and sand. Still, Grian waited. He could feel a pressure building in his throat as the situation made itself clear.

Scar was not going to stay alive like this- and the watchers would not leave Scar alone if they knew Grian still wanted him- but there was no game here. There was no bloodlust to cloud his judgement, and there was no respawn promised. Grian approached, cautiously.

Scar was not asleep when Grian walked up, but he wasn’t fully there either. His eyes were hazed over and to the sky. Grian did not feel the presence of Them yet. He crouched down, hands held up like he was approaching a wild animal. “... Scar?”

Scar blinked. His eyes wandered to Grian, but nothing else moved. He didn’t say anything.

Grian’s eyebrows knitted together. “Are you still with me buddy?” He whispered. Silence. “Scar?”

Scar did not answer. Grian couldn’t take it when he didn’t answer.

“Scar please. I need-” he swallowed the bile coming up. “I need you to show me you’re alive, please. I can’t-”

I can’t do this again.

That seemed to catch Scar’s attention. His face twitched to life, head tilting away from the stone he had collapsed against. He looked lost. The brunette tried to speak, but it came out as a coughing fit. He tried again. “You don’t look the same.” He croaked.

“What do you mean?”

“You…. look different than usual.”

Scar’s body finally stirred. His arm struggled to push itself under the weight of the rest of him. This round of coughs sent him crumbling to the ground. He covered his mouth and groaned in pain, free hand traveling down to his leg. Grian’s whole body twitched forward, but he stopped himself. “Good gods Scar, what did you do to yourself?”

Scar looked at Grian like he grew a second head. He sat up too fast. He grabbed his head with another, harder groan. “Wait, stop you- you- you- what do you want from me?”

Grian reeled, wings opening to make himself look bigger. “I want you to stop laying outside like a creep! You’ve been here for two days, I don’t think I’ve seen you get up even once for water or- or food.” His face scrunched, moving the feathers that decorated his nose together in a tight bundle. “What kind of question is that?”

“You don’t want me to stop?”

The wheels in Grian’s head began to turn. “... Stop.”

“You aren’t here to tell me to stop trying.”

It clicked. Grian felt his throat close. Grian made himself as small as he possibly could, shoulders hunching, his own hands sliding up opposite arms and clutching red wool. “You’ve been seeing me. Here.”

Scar’s eyes widened. Tears immediately pricked the edges of his lovely greens and his lip quivered. “Grian? Oh my god its-” He laughed and the tears and everything else came spilling over. “Oh my gods, Grian, Grian its-” He gasped for air and reached towards him. “It’s really you. It's really you.”

The flowers froze in place around them. The water, the grass, the bees a few hundred feet away, the fire of nearby torches, they all stopped their rhythm. The world stopped under Their sudden watchful gaze. Scar blinked, and Grian was out of sight.

“Scar you can’t touch me!” Grian exclaimed. He was ten feet away from the crumpled man. “I have to be careful, alright? It might be too much of a risk for you to look at me, either. If They see you, They’ll take you, and they will put you in the next game. Do you understand me?” He watched Scar’s back. Scar tilted his head to the side as if to hear Grian better.

The seconds ticked by. The flowers swayed, discordant and drunk. The river's tide was falling in reverse. Grian kept glancing up at the sky. “Say something please.” He quipped with a sharp tone. His desperation was leaking out, and it was drawing attention.

“I get it.” Scar did not turn back to Grian as he struggled up onto his feet. He leaned his weight back on the column of rock and pushed. It was painful to watch. His legs shook violently. There were popping noises, and for a moment, Grian was sure he would see poppy petals floating into the sky; another signal he had failed to save Scar. Scar turned, and Grian had prepared to disappear again, but he didn’t need to. Scar was not looking at him. His eyes were closed. There was an imitation of his signature smile on his face. “You know… if you aren’t real, this is a new low.”

Grian did not get the chance to say anything. “I can’t really tell if this is me and my usual craziness- because I am just made like this, and I’ve been here for gods knows how long, and I am coming apart at the seams- or if this is another stupid fucking game.” His smile grew into a grin. Giggles bubbled from him. Grian shrunk back against the Secretkeeper statue. Scar’s hand came up and pushed back the many loose strands of hair that had fallen into his face. “Ya know, I don’t think it matters! I don’t think it matters at all.” He wiped the tears from his face with one final sniff. His shoulders stood high.

