Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Grian has always carried more injuries than his friends. Waking up to a bruised arm or scraped leg was no cause for concern, and even serious injuries, ones that would certainly scar if he had gotten them himself, were a common enough occurrence not to worry about too much.

He has a journal, logged with dates. If he ever meets soulmate, his Match, he will be able to find every scar, and recall when they happened.

He is ready to meet his soulmate.

Maybe that’s why it hurts so much when his Match seems to dismiss him.

What hurts more, never finding your soulmate, your Match, together in injury and death, sickness and health, or finding them, only to discover they don’t want you?

…

Before he knew anyone, when he was still traveling between civilizations, building whatever came to mind and helping strangers when they seemed stuck, he made an oath. He looked to the Universe for guidance and promised in no uncertain terms to keep his soulmate safe. It plays on repeat in his mind, watching as his Match risks his—their—life on a joke.

I swear by my livelihood that I will keep my soulmate safe.

…

His name is Scar, and Grian has never met anyone so reckless with their life before.

His Match is a breath of fresh air in a world so serious and concerned about health. Scar jumps off of high ledges to prove he can and suggests reckless plans without a hint of sarcasm, he is altogether the most intriguing and exhausting person Grian has ever met.

He’s interesting.

“Scar,” he ventures one day, when the man is running outside in the dark with no protection save for the little Grian offers, “you know you’re playing with someone else's life here, right?”

Scar says nothing, just flashes him a carefree smile. It tells Grian everything he needs to know.

…

He has a mission now. He is to protect Scar with everything he has in him, excluding his life. Scar is clueless about his new bodyguard, despite the desperate glances Grian sends his way when he takes a hit meant for the other man, looking for a spark of recognition.

“Grian,” Scar says, voice quiet in a way it rarely is, running his hands over the smooth surface of the horn Grian gave him, “I don’t think I’m ever going to meet my Match.”

Grian chokes.

“I know some people never do,” he continues, “but I've been feeling more transferred pains than normal. It makes me miss them, whoever they are.” Scar looks up. “Do you think that’s weird? Missing someone I’ve never met.”

“No.” Grian croaks, his throat gone dry. “I think I know what you mean.”

He thinks, suddenly, of the bruises he has hidden under long pants and a thick red sweater. The limp he’s concealing from Scar with years of careful practice and the cuts he has from each time he throws himself between Scar and the danger he’s putting himself in.

Scar turns to him, eyes piercing. “Does your soulmate get hurt a lot?”

Grian fumbles for words, “He… used to, I think. I like to imagine that—that he has someone to protect him, now.”

“He?”

“Just a feeling I have.”

Scar stands up and starts walking towards the forest, and Grian can see bruises crawling up his leg and disappearing beneath clothing. He tugs the sleeves of his sweater down and checks his ankles are covered by the cargo pants he wears, and then he follows.

…

He wakes up with a terrible itch in his throat, one that expands into his stomach and makes him sit up uneasily. Scar’s not awake yet, and his gut is saying that something is wrong, but Grian spent the last week outside in the rain with Scar while he picked flowers. He probably just has a cold.

When Scar wakes, meeting Grian outside the cave they spent the night in, Grian is careful to keep up appearances. If he seems ill, Scar will worry, and Grian doesn’t think he can deal with that.

He asks, “What do you want to do today?” and Scar looks up, a smear of blood red juice on his lips from the berries he was eating.

“I don’t know. Think my Match is sick, there’s something—“ he swallows, but it does nothing. The feeling isn’t his. “something in my throat.”

Grian frowns. He hopes it looks sympathetic, but he thinks he might’ve missed the mark.

“I need to collect some seeds to start a farm.” He says in the absence of anything better to say. “We could go down to that bamboo forest, the one with the pandas. You could stay there while I worked, if you’d like.”

“Oh!” Scars says, eyes sparkling.

They go. Grian leaves Scar in a well lit area surrounded by pandas. He tells the man to use his horn if he needs help. He stays within shouting distance.

When he’s gathered enough seeds for the start of a decently sized wheat crop, he makes his way back to Scar and is delighted to see him in what appears to be a panda cuddle pile.

“Oh hey G,” says the newly appointed panda man, “nice of you to drop in. Welcome to the chill zone, take a seat.”

Grian laughs, making his way into the pile and settling between Scar and a piece of bamboo.

Scar looks content watching Grian for a second before seeming to light up. “The panda is my soulmate!”

Grian’s throat burns. Scar flinches. “Yeah?” he grits out, “Why's that?“

Scar takes a second to recover, body tense and hand glued to his throat. Grian swallows and the pain recedes. “I never used to like pandas,” Scar says, “but this one looks just like my cat! It was meant to be!”

Grian gives him a tense smile. Scar tries to smile back, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“G,” Scar says, “I think we should…I think we should head back to the cave. My Match’s throat, it—it really hurts.”

“Okay,” Grian says. Okay.

…

They’re out walking, Scar talking animatedly about what Grian thinks might be a magical snail, but he can’t be sure.

Scar ventures out onto an empty field, and Grian finds himself checking behind their back for mobs constantly, despite it being near midday. His head hurts too, aching with an intensity that can only mean lack of sleep, but if Scar feels it–and he certainly does–his soulmate is doing a good job of hiding it.

Grian watches Scar bend over to pick a flower and he smiles until he feels a sharp pain in the tip of one of his fingers, fading quickly into a dull ache that signifies a transferred pain. Scar is hurt.

His Match is hurt. Where? How? Grian was being so careful, so thoughtful, there’s no way that—

Oh. Scar’s been stung by a bee. Grian feels a bubbly feeling trying to force itself out of his chest, and he takes a deep breath to contain it. It wouldn’t do to have Scar discover his soulmate because of a simple bee sting.

“Grian, Grian look!” Scar calls, and Grian makes his way over.”This poor bee stung me. He’s got nowhere to go now.” Somehow, Scar looks like the physical representation of a pouting emoji. He has the bee in his hand, and Grian clamps down on a sudden urge to killdestroyprotectScar.

He thinks of, I swear by my livelihood that I will keep my soulmate safe, and reminds himself that a bee sting is not going to kill anyone, especially not Scar, who seems to have incredible luck with his own life.

“Hey little buddy,” Scar croons, “it’s okay. I’m sorry I scared you, I’m going to put you right back down in the flowers.”

Grian breathes a sigh of relief when the bee is down safely in the flower, Scar frowning down at his finger. Grian says, “We need to get the stinger out.”

Scar looks upset. “I know.”

“Are you okay?”

“That bee is going to die.” Scar says. Grian thinks his voice is close to breaking, eyes shiny with compassion.

What did he do to deserve Scar as a soulmate? What did he do to deserve someone so selfless and compassionate yet careless with his own (and by extension Grian’s) life? What did he do that was so mediocre that the Universe decided to stick him with the kindest, most sensitive person in the world only to make the same person oblivious to something that should be so very obvious, how does someone get paired with a soulmate who cares for the death of a bee like a friend only to turn around and throw himself of ledges in the name of fun?

