Archive of Our Own ^beta

Grian and Joel are hanging back and arguing over something when Scar first realizes they might have a problem. 

Now, this is not a first for Scar. He would love to argue that he is not prone to making mistakes, especially silly or obvious ones, but unfortunately he has a bit of a reputation  —  one for forgetting things, or looking past them, or flat out ignoring them because he thinks he’s found a more entertaining workaround when really he hasn’t. And that’s fine! He’s always believed his brain is just wired differently. It adds to the experience, really. Where’s the fun in taking the predictable way out? What’s life without a bit of danger, a few unexpected turns here and there to make it that much more memorable? 

He gets the feeling the others might not agree, though, in these circumstances in particular, because... he might have miscalculated, while planning out the details of this trip.

Lizzie had wanted the house to herself and suggested, perhaps jokingly, that they have some quality boy’s time, and Scar piped up that he knew just the place, some spot he used to hike up to all the time as a kid, and Joel’s eyes had lit up like an excited puppy's, so of course Scar got right to arranging a time and date. And it had been going so well! He took off work, and aligned his schedule with the gang's, and printed out a low-res map of all the winding trails to really capture that authentic feel, and borrowed Mumbo’s camper van with Grian’s permission, and…

“Scar,” Grian says, which only makes him jump a little. “Can I ask you something?” 

Scar spins on his heel to find both Grian and Joel looking oddly expectant. Scar looks up from the map and hums. “Fire away, my friend!” 

Grian shares another long look with Joel before following up.

“Are we lost?” 

Ooh, that’s not what he'd been wanting to hear! Scar had been hoping for something closer to, like, questions about the history of the location, or perhaps the local fauna. …Not that Scar would know about any of that, either. But he’s sure he could make something up. He’s pretty good at improv. 

“Oh, no, no, of course not,” he says. “Are you seriously doubting me right now? This was practically my second childhood home. I spent more summers here than not.” 

“We had to double back after a wrong turn, like, twenty minutes ago,” Joel points out.

“That was a brief lapse in judgment,” Scar says. He pivots back around and continues walking. As long as he keeps his feet moving he’s sure to look more confident, like a man on a mission. “I confused the two large, pointy rocks that were a coincidentally short distance from each other.” 

He can almost hear Grian’s frown. “I didn’t see any rocks.” 

“And that’s why I’m navigating and not you!” Scar says.

For a second he thinks that’s enough to get them off his back, and he almost credits it to the totally professional pace he’s marching at. Tragically, it seems to have the opposite effect. 

“I’m kind of surprised we haven’t walked straight off a cliff yet, with you in charge of directions,” Joel says.

“It is pretty impressive we haven't lost anyone so far, isn’t it…”

“Hey! I’m right here,” Scar says, hurt. “And I’m doing just fine as our tour guide, thank you very much.”

Strolling to a stop just then to regain his bearings is probably not good for his argument, but for the sake of not leading them into a dead end that would look far more suspicious, Scar pauses in his tracks long enough to reopen the map. They’ve reached a fork in the trail he was not anticipating. His eyebrows furrow as he stares intently down at the paper like one would when thinking really hard, but not so much that he looks confused, or disoriented—

Grian sighs. “We’re totally lost.” 

“‘Lost’ is a subjective term,” Scar says, squinting harder, like doing so will make the lines spread out before him look less like spindly nonsense to his brain. 

“So that’s a yes, then?” Joel, for some reason, does not sound that upset as he jogs forward to look at the map over Scar’s shoulder, too. “That’s a ‘yes’ on the ‘being lost.’”

“That is not what I said at all,” Scar argues, just as Grian nods his head with an exhausted sort of ‘yeah.’ 

Joel lets out a whoop.

“That’s ten quid for me, baby!"

It’s so jarring that Scar finds himself momentarily shocked out of his ‘focused and professional’ persona. He watches as Joel does an odd series of hops between both feet. “Wait, ten what now?”

“We had a wager going on how long it’d take before we got lost,” Joel explains, once he’s done with his victory dance. He punches Grian’s shoulder, who only glares back at him bitterly. “This guy here said it wouldn’t be until we were on the way back.”

“Look what you’ve done, Scar,” Grian laments. “I believe in you, and look what happens.”

“Oh, come on, guys. That’s really the attitude we’re going in with?” Scar pouts to himself, but, really, he supposes he can’t blame them. It’s at least a little funny how little faith they have in his sense of direction. “You didn’t even give me a chance.” 

“I’d argue we did,” Joel says. “You’re still leading us, aren’t you?”

Scar can’t help but laugh. “You know, I really thought you’d be more upset about getting stuck halfway to our destination.” 

Grian wrinkles his nose and shoves Joel’s still-gloating face away from him. “No, Scar, I downloaded directions before we got here. I value our friendship, but I also value our lives, as well as making it home in time to feed my cat.” 

Ah. That’s… Yeah, that’s probably the smartest move any of them had made yet. Which might not have been saying a lot. 

“…I feel a little like I’ve been played,” Scar says.

“Oh, don’t feel too bad, buddy.” Joel offers him a pat on the back. “Look on the bright side! I’m now ten pounds richer.” 

Scar would argue that having actual directions better encompasses the bright side, but that had only been a worry for him, apparently, so there’s that! He breathes a sigh of relief and folds the map in his hands shut just as Grian mumbles something about his wallet that he doesn’t quite catch. “Well! Won’t be needing this, then. Is this a good time to mention it was just for show?”

Grian rubs at his temples. “Goodness, Scar. What would you have done if I hadn’t brought a backup?” 

Scar considers this. “Would you have accepted ‘go off of vibes’ as an answer?”

“I’m suddenly really glad we doubted you,” Joel snorts. 

“Ha, ha—  We’re still at an impasse, if anyone’s in the mood to sort that out,” Scar says cheerily. Grian takes the hint and pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket.

Even if Scar doesn’t have the slightest clue where he is, it’s still really nice out here, he thinks. The climb up had gone smoothly, besides that one time Joel nearly tripped off a ledge right over the creek. Or those times Scar got distracted by a cool-looking rock on the ground and Grian practically had to pull him forward by the ear. Or when Grian started throwing twigs at Joel’s head every time he said something that annoyed him and they had to stop to untangle some from his hair. Actually, yeah, the hike up had lasted longer than Scar thought it would, even given their usual distractions…

“To be honest, I remember the trail being much shorter,” Scar says. 

“Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?” Joel asks. “Like, it felt longer because you were younger and less patient, or something?” 

Scar watches Grian make a face down at his phone. “I don’t know,” Scar shrugs. “Maybe it’s a ‘time flies’ thing.” 

“Are you not having fun right now?” 

“Oh, no, I most certainly am,” Scar says. “I’m having a great time! Just you, me, the wonders of nature… and Grian over there.” 

Joel snickers. “Right. Who invited him?” 

Grian’s so focused he doesn’t even quip back. He must really be in the zone. Scar exchanges a look with Joel, who merely shrugs. 

Scar clears his throat.

“Uh. Any luck back there, partner?” he asks. 

Grian doesn’t look back up. “Phone’s acting weird.”

“Well, that’s not good.” 

Joel raises an eyebrow. “Internet issues? I thought you downloaded it.” 

“I did.” Grian finally looks up and then back down the way they came. “But it doesn’t match up.” 

“Match up? With what, the trail?” Joel says. “We’re in the right place, aren’t we?” 

“I… thought so…” Grian suddenly stills. “Scar, did you take us to the right place?” 

Hm. That’s never a good question to hear. Not that Scar could imagine many other scenarios it would apply to. It’s just really not what he wants to hear, at this current moment in time. “Of course! I’m not that bad with directions.” 

“Then why doesn’t the map match up?” 

“I don’t know,” Scar says. Grian lets out a groan.

“I at least figured you’d have the location right! Next I'll find out we're on the wrong side of the country—” 

“Look, I know the bar’s really low right now, but I promise this is the right place,” Scar says firmly. He’s being serious, now. He’s not so stupid that he’d lead them to the entirely wrong forest! Or at least… he’d really, really hope not, because that would just be mortifying. And also perhaps really bad for them in general. “Mountaingrove. Right? That’s what you looked up?” 

“Yes, that’s what I put in.” Grian sounds very stressed, now. It makes Scar frown. “It's like it's not picking us up, or something.” 

Scar clicks his tongue. “Uh… let me take a look?” 

Sure enough. The map on Grian’s phone does not bear any resemblance to the long trail they’d just climbed up, and when Grian switches to the GPS, it… yeah, that doesn’t feel normal. They show up in some nondescript area like one would expect in the wilderness some random direction off a highway, not one near a parking lot or neighborhood or anything of the sort that they’d passed on the way here. Scar warily eyes Grian’s bars. Connection error, maybe? 

“…Uh,” Scar says again, helpfully. “Huh. That’s weird.” 

“I checked before we went in. We were on the map.” At least now Grian seems more confused than anything. “We can’t be that far out. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Bad signal?” Scar tries.

“Surely not. I swear I just texted Pearl.” Grian chews his lip. “Scar, did you bring us off the grid?” 

Scar’s opening his own phone to check their location when he says it, and it’s acting up for him, too. It’s not just Grian’s device. Scar makes a show of waving his phone in the air as if that would do anything to improve his internet connection. He’s starting to think that might not be the problem, though. 

He suddenly finds himself wondering if there was a reason he couldn’t make heads or tails of the physical map. 