Grian hated when Scar got like this. This was the kind of Scar that burned down homes and slaughtered entire alliances; this was the Scar he had revered, in another life, kissing his shoulder before whispering plans of blood shed and that had once thrilled him to have the honor of being a part of; this was the Scar that took risks, and never got the pay off he desired, because he desired for everything and everyone to die.

This was a Scar that was reserved only for those who would die by his hand, or were dead to him already. He placed a hand on his hip and cocked his head to the side with a devil’s grin. “And if you are the real Grian-” he shrugged. “-and you might be? Why should I care? You’re going to leave me here anyways. I know you, Grian. You are going to do what you think is best for me, and you think what’s best is to leave.” It hurt worse than Grian thought it would, hearing it out loud. It tasted worse than iron filling his mouth or his veins boiling themselves alive. He wished Scar had just killed him instead.

“Just go.”

Grian grit his teeth. “No.”

“I wasn’t asking.”

“I am not leaving you.”

“Yes you are.”

Grian stepped out into the open. “No I’m not! I’m not! I’m not leaving you like this. This wasn’t supposed to go this way-”

“How was this supposed to go?” Scar hummed.

It was all wrong. “Don’t use that fucking tone with me! Like I’m some-” he gestured his hands, frantic. “-like I’m somebody to get something out of! I’m not an obstacle, I’m- it’s me! Scar.” His words tripped across each other in a panicked frenzy. His steps forward became more rushed and bumbling. “Scar, it really is me, I’m here. I’m here now.”

Scar shook his head a little and looked to the side. His eyes peeked open, and they were hurt. Rage and bitterness boiled up behind them. He clenched his jaw and tried his best to keep it together. He inhaled, sharp. “Will you please just go? I don’t care if you’re real.” He looked at Grian, so Grian disappeared.

“I don’t care if you’re real. If you’re going to leave, just do it. I can’t…” Scar looked at something in the distance. Grian’s eyes followed. Across the map, closer to Gem’s base, was a lilac field. The fire in Grian’s stomach went out. His jaw slackened, wings neatly folding shut.

“I cannot keep saying goodbye to you.” The avian could hear him fighting the tears in his voice. Grian, more than anyone else, understood. He was making this worse. This was not him trying to protect Scar. This was never about finding Scar and reassuring him, telling him he wasn’t forgotten. This was never going to be a moment of Grian explaining how he looked for this world for days, and how he never stopped, and that they would figure things out, because in the end, none of it mattered. They would have to say goodbye to each other again. Grian would see Scar’s lifeless body again, see the light flicker and die behind his pupils. He couldn’t bring him back to that. Grian stepped back with no argument.

The world was moving as it once did, eyes shifting away in boredom away from them. Grian walked away from the statue. He stopped to look back at Scar once more.

The back of Scar’s shirt was covered in dirt and grime. One of the tears in the front of Scar’s shirt had whipped itself all the way ‘round the back, making it hang off his hip awkwardly. His hair was still as knotted and messy as it was when he first began watching him.

The last thing Grian thought before he left the world was how beautiful Scar looked. Scar did not look back.

Grian blinked a few times to push the bitter memory away. He hadn’t realized he zoned out, but Scar didn’t seem to pay it much mind. The man in question was pulling various gardening tools out of his basket and laying them on the ground.

It had only been a year since their first reunion, but Grian would never tell him that. Scar seemed to think it had been years, and he didn’t blame him for that. Gorgeous streaks of grey and white tangled themselves in Scar's hair, eyes sagging with age he didn’t have. He looked good like this. He looked right. Sun kissed in all the right spots, a little muscular, but not built for fighting, aging naturally, even if a bit fast. A few more years and he’d be properly middle aged.

The man in question was pulling weeds from around Grian’s grave with methodical precision. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Grian inspected him warily. “Alright.”

Scar wrapped his fingers around the weed in front of him, not yet pulling it. “What happens, exactly? If I look at you?”