Chapter Text

They meet while they’re making their way to the mountain range to get new horns. Grian is running ahead, something he doesn't usually do, when Scar calls him back.

Grian rushes over, but nothing’s happened. Scott’s there, and he says that he saw them in the distance and wanted to say hello.

He asks: “Do you know who your soulmate is?” And it shouldn’t hurt when Scar says he doesn’t, but there’s a lump in Grian’s throat no matter what he tells himself, and he watches Scar for anything, anything, that says he might be lying.

There’s nothing.

“Grian?” Scott asks, “what about you?”

“No,” he says, “I don’t know who my soulmate is.”

Of course, Scar chooses that moment to twist his ankle, and Grian can’t help the slight wince at the pain that shoots up his already injured leg.

Scott looks between him and Scar. Grian shakes his head.

“Oh well,” Scott says, and then to Scar, “hey, I wanted to talk to Grian anyway, mind giving us a minute?”

Scar says something back and then turns to walk away, but Grian isn’t paying attention, mind stuck repeating the words, unable to escape and explain himself.

“Scar is your soulmate.”

“Uh,” Grian says, eloquently, “No?”

Scott just looks at him.

“Maybe?” Grian says.

“Maybe?” Scott repeats.

“Okay, yes. Scar’s my Match.”

Scott pinches his nose, “He doesn’t know?”

“No! And you can’t tell him.”

“Why not?”

“He, uh, he doesn’t want to be my soulmate.”

Scott stares at him. “Sorry, what?”

“He just–he doesn’t want to be my soulmate. He’d rather be Matched with a panda! And he doesn’t know that we’re Matched. So, yeah. Don’t tell him. Please?”

Scott looks at him like he’s a different person than he was a couple seconds ago. Grian shifts uncomfortably.

“You’re… sure? That he doesn’t want to be your soulmate.”

“Yes. You can only miss so many hints.”

“Grian,” Scott says, sounding exasperated, “this is Scar we’re talking about.”

“He’s not stupid!” It’s a knee jerk reaction, and Grian curses himself for it.

“I wasn’t saying he was stupid,” Scott sighs. “Just. Look, Grian, have you talked to him about it?”

“He’s clearly ignoring it, I don’t want to bring it up, and he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to lose my friendship with him.”

“Okay.” Scott says, “Okay. That’s fine. Just–think about it, alright, it’s better to–Grian? Grian!”

Grian doesn’t respond, but he’s becoming rather urgently occupied with coughing a lung out. His throat burns and his stomach clenches around something that Grian knows isn’t food. He hasn’t eaten.

“Grian?” Scott sounds worried, and Grian should probably be worried about that, but his knees are giving out and he’s collapsing onto the ground on his hands and knees, hacking, but nothing’s coming out.

“Okay,” He hears Scott say. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do–can you hear me? Good–I’m going to go get Scar—”

Grian shakes his head as violently as he can in his current predicament.

“No?” Scott says, “No? You’re being ridiculous. It’s fine, no, don’t worry, everything’s fine. I’ve got some water for you, when this… fit is over. Yeah?”

Scott sits on the ground next to Grian, pulling the man into his lap and supporting him through the coughs racking his body.

Grian struggles until Scott lets go, and the coughing carries on for an indistinguishable amount of time.

When he stops, Grian heaves for breath and shudders, falling backwards onto Scott and closing his eyes, willing air back into his lungs. He feels completely empty, the air he does manage to inhale wispy in his lungs and making his throat burn.

“Grian?”

“Hey,” He croaks, “fine, now.” It hurts to talk.

“Right,” Scott says. “I’m sure you’re fine and not about to hack up another lung.”

“Hah.”

Scott smiles at him, but the lines are all wrong and it looks more like a grimace. He starts to get up, and then stops short. “Grian.” His eyes are wide. “Grian there’s blood on the ground.”

“Is there?” Grian asks, “That’s odd.”

“Grian…”

Oh Gods, Scott sounds helpless, what is Grian supposed to do with that?

“I’m fine.”

“Grian I can’t—You just coughed up blood! You’re not fine.”

Grian would sigh, but he’s still out of breath. “Don’t worry about it, Scott, I have it under control.”

“You knew about this?”

“I knew it was a possibility.”

“Grian…” Oh, oh no, Scott’s going to say something about it and then Grian will have to respond and it’s all going to be terrible because his throat hurts and he wants to go home and eat dinner and sleep for about three days. “Grian, is this because of Scar?”

Grian nods miserably.

Scott opens his mouth, shuts it, opens again, “Okay. That’s—okay. And you’re not going to tell him?”

“No. I’m waiting for him to figure it out himself.” If he doesn’t already know.

“Alright.” Scott says, sounding resigned, “I won’t tell him. Just—stay safe. Please?”

Grian nods, and, when Scott finally turns away, slowly gets up from the ground, brushing dirt off of his trousers. He looks at the blood on the ground, thick and red and making his body yell badbadbadbad at him, and unclenches his fist. In his palm sits a tiny, innocuous, pink petal.

He crushes it under his foot.

…

He meets back up with Scar at the cave they’ve made their temporary home. Grian doesn’t say anything, but he knows that Scar’s throat must be killing him, so he makes tea and adds honey, bringing it to his friend and sitting opposite of him, the fire Scar made sending long shadows through the cave.

“Thanks,” Scar says, but he sounds less enthusiastic than normal.

Grian nods, tucking his own cup close to his chest and curling his hands around it, willing the warmth to move through his hands and into the rest of his body.

“I’m making soup,” he says, and hopes his throat sounds at least somewhat normal, though he knows it most likely doesn’t. “Want any?”

Scar nods.

“Okay.” Grian gets up, fumbling around the cave looking for the materials, and he ends up outside again, taking a moment for himself just to recover. At least, he thinks, since Scar’s his Match, he doesn’t have to be worried about having to hide the sore throat. They won’t be doing much talking tonight.

He sighs, finding the last herbs he needs and ducking back into the cave.

The silence is too loud, and Grian gives in after what feels like forever, though he knows it can’t have been more than ten minutes. “Tomorrow,” he starts. Clears his throat. Continues, “I’m going to start the farm. You don’t happen to have a hoe, do you?”

Scar doesn’t say anything. Grian’s shoulders droop, but he turns around to take a look. Scar shakes his head,

“Okay. That’s okay, I can make one. Do you want to bring your pandas over here, or help me with the farm?”

“Pandas,” Scar mumbles, and oh, that makes Grian feel bad, Scar’s usual enthusiasm is completely gone, rendering the other man quiet and, while he still looks content, there’s something worried in his expression. Worried for his soulmate, Grian thinks, and then: worried for me.

He can’t do anything but hurt Scar, and that, that hurts more than anything else could, a deep, stabbing pain in his chest. Scar, with his optimism and unburdened happiness, doesn’t deserve someone like Grian as a soulmate.