“…Is this a good time to say I saw something moving?” Joel calls out suddenly. 

Scar had been so focused he hadn’t noticed Joel shuffling away and closer to the edge of the path. He’s standing near where the gravel meets the foliage, stiff as a board.  

“Joel?” Grian says. He moves to approach, and Scar, blinking, follows after.

“Not to say I’m, um. Scared, or something,” Joel goes on. “Because I’m not! It was probably a bird—  no, more like a squirrel, maybe. Birds don’t make that much noise. I heard a lot of rustling.” 

Scar steps up to Joel’s other side and stares out into the trees. He… well, he doesn’t see much of anything, besides leaves and moss and general forest-y stuff. A large spider web stretched between two trees is visible in the light if he looks from the right angle. He doubts a spider would make that much noise, though. Or any noise. Because it’s a spider. A bird suddenly flies off, and Joel jumps back with a high-pitched eep.

Nothing else is out there, Scar decides. He also thinks it’s about time he reigns things back in. He shakes off the secondhand nervous feeling that’s been settling in and gives a long exhale.

“Yep! Definitely a squirrel,” he announces. He wraps his arms around Grian and Joel’s shoulders and redirects them back to that stupid fork in the road they’ve been stuck at for a solid ten minutes now. “Nothing to worry about! We’re in the woods. Woods have animals, believe it or not.” 

“R—Right,” Joel agrees. “Animals. In the woods. Duh.”  

“And whatever it is, I guarantee you it’s more scared of us than we are of it, so, let’s just keep moving!” 

“Or maybe someone else is out here hiking,” Grian suggests slowly.

“Or that! Right. Exactly. Now…” 

Scar lets go of Grian and Joel to place his hands on his hips. As for the most pressing question… 

Left or right? His instinct is to go left, because it looks like the trees don’t hang as low that way, and he would rather avoid having his hat knocked off or getting hit by a stray branch, even if Grian’s probably short enough to avoid both. However, the spat of blue and yellow flowers on the right are also very appealing, even if there’s less shade to stand under and block out the sun with. Is he trying to deduce which path is the right one based on personal preference? Yes, he is—

“We should go back the way we came,” Grian says.

“Yeah, okay,” Scar sighs, “that’s fair.” He had really been wanting to get to that camping spot, but he understands Grian’s apprehension, especially with the GPS glitching out on them. It’s disappointing, but that’s life, sometimes! Scar can agree that it’s for the best that they head back. No point in carrying on blindly. 

Mostly because he gets the feeling they wouldn’t have ended up where he thought they would if they kept going, anyway. 

Scar’s sure they could make some sort of metaphor out of this: when faced with two branching paths, go… backwards? The hidden third option, or something. Something about there being no shame in turning back? Yeah, that feels like a lesson. There’s no shame in turning back, and sometimes when faced with a particularly troubling split in the road you just say ‘nope’ and hit reverse, and sometimes when you get lost in the woods with two of your very good friends it’s best to admit defeat now and worry about the resulting damage to your pride later.  

They start walking back. 

“I vote Grian takes the lead, now,” Joel pipes up.

Scar places a hand over his chest in offense. “His map’s not accurate, either!” 

“Do you have any idea the way we took to get here?” questions Grian.

Scar rubs at his chin. Well! He knows he climbed a ledge instead of going around it, once. That had been a controversial one with the boys. The rest was probably pretty straightforward, but it was also a bit of a blur, considering Scar kept getting distracted by the sight of butterflies, and a trickling stream, and a patch of clovers he searched vehemently for a four-leaved one while Joel and Grian debated the odds of him actually succeeding. Another time Scar had reached into the brush, and Grian slapped his hand away, squawking something about poison ivy, and... Wait, where had Scar been going with this?

… 

Perhaps Grian’s concerns are warranted.

“I’ll know the landmarks when I see them,” Scar declares. 

“If I die out here, Lizzie’ll have you hunted down in the afterlife,” says Joel. 

— 

Something, Scar is beginning to think, might be strange about these woods.

He has not brought this up to the others, just yet, firstly because he wouldn’t want to cause them any extra distress, and secondly he’s not quite sure if it’s just his imagination playing tricks on him. Sure, he thought he saw something glinting in the distance earlier only for it to vanish once he reached it, but he could have just been seeing things! Or perhaps he’d mistaken the light bouncing off the creek for something glowy. He thinks that’s pretty reasonable. He mistakes things for other, similar things all the time! So he does not bring it up.

He also does not bring it up when he realizes that the air feels a touch off. The gentle breeze of earlier had at some point petered out, now replaced with a strange sense of… stillness? Scar’s frankly not quite sure how to put it, but it feels stagnant, like that murky puddle of water Grian had grabbed him by the shoulders and guided him around earlier. Grian had called that water stagnant, and that’s how the air feels. It feels almost thick, but not to a particularly oppressive or humid degree, so Scar does not bring it up. And before long, the breeze comes back again, as does its usual refreshing coolness. 

With each maybe-weird-maybe-not occurrence that comes and goes while everyone else walks on without comment, Scar wonders if maybe it really is just all in his head. Surely Joel would have complained about it by now, right? And Grian’s lead feels too certain for someone catching wind of this stuff, so Scar pushes it to the back of his mind. He means, nothing he’s thought he’s seen so far has proven harmful, so, why worry?

They carry on. Grian kicks a rock. Scar points out a bird nest and says it’s a golden warbler nest. (He does not know if a warbler is an actual type of bird, much less a golden one. No one challenges him.) At some point Joel picks up a stick, and Scar also picks up a stick, and Scar very narrowly avoids getting his eye poked out in a stick duel. Grian does not witness this, so Scar and Joel call a silent truce and they drop the sticks. 

The trek ahead is long. The three of them have made the unspoken agreement not to keep their phones out as much to conserve battery life, and Scar is very easily bored. While rambling aloud about a big spider he saw earlier, his attention gets stolen mid sentence by a bunch of berries hanging off a nearby bush. He reaches out to pick one. 

“Scar, what are you doing,” Grian deadpans. Scar shows him the berry between his fingers and grins. Grian’s look turns deadly. “Scar, absolutely do not.” 

“But it looks so tasty,” Scar says.

“It’s like I’m dealing with an actual toddler.” Grian pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you always go around just putting things in your mouth?” 

“He’s like a dog,” Joel pipes up. “It’s how he gets a sense of his surroundings.” 

“Can you please tell Scar not to eat random berries he finds in the woods?” Grian asks him. 

Joel considers this briefly. “No, do it. I think it’d be really funny.” 

Grian sighs. 

“Children,” he says. “Both of you.” 

He promptly plucks the berry out of Scar’s hand and flicks it into the creek with surprising precision. Grian’s face only sours further at Scar’s betrayed gasp.

“We literally brought snacks. For this very reason.” 

“Coward,” Joel mutters. 

Grian elbows Joel in the side. They carry on. Joel whistles a tune Scar doesn’t recognize. Scar gets the feeling he’s being watched. Scar makes funny clicking noises with his mouth. 

“How about a game of ‘I Spy?’” he suggests. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “I spy, with my little eye…” 

“Something green?” Grian says dryly.

“You read my mind!”  

“Is it the leaves?” asks Joel. 

“Nope.”

“Grass,” says Grian.

“Correct!” Scar says. “Your turn!” 

“Joel can go.” 

“Okay!” goes Joel. “I spy something blue.” 

“Sky. Water.”

“Don’t guess so fast! I need a chance, too,” Scar pouts.

Grian tilts his head back with another sigh. “There are literally two blue things to choose from.” 

Joel throws out a hand. “Well, think again, because both of those are wrong!” 

Grian squints at him. “Please don’t tell me it’s the flowers. Those are purple.” 

Joel does not respond. Scar giggles into a hand. Joel glares at both of them.

“…You must be seeing things, then, Grian, because those are clearly blue.”

“And you’re probably not supposed to pick things where the color’s up for debate,” Grian says. 

Joel gives a shit-eating grin. “It’s not up for debate when one answer is obviously wrong.”

Joel’s very clearly just ragging on him, and Grian’s very clearly still annoyed, if the scrunched up look on his face is anything to go by. Scar can’t help but feel his irritability is maybe partly possibly his fault, considering the, uh. Situation. He crouches down to pick one of the flowers they’d been arguing over out of the grass. 

(He agrees with Joel that it’s probably blue. He does not say this out loud.)

“Can we play literally anything else, like the one where we walk in silence while I try to get us back to the car alive?” Grian tries. 

“You are seriously asking the wrong people for that, friend,” Joel says.

Grian’s look is blank. “It was worth a shot.” 

“G, come here a sec,” Scar says.

Grian makes a vague sound of confusion but stops to look at him. Scar can’t keep the giddy grin off his face as he reaches over and tucks the flower behind Grian’s ear. 

Grian lifts a hand and brushes a finger along one of the petals. He blinks. 

“Huh,” is all he says.

“Aw,” goes Joel. 

Scar steps back to admire his handiwork. 

“Blue is definitely your color,” he beams.

“…I hate you so much,” Grian says. He’s laughing now, though, and he doesn’t remove the flower. 

—  

At some point, they reach the unanimous agreement that they should stop for a break. And after three or four hours of nonstop hiking, Scar could not have been more grateful. His legs are killing him and so is his head. It’s a little exhausting, frankly, seeing things that aren’t actually there and being unsure of what he can and can’t take at face value! Some part of him wonders if he’s overheating, or something, or if he really did eat a random berry and it was making him hallucinate, because that would kind of suck. Another part of him hopes a turkey sandwich will magically solve all of his problems. 