Grian’s eyebrows raised. “I’ve already told you what would happen. They will be able to see me through your eyes- because they are aware of you, at this point- and they will most likely want to bring you into the next game, when it begins. And until then, you will simply not exist.”

“And what happens after that?”

Grian sighed, exasperated already. He had only been here for five minutes, and already, this man’s antics were getting to his nerves. He didn’t know why he risked everything just to argue with him. Grian crossed his arms and shifted his weight. “What happens after what?”

“After that game. Do I come back here, or do I stop existing until they get bored?”

“... I don’t know.”

“Is there a point where they just… Get bored? What then, do we get to die?”

“I don’t know.”

Scar scoffed. He yanked up the weed, harder than the previous ones. “Right, sorry, forgot you weren’t real. Obviously you wouldn’t have real answers either.”

Grian tossed his hands up in the air. “Oh for goodness sake!”

Scar stood now. “How are you going to get mad at me for asking questions?! What else are we supposed to talk about, O’ figment of my imagination? How the weather is? Oh, the weather is great, some freakin’ blue as usual.”

“You ask the same questions, over and over again! I can’t give you the answers you want, and then you get mad and just ignore me after, and it’s tiring.” His volume lowered the more he spoke. He dropped his arms. “I don’t know what you want from me. Do you want me to leave you alone? Is that it?”

“You wouldn’t.” Scar sounded fragile. The common sting of guilt swirled in Grian’s gut.

“No Scar. I wouldn’t.” He reassured quietly. The two stood there for a while. Scar turned his head. Grian prepared to disappear.

“You want a new question then?”

Grian shrugged. “Sure.”

He could see Scar’s jaw set from over the man's shoulder. “Do you think about the desert?”

Grian felt the Earth fall from beneath him. He sucked in a harsh breath. “Of course I do.” He whispered.

This time around, the silence between them was a comforting one. It was a moment of understanding. Scar stared at the tombstone in front of him and willed its surface to change. He wanted nothing more than to catch Grian in the reflection of its surface, just one more chance to see him, any version of him. He almost missed the hallucinations. He was starting to forget the details of the avian. His mind could paint scarlet wings, the red of a sweater, dark eyes, feathers down the bridge of a small nose, brown hair. Brown? Was it blonde? Maybe red? The more he tried to focus on the image, the blurrier it got. He rubbed his hands over his eyes.

“Are you still there, like I am? Or is it… you know.” He made a crazy gesture at his head, swirling his finger in a circle.

“No, you’re not crazy.” Grian quickly reassured. He crossed his arms over his chest protectively. “It was… intense. Our first game. I think we were just excited by the drama of it all.” Scar snorted at that. Grian could touch his back, so easily. The tips of his fingers tingled with anticipation of a warmth that would never- could never- come to fruition. His chest hurt. His hands curled into fists. Scar didn’t seem to notice his moment of mourning.

“I miss it. I don’t… I don’t like fighting my friends-” Grian’s lips twitched into a frown. It was such a simple way of putting what happened, but it felt right in its terrible simplicity. “-but… oh I dunno. I miss when it was just us, some times. The house was nice. It was small, and I liked that. It would’ve been amazing to see what it could’ve grown into.” Scar seemed to be debating something by the way he tilted his head (not dissimilar to a cat). “Will you sit with me if I agree to keep my eyes closed?”

Grian narrowed his eyes at the other. “If you’re pulling one of your little stunts?”

Scar gave the closest thing to a carefree laugh he could give these days, tossing his head back. His eyes were already closed. “Oh Grian! If I wanted to look at you, I would!” His tired smile tightened back into a defensive, serious one. All teeth and no dimples. “When I leave this world- and I will, I assure you- I will do it on my own accord.”

Grian felt queasy. He watched for any sudden movements from Scar, for the redstone under the dirt. Scar did not budge. The avian folded his wings primly before sitting a good foot away from Scar. He nestled into the flowers and long grass like it was a cushion. He held his wing out on the side without Scar and began brushing over the feathers in search for a distraction. Scar took the souring of the silence as a sign to continue. “Ya know, I’m not actually sure what happened in the desert. Well not really anyways. My memory is kind of- bleugh.” Grian hummed in understanding while he plucked out a broken feather. It fell to the ground without ceremony.

