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Grian winced as he pulled off his sweater in front of the makeshift sheet of iron and glass that he and Scar used as a mirror. Christ, it had been a rough day. For both of them. Bruises and scrapes littered his body, and were surely covering Scar's too, though Scar had already gone to bed.
Running a damp cloth over the cuts and abrasions, cleaning away dried blood and dirt, Grian's eyes drifted over the scars scattered over his body. They were Scar's scars, which had begun appearing one by one, just faintly, after the server had selected everyone's soulmates, but by now they were everywhere and much more defined than when they first appeared. They were gashes and punctures and bites, mostly, likely from unexpected run-ins with hostile mobs. Besides the standard injuries, his legs were also covered in strange, irregular shapes. Scar fell to his death much too often.
There was a new one today, though, or at least one Grian hadn't noticed before. As he blotted at a cut on his upper arm, he noticed raised, pink skin creeping over his shoulder. He winced at the uncomfortable pinch at the base of his skull as he craned his neck, turning to see his back in the mirror.
It was a blast scar.
It almost looked like a star, with its pointed, explosive edges slicing over his back and shooting out over his shoulders. When did Scar get blown up this badly?
Oh.
Oh, wait.
Memories of a previous server started coming back to Grian, slowly at first, but soon the images were flooding his mind.
A creeper. A creeper, led through the trees, hissing and spitting.
It was a joke.
It was supposed to have been a joke.
Oh, god.
That was me.
And the crick. The crick in his neck that never went away, that was me too. I did that.
And suddenly it was like he was back in that hellish desert. He could almost feel the blazing sun on his shoulders again. The burning sand slipped beneath his knees, awful in the way it stuck and stung in every scrape. He could almost hear the whisper of voices chanting in his head, crying for blood. He could feel sweat and muscle and a heaving chest, breathing hard, alive beneath him as adrenaline pounded through his blood. But worst of all was the hair, sun-warmed brown hair beneath his fingers, gritty with sand, still damp with river water and sticky with sweat.
The images stopped there, froze on that awful frame of Scar, panting and ragged and still somehow so beautiful beneath him, telling him, begging him to do what Grian would rather kill himself before ever doing again.
That was where the images stopped.
But the sickening crack had never left his memory.
Oh, god.
Grian stumbled away from the mirror and over to the bed, trying desperately not to panic or cry or scream or shake Scar awake and beg him for forgiveness, or to leave, leave for his own damn good, because god knows he's not safe here, not with him, not with Grian .
His frantic eyes fell on Scar laid in the bed. He was asleep, peacefully, facing the wall with the soft covers pulled up to his bare chest. The ragged blast scar on his back rose and fell gently with each breath.
The sight of him caused Grian to still. He was so quiet. Grian climbed onto the bed, as delicately as he could, so as not to wake Scar, and sat beside him.
Grian reached out and traced a finger, feather-light, over the outline of the explosion written over Scar's back.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his throat constricting painfully. It was like the guilt was swallowing him whole. There was nothing he could do.
Resigning himself to a sleepless night, Grian turned carefully, trying not to jostle the bed, to sit up against the headboard. His hand automatically found its way into soft brown hair, and he allowed his fingers to brush through it, methodically running through Scar's hair and rubbing gently at his scalp.
Scar let out a tiny sigh at the contact, barely audible, but didn't wake. Something stirred in Grian's chest at the sound, filling him with a conflicting emotion he couldn't name or place and didn't care to.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again, and leaned down to press a kiss into Scar's hair, leaving a teardrop clinging to it in his wake. "I'm so sorry."