Scar decides he wants to hang out by the creek and points the other two down the side trail that leads there. He has to hold onto a tree root for balance as he scales down the slope and he wipes off his pants once his feet are back on stable ground. Joel is the last to get down, but he wobbles a little, and Scar almost thinks he’s about to get a face full of mud and weeds, but Grian grabs his arm last second to steady him and the three of them make their way to the huge rocks lining the bank. 

Scar once again gets the feeling of eyes on his back. It’s strange  —  he’d honestly think a feeling like that would be scary, this crawling sensation that brings chills up his back and a slight fuzziness to the back of his skull, but this feels… different. Like there’s not something out to get him as much as there’s something looking over his shoulder every so often. It’s weird. It’s very, very weird. 

He turns around to check. Nothing is there. The feeling dissipates, like it was never even there to begin with.

Scar wonders what’s out there. 

Joel seems to have noticed him spacing out, this time. His eyes are on Scar by the time he turns back around. “Uh. You good there?” 

“Oh, yes, just swell,” Scar says quickly. He stretches his arms above his head. “Just thought I heard rustling! Probably another bird, you know. Pesky warblers…”

Joel raises his eyebrows. “You heard something, too?” 

“Well. I hear all sorts of things, out here. You know. Squirrels. Or chipmunks, maybe. Rabbits. Animals.” 

“Animals,” Joel echoes. “Yeah.” He looks less than sure. 

“And if it’s something like a bear, well.” Scar claps. “Hope you’re ready to run!” 

“Are you kidding? If I see a bear, I’m bolting straight up the nearest tree,” Joel says. 

Scar tilts his head. “Can bears climb trees?” 

“Oh, god, can they?” Joel pulls out his phone. Scar watches him open Google and type furiously into the search bar. It’s a good sign that they have enough connection for that, at least, even if it buffers longer than usual. Joel’s face drops at the results. “Oh. They can.”

“New plan?” 

Joel shrugs. “Just lay down and play dead, I guess.” 

Scar very much does not like the idea of running into a bear. Scar could not win a fight against a bear, or much of anything else, for that matter. Bears themselves are very cool, but decidedly not when you’re in the middle of the woods, some undetermined amount of miles out from human contact, with very little idea of where you’re going. Scar really hopes those noises are not from bears, or cougars, or anything equally big and scary and dangerous. He thinks he would prefer to be hallucinating. 

“I think I want a sandwich,” Scar says. 

“Amen to that.” Joel claps him on the back and they trail after Grian. 

By the time they get there, Grian’s gone ahead and set his backpack against a tree, as well as dropped off his jacket, socks, and shoes and rolled up the cuffs of his jeans to dangle his feet in the water. Scar concludes that this is a good idea and follows his lead, dropping his own backpack right next to his. Scar then takes his water bottle and a towel and shuffles on over with Joel doing the same. 

The creek is pleasant. For some reason the treeline feels a lot less threatening while he’s standing out here, looking from a distance. The air is cool from the rushing water and the sunshine feels a good kind of warm rather than just straight up scalding. 

“Careful,” Grian warns. “The rocks are slippery.” 

Scar slows his pace. Whew, yeah, let’s not fall and bust his head open on a rock! Definitely top five on the list of worst ways to go. Top three, even. Right after death by bear. 

“I’m gonna push him in,” Joel says, menacingly. 

Grian takes a bite out of his sandwich. “If you do, you're going in next.” 

Scar flops into a seated position before Joel can have the chance to weigh the pros and cons of murdering him in a creek. Grian hands Scar two sandwich bags and he passes the extra down to Joel, who does not follow through on his threat and instead accepts the bag before pulling out his phone to snap a photo of the view, tongue out in concentration.

“Gonna post this on Twitter?” Grian asks. “Let everyone know we’re lost in the wilderness?” 

“They don’t need to know that part,” Joel says. “For all they know, we’re on a relaxing vacation.” 

“And we are!” Scar cuts in. “Let’s just… ignore the whole ‘being unsure where we are’ thing, for a moment—”

“Uh huh,” says Grian. 

“—and appreciate the scenery here! I, for one, think it’s just lovely. Just look at the water, flowers, trees, feel that fresh spring wind on your skin…” 

Scar sucks in a deep breath. It tastes like moss and pine needles. He exhales the rest of the air from his lungs at once for dramatic effect, and Grian rolls his eyes. 

Joel, meanwhile, continues, “On second thought, it would be funny if I just captioned it, like. ‘Boy’s night! Not sure I’ll ever see my family again. Nice view, though!’” 

“Oh, stop, you’re ruining the moment,” Scar whines. He bumps his shoulder against Joel’s while the latter merely snickers to himself. Then Joel’s eyes light up, possibly with an idea, and he’s got his phone back out and aiming the camera down at the water.

“You better not drop that,” Grian says.

“I won’t,” Joel assures him. “Just want a couple of…”

Scar can’t tell what he’s looking at. He squints hard at the water. He sees ripples, and smooth, grey stones at the bottom, and… 

“Are those minnows?” Scar blinks.

“They’re kinda blurry-looking, but.” Joel shuts his phone off and moves to return it to the safety of his backpack. “I thought Lizzie might like to see them. She loves fish.” 

“That’s sweet,” Grian says. “Fish photos, as a going away gift.” 

Joel laughs while Scar startles back to attention. “Excuse me—  no one’s going anywhere! We’re gonna be fine. I swear it on Jellie’s name!” 

He makes double sure to be adamant about this, but at least Joel doesn’t actually seem too bothered—  not over never making it out of here, obviously, since they definitely will and everything is totally under control!—  but Scar’s enjoying himself a surprising amount, and he’s glad this didn’t… well… totally ruin the experience, for the three of them, not even making it to their destination. Not that he should be speaking so soon, knowing how his luck tends to go, but hey. 

Still. Joel’s humming to himself as he crumples up his sandwich wrapper, and Grian’s looking more at ease now, and the flower’s still in his hair. Scar can work with this, he thinks. He can definitely work with this.

He’s probably still staring at Grian with a stupid smile on his face when he feels water splash him in the side. 

Scar reflexively recoils away. He snaps his head back to find Joel with an arm submerged in the water and a curl of a devilish grin on his lips. 

“Oops! My bad,” he says. “Was aiming for your face, not your clothes.” 

Scar doesn’t even have time to think about retaliating before Grian does it for him. A bigger splash flies across Scar’s vision then Joel had originally attacked with, for sure, and Joel barely leans back in time to avoid it.

“Oh, geez— Not my pants! I take it back!” Joel squawks. 

“You better think twice before starting a war you can’t win,” Grian replies. The dark gleam to his eye is threatening in a way that’s too familiar for comfort, and Scar knows to brace for impact. He crosses his arms over his head in a very pathetic attempt at shielding himself. 

“I was the victim in the first place, why am I in the crossfire now?!” 

“Scar’s right! I surrender!” Joel squeaks, just as Grian kicks out at the water. Joel folds his legs close to his chest to evade the splash. “Peace! Peace!” 

Grian stops, if only to size Joel up and determine whether or not he should be spared. Scar sighs in relief. He’s up for dipping his feet in the creek, but he did not come out here to soak his clothes and freeze to death by evening, thank you very much! He reaches over to wring the water out of his poor shirt sleeve, to not much avail. 

He’s very lucky he chooses that moment to stand up again, because Joel immediately shoots a hand back in the water and nails Grian square in the face. 

Joel barks a triumphant laugh. “Hah, I lied! I got your guard down!” 

Grian spends a beat blinking away the water. Scar feels his eyes widen.

No, sir, not sticking around for this. Scar values his livelihood far too greatly. He scampers away as fast as he can without risking slipping, which is kind of slow but apparently good enough, because by the time he hears Grian roaring in outrage behind him he’s back on the safety of the grass and dry pebbles. 

This is probably not something he should let happen, Scar realizes vaguely, because… Well. As much as he hates to say it, there’s a nonzero chance that they’ll be spending closer to nighttime in these woods, and once the cold starts setting in, you do not want to be caught with soaked clothes. (He speaks from experience. He might have taken an accidental fall or two into a swimming pool in his lifetime. Maybe.)

Scar doubts there’s any stopping Joel and Grian now, though. He knows just how into it Grian gets when it comes to competition, and with Joel thrown into the mix… yeah, no, something like this was inevitable, really. 

It’s at least another two minutes before they come climbing back up, and—  Scar’s gotta say! There’s less damage done than he anticipated. Joel’s hair is matted in some parts, and the entire front of Grian’s shirt is soaked, but. All things considered, it could have gone worse! 

“Was it worth it, boys?” Scar asks. 

Joel ruffles his muss of hair with his towel. “In hindsight, I might have gone too far.”

Grian doesn’t say anything as he wrings out his shirt, but the wonky smile still on his face says it all. Scar laughs to himself.

“Well! Hope that got the anger out, cuz we’ve still got a trip to make.” Scar adjusts the straps of his backpack and hoists it farther up on his shoulders. “Are we ready to get out of here?” 

“Hold on, still getting my shoes,” Joel says. 

While he and Grian finish cleaning up, Scar shoots another look out into the trees, half expecting that feeling from earlier to return, or maybe for something to stare back at him, but nothing does. Still just trees and dirt and bushes. Scar makes a vague thinking noise.