“I tell you what Scar, you tell me something you remember, and I’ll tell you if it happened.”

Scar turned his head to face Grian, but kept his eyes closed. “Alright. Did we-?”

“Not that question! No, we didn’t!” Grian’s head feathers puffed with anger, and Scar laughed, hard, hand over his gut. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding! God forbid a man has a little bit of fun. Okay, okay-” Scar sat back up, wiping a tear away from his closed eyelid. “Okay. But, seriously, what… were we?”

Grian’s head wings flinched down as if to hide him from the question. “Of course that would be your follow up question.”

“If you want me to stop asking you questions forever and ever Gri, then this is going to be a very long existence.” Scar teased. Grian rolled his eyes. “I don’t really know how to answer this one. We were… we both had feelings that were hard to act on, given the circumstances. That doesn’t mean you didn’t try your damndest though.” Grian got the laugh he was fishing for. This was nice. This moment here in the field fluttered into Grian and landed deep inside of him. A nasty voice in the back of his mind told him it was not something solid to hold on to, but sand, and it was already slipping from his grasp as he was living in it.

“Did you kiss me?”

Grian shook his head. It made him dizzy. “No. We never kissed.” It was a heavy thing to say out loud.

“No I mean, did you kiss me anywhere else? Like… like my arm.”

Grian whipped around fast. Scar still had his eyes closed, as promised, his face scrunched with concentration. Scar’s hand ghosted up his right arm, following an invisible path from his palm, to the crook of his elbow, to his shoulder. His hand stopped there and he whined. Grian’s mouth felt too dry. “Oh. That was uh…” Grian licked the memory of petals off his lips. “That wasn’t… when you were alive.”

Scar seemed to realize his error. He retracted his hand with a silent wince. “Oh.”

“No, it's fine! You were-” Grian sighed while running a hand through his hair. “It was my first time losing you, so, I freaked out a bit and panicked, and I just.. I couldn’t-”

“Couldn’t bury me.” Scar finished for him. Grian gawked. Scar rubbed his forehead. It hurt to remember. “You… said you were sorry.” He pulled his hand away from his face. “You seem to say that a lot these days.”

Grian felt the itch to look for an escape route, but he stayed firm. “I’ve got a lot to be sorry for.”

Scar’s first instinct was to argue that Grian didn’t, that Grian did not exist to keep the Watchers that be at bay; that he was not responsible for keeping the world spinning on its axis, that he was just as much of a player as everybody else, but he respected Grian too much to give him half-truths right now. Instead, Scar shrugged it all away. “I’ve already forgiven you. For everything.”

Grian looked at him like a lost child. “What?”

Scar shrugged again, like it was nothing. “Dunno if you heard me or not, but when I buried you, I said I forgave you. I meant it.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

Grian’s blood began to simmer.

“You don’t just- I killed you.”

Scar scoffed, offended. “It's a death game, Grian, you had to kill me.” Grian stood up at that, throwing his hands up. “They didn’t make me abandon you in the next game over.” That one gave Scar pause. Sensing this was turning into a lot less of a casual reminiscing session, he pushed himself up with a groan. “Yeah, you’re right. They didn’t. You and Mumbo could’ve joined me on magic mountain, and we could’ve all been a team, but to what end? We would all have to kill each other in the end anyways. I forgave you for that one long ago, try again.” He gave a sarcastic gesture of his hand.

The simmer was stirring into something fierce. Grian growled, teeth bared. “Was cheating on you in the next life part of game strategy?” Scar barked a cruel laugh, which only pushed Grian’s buttons more, just like he knew it would. “Take this seriously Scar!”

“I can’t! I can’t take this seriously, because you-re just- you’re just-” his hands shook in front of his face before he threw them out. His eyes were still closed. “-you’re just looking for a reason for me to hate you! And I’m not gonna give it to you!”

“Yeah, cause you should hate me!”

“Oh who are you to tell me what I should or shouldn’t feel?”