The Universe must have made a mistake.

…

The Universe definitely didn’t make a mistake.

Sometimes Grian looks behind him to see Scar running, coat flowing behind him and face lit up with joy, and thinks yeah, this feels right.

They’re playing tag, and the forest is quiet except for the far off sounds of the birds they haven't scared away yet and the bugs that don’t care whether or not their home is being invaded.

Scar looks so happy, his grin lighting up his entire face, and there’s dirt on his knees from the last time Grian tackled him, grass stains on his shoes from running for so long. Grian jumps over a log that had fallen in the path and grabs onto a vine hanging from a tree, laughing as Scar lets out an startled shout.

Grian’s pretty sure that Scar doesn’t know where they are, so he glances behind him to confirm that yes, Scar is following him, and then swings down, hitting the ground running before he gets to the cliff.

“Come and get me!” Grian yells, launching himself over the ledge and into the water below, where he curls up into a cannonball before he hits the water.

Under the water is chaos and brilliance, and the bubbles around him breach the surface at the same time he does, the perfect moment to see Scar come over the ledge screaming.

Grian bursts out laughing, but it turns into a cough when Scar hits the water next to him and he chokes on the water from the splash.

Scar surfaces, gasping with laughter and face set in faux fury.

“Grian!”

Grian cackles, swimming away, and Scar makes an unintelligible noise before following after him.

On the shore, Grian collapses, chest heaving, and waits for Scar to catch up.

“Hey,” he says, when his Match has made it to the shore.

“Hey,” Scar replies breathlessly. “You are a bad, bad, man, jumping in like that.”

Grian laughs, “Yeah? Keep up, then.”

Scar grins, “Keep up?” He reaches out for Grian’s ankle, wrapping his hand around it momentarily before shoving Grian back into the water.

“Bro!” Grian sputters when he surfaces.

“Tag, you’re it!”

“Scar no!”

Scar starts running.

Grian watches him for a moment, catching his breath, before running after him.

“You’re not going to get away with this!”

Chapter Text

He pays for it.

Grian wakes up with something in his throat and Scar snoring across the cave from him, and he runs.

See, in the forest, no one can get to you. In the forest, where there is no one, the crickets sing and the moon sends streaks of light through the trees, you can go for a bit of peace away from everything, you can just exist.

Grian looks up and he remembers:

Two years ago, bedridden and delirious from pain, all projects abandoned, he made a desperate promise to keep his soulmate safe.

Two years ago, when his face felt like it was on fire and no one could console him, he felt his Match for the first time.

So why is it that now, after all of that, he is sitting in the middle of an empty forest and coughing his lungs out for the idiot of a soulmate he was given?

He coughs and he coughs, the burning traveling down his throat and into his stomach, strong enough to make him curl up into a tight ball. He can’t breathe, each breath viciously exhaled and taking with it a bit of something, and he thinks that he might die. Scar is awake by now, must be, if Grian is in this much pain, but his Match will never find him, not in the one place Grian made sure he never showed the other man.

He finds himself wishing for Scott, if only because his friend would be there with soft, encouraging words and a bottle of water.

The world turns a concerning shade of red, and Grian slams his eyes shut, heaving in air when there is a break from the coughing.

There is pain and coughing and chaos and then—-

nothing.

He sits up slowly, blinking tears out of his eyes and rubbing at his mouth with a sleeved hand. He looks down.

Oh.

The ground is covered in small petals of all colors.

He grabs the closest tree to him, uses it to pull himself to his feet.

Grian’s vision goes spotty. He sways, letting the tree hold him up. Okay, he thinks, when his vision clears, I can do this.

He throws up.

…

There’s no way to hide this. Grian’s sweater is bloody, his trousers covered in dirt. He can’t go back to the cave looking like this, not when Scar is undoubtedly awake and hurting, confused and concerned for the soulmate he thinks is someone else.

Alright, he thinks, I can’t go back to the cave. What can I do?

He takes out his communicator.

…

“We have to talk about this.”

“Mmm.”

“Grian.” Scott says, eyebrows pinched. “You can’t keep avoiding the problem. What is going on with you and Scar?”

“I’ve told you! He doesn’t want to be my soulmate!”

“You can’t possibly know that! Did you ask him?”

“No.”

Scott groans, “You sound like a child right now, I hope you know that.”

Grian sticks his bottom lip out. If you want to call me a child, I’ll act like one.

“Okay! Fine! Wallow in your self-pity for all I care.” Scott pinches his nose and hands Grian some clothes. “Change. Knock on the door when you’re done.”

…

The hoodie Scott lent him is soft, falling around his body in a way that makes him feel safe. It smells like grass. The pants are too long, and Grian has to roll the cuffs up four times before he can walk without tripping.

He knocks on the door.

Scott is back in the room within the minute, folding the dirty clothes into a pile and sitting on the floor in front of Grian, who takes it as a cue to sit.

They sit in silence until Grian can’t take it.

“Do you have a book on flowers?”

“What?”

“Flowers. I need a book on flowers.”

“I–”

“Please?”

“No, I don’t. Show me the flower?”

“How do you know there’s a flower?”

“Dude.”

“Okay, okay!” Grian laughs. He gives Scott a smile, but it dies on his lips. “Just—you won’t tell anyone?”

“Cross my heart.”

Grian shifts, uncomfortable. He can do this. He reaches into the pockets of the new trousers and pulls out the flower. He hears Scott gasp.

“Grian… Is that—did you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Yeah—that’s. Okay.”

“Do you know it?”

“Yeah, it’s a snapdragon.”

A snapdragon. “What does it mean?” Grian asks.

“I don't… there’s a lot of different meanings. I don’t know which one this might be.”

Liar.

…

When Grian gets back to the cave, Scar’s eyes are red and puffy. Grian has changed back into his normal clothes, after Scott washed the blood from them and helped with patching up a few of the holes.

“Grian,” Scar says, sounding desperate, “Where were you last night?”

And see that—that hurts more than anything else. It hurts more than Scott sitting him down and making him talk. It hurts more than being alone in the forest coughing up blood and petals (and thank the Universe they weren’t thorned flowers, Grian would have died right there). It hurts more than looking at the bloodstained ground and knowing that Scar was alone.

No.

It’s—see.

Scar is—

Scar—

Scar is curled into himself, lying in Grian’s bed (Grian’s bed!) looking like he’s been chased by a warden. His eyes shine with the light of the campfire. He looks—distraught.

“Hey.” Grian says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was—I couldn’t sleep, so I went and scoured for a place to build our house. I—are you okay?”

Scar lets out a short, humorless laugh. “No G, don’t worry about good ol’ Scar over here. I’m fine.”

“Are you—,” Grian starts. And then stops. Thinks. It’s a terrible question, but there’s nothing better, nothing else that can be said without tipping the other man off. “Are you sure?“

“Hah,” Scar says, humorlessly, “Yes.”