The others soon sidle back up to his side, and then they’re back on the trail.

Grian falls back into his spot at the lead, even if it really does feel quite silly, now that Scar gives it more than a second of thought, that his friend whose first time visiting is at the head of the group instead of him, but at this point, Scar’s not about to start questioning things too hard. It’ll just make his head hurt more. He instead focuses on the slowly dimming light, and the dappled shadows cast by the tops of the trees, and the way Joel’s shoes faintly squeak as he walks because he had left them too close to the creek. It’s peaceful, Scar thinks. It’s… 

Grian suddenly pulls to a stop.

Joel pauses beside him. “Uh. Grian?” 

Grian only narrows his eyes, looking a little like he’s calculating something. Scar jogs up to him. “Something up?” 

“I know we passed that tree stump earlier,” he says, under his breath, so quietly Scar almost doesn’t hear. Scar blinks in surprise and follows his gaze.

It… doesn’t look significant. Obviously, it wouldn’t, since it’s a tree stump, but Grian’s eyes are glued to it like it had suddenly grown legs and walked away, so clearly he’s realizing something Scar isn’t. He supposes that makes sense. Scar’s never exactly been the most detail-oriented of people. Well, he can be, when he tries, but that just takes unnecessary brain power, and...

Joel’s starting to say something else when Grian takes off running.

It takes a hot second for Scar to process this. He hurries straight after him and just hopes Joel is close behind. 

It’s with a lot of determination and probably luck that Scar manages not to trip over the uneven gravel under his feet. There are a couple of close calls, ones in which he lurches a little too far forward or doesn’t look at what’s in front of him in favor of keeping an eye on Grian, but for the most part he manages to keep his balance. He hops over another tree root, pushes past a bush, and stumbles out into a clearing. 

The setting sun has the area steeped in a warm glow, and with it Grian casts a dramatic shadow. Grian’s stopped in his tracks.

“Geez, G,” Scar pants. He waits until he's caught up with him before doubling over. “What’s… I’m usually the one who runs off and… does something silly…” 

Footsteps hit the dirt behind them. Scar recognizes Joel’s squeaky shoes before said man clears his throat. “Uh. Guys…” 

“I don’t think you should be running off, in the… mysterious, spooky woods, and all,” Scar continues. Whew, is he out of breath! Cardio is not his forte. “What if you mysteriously vanished? What would I tell Mumbo?” 

“Guys,” says Joel.

“That would be fitting, though, wouldn’t it? Getting separated in the scary maze woods, one by one, until…” Scar chuckles under his breath. Then he looks up, and for a second he wonders if this is another situation where he’s seeing things, because… 

Huh. 

Before them lies the fork in the road. 

—

Scar supposes he now has to make an addendum to his earlier metaphor. Sometimes, when you reach a split in the road, and you choose neither path and turn back, and you end up looping back around to said split in the road because apparently the forest didn’t like you cheating the system, and night is fast approaching, and you’re stuck without a way back to the car…

Yeah, Scar’s got nothing. He recognizes this is pretty bad.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Grian’s ranting. He has a hand on his head and has taken to pacing. “We didn’t go backwards. And there’s no way we could have made it back here in half the time…” 

Scar lets him keep talking. The whole thing’s kind of making his head spin, and Grian’s doing that thing where he gets deep in his head while he works something out and probably doesn’t want any interruptions, so Scar keeps his mouth shut. He glances at Joel in time to see him crouch down and turn over a big leaf like doing so will cause their surroundings to collapse around them like a crude stage set. 

“The path’s in one direction! It’s not like we kept taking hard rights.” Grian gestures wildly with his hands. “We came in the exact same way, too!” 

Scar watches Joel drop the leaf he’d been picking at and rise back to his full height. “Okay, look. It could just be a different split path, right?” Joel says. “We’re on a big ass hiking trail! It’s like mistaking one big green tree for another.” 

“That’s not it,” Grian says immediately. He swings around to look at him with the energy of a mad scientist. “That clearing, back there. I broke a branch and left it by a tree stump when we first started walking back. And guess what we run into again an hour later?” 

“Wait. What?” Scar racks his brain. Did he just, like… miss when Grian did this? He knows he doesn’t pay much attention a lot of the time, but geez. “Why?” 

“I kept seeing things I swore I recognized, so I started leaving signs around to prove to myself I’m not just crazy,” Grian says, getting faster with each word, “and I can confidently say there is something wrong with this forest.”

Scar stops. Well! That’s a doozy, isn’t it! This tells him a few things, actually. That it’s not just him, for one, and that he’s not just finally lost his marbles, due to hypothetical hallucinogenic forest berries or otherwise. And, most importantly…  

They might have a genuine problem. 

Joel levels a sigh. “You’ve got to be joking.” 

“Well!” Scar says. “I, um… would probably argue with the logic, but, to be totally honest, I’m starting to have suspicions of my own, too.” 

Both Grian and Joel spin around at that. Scar feels himself sweat under their stares, just a little bit.

“Now, I wouldn’t exactly say that this forest I led you guys into is… haunted! Or anything! But, it’s… it’s strange. I think it’s certainly strange.” At Joel’s dropped jaw, he continues, “Not… in a bad way, of course! Nothing’s out to get us, or anything. That’d just be ridiculous.” 

“Not in a bad way?” Grian echoes. “Have you forgotten the part where it might have us trapped?”  

“Okay, yeah, that might be pretty bad, but.” Scar opens and closes his mouth, and… nothing comes out. Hm. Yeah, no, it’s kind of hard to find a bright side to this, isn’t it? His silver tongue is failing him, because they kind of very much are stuck out in woods that might be kind of sort of cursed. Unfortunate, that. 

“But?”  Joel prompts. 

Scar clicks his tongue. “…Yeah, I’ve got nothing.” 

Grian kicks another rock and goes stomping back the way they came. 

“Look, I’m sure it’s nothing! Just a big old coincidence,” Scar babbles on, following after him. “We’re exhausted, too! Walking up and down big slopes all day will do a number on you. Or it could be the heat. You’re in that big jacket, aren’t ya? Seeing nothing but grass and trees and more grass will get to your head…” 

At some point Scar trails off. Grian doesn’t answer. He seems to be right back in the zone again, jaw set in determination and eyes solely focused ahead of him, so Scar decides it’s maybe for the best that he lets this ride out. 

Scar thinks to himself about the maps that were inexplicably off. He thinks about the periodic feeling of being watched, and seeing things that aren’t really there. He thinks about hearing random noises they can never find the source of, and the strange consistency to the air, and the fact that they haven’t run into a single other human being this entire hike up to a public camping spot.

He really, really doesn’t want to say it’s haunted, but... the evidence is really stacking up fast, isn’t it! 

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by Joel tapping his shoulder. “Uh. Scar.” 

Scar pretends it doesn’t make him jump. “Ooh! Yep! What’s up, Joel— Joe, Joelio, J-man?” 

“Don’t call me that,” Joel says. “Do you mind if I, uh… ask a few things?” 

“Not at all,” Scar says. He notices this time as Grian goes out of his way to step on a branch, snapping it in half.

“Cool! Cool. Great.” Joel sucks in through his teeth. Scar doesn’t miss the way his eyes dart about at the surrounding trees. “Did you. Know this place was… like this, before we got here?” 

Scar sputters. “No, no, of course not! I’d never bring you guys into something like that. That’d just be rude.” 

Joel snorts. “Yeah. Rude.” He shoves his hands in his pockets. “Next question. Was it just… normal, the last time you came?” 

“Well,” Scar says. He thinks on this for a solid moment. He feels like he’d remember if the woods from his childhood started acting all finicky, right? He really, really hopes so. “As far as I remember. Keep in mind I was, like, twelve.” 

“…Right,” Joel says, drawing out the word. “And do you remember there being, I don’t know… people around? Other people?”  

“…You see, the problem here is that I can barely remember what I had for breakfast on a good day, and asking if I saw something as unremarkable as ‘other people’ on my annual hiking trips from twenty years ago is like asking if I remember my multiplication tables,” Scar replies. “And that answer is: I don’t know, probably?” 

"…I really can’t believe we left you in charge of this." Joel gives an incredulous sort of laugh. "If we make it out of here, I’m choosing the next vacation spot.” 

“When!” Scar rushes to correct. “When we get out of here.” 

He hears Grian snort. It’s the first reaction he’s given since he stormed off. Scar can’t help but pout.

They spend an unfortunate amount of time speed-walking through the woods with no end in sight. In an attempt to understand what Grian had been on about, Scar tries to pay closer attention to their surroundings, but… frankly, it really does all bleed together in his head. Grass and leaves and tree trunks and dirt. The most memorable points of reference he runs into are, like, anthills. And a fallen log. And a big spider web between two trees. And… wait, is it the same spider web from earlier, or is that just his brain convincing him it must be now that he’s given himself this idea that they’re walking in circles? 

Scar’s brain hurts. He’s not sure when it hasn’t out here, honestly. 

It’s then that he remembers that the sun is starting to set, and that they're probably no closer to Mumbo’s camper van than they were three hours ago. 

“…So, Grian,” Scar starts, reluctantly.

“Yes, Scar,” Grian says, not turning around. 

“About setting up camp for the night…!” 

