Chapter Text
Scar has a plan.
Over the past few weeks, he's seen Grian every day. It was nice, he really enjoyed spending time with the avian, and so he wanted to hang out with him a bit more than the few minutes they did every day.
Problem was, Grian was still a bit nervous around him. Scar doesn't blame him, it's a tough world out there and they've only known each other for a few weeks.
This barred a lot of options, Grian wouldn't want to head inside his house, and he definitely wouldn't want to go into town.
So, what was Scar's plan to get Grian to spend time with him, you ask?
He's going to ask Grian to take a walk with him.
Okay, the plan isn't crazy, but he thinks it's a good plan!
And that brings him to now, waiting just outside his house for the avian to arrive. Every time he hears a noise, he whips his head towards it, to greet Grian. He wants to make it seem like he knew that it was Grian, so he looks at every slight shuffle in the treeline. He probably looks mad, staring at every squirrel or slight breeze.
There's another rustle, and he turns to see a flash of red, and then there's Grian, standing right in front of him.
"Ah, there you are, Grian, right where I expected you. I've gotten good at listening for your arrival," Scar greets, voice the booming performance it usually was.
"Which is why you were ready to greet every squirrel and bird as they went by?" Grian responds, giggling.
So he'd seen that.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Grian laughs, a sound Scar could never get enough of.
"Enough about that. I had a question I wanted to ask you."
"Oh? A question?" he asks, tilting his head in a bird-like gesture of curiosity.
“I was wondering if you wanted to take a walk with me?”
“A walk?” Grian responded, tilting his head in curiosity.
“I was hoping we could spend some time together. I like talking to you, I want to be your friend.” Scar is straightforward as he asks, knowing the Grian may still be wary of his intentions.
"Are we not already friends?" Grian asks, tilting his head adorably.
"I'd say so, but that doesn't charge the fact that we haven't talked besides the few minute long conversations we have every every day."
“I guess so," Grian responds. He's silent for a moment, brows furrowed, deep in thought. He then responds, "Okay, yeah. That sounds fun.”
“Great!”
The two of them head from the house into the woods, Grian following Scar's lead. He follows the stream nearby, down the path he knows well. It's nice, calm and peaceful. They end up going along in silence for a few minutes, occasionally commenting on the bright sun well over the horizon, animals scurrying by, babbling of the brook, or anything else around. It's just small talk, but he enjoys it. It gives him little insights into Grian's mind, the object of Scar's curiosity, the one he wants to know everything about.
“The birdsong sounds nice,” Scar says in one of these comments.
"Yeah, I guess it does," Grian responds offhandedly.
“Hey, you're an avian, can you sing along with them?”
Grian doesn't respond.
Scar turns to look at him. Grian looks a little tenser, but otherwise normal. Still, Scar realizes he was uncomfortable.
“Sorry, was that insensitive? I didn’t mean to, I didn't realize-”
“No, it's fine, I know you didn’t mean anything. It’s just—" Grian cuts himself off, and suddenly changes his tone to a more cheerful one. "Yeah, I can create bird sounds. Like this."
Then he starts chirping. Scar doesn’t even know it’s happening at first, he thinks it's just the birds in the trees, but then he realizes it’s Grian. He sounds exactly like the birdsong surrounding them.
“That’s amazing! You sound completely the same as the birds!”
He giggles, and says, “That’s not the only thing I can do.”
“What else can you do?” Scar asks.
“What else can you do?” Grian echoes in an exact replication of Scar’s voice.
Scar is shocked into silence, followed by, “Wow, that was- woah.”
Grian continues, in that uncanny Scar-voice, “As a parrot hybrid, I can also copy people's voices, or most sounds."
“That’s so creepy,” Scar responds. “And I bet it would be awesome for pranks.”
Grian laughs, and in his normal voice that Scar is relieved to hear, responds, “I have used it for many, many pranks. It’s awesome.”
“You do a lot of pranks, then?”
“All the time. Are you surprised, with all the times I’ve scared you or tricked you?”
“Oh, definitely not.”
The two of them laugh as they continue on, talking about anything their minds can come up with. It’s peaceful, and Scar finds himself really enjoying it. He’s loved seeing Grian over these past few weeks, always a bright spot in his day.
Scar realizes where they are, and stops Grian. “Okay, this is where I wanted to take you.”
“You wanted to bring me somewhere?”