“Really Scar? Is this what this is about? Your feelings?” He hissed. Scar flinched. It was Scar’s turn to boil in it. His fists clenched shut as he laughed, loud and wicked.

“You’ll just say anything but I love you, won’t you?”

Grian went quiet. His anger was doused out with water. His wings sagged pitifully behind him.

Scar bared his teeth. “Fuck you Grian, seriously. You won’t get me to turn you away, cause- cause what?” He was getting himself worked up. “Cause you think it's what's best for me? Because that’s turned out wonderfully so far!” He shot bitter venom into every word, and every word hit its target.

Scar's fists flattened. He sighed. “What do you want from me?”

Scar opened his eyes. Grian did not disappear, but instead, turned away from him. The world slowed as the Watchers eyes turned to them- as the whole world turned to them.

“I…” Grian's eyes wandered over the fields. With the sun setting as it did now, a bright, fiery goodbye, the red of the sun mixed with the purple of the flowers. It all swam in his vision. “I want you to be safe.”

Scar frowned. “That isn't going to happen. We aren't safe anywhere.”

“I know.”

Scar's voice was gentle now. “And I'm not going to leave you, even if it meant I could- I dunno, escape, if it's possible. I’m not going to stay here forever. I’m going to follow you out.”

It was a slight change from the usual statement. ‘I am going to follow you out of here someday’ was a pretty common sentiment Scar brandished against him, but that is not what he said.

Grian did not cry these days, but he was damn near it. He smoothed his head feathers down with tremor riddled hands. “The sunflowers will die without you.” He could hear Scar’s boots to grass and flowers.

“Yeah.” Scar’s response was wet with unshed tears. “They kind of die with me too.”

They both spared a quiet laugh. Scar didn’t know what to say to Grian. He was not used to winning this argument, and it hit him that this was really happening. He thought about the unfinished side of trader Scar’s and the flowers that waited eagerly for new fertilizer that would never come. He did not know what to say, so he parroted Grian’s words back to him. “I have… one more gift for you.”

Grian did not cry these days, but today he did. He laughed a watery laugh, gloved hand coming up to stubbornly rub the tears away. “You’ve given me everything I ever wanted, Scar. What more could you possibly give me?”

Scar’s hand slowly wrapped around Grian’s wrist. Grian wilted into it, easily, like it was what he was made to do.

Grian turned back.

As soon as he did, Scar could feel the warmth leaking out of his body. His spine stung with hundreds of tiny needles of pain, then tingled, then went numb. He did not need to look back to know it was turning into that familiar red petal from his dreams. A mix of a laugh and a sob fumbled out of Grian. “Oh. Oh Scar, you’re beautiful.”

Scar had the nerve to act bashful. His dimples came out with his smile, and he tilted his head down to look at Grian. “Hi songbird.” Scar’s tears fell and became one with Grian’s on the avian’s. Scar brought a hand up to hold Grian’s cheek, who cooed and pushed his face into the touch while it lasted. Grian had never felt the weight of his wings disappear like they were beginning to do now. Purple flowers rose into the sky.

“We may not get to keep these memories.” Grian whispered. “I might have more to be sorry for. Well… I will have more to be sorry for, probably.”

Scar nodded feverishly, but couldn’t muster a response. Grian was older, feathers allowed to grow out more, now black with tinges of purple and framing his face like sideburns. He turned Grian’s head with his hand, his lips landing on the other’s cheek with the ghost of a kiss. It was salty. “I’ll forgive you for that too. I forgive you Gri. And I’m sorry. I am-” He choked up.

They were clinging to each other now, and Grian was not sure where he ended and Scar ended. Scar whimpered like a scared animal. “I thought this would hurt more.”

“I know, I know. It's okay. It’s okay. It’s going to be over soon.” The hand that soothed Scar’s back no longer existed. Grian pushed his forehead to Scar’s. They both opened their eyes for the last time.

“I’ll always forgive you.”

It wasn’t clear who said it, in the end, or who was the last to be whisked away. Petals- lilac and poppy- became almost indistinguishable as they rose, higher, and higher, and higher, never leaving each other's space, until they ran away from the world frozen in place.