Grian does turn around, then, and Scar very nearly bumps straight into him. And by that Scar means he definitely does, but Joel catches him before he can fall flat on his back in the dirt. Scar has the thought that it’s pretty unfair he’s the one who got thrown off balance, considering Grian’s the smaller of the two of them! as he sighs in relief and gives Joel a grateful pat on the back. 

“We’re not staying the night,” Grian says.

Scar winces. Joel tilts his head to look up at the canopy of leaves above them as though noticing for the first time just how dark it’s getting. 

“…I’m not seeing much other choice, dude,” he sighs. 

Grian’s face twists in frustration. Scar doesn’t like the idea of him being upset, so it’s about time for him to do what he does best: 

Talk everyone’s ear off until they reach begrudging acceptance. 

“It’s no big deal! We brought enough food and water to last us a night. It’ll be fine,” he says. “Remember when I packed all those extra chips, and you guys said it was unnecessary?” 

“You did bring an ungodly amount of junk food, frankly,” Joel says. 

“—And we brought those towels, as well as flashlights. We could be a lot worse off! We’re big and tough, I think we can handle a few more hours out in the woods.”

“We’d be sleeping with bugs and no tent,” Grian mumbles. Joel’s mouth draws into a thin line. 

“Oh, god, I didn’t think about that…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine! That’s why we brought bug spray!” Scar declares, like this is all entirely foolproof, and these two are so silly for thinking otherwise! “We can take shifts, or something, to keep an eye out for anything else, if it makes you feel better.” 

The unwavering frown on Grian’s face says it probably doesn’t. He doesn’t argue any further, though, which tells Scar he’s probably reached the same conclusion he and Joel have, and that’s that they can’t just keep running themselves ragged in the pitch black. They’d probably go right off a cliff, or something. Scar would greatly prefer not to end up as a pile of bones at the bottom of a ravine. That would suck a lot. Top five worst ways to go, at least. 

Grian breathes out a sigh. “Let’s at least look for a more open space.”

Scar has no qualms with that, so they spend the last of the remaining daylight searching for another clearing to claim, and Scar just hopes it’s not the same one with that dastardly fork in the road. 

They find a decent enough space for what they’re looking for, so Scar dumps his backpack on the ground. His aching muscles thank him for it. He looks around for any signs of, like, snakes, or anything similarly alarming, but it seems there’s just more dust and more dirt, so he lays out his towel and takes a seat. Scar watches as Grian and Joel go through much of the same motions of setting their things out in a circle and periodically glancing about for anything they could label as strange. 

The night grows darker still. Scar doesn’t get that old feeling of eyes on his back, but there is a large spider web stretched between two trees. 

Scar pointedly ignores this and tears open a bag of potato chips. 

“Okay. I’m about to ask the dreaded question,” starts Joel. Scar perks up. “…Does anyone know how to start a fire without a match?” 

Scar says nothing. Grian also says nothing. Scar looks at Joel, who runs a hand down his face.

“We are possibly the worst people to get stranded out in the woods,” Joel says. 

“I can with a lighter,” Grian says.

Joel snorts. “Dude. Obviously.” 

“No, I mean. I do have a lighter,” Grian says, eyes shifting like it’s an admission of something, and Scar’s mouth falls agape. 

“You could not have possibly said that more shadily.” Joel laughs into a hand. “Actually, yeah. Do you usually just carry that on you?” 

“You never know!” Grian says quickly. “It’s sure about to come in handy here, isn’t it?” 

Scar blinks. “I’m starting to wonder if you just like setting things on fire.” 

“Who wants to help me collect sticks?” Grian asks, loudly.

They split up to look for sticks. Scar, for no reason in particular, does not go far, and he does not go anywhere he can’t see either Joel or Grian from. It’s definitely to make sure that Grian doesn’t set anything on fire, and not because he has the lingering suspicion that someone will vanish without warning if he looks away for too long. Nope, he thinks, crouching down to weigh a decently-sized tree branch in his hand. He’s got nothing to fear! Nothing at all. 

At some point his absent thoughts drift from how totally and utterly safe he is here weaving between the trees to the fact that Grian could just burn this whole forest down, if he really wanted to. Scar decides he probably wouldn’t do that. Probably. Even if he has some resentment towards it for trapping them here, that would just be silly, setting fire to some woods while they’re still in it. He also has the gut feeling doing so would give them an impressive amount of bad karma. It could very well upset the forest spirit, or being, or whatever other force is insisting on keeping them here. 

Scar wonders how it is that he’s reached the point where he’s genuinely considering the existence of a forest spirit, and then he thinks about how they probably have worse problems than Grian having access to a lighter. 

At least his big stick count has increased to five. He decides this is good enough, and turns back to the clearing. 

Thankfully, reality has not shifted around them in the time they took to hunt down some sticks, and the clearing remains the same, if just a shade or two darker than it was ten minutes ago. The same backpacks and towels are strewn about in the dust and the same spider web remains between two trees. Scar unceremoniously drops his armful of sticks into the center of the clearing. 

It’s a pretty sad little firepit that they dig out and construct from stones and branches, but Scar is not willing to wander farther out for more materials, so he tells himself it’ll probably do. He passes Joel a bag of chips as Grian struggles to catch fire to the wood. 

Scar crunches down on a chip. “Do you need help?” 

“I’ve got it.” 

“It doesn’t look like it,” Joel comments. 

“Ugh. I’m usually better at setting stuff on fire,” Grian grumbles. He glares down at the lighter. 

Scar chooses to ignore the implications of that. “Maybe light something else first, then toss that in? I feel like I heard that somewhere.” 

“What, like. A leaf?” 

“There’s no way that ends well,” Joel says, waving a chip. “I think you should try it.” 

In the end, they scrounge up enough common sense between them to Google it, and Grian tosses some dry grass into the pile. It’s a pitiful fire for a pitiful fire pit. Grian sits on his towel with his arms wrapped around his knees and every so often Joel eyes the surrounding foliage as though expecting something to jump out. But Scar’s enjoying his chips, the stars are at their clearest, and the smell of smoke is oddly nostalgic. 

He decides he can be optimistic enough for the three of them.

“You know,” Joel muses, “I thought your childhood vacation spot would be a bit friendlier.” 

Scar looks out at the trees. “I know I said I don’t remember a lot of the details, but. I like to think it was pleasant,” he says. “Not that this isn’t! You know, in its own way. This just feels…” 

“Like something’s out to get us?” Grian mutters.

Scar makes a face. He doesn’t think he agrees with that, but when he stops to consider why that is, he finds himself drawing a blank. Any sane person would see the… whatever this is, out here, messing with them, and conclude it’s some form of malicious, but. Scar hasn’t gotten that impression. Just like earlier, out by the creek, when the weight of its gaze felt less malevolent and more like…  

“…I don’t think it wants us to leave yet,” Scar says.

“What?” Joel asks. Both he and Grian have turned to stare at Scar. He shifts his weight. 

“I dunno. I just figured… well, clearly it’s not letting us go tonight, yeah?” Scar says. “Maybe it’s just feeling lonely!” 

He braves looking out at the other two’s expressions past the crackling fire. He can practically sense Grian’s disbelief from here, whereas Joel simply looks confused. The distant hum of insects fills the baffled quiet. 

“…Are you suggesting the forest wants friends,” Grian says flatly. 

Scar shakes his head. “Well! Obviously I can’t say for sure. I don’t speak for whatever lives out here.” 

“This is sounding crazier by the minute,” Joel huffs a laugh. 

“It’s fine. You don’t have to understand.” Scar leans back on his hands. “Was just a thought.” 

“Just a thought,” repeats Grian.

They fall back into silence. 

Well, Scar thinks. It’s not like they’ve come up with anything else! So he’s pretty inclined to go along with his theory. Maybe the woods get lonely, out here, without anyone to talk to. Maybe the woods saw them enter and got excited. Maybe the woods saw them goofing around and decided they’d be easy targets to mess with. If Scar saw three people running around in his domain like headless chickens, he would probably think the same way!

Not that he would trap them in an infinite loop, or anything. But he thinks he gets where it’s coming from. 

“Okay. Say this… actually is some spirit that's mad at us, or something,” Joel says slowly, snapping Scar back to reality, “and this is the same place you used to go as a kid. Did it just straight up get possessed at some point after you left?”

Scar squints down at the dirt. Hm. Yeah, that’s probably a smart thing to be asking. Why hadn’t he experienced this sort of stuff, back then? He’s still convinced he would have remembered if he did. That just doesn’t feel like something he’d forget about. He shuts his eyes and really, truly thinks about it. 

“Maybe it missed me,” he says.

“…Okay,” Joel says slowly.  

Grian tucks his chin between his knees. “You really have gone and lost your mind, haven’t you?” 

“I don’t think it’s that weird,” Scar argues. “We don’t know what’s going on, or why. Would it hurt to be a little nicer to the woods? Maybe it just wants someone who understands, you know?” 

“No, I don’t know.” Grian squints at him. “And I shouldn’t have to be nice to whatever hypothetical force is keeping us trapped here. I’m frankly more convinced this is all a dream.” 

“Huh!” Scar says. “Maybe that’s the problem! I know I’d be upset if some guys walked into my house claiming I’m not actually real.” 

Grian eyes him like it’s the strangest thing he’s ever said, which… For the record, it probably doesn’t even break top five. 

“This is a forest,” Grian says. 

“Yep.” 

“A publically accessible forest that any old haggle of idiots could just wander into.” 

“That’s us,” Joel says, sadly. “We’re the idiots.” 