“Yeah, I thought it would be nice. This place is amazing.”
He turns to continue on, Grian a step behind him. They enter into a clearing by a small waterfall, although Grian was probably expecting that, with the sound. The surprise factor is still stunning, with the plants all around, the plethora of flowers making for a rainbow of colors to surround them. It's a beautiful spot, one he’s happy to show to Grian. He hopes he likes it.
“Woah,” Grian says breathlessly.
“Do you like it? It's one of my favorite places, the flowers all grow naturally, but I help to make sure they thrive.”
“I love it, it’s gorgeous.” He creeps forward, climbing up on a small rock on the riverbank, peering at the water.
“Do you know what fish live here? Any cod?” Grian asks, tilting his head in that adorable way Scar always loved.
“No, I don’t think they even could, I'm pretty sure those are saltwater fish. It's just salmon in this river.”
“Oh.” Grian replied simply.
Scar comes over to the base of the rock, feeling a few drops of the cool spray form the waterfall.
“You okay? You sound sad.”
“I’m fine,” he sighs. “It’s just- you know how hard it is. Bring a hybrid, it's difficult, and I'm sure you relate. I enjoy being here though, with you.”
He hops off the rock, flaring his wings for balance despite only being a foot off the ground. He stands in front of Scar, tilting his head to look into Scar's eyes. They're so dark, it's like gazing into a void, but they didn't feel cold, not at all.
"It's so pretty here, thank you."
"Of course, of course. This is my special place, I don't take people here, but I wanted to show you."
"Really?" Grian questions. Honestly, Scar isn't sure why he wanted to take Grian to this place so badly. His crush is the only reason Scar thinks of. Maybe Scar should be more wary, but he really liked Grian. He wanted to give, or in this case, show the avian something special.
"You've been so kind to me, and have helped me so much," Grian whispers, and Scar can feel his breath on his face. "Thank you."
"Of course! That's what friends are for, right?"
Grian gives a sweet saccharine smile and leans forward, bend down a little to meet Scar in his wheelchair. Before Scar can realize what's happening, he feels another pair of lips on his own.
He's surprised for a moment. He certainly wasn't expecting a kiss from the cautious man in front of him, but he's starting to learn that Grian isn't actually very cautious, just rightfully untrusting and probably a bit traumatized.
He leans in to the kiss, into Grian. It's a moment of pure bliss, but as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
The two stood and stared for a moment, looking into each other's eyes, searching their faces.
Scar feels the need to speak up and break the silence. "I- well, I wasn't expecting that."
"Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean—" Grian starts to say, backing away from Scar.
"No! No, I liked it. That was nice."
Grian smiles, maybe a little too smirk-like for his liking. "Well then, maybe we should do it again?"
Scar leans in again.
Grian flies away, giddy. He kissed Scar. He kissed Scar!
Then, Scar kissed him. Then, they went back to get Grian's food, and he left. It wasn't actually all that exciting after the initial kiss. Still, they kissed!
He was exited to get back to the others, to tell them all about it. He- actually, he probably shouldn't tell them. Pearl would reprimand him for being to reckless, even though he could see her acting the same as him. Jimmy would tease him, which just couldn't do, it was Grian's job to tease Jimmy! Martyn would probably tease him too.
Apparently he was going to keep this a secret. Alright, he can do that!
He landed in front of the cave and headed inside, brushing the entranceway vines to the side to make his way in.
Inside, he was greeted to the sight of Pearl and Martyn hunched over a laid down Jimmy at the other side of the small cave. Pearl quickly got up, whispered something to Martyn, then went to the entrance where Grian stood. She grabbed his hand and pulled him outside.
Once they were out there, Grian loudly whispered, barely able to keep his voice down in concern, "is he okay?"
"He's doing a lot worse," Pearl responded. "We're going to have to do something about it."
"But what? We can't get medicine." Potions were expensive, there were a reason they hadn't tried them yet. There was no way they could get their hands on any, especially not healing potions.
"We're doing to have to steal some, I think."
"That's dangerous, though."
"We have no choice. We've been stealing food, how much harder can stealing potions be?"
"A lot."
Pearl shook her head. "Like I said, we have no choice."
Pearl was right. Jimmy showed no signs of getting better, so they needed to do something to try and help him. And the only way to do that would be to head into the village, into a probably very protected building, and steal expensive healing potions. It would be dangerous, but it was their only choice.