Grian drops it.

…

While he was lying to Scar about when he went scouting for places to put their house, Grian does have a place in mind. It’s a peaceful place, across the river, sequestered away from most of the other inhabitants, but not so far away they’ll never get to talk. He takes Scar there, in the morning when they’ve both recovered and are ready to get to work again.

Recovered in a broad sense, because Scar refuses to tell Grian that anything is actually wrong and it would be suspicious if he kept asking—nevermind taking a break himself, that would be disastrous—so they carry on.

Scar wants to help, so Grian shows his Match a basic, poorly drawn picture of what he wants to create and has him collect the materials while he lays the scaffolding.

When they take breaks, Grian finds himself knitting more sweaters for himself, checking his trousers and making a note to find new ones soon—they’re getting threadbare, and a rip in the wrong place will bring his web of lies spiraling down, Scar able to easily match his pains to Grian’s own.

They make good progress on the house, even if they don’t have as much as they want done, and they have to spend the night in the cave again. But they’re back at it the next day, Scar helping build this time, because he’d managed to get enough wood that Grian felt confident in their stock, and the house starts looking like something livable.

“Hey, G!”

“Yeah?”

“What if we made walls? Big spikey ones to defend the house.”

“Would that work?”

“Oh definitely not, it’s for the uh. Uh. The. Looks.”

“Aesthetic?”

“Yeah! It’s for the aesthetic!”

“Okay. Let’s make walls.”

It only takes a couple days of building before they move into the house for good. Scar makes them take their possessions over in some sort of weird stretcher contraption, and they almost fall more times than Grian can count trying it get to the house , but they make it there, and they set up actual beds that are so much more comfortable than the makeshift blankets they were using in the cave.

It’s nice.

He spends the fleeting moments Scar is away coughing his lungs out, and when his Match is with him he’s paranoid, reaching into his back pocket to check that a handkerchief is there, in case any more petals come up. Scar doesn’t have to see.

The walls go up slowly, interrupted by Scar’s panda sanctuary, and though Grian convinces his Match to build it outside the walls, it takes some time to build around it, especially with Scar’s laser focus on the pandas.

The pandas are the bane of Grian’s existence. He’s not sure what Scar sees in the creatures—they’re loud and smelly, require special diets, and take up far too much of Scar’s limited time just existing.

The pandas ruin what little hope Grian had on getting the walls done in a timely fashion, but since no one has fallen to outright fighting yet (that he knows of), Grian feels pretty confident that they aren’t super important, besides, they’re going to be made of wood, so they won’t be a great defense anyway.

He does try, but the walls are probably a lost cause anyway, and he’ll most likely end up finishing them off himself when the unfinished-ness starts to unnerve him.

Instead, he helps Scar finish his project, partly to have the extra hand helping with the main build when the panda sanctuary finished and partly because he likes hanging out with Scar, even if he doesn’t like the subsequent coughing fits and throat pain, but they run out of materials and he has to send Scar off to get more.

Which leaves him alone in an empty, half-finished base.

And there’s the problem. Grian’s alone, so he starts thinking.

…

BigB is an unknown—kind of. They’ve met up before, when they were both still traveling, and they’ve formed a hesitant friendship over the years.

Now that they’ve both settled down and Grian’s gotten a chance to get to know him better, he finds himself wishing that BigB was his Match, instead of Scar.

He makes a present.

It’s innocent, just some bread that he bakes while waiting for Scar to get back, but he makes too much, see, so he has to gift some to his friend. He could go to Scott, but BigB is just right there.

He writes a note with the bread before he leaves it.

Hope you enjoy this Grain ;)

It’s innocent, something passed around among friends as a gesture of goodwill.

The flowers climb up his throat.

Chapter Text

There is something nice about spending the day with Scar, doing effectively nothing. It’s nothing like Grian is used to, using every waking hour doing something whether it would be considered ‘conventionally’ productive or not. He’s pretty sure pranking isn’t considered productive, but how is he supposed to help himself?

Scar had come up to him at an ungodly hour of the morning, though, asking Grian to make friendship bracelets of all things, and how could he say no?

“It’s like this, see?” Scar says, slowing what he’s doing so that Grian can see his hands better. “You just kind of—weave them. You can make all sorts of cool patterns, but this is the simplest way.”

He hands Grian some strings attached to a small piece of wood. “Here, I started it for you.”

Grian looks at the strings, staring at Scars hands before clumsily trying to replicate the pattern he’s doing. Scar laughs, but it’s soft. Everything about him is soft, this morning. He’s got this look in his eyes, like he’s finally discovered what true happiness is, and he never wants to leave. They crease into soft triangles when he smiles and reaches over to help Grian.

“Almost,” Scar says, “You just missed this one right here.” He takes a string and undoes it, before weaving it back in, under instead of over this time.

The strings are all of the colors that Scar is. Grian chose them, and they fit together perfectly, purple and green overlapping nicely, with gold weaving in between to become the perfect representation of his friend. “Like this?” he asks, voice soft like Scar’s is, and he bites down the urge to cough and ruin the moment.

“Yeah!” Says Scar, “You’ve got it! Just like that.”

It’s surprisingly relaxing, taking the strings Scar provided and weaving them over and under, over and under, and Grian feels himself float away in the repetitiveness.

“I don’t think I ever told you about Jelly,” Scars says, and then there’s a pause as he does something that Grian isn’t even going to try and describe, but comes out as a beautiful pattern in the bracelet he's making. “Well, Jelly’s my cat and she’s just uh-maze-ing! She travels with me whenever I’m in a less dangerous area.”

He pulls out a well worn photograph and unfolds it. “See, isn’t she just adorable!”

And she is. Grian takes the paper carefully from Scar’s outstretched hands and looks it over. Jelly is curled up on top of a chest, looking peacefully asleep, and the photo is distressed with watermarks and creases where the folds are. He smiles. “She’s so cute!”

Scar grins and takes the paper back, “Do you have any pets, G?”

“Yeah,” he says wistfully, “I’ve got two cats. Pearl and Maui. They’re polar opposites, Pearl is afraid of people, loves to hide but is super soft whenever she gets to know you and Maui—Maui is not.” He laughs, “Maui is crazy, he loves people and attacks everything. When they go outside he loves to run.” He sighs, “I don’t have any pictures of them, but I miss them.”

“Yeah,” says Scar. “I miss Jelly too.”

The room falls silent again, but it’s comfortable, Grian leans onto Scar’s side, watching his Match weave the friendship bracelet with efficient fingers that speak of years of practice. Grian’s own clumsy attempts won’t win any awards, but he’s happy with the way it’s turning out.

“Hey, G, can I see your wrist?”

“Mmm.”

Scar pushes up the sweater sleeve on the offered hand and tests the length of the bracelet against it. “Almost done! Here, you can test mine!”