Scar indignantly folds his arms across his chest. “Well, I think you should try it.” 

“What, being nice?” 

“At least treat it with a little more hospitality!”  

Grian groans and ducks his head to where Scar can no longer see his expression. 

Scar doesn’t see the issue here. He thinks he’s being perfectly reasonable, even, which he’s recently learning might just be a rare thing, coming from him. He doesn’t think it’s so weird to try and appease their spirit or captor or whatever the heck is probably out here with them. And now he’s stumbled upon another moral: a bit of kindness goes a long way! Even if it’s mostly for your own benefit. …That still counts, right? 

Joel suddenly sits up straight and clears his throat.

“Oh, spirits,” he says, taking care to carefully enunciate each syllable. Scar stares at him. “We, uh… come in peace! Wait, that’s what you say to aliens… Whatever, it’s fine—  we come in peace!” 

Joel dramatically throws his hands out as he says it. His voice is loud enough that Scar can almost imagine it echoing right back at them. Scar feels a goofy smile growing. 

“Yep, I’m talking to you, spirits! That’s… what I’m doing! We mean you no harm!” Joel nods rapidly like he’s hyping himself up. “And I think that means you should return the favor! You know, and… not harm us, or anything, please!” He takes a brief pause from his shouting to think. “And let us free, maybe, also—"

“It would be very much appreciated,” Scar adds.

“—we would appreciate it a lot!” Joel says. He falters like he’s running out of things to say. “Uh. And Scar, here, he would too! You know, your friend from, like, two decades ago.” Scar gives a modest wave. “We would all very much like to go home, actually!” 

The woods do not respond. Scar thinks he hears the distant hoot of an owl.  

“Grian, you should say something,” he whispers.

“What?” Grian looks back up with another glare. He seems to have been stubbornly ignoring their attempts at communicating with the spirits. It gives Scar the vibe of someone pretending they don’t associate with their other friends in public while they do something especially embarrassing. “Why?” 

“We should all be contributing,” Scar says. “Otherwise it’ll be really unconvincing.” 

Grian rubs at his temples. “Scar, I have nothing to say to it.” 

Joel’s babbling on enough for the three of them, at this point. “And I have a lovely wife back at home—  I’d really like to get back to her in one piece! Or, you know… get back to her at all—”

“I still think you should try it,” Scar insists.

“I’m not going to yell at the trees,” Grian hisses. “I’m not a crazy person.” 

“—That’s right! I’m a married man! Most of us have pets, too. You wouldn’t want our poor pets to never see us again, would you? That would be pretty messed up, if you ask me—”

Scar puts on the best puppy eyes he can muster, puckered bottom lip and all. At first he fears Grian’s immune to it, with the way the sheer annoyance remains steadfast on his face, but eventually he cracks, even giving a slightly hysterical laugh.

“Stop. Don’t look at me like that,” he giggles, poorly masking it with a hand. “Fine! Whatever. I’ll tell the spirits to go away, or something.” 

“Be gentle about it!” Scar says hurriedly. 

“And just imagine how Jim would take the news of our mysterious disappearance! His little heart wouldn’t be able to take it—  wait, does that mean I can stop, now?” Joel cuts off. 

“Yes, please. You’re giving me a headache,” Grian says.

Joel heaves a relieved sigh. Scar’s impressed, honestly, and even a little flattered. He hadn't been expecting Joel to be supportive of his theory, or for him to play it up so well. The real question's if Grian would put in even a fraction of the effort. Joel watches him expectantly, as does Scar.

Grian already looks to be regretting this. He winces. “Uh. Spirits. Or… whatever you’re supposed to be, we haven’t really established that yet…” 

“It’s probably spirits,” Scar says. 

“Yeah, okay, it doesn’t make a difference. I, uh…” Grian makes a face. “Would love to go home, please. Yep.” 

Scar shares a disapproving look with Joel. Joel tuts. “Oh, come on, Grian, you can do better than that.” 

“Look, I’m thinking, okay!” A bit of pink even rises in Grian’s cheeks. He pointedly looks off at the distance instead of them. “This, uh… I know we’ve had our differences, or whatever. Probably because you trapped us here without warning and also with limited supplies.” 

Scar grimaces. Grian, eyes flicking to him, awkwardly clears his throat.

“Er, I mean, you probably had your reasons. Which is fine, but we also have reasons to want to get home,” he continues, “such as the fact that I have a cat, and also that I let Scar take Mumbo’s car without telling him and was really hoping we’d make it back in time before he found out—”

Scar blinks. “Wait, what?” 

“—and even all that aside, this isn’t really the way to treat a friend, is it? That’s the whole thing, right, that you… missed Scar, or something?” 

Scar puts aside the car thing for now (Grian told him he had Mumbo’s permission!), because this was not exactly where he’d been expecting this to go, or for the ‘forest missing him’ thing to be what Grian followed up on. Scar considers interjecting for fear of him saying something offensive, but then Joel shoots him a look, and… okay, yeah, Scar really wants to see where he goes with this, too. 

“Yeah, sure, we’ll go with that. He used to come here all the time, then suddenly he stopped, and now that he’s back, you don’t want him leaving again. That's pretty much all I got.” Grian shifts to where his legs are crossed and his head's resting in his hands, looking surprisingly calculating. “Cuz if that's the case, I think that’s pretty counterproductive. What’s the point in being in someone’s company if they don’t wanna be? I don’t think that really counts. And it doesn’t sound like a very fun time, either." Grian pauses. "That might just be me, though.” 

Scar watches as Grian’s hand moves back up to the flower. Scar had kind of forgotten it was there. Grian’s mouth briefly twitches up at the corners.

“So, yeah. I'd reevaluate my choices, if I were you," Grian concludes. "Anyways, I just remembered I’m talking to some invisible being that I’m not a hundred percent certain is actually real, so. Uh…” He sucks in through his teeth. “Thanks for… not killing us, I guess? It’d be nice if you kept that up, and also let us go. Yep. That’s all.” 

He trails off into silence, and Scar for once finds there’s no tangent or nonsense that comes to mind to fill it with. 

Scar’s not sure how the forest would feel about all of that. It felt a bit like scolding. But if Grian had actually made it angry, he imagines it would draw out a much different reaction from this one. Maybe a whirlwind would whip up and send the trees toppling, or the water would rise and consume their makeshift campsite, or a swarm of insects would descend from above and eat them alive.

Nothing of the sort happens. The breeze remains gentle. The stream is still a peaceful trickle. The buzz of cicadas is just as distant as usual. 

Scar gets the feeling they’re gonna be okay.

“Well then!” he pipes up. “I’m pooped.” He makes a show of dragging his backpack over to use as a very lumpy, uncomfortable pillow. “Just wake me up when you guys wanna sleep. I can take watch.” 

Joel shakes his head as though to clear it. “Oh, uh. Sure. I think I’ll be good for a while. Grian?” 

“Same here,” Grian says.

“Cool, cool.” Scar covers an appropriately-timed yawn with a hand. He lies flat on his back and takes in the full view of what stars he can make out past the foliage. They are particularly gorgeous this far out from the city, aren’t they? “Hope I don’t bother anyone too much with my obnoxious snoring.” 

Grian rolls his eyes. “I’m used to it.” 

“Is Mumbo a loud snorer?” asks Joel.

“He would be so mad at me if I told you he totally is.” 

Scar bursts into giggles. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Joel shoot him a look. “You’re supposed to be sleeping, mister.” 

“It’s gonna take a minute! And how can I when you guys are talking all loud and stuff?” 

“Okay, okay, we’ll keep it down,” Grian says. 

Scar makes an attempt at shifting into a more comfortable position, but then he remembers he’s lying on a towel over the literal ground, and figures there’s really no point. He can only imagine how bad his back will ache in the morning, as will everyone else’s. He shuts his eyes.

“I wish we brought a Sharpie,” he hears Joel whisper.

“I feel like there’s other stuff I’d prioritize. …Also, I promise Scar’s not the only one here I’d use it on.” 

“You’d never get me. I’m already on high alert. I’m gonna be sleeping with one eye open.” 

“We’ll see about that.” 

“Sleeping,” Scar says, as brightly as someone who’s half-awake can manage. “A man is currently sleeping.” 

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Joel whispers, loudly. 

Something tells Scar he won’t be getting much sleep tonight, and not just because he’s currently lying flat against the dirt in a probably-haunted forest. 

He’s oddly not too mad about that.

— 

The sky is still an inky black when he feels a hand shake him awake.

Scar has to pry his eyes open, and it takes a long second to register the fact that it’s Joel who’s crouched over him. Scar reaches for his phone. The time reads half past three in the morning. He wrinkles his nose.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Joel says, voice hushed. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It sucks.” 

“It’s like sleeping on rocks,” Scar grumbles, rubbing at his eyes.

“I mean. It’s pretty much rocks, yeah.” 

Scar slowly and painstakingly sits up. The fire has sunk into a low flame, but it’s still bright enough to allow him a cursory glance around. It’s the same clearing as it was some… four, five hours ago? He’s not sure how many it's been. He’s also not about to do math while his brain’s still booting up. He doesn’t bother trying to hold back his yawn. 

“When’d G conk out?” he asks.

“A couple of hours ago, probably,” Joel says. A grin crosses his features. “Thought he could outlast me—  hah. He can think again.” 

“Uh huh,” Scar agrees, still not entirely awake just yet. 

“That’s right. Yet another win for Joel.” Joel stands back up and returns to his respective towel. “I’m in tip top form. Not even dead on my feet, or anything.” 

Scar doubts that. “Yup.” 

“I was even thinking, yeah, I could probably pull an all-nighter. I don’t wanna sleep on the stupid dirt on my stupid, crusty towel anyway. But you said you wanted to be on watch, so.” Joel takes a swig of his water bottle and cuts off when a yawn catches his jaw. 

Scar laughs fondly. “Go to sleep, man.” 

“Yeah, okay, that’s probably for the best.” Joel puts down his canteen and scoots to lie on his side. “Goodnight. Or. Morning, I guess?” 

“I guess so,” Scar says. He looks up. The sky is still dark. “Good morning.” 

“Yup. Good morning.” Joel frowns. “Actually, no, that sounds stupid. Goodnight.” 

“Oh, okay. Goodnight.” 

Joel flips onto his other side, and Scar is the only one left awake.

It’s nice, he thinks sleepily, and possibly for the hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours. The woods feel different when it’s lit by a dimming fire rather than overpowering sunshine, what leaves he can see giving off a warm hue that they normally wouldn’t until autumn, and the faint flickering gives it a very different kind of ambience. He thinks he should probably be scared instead of awed, and not just due to everything with the spirits. He’s still in the middle of a forest, at the dead of night, with no cover and no means of self-defense. They’re taking shifts for a reason, and it’s not just to keep an eye on the fire. Remember the bear thing? 

He’s enjoying himself, though. Because it’s nice.

He thinks whatever’s living here can’t really be all that bad when it resides in a place like this, right? It feels almost uncanny. In a peculiar turn of events, if this were any other regular, non-haunted forest, he’d probably be a lot more worried…? 

Maybe that’s the lack of sleep talking. Scar’s fine with that. As long as no surprise bears come crashing out of the bushes to fight and also eat him, he will continue to be fine with that. 

Grian stirs and mutters something. Scar eyes him and waits for any sign that he’s actually conscious. 

“G?” he whispers, experimentally. 

Grian covers his eyes with his arms. “Mmh.” 

A few more seconds pass, ones in which Grian’s probably debating whether not to go right back to sleep. Scar lets him take his time. 

“We’re still in the woods, aren’t we,” Grian mumbles. 

“Yep,” Scar says, popping the ‘p.’ 

Grian drops his arms and sighs. He doesn’t seem very happy about this news. That could also be the whole ‘up at an absurd hour in the morning’ part, though. 

“I was really hoping it was a dream.” 

“Oh, it’s fine,” Scar says. “We’ll figure it out in the morning.” 

Grian’s look remains blank. 

“Do you think I made it mad?” he asks.

“Maybe?” Scar says, hesitant. “Actually, you know what, I don’t think so. I thought you were being pretty reasonable!" He pauses to tap at his chin. "And I think the spirits should be appreciative, considering nothing over the last day has been anywhere near reasonable and I think it would have been reasonable of us to be unreasonable right back, but you held back, and I think that’s a pretty big kindness in itself.” 

Grian squints at him. “I don’t know half of what you just said.” 

“Yeah, okay, me neither. Just know you did good. Joel, too.” Scar looks over at Joel, all flopped over in a way that couldn’t have been comfortable, and smiles. “I think he really got them with the wife card.” 

Grian huffs a laugh. “I bet.” 

They’re back to being quiet from there. Scar internally debates the likelihood of forest spirits understanding the concept of family relations, or marriage. Do forest spirits have relatives? He thinks it’s kinda sad, the idea that they might never experience that. He also supposes it’d depend on whether or not they used to be human. Are spirits necessarily ghosts? He doesn’t even know if these are actually spirits they’re dealing with, or a spirit singular, or something else entirely. 

It’s all very trippy to think about. He thinks he should probably stop doing that, especially going on four in the morning. 

Grian’s looking off at the woods in what’s probably a half-asleep daze, so Scar reaches over to poke his shoulder.

“Hey," he says. “Go back to sleep. We’ll get outta here tomorrow.” 

Grian rubs at his eyes with his palms and yawns again. 

“Alright, alright,” he says. He eyes his terrible backpack pillow disdainfully. “If I don’t wake back up to magical forest fairies showing us the way out, plan B is sacrificing you to the creek.” 

“Deal,” Scar beams.

Grian’s out like a light the second he curls back up. Scar has the thought that the three of them are gonna be all sorts of a mess by the time they get back home after spending an entire day shoving through leaves and sleeping on the ground. They’ll be covered in dirt and smell all gross, which is unfortunate for those of them with roommates, and it’ll definitely suck for Mumbo’s car, but there’s not much they can do about that one, so Scar supposes they’ll just cross that bridge when they get to it. 

Scar looks back out at the treeline. 

“Goodnight,” he says, to no one who responds.

—

Joel and Grian are still asleep when Scar feels something shift.

He’s not sure what, exactly, or how or why, but something shifts after a night of relative peace, like the forest really had taken their words to heart and gone quiet for a while. But it’s back in full force now, and it feels different, and not just because of the sudden uptick in intensity. The woods are more than just alive around him. Scar’s not exactly sure how to describe it. 

Scar stands up. The woods briefly lurch around him, but he doesn’t feel nauseous. It’s like the last-ditch flickering of a dying lightbulb, except that definitely shouldn’t be possible, since Scar is very much outside and all, and the sun has not yet peeked over the horizon. By now the fire’s almost gone out, too. It doesn’t make the layered lighting warping and folding in on his vision like stained glass feel any less confusing. 

(He thinks he sees a spark again, somewhere in the vast expanse of forest green. This time, though, for the smallest of moments, he swears it’s the sliver of an eye staring back at him, a lick of sickly yellow piercing through the leaves. Scar doesn’t falter under its gaze. 

He waits. 

And just like that, it’s gone.)

The woods are back to normal. There’s a sudden, heavy sense of absence, like something had just moved on and left empty air in its wake. Scar looks over his shoulder to make sure Joel and Grian hadn’t popped out of existence during… whatever that was, and sure enough, they’re still sleeping away, like nothing had changed at all. 

Huh.

That was weird. 

The sun rises, and Scar sits back down to watch. 

— 

Once Grian and Joel have both woken up, gathered their things, and cleared the fire pit, Scar says, “The spider web’s gone.” 

Joel turns to squint at him. “…Eh?” 

“That spider web I kept seeing,” Scar says. “It was back there. And now it’s gone.” 

“You never mentioned a spider web,” Grian says.

“Oh. Well.” Scar cocks his head. “I guess I didn’t think to, with everything else already happening, but. Still! We kept passing by it, over and over, and now it’s not there anymore.” 

Both Grian and Joel follow his gaze, their expressions looking no less tired and blank. Scar guesses he now understands how Grian felt yesterday, with the tree stump and the branch, because he’s just so sure about this, yet saying it out loud makes it feel about ten times crazier. Although his standards for ‘crazy’ will probably be pretty skewed, after all this, won’t they? 

“Okay. Sure. That’s… a good sign? Maybe?” Grian tries. His eyes narrow. He reaches for his phone. 

Joel, meanwhile, circles the clearing. “Wait. You’re saying something changed? Is that what we’re running with?” 

“I don’t know,” Scar says, genuinely. He turns his eyes up to the sky, now having faded to the gentle blue of morning. “But it sure feels different. I, uh… started thinking that last night. I had a bit of an experience.” 

Grian looks up from his phone. “…An experience.” 

“Yep,” Scar says. “It was all very weird. The forest was moving around me, and all the lights overlapped, and then it felt like there was a massive weight off my back. Also I think I saw an eye…?” 

A beat or two passes. Joel pauses in his tracks.

“I was joking when I said to eat those berries.” 

“Oh my goodness—  I didn’t eat any berries,” Scar rushes. “That was all real! I saw it. I swear.” 

“Yeah, okay, relax,” Joel chuckles, with a placating wave. “I’m just messing. I believe you.” 

“I wouldn’t actually put random things off the floor in my mouth, I’d at least wash it all off first!—  oh, wait, okay.” Scar blinks. “You do? Just like that?” 

“Look, Scar. After all of this, it’d just be silly to rule anything out,” Joel says. “I trust you.” 

“Aw,” Scar smiles.

“No, really. Infinite woods? Forest spirits? It’s crazy. That’s crazy,” Joel laughs, a touch high-pitched. “Honestly, at this point, you could tell me anything and I’d probably believe it!” 

Scar raises his eyebrows. “Anything?” 

“…Actually, I take it back, don’t get any ideas.” 

They’re maybe-nervous laughing together like a couple of idiots when Grian sucks in a breath.

“Guys,” he says, “we’re back. We’re back on the map. How did this…?” 

Scar stops. “Wait, actually?” 

“…Something must’ve been keeping us offline. I don’t know how this happened.” Grian runs a shell shocked hand down his face. “How in the world did that happen—?” 

Scar practically snatches the phone out of Grian’s hands in his excitement, and sure enough, the GPS is no longer bugging out, and their location is no longer off in some random blob of green. Out of everything that’s happened over the past day, this is the moment Scar’s most concerned he’s simply imagining, but no matter how many times he blinks, the screen remains the same, and. Wow! Wow. 

He thinks this might just meet his standards for ‘crazy.’ 

“Wow, I can’t believe that worked!” Scar exclaims. “Er, I mean… of course it did! Because we all followed my advice and spoke from the heart.” 