Grian holds his bracelet up to Scar’s arm and lets out a laugh at the length. It’s nowhere close to being done, whereas Scar’s fancy bracelet is almost long enough to wrap around Grian’s entire wirst.

“No! Don’t feel bad, this is your first friendship bracelet ever, I’m honored to have the opportunity to be the one it’s for.”

And man—Scar sounds so passionate, so unabashedly excited over something Grian would have dismissed as childish a few days earlier, he can’t help but smile back, feeling both out of his depth and so very at home.

…

The finished bracelets they exchange are beautiful. The bracelet Scar gives him is a controlled chaos, a red matching the color of his sweater surrounded by intricate patterns that remind him of explosions, and right in the middle of his wrist sits a pale purple thread with green glitter in it, shaped into the shape of a G.

The bracelet Grian gives Scar is, by comparison, underwhelming, but he’s proud of it (something that he made with his own hands, with the intent purpose of giving his friend,) and Scar beams like Grian’s handed him the world when he ties it around his Match’s wrist. It’s simple, diagonal rows across with nothing intricate, no patterns and no letters, but Grian handpicked the colors from the set that Scar had shown him, and it matches the man’s personality as well as he could. It starts with a warm green, followed by a light brown and a bright yellow, and then it loops back around, green, brown, yellow, brown, green. Over and over again.

Tying the knot around Scar’s wrist feels amazing, and he’s got a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest that he doesn’t think will ever go away. His breath catches in his throat, though, and he’s hit with a wave of panic as he leans away from Scar and starts coughing, hand flying to his mouth and willing that nothing will come up this time.

“Grian are you—”

He wills himself to turn away from his soulmate, but Scar puts a gentle hand on his shoulder and Grian folds into him like a flower seeking the sun, burying his head in Scars chest as much as he dares to while still being able to cover his mouth. He finds the handkerchief in his pocket and replaces his hand with it desperately.

It’s agonizing, his throat feels absolutely shredded, and he can’t stop himself from coughing, every breath he takes sends a stab of pain through his stomach and every attempt he makes to stop coughing, however weak, is overridden by an intense itch in the back of his throat that he can’t seem to get rid of.

He blinks his eyes shut and squeezes them tight, one hand fisting into Scar’s jacket desperately while the other holds the handkerchief to his mouth. He feels lightheaded, but he can’t stop and take a breath, black spots invading his vision.

He hacks and feels something come out, a momentary feeling of calm washing over him before he realizes the itch is still there and he sends a desperate plea to the Universe that it won’t kill him this time, not while he’s in Scar’s arms.

He opens his eyes again when the coughing gets too much and his brain feels like its been taken out and shaken up, the warm light that comes through the jacket enough to make him feel momentarily better, but he’s still coughing and heaving for breath and Scar right there and it should make him feel better but it only makes him feel a burning guilt in the bottom of his stomach that he’s forcing Scar to go through this as well as him—

Black spots overtake his vision just as he coughs something big out and oh no he’s going to faint—

…

“Grian? Grian! G, c’mon, wake up, please you’ve gotta wake up.”

Grian groans, blinking his eyes open to slits before immediately shutting them again. “Scar?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s me, I’m Scar, c’mon man open your eyes.”

Open his eyes? That doesn’t sound very fun, but Scar’s right there and asking him and he can’t say no to Scar when has he ever been able to say no to Scar?

He opens his eyes.

Scar is leaning over him, eyebrows cinced in what is probably concern, which makes since, considering Grian is pretty sure he just fainted after a killer coughing fit—

Oh. Oh no. Grian sits up, trying to take stock of the room, but it’s too fast and his vision goes dark again—

“Woah! Hey, slow down. You just fainted, G, maybe you should take it easy for a bit.”

Grian groans.

He opens his eyes slowly, and takes a quick glance around. He’s fallen back onto a chest? Yeah, he’s leaned over on a chest, handkerchief still in his hand and, remarkably, his grip is tight around the fabric, hiding everything from view. Scar is near him but not hovering, which Grian can’t help but be grateful for. His vest is clean, but wrinkled, and Grian winces when he remembers how hard his grip was on the other man’s clothes.

“Hi,” He says.

“Yes,” Scar responds, “Hello. Care to explain yourself?”

Ah, yes. Grian has just fainted, Scar wants to know what’s going on with his friend.

“I just—” he brings a hand to his throat, “Allergies?”

“Allergies.”

“Yes, allergies! I am… super allergic to, uh, vines. Vines make my nervous system totally act up. Out of control.”

“I see.” Scar sounds like he does not, in fact see, and he stares at Grian for a few more seconds before he moves on. “So, where did you come across those vines?”

“Oh, I don’t know, when you were in the panda sanctuary, I went out exploring and there were, like, a whole bunch, hanging from trees.”

“I see.”

“It was a delayed reaction. Super delayed.”

“Whatever you say.”

…

They move on with surprisingly little comment. Scar goes off with someone to do something, what he does in his time away from Grian is a mystery only Scar will ever know the answer to, and Grian takes the time he’s away to check the handkerchief.

It’s—

That—

Not good.

There are petals, all speckled with blood—Grian is so glad he had the foresight to make the cloth black otherwise he’s sure that Scar would have tried to get a better explanation from him—and the handkerchief is wrinkled and stained. The worst part, the worst part, is the flower. There is a full length snapdragon flower sitting in the palm of his hand, perfect purple flowers ruined with blood.

So yeah.

There’s that.

…

Scar has found an Allay. Grian’s swimming in the river next to their base with Joel and Etho when Scar jumps down and makes a giant splash, making Grian choke on river water and Joel and Etho laugh.

“I can’t believe you!” Grain exclaims, all faux anger, “You can’t laugh at my pain! That’s just rude!”

“Oh yeah?” Joel shouts, “Watch me!”

Scar surfaces with a grin, “Hey guys!”

“Heyyyyy Scar.”

Grain pulls himself out of the water and onto the beach, watching the other do the same. Scar giggles. “Look who I found!”

And despite himself, Grian can’t just not ask, “What is it?”

“Now isn’t that the question, my friend. See, this creature is one of a kind, never before seen, perfect in every way—”

Grian groans. Tango says, “It’s an Allay, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” says Scar, “it’s an Allay.”

They all laugh, and the Allay floats down to Scar, who starts cooing at it.

“Hey,” Grian says, curious, “are you guys soulmates?”

“No.” Joel says, “We’re still looking for our soulmates, what about you two?”

And Grian opens his mouth to respond—

“Nope!” Scar shouts, sounding perfectly happy with it, “We’re not soulmates, my true soulmates are the jelly-pandas.”

Right.

Scar turns and goes back to talking to the Allay, but Tango and Joel swim over to Grian. He sighs.

“Scar’s your soulmate?”

“Yes. Yes he is.”

“I’m sorry,” and Tango actually sounds sorry.

“It’s not that bad!” Grian defends, “It’s just…special.”

“Yeah,” Joel says and pats him on the back. “Well, good luck with that dude.”

Grian looks over to Scar, who is now following the Allay up the cliffside in a way that makes Grian worry for his safety.

“Scar!” he yells up the cliff.

“Griannnnnn!”

“You’re my—”

“Oh no it’s getting away, it’s getting away—”

“Scar I’m trying to tell you we’re soulmates and you’re off chasing fairies!”

And Scar says yes, and Grian feels somehow lighter, like he’s just stopping something drastic from happening, but then Scar never mentions it again, and the coughing comes back full force.

Chapter Text

Meeting with BigB is such a thrill.

They exchange gifts, hiding notes for each other in places they’ve chosen around their houses and sneaking out in the dead of night when both their soulmates are asleep.

“Listen, B, I’ve got something special for you today,” Grian whispers, falling in step behind B as they head towards one of their more frequented hidey holes.

“Yeah?” B asks, “What is it?”

“I’ve got this monopoly, you see,” Grian says, “Scar doesn’t know about it yet, I’m gonna tell him soon, but I’ve gotta tell you and—look, we’re Secret Soulmates, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, see. I feel like I can trust you. It’s—I spend every waking hour with Scar worried that he’s going to hurt himself, the man is so careless, but when I’m with you, I feel like I’m flying. I’m not worried about anything anymore.”

“Yeah,” BigB says, “Yeah, I feel the same.”

“You do?” Grian asks, and then, before he has a chance to respond, “I’ve got a gift for you. Close your eyes, yeah?”

“Okay.”

Grian grins, he sets up a little area and places his gift down, careful not to make too much noise.

“You can look now!”

BigB looks, eyes widening at the area around the present that Grian has set up, a blanket on the ground with some food for both of them. “Grian this is—wow.”

Grian smiles at him, taking his place on his side of the blanket. “Open the present!”

“Okay, okay,” B laughs.

He tears the paper off slowly, careful not to get it everywhere, and opens the box inside.

“Grian—do you have a monopoly on the sugar cane?”

And Grian can’t help himself, he cackles, “Yeah—yeah! I’ve got a monopoly on sugar cane!”

“And you just—gave this to me?”

“Yeah dude, I trust you.”

B smiles, “I don’t know what to say—thank you Grian.”

“You’re welcome, B.”

“Here, let me just—”

BigB pulls out a couple cookies, and when he hands one to Grian they’re still warm. He bites into one and melts. “Oh—B they’re delicious!”

B smiles, taking a bite out of his own cookie. They’re chocolate chip, baked to perfection (which, in Grian’s opinion, is a little bit doughy) and they’ve risen to the perfect size. They taste like heaven in his mouth, and he finishes the cookie faster than he wants, trying to chase the flavor and keep it.

When he looks up, BigB is smiling at him happily, and Grian returns the smile readily. He takes a bite of his sandwich and can’t help but feel a seed of contentment settle in his stomach.

…

Scar is waiting for him when he gets back to the house, but he’s looking in the wrong direction, and Grian hastily rubs at his mouth with the inside of his sleeve, taking any would-be stains out of view.

“Hey,” he says, breathless from climbing the stairs.

“Hey,” Scar returns with a smile, “Where were you?”

“Oh, I was just out collecting materials.”

“Mmm.”

“I need to showyou something.”

Scar lights up, “What is it?”

“Okay, okay,” Grian laughs, “Slow down, it’s downstairs—underground, actually.”

“Oh, I see,” Scar teases, but he seems to have drooped a bit, “Are you hiding something from me?”

Grian swallows, “No! No, Scar I just wanted to surprise you!”

“Well then, mister, lead the way!”

Grian takes Scar to the secret sugar cane farm he's been constructing in the past couple of days. It’s not pretty—the artificial lights don’t quite flatter the area, made of mostly packed dirt—but the sugarcane stands tall, and when Grian reaches into a barrel he’s been storing the harvest in, Scar seems to catch on.

“A monopoly?”

“Yeah! No one else on the server has sugarcane. They’ll be dying to get their hands on some.”

Scar looks absolutely delighted, which—okay, Grian gets it. There’s that thrill from being the only one to have something, a rush of power that comes with it, but this goes beyond that—Scar is so absolutely delighted, his eyes light up and he snatches some of the sugarcane from Grian’s hands.

“What are we going to do with it?”

“I was thinking—we can’t let them start their own farms, right? We’ll sell them paper.”

Scar makes a delighted sound, “I can do that.”

“Okay,” Grian laughs, and then hands his Match twenty pieces of paper he’s pre-prepared, “Go get them—don’t make any stupid trades!” He has to yell the last part, Scar is scrambling to get out of the cave as quickly as possible, frantic to get out and sell the paper.

“Oh, no,” Grian mutters, “This was a mistake wasn’t it?”

…

Grian goes on his own quest to sell paper, but is incredibly unsuccessful, only managing to convince the others that they can absolutely break into his base and find the sugarcane farm—the exact opposite of what he wanted to achieve.

At least, it seems, Scar has had equally rotten luck, his Match meets him back up at the base with an, “I’m sorry, G, they just wanted the sugarcane.”

Grian laughs, “It’s fine Scar, I wasn’t very successful myself.”

They climb to the second floor of the cake house—Scar had called it that once and it’s stuck in Grian’s brain now—and settle down next to each other.

Grian leans into Scars side, coughing a little, but nothing like the big coughing fit last time he had done this, and settles in. Scar looks at him for a second, searching, and then leans back himself.

“Hey Grian,” he says, when Grian is half asleep, and he blinks himself awake to listen. “What do you want?”

“What? What do you mean, what do I want?”

“Like—If you could have anything, right now. Or—from me, I guess. What do you want from our friendship?”

“I—Scar, what brought this up?”

"It doesn’t matter. What do you want?" Scar sounds serious.

"Shut up."

"No, I'm serious, tell me what you want. Because we're not going to get anywhere like this."

“What do you mean, like this?”

“You keep dodging the question! You’re sneaking out, and you seem to be happy with me one moment and then push me away the next, I just want to know what you want!”

"I don't want anything.”

"Stop lying to yourself and answer the question!”

And oh—Scar sounds mad, like this has been eating away at him, and with all likelihood it has. Grian thought he was being quiet when he snuck out, but apparently not.

“I don’t know what I want.” Grian says, quietly. It almost rings true.

He wants Scar to know that they’re soulmates, he wants his Match to wake up and look at him with the same soft look in his eyes he has for his animals. He wants Scar to wake up in the morning and think of Grian, he wants to walk around the server and tell his friends that he’s found his soulmate, he wants to learn every way to make Scar’s face light up with a smile and then invent new ways—

He wants more. He wants anything but this.

…

Scott’s soulmate, he reveals when Grian prods, is a piece of work. Constantly hurting herself just to hurt Scott, who tells Grian with an embarrassed hand on the back of his neck that he might have deserved it the first couple of times, but has certainly paid the price for the suffering he’s caused her. Scott’s in the middle of a sentence, gesturing wildly in frustration when he yells something about Pearl and runs off.