“Nope, don’t jinx it. Let’s go,” Grian says. 

“We’re not… out of the woods, yet… yeah, never mind, let’s go.” Joel lets out a yelp when Grian grabs him by the arm and drags him along. “Yep! That’s what we’re doing! We’re going. We’re running, now.” 

They go, and they do not stop. Scar knows that his sense of time isn’t exactly trustworthy on most days, and he can pretty confidently say that this experience has warped it even further, but he at the very least knows that they had trekked up for a solid hour or two before they started noticing the weird stuff the first time around. And it most certainly does not take them an hour to get back. 

It takes at most fifteen minutes. 

He could explain this away with the fact that they’re in a rush, going as fast as they can manage despite the sleep-deprivation. He could explain this away with the fact that they ran into several detours on the way up, not helped at all by their tendency to goof off (mainly his) and get sidetracked (also maybe his), but Scar knows better, and the other two he’s currently jogging alongside probably do, too. 

There is something very, very strange in these woods.

Scar cannot wrap his head around it. He probably never will. 

Perhaps this will bother him more later, but right now, the only things on Scar’s mind are freedom and the thought of a hot, well-earned shower. 

They don’t slow down until they break through the trees. Scar has never felt more bliss in his life over being able to say he recognizes where he is. They’re at the entrance pavilion where hikers can pass through and pick up pamphlets so long as someone has bothered to restock them, and there’s that one big sign with a map and colorful visuals that also would have been misleading with where they ended up. Scar glares at it like it had wronged him personally, which—  he would argue it had! There’s an image of a smiling bear in a hat pointing at the map, to top it all off. It’s like it’s mocking him. 

He’s too utterly relieved to feel any actual resentment, though. His legs are practically screaming at him when he collapses on a bench on Grian’s other side, panting. 

They sit there for what feels like ages just catching their breath. A bluebird briefly lands on the sign before flying away again. Scar’s vaguely grateful no one’s around to see them like this. He’s not sure what he’d do if he walked by three filthy strangers flopped over half-dead on a bench. Be concerned, probably? 

Either way. No one walks by, so Scar reaches for his water and waits patiently for his breathing to even.

Joel’s the first person to break the silent spell.

“Oh my god, we’re actually out.” 

“Yep,” Scar agrees. “Wow.” 

“Pfft. Yeah. Wow,” Joel echoes. “That sums it up. Really… wow.” 

Joel repeats a few more ‘wow’s under his breath, to really drive home the message. Scar raps his fingers against the bench.

Grian gives an airy chuckle. “Honestly, what even.” 

“Is it weird I feel like I could keep on running forever?” Joel goes on. “Like if we had to run even further to make it here, I would barely notice a difference?”

“I think that’s the adrenaline,” Grian says. 

“Oh. Right.” 

With each pause, Scar becomes more convinced this doesn’t feel quite right, like following up their mad dash to safety with sitting around being exhausted is too abrupt of a change for him to feel properly victorious about it. Not that he was expecting a party or anything, but geez. 

“I feel like I should have brought confetti, or something, to make our grand escape more exciting,” Scar says. 

“I feel like I deserve financial compensation,” Joel says. 

Grian just sniffs. “I feel like I’m not processing much of any of this, actually.” 

“That would make sense,” Scar agrees.

He supposes that’s just how it goes when a lot starts happening all at once and very quickly. For now, though, Scar's simply chilling on a bench, and he's taking the time to appreciate that there’s something other than cold, hard dirt beneath him, and he's fantasizing about how great it’ll feel to collapse into an actual bed later. 

“You know,” Joel says, still a touch breathless, “I really didn’t think any of that would actually work.” 

Scar, of course, can always find the energy to be offended. He turns to him. “I thought you said you believed in me!” 

“I do, I do!” Joel protests. “I was only questioning our methods, a little, that’s all.” 

“Trust me, I can’t believe that worked either.” Grian shakes his head. “I honestly don’t know what to do with myself, now.” 

“Be grateful, I think.” Scar breathes out through his nose. Has he mentioned he’s worn out? It feels like he’s run a marathon twice over. 

“I already groveled more than enough last night for one lifetime,” Joel mutters.

Scar grins. “No, not to the spirits. I meant to me, for cracking the code. With my enormous brain and quick wits.” 

“Oh, hush up.” Grian swats him in the arm. Scar giggles. Sure, he led them here in the first place, but how was he supposed to know the forest would react this way to seeing him again? They still relied on his idea to get out of there. Hasn’t he always said that’s his greatest strength, his logically unsound yet creative way of thinking? So, Scar thinks he’s a hero, really!

…Yeah, okay, he’s being over the top. He thinks he’s allowed to be a little over the top right now, though.

“No one’s ever gonna believe us, are they,” Joel sighs.

Ah. Well. Scar hadn’t thought about that. It kind of takes the wind out of his sails.

“I mean. There’s three of us,” Grian says, after a pause. “We know what we saw, and we don’t need anyone else to tell us it’s real for it to be real.” 

“Oh. That’s kind of profound,” Scar says.

“…Unless we really were all just hallucinating at the same time, or sharing the same weird dream, in which case the bullying will probably be deserved.”

“And, uh, that’s a little less profound, but. Okay.” 

“Thanks, that really makes me feel better,” Joel says dryly.

Now that Scar’s heart isn’t threatening to burst out of his chest from all the running, he drops his chin in his hands and relaxes his shoulders. He makes a thinking noise. 

“Grian still has the flower,” Scar says.

That prompts Joel to turn to Grian, too. Grian’s eyes widen a touch at the sudden attention. 

“What about it?” he asks slowly.

“I just thought it was nice,” Scar says. “It’s proof. Of our experience together.” 

Joel side-eyes him like he’s looking at something that’s particularly incomprehensible. “Scar… it’s a flower. It could have come from literally anywhere.” 

“But it didn’t,” Scar says. “I picked it while we were arguing over something silly in the middle of the haunted woods, and Grian still has it. From my perspective that makes it proof, and that’s good enough for me.” 

He watches as Joel goes to say something, then appears to decide against it and shuts his mouth again. 

All Grian adds is, “It’ll be shriveled up by, like, next week.” 

“Then you should appreciate it and what it stands for while it lasts,” Scar says cheerily, and Grian only stares at him some more, like he's just sprouted an extra limb. Joel huffs another laugh. 

“You are really something else, Scar,” Joel says. 

Scar can’t help but smile wider at the look of sheer exasperation on his face. “I get that a lot.” 

—

On the last of the walk back up to the car, Scar starts to slow his pace. Joel and Grian carry on, caught up in conversation, and Scar turns back to face the trail.

“Well,” he says. “It was great seeing you again, forest spirits, or… whatever you are. We never did figure that out, did we. Is that rude? I hope that’s not considered rude.”

Scar makes one last scan of the trees to really take in the full visual of it. Not that it’s all that memorable; it’s still just a forest, after all. Maybe that’s the scariest part, that it looks so unassuming. 

The forest does not respond. 

“Either way! I guess it doesn’t matter now. I’d just like to say bye, and also thanks? I guess that’s a bit strange, since you did get us stuck in the first place—  actually pretty scary, in hindsight, but also I get the feeling it wasn’t because you were actually evil or anything, so…” 

A light breeze catches Scar’s hair. He debates if he should wave goodbye. Would gestures like that mean anything to the forest? What if it just thought he was, like, swatting away a fly? How many of their attempts at communicating did it actually understand? 

Yeah, maybe he's overthinking it. 

“I hope this gave you some sort of ghostly closure, since… a lot’s changed since I last visited, hasn’t it?” Scar’s definitely rambling again. But there’s a lot on his mind, and just not enough time in a day to get through it all, really! “You even met my friends! I think they’re pretty great, even if we get up to really stupid stuff sometimes. So, it’s cool that you got to see them. And, well…” Scar feels a smile grow. “I think there’s something awfully poetic about that. The old meeting the new, you know?” 

Scar thinks he hears Grian calling his name from the parking lot. He should probably stop talking at a bunch of trees, now. 

He waves goodbye. 

“Anyways! Sorry I can’t stay,” he says to the forest, over his shoulder. “But I’m in good hands now. Promise.” 

The forest does not respond, but it lets him go. 

Scar likes to think it’s happy for him. 

—

In a city over, Mumbo K. Jumbo is having what he considers to be a pretty normal day. 

He’s at his computer, he’s about to take his lunch break, and Grian has yet to return from his trip with Joel and Scar. Grian texted last night, something about feeding the cat for him because he’s going to be staying the night—  Mumbo couldn’t exactly say he was surprised. Grian drops things like that on him without warning all the time—  and so, for once, the apartment is peaceful, and Mumbo is relishing in the quiet while it lasts. 

On a whim, he opens Twitter. After some of the usual mindless scrolling he stumbles upon a post from Joel from two hours ago. He leaves a like and almost doesn’t think twice about it, but then his eyes catch on something.

It’s a picture of Joel and Scar smiling at the camera, their clothes oddly filthy, with Grian visible a short distance over their shoulders making an unpleasant face, like he hadn’t been ready for the photo. He has a purple flower tucked in his hair, for some reason, and they’re all standing at the top of a hill next to a not quite empty parking lot. The caption reads ‘unforgettable night with these losers (nearly died! lol.)’ 

None of these details are what has Mumbo’s attention, though. He does a double-take at something only just visible in the background of the photo. He very nearly chokes. 

“Is that my bloody car?!”