So Pearl is Scott’s soulmate, interesting, but not the reason Grian was at Scott’s house. See, Scott said that he didn’t have a book on flowers, but he must have been lying. There’s no way someone can figure out exactly what flower Grian had, as crushed as it was, and not have a book on flowers. Nevermind the way he seemed to skirt around answering what the flower meant.

So Grian goes looking while Scott’s out chasing his uncooperative soulmate.

(He bites down the slowly burning hatred in his throat when he thinks of them, Scott and Pearl who know they’re soulmates and choose to throw it down the drain. Hurting your soulmate on purpose? Could you imagine?)

Grian doesn’t feel particularly bad about it anyways. Scott has left his base wide open for Grian, leaving him inside without shooing him out the door, he’s practically asking for Grian to go through his stuff.

He rifles through Scott’s house, looking for anything of interest, and while there are some nice decorations, it’s not what Grian’s looking for. He’s turning to leave, having given up, when he sees a pile of books by the door that he missed on the way in. He rushes over, dropping to his knees and letting his hand cascade down the books as he reads the titles until he comes across what he’s looking for.

The Language of Flowers: A Complete Guide.

He pulls it carefully out of the stack, trying to keep the other books in their places, and flips through the book quickly, glancing at the images inside and taking note of how small the text is. He laughs, bright and violent, tearing its way out of his chest and leaving him breathless.

Flipping to the table of contents, he scans over the words until he finds what he’s looking for: The Snapdragon.

He checks the page number and flips to the proper page, taking a quick glance at the reference image to make sure it’s the right flower—it is, Grian doesn’t even have to pull any petals out of his pocket to check, the shape burned into his mind—and reads down the passage.

The snapdragon flower has the meaning of virtue, strength, grace, and protection. Snapdragon can also mean indifference and denial.

And that—

It fits. Unfortunately.

…

At the cake-house, Grian takes some time to think, corralling himself into one of the lesser used rooms and putting his back up to the door. He curls into a tight ball, taking the collar of his sweater into his mouth, and closes his eyes.

…

Scar is, without a doubt, one of the most brilliant people Grian knows. He’s an incredible builder, kind almost to a fault, but still has a streak of mischief that complements Grian’s well. When he laughs—Gods, he does it with his entire body. It’s slow, his eyes light up and crinkle, mouth turning up before it opens and he doubles over, like his body can’t contain the amusement he has in him and it all escapes in a burst. He always brings a hand to cover his mouth.

The thing is—Scar is smart. There is no way his Match hasn’t noticed Grian’s condition yet. So why hasn’t he said anything? Grian isn’t an amazing liar, he stutters and crafts webs that are too big to keep up with, ending up trapped in his own creation. Scar is compassionate, empathetic. He has got to know, at least on some level, that they are connected. Grian had a coughing fit in front of him—in front of his soulmate—and Scar would have felt, viscerally, every flower making its way up Grian’s throat, the feeling of coarse leaves rubbing against raw, irritated skin. He would have felt the way that Grian doubled over, breathless, heaving to get air in his body and clawing at his throat desperately before the entire flower came out. He should have seen when Grian passed out, the flower in the handkerchief he was holding. Scar is curious by nature, there is no way his Match let him get away with coughing something up into a handkerchief and not ask any questions—not like he did that day.

So then the question is why hasn’t Scar confronted Grian. If Scar knows—and he has got to at this point—why hasn’t he demanded to know the truth, or gotten it out of Grian with a trick. This is hurting both of them, so why hasn't Scar taken action?

Chapter Text

Scar is humming. It’s not any particular tune. He’s just there, humming. It’s—odd. Why is he humming? Grian’s not quite sure, but he’s certainly doing it.

Scar is sitting with his legs hanging off of the top layer of the cake-house, humming haunting notes that make Grian want to turn around and run, and Grian’s been standing here for at least five minutes, but he hasn’t seen Scar move once, other than to tilt his head a bit.

He walks up to his Match slowly, and quietly moves to sit down next to him, blinking when Scar doesn’t change a single thing.

He’s not completely still, at least, like Grian had thought, his legs swing back and forth in the open air, never quite swinging back far enough to hit the wall before they swing back out. Grian’s not quite sure if this is creepier than Scar not moving at all, staring into the distance and humming those despondent notes.

“Hey,” he says.

Scar hums again, a high whine that makes Grian stop and hum thoughtfully back in a lower pitch.

His Match’s eyes light up, the beginning of a smile playing out on his face, and he brings the pitch of his own humming down a couple steps, tapping his fingers happily when Grian follows suit.

“Hey, G,” he says, “Fancy meeting you up here.”

“Yes…” responds Grian, cautious, “It certainly is. May I ask why, exactly, you’re up here?”

“I needed to think.”

“You needed to think…right. And the humming?”

“Oh, that? It felt right.”

“Okay…”

“So, G,” Scar starts, sounding alarmingly cheerful all of a sudden, “Got any plans for today?”

“I–uh, no?” He had had plans, actually, with BigB, but they can be canceled easily. “Was going to maybe go mining, get us some diamonds.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Well, good luck with that, I’m off to look at that pillager outpost!”

“Thanks Scar, I hope you have—wait, Scar! Scar, did you just say pillager outpost? Scar!”

…

He catches up with Scar halfway to the pillager outpost, out of breath, and grabs his sleeve. “Scar, what are you doing?”

“Well, Grian, I thought I made it pretty clear! I wanted to take a look at this pillager outpost over here, see if there’s any good loot in it.”

“You—look, Scar, why do you need to do this now? Why don’t we wait and get some backup?”

“Grian, if we get backup we’ll have to share the loot!”

“I know we’ll have to share the loot just—okay, look. You’re not a good fighter, I’m not a good fighter, right, if we go in there, the chances we die are very, very, high.”

“You do make a good point…let’s see…nope! I think this will be fun!”

“Wait—Scar, Scar! What about your soulmate?”

“What about him?”

“Scar if you die in there so does your soulmate! Don’t you care about that?”

Scar turns around, something intense burning in his eyes, but it contrasts with the brightness of his voice when he says, “I told you, the Jelly-pandas are my soulmates!”

“Scar!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll wait for backup.”

“Thank you.”

…

They do get backup, but backup comes with a risky plan and some shady advice.

“Look,” Etho says, “If you build high enough up, the pillagers can’t spawn!”

Grian brings a hand to the bridge of his nose, getting ready for the headache that this will come with.

“It will?” Scar asks, and then, “Grian, what if we made a base on top of the pillager outpost, we could—”

“No, Scar.”

“Oh, but Grian! It would be such a good place to put one, listen–”

“We already have a base, Scar.”

“Listen, Grian, if we build our base at the top of the pillager outpost, we would have a built in defense system!”

And oh, if that doesn’t catch his attention.

“They won’t be able to get to us, and anyone that tries to attack us will have to get through the pillagers first!”

Despite himself, Grian is intrigued.

“Just think about it, G! We could live out our days in a skycastle and not even worry about defending it!”

“Alright, alright, okay, you’ve got me!”

“Yes!”

Grian sighs, and looks over to Etho, whose eyes are smiling above his mask, “Lead the way.”

…

It doesn’t work out. They barely get away, running from an angry mob of pillagers who took offense to their attempts to build above their house (man, who could have guessed?) and Grian is hit with a coughing fit halfway through their escape, doubling over in pain and with lack of air but managing to shout to Scar to keep going before collapsing on the ground and spitting out blood and bits of flowers.

He caught a few arrows in him on the way back, but he made an escape, which is more than he could have hoped.

He hides the wounds from Scar, hopping that his friend will dismiss them as his own, and excuses himself from Scar’s company the moment he is able, saying that he needs some time to himself to wind down from the events of the day, which, while not untrue, is definitely not the biggest reason for getting away.

He digs through a couple of their chests on the way out, confident that none of the items will be missed, not when their storage is that much of a mess, and retreats to their old cave, laying down on one of their old sleeping mats.

He’s already snapped the shafts off the arrow—he had to in order to pull his sweater over the wounds properly—and bandaged them with a quick wrap so the blood wouldn’t show through the fabric, but the wounds are not in a good shape when he pulls his sweater off (he would have cut it off, but he doesn’t have a replacement ready and he isn’t prepared to deal with another one of Scott’s interrogations), followed by his undershirt and belts.

He lays them all out next to each other, taking a relatively clean cloth out of his bag to wipe the blood off of any less serious wounds, checking that they’re shallow, before he turns to the arrow wounds.

He unsheathes his knife from where it’s lying on the floor, biting down on one of his belts, before he pushes the tip of the knife into the first arrow wound, trying to hold back the scream as pain overtakes his entire body, pulsing up from the wound in his leg and almost causing him to drop his knife. He whimpers, taking a deep breath before he pushes the knife back into the wound and forces the arrowhead out.

Grian lets the belt slide out of his mouth, breathing heavily and laying flat against the floor as he regains any semblance of control he has left. He takes a deep breath before sitting up and bringing a shaking hand to the now heavily bleeding wound and pressing down, letting out a short shout as the pain kicks in before groping around the cave blindly for a bandage. Finding one, he wraps it around his leg and ties it off nicely, making sure the wrap isn’t too tight and closes his eyes, slumping against the wall. He doesn’t trust himself to be able to get the other arrowheads out yet, so he washes out any wounds he can see with water from a canteen and bandages the ones that need it. When his hands have stopped shaking enough, he shoves the belt back into his mouth and starts the arrowhead process again, this time with one on his arm.

He hopes, blearily, as he recovers from the third and final arrowhead, that Scar isn’t feeling any of this too badly, that his soulmate is asleep and hasn’t been woken up by the pain, frantically searching his body for wounds as it stung with the phantom pains of a soulmate digging into himself with a bloody knife.

…

Grian blinks, taking in the light of the sunrise out of the entrance of the cave and squinting as he looks at the floor, covered in bloody rags and bandages, an empty regeneration potion on the floor that he must have taken before he feel asleep—

Oh. Oh no. He fell asleep, Scar must be so worried—Grian runs off in the middle of the night after a difficult fight that he no doubt got hurt in, and doesn’t come back all night.

He reaches into his bag and pulls out a stale loaf of bread, biting into it as he packs his stuff up, pulling on his undershirt (glad, for once, that it’s black and no blood comes through) and grimacing as the pain tugs at the open wounds under his bandages. The arrow wounds, now just holes, really, send shoots of pain up his arm and leg every time he moves, but Grian supposes he’s been lucky to avoid breaking any bones with the strength of those crossbows. Getting his sweater on over the undershirt is a process, the fabric not falling the way it’s supposed to over his shoulders, and with only one hand in good use, it takes a considerable amount of time to pull his belts back on and get his knife and other weapons situated.

He grabs the pack he’d put the first aid stuff in last night in his rush to get out, realizing only now that he’s made a mistake and grabbed Scar’s pack rather than his own, and loads all of the stuff he didn’t end up using into it.

He’s making his way out of the cave when it hits him, suddenly, and he stops in his tracks, pushing up the sleeve on his injured arm as fast as he can and bringing it up to the light.

His friendship bracelet is speckled with blood.

Chapter Text

Scar is waiting for him at the cake-house.

Grian makes his way up the stairs slowly, eyes downcast. He had checked his communicator on the way back home, and to say Scar was worried would be an understatement. He’d gotten over a hundred messages from Scar throughout the night, ranging from i’m sorry to grian please tell me you’re okay. The last message he had sent, though, was hours ago, and it only reads, i know i messed up. i wont talk to you if you dont want me to, but at least let me know youre okay.

Grian hasn’t responded to any of them, other than to send a quick text saying I’m coming back. Not because he’s mad at Scar, though he is, he just hadn’t had the time, too busy patching himself up or making his way through a scarcely-walked path, thinking of ways he could comfort Scar, who would be reeling with the aftereffects of a terrible night, paired with Grian running away and his soulmate going through intense amounts of pain.

He peeks through the door of a room on the second floor, eyes catching on Scar’s figure, slumped against the wall, cast in light that emphasizes the scars on his face and spiraling up his arms. He looks paler than normal, plucking and fidgeting with the bracket Grian gave him, the color looking faded in the light.

“Hey,” Grian says softly. Scar’s head snaps up and Grian can see the trenches under his eyes, shadows cast and painting him in a manic light.

“Grian.” Scar nods, tight. His voice is cold and clipped, and Grian aches for a sign of warmth, for the nickname Scar is normally so generous with.

“I’m, uh. Sorry. I’m sorry for running off last night. I know that you, uh, probably needed me to—”

“Are you okay?”

“What?”

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“Yeah, no, I’m fine. Scar, are you okay?”

Scar’s expression slips into something a little bit warmer, eyebrows furrowing with an emotion that is probably concern, but his eyes are wildfires, and they’re burning Grian up.

(There’s a pit in his chest, filled only with flowers whose petals flake off, slowly dying, and it’s getting deeper.)

“Grian,” Scar says, and he swallows, shifting uncomfortably, because Scar sounds serious, and Scar almost never sounds serious. “Are. You. Okay.”

“I—”

“I swear to the gods, Grian, if you say you are fine one more time, I am going to come over there and pull that stupid sweater off myself. I know you got hurt!”

He gets up and stalks over to Grian, faltering when he looks down, but grabs his wrist and pushes his sleeve up, “You got blood on your bracelet! I have seen you care for this like it would kill you to get it dirty! Don’t tell me you’re not hurt!”

“It’s—I’m—“

“You’re not okay, G,” Scar says, softer, “and you’ve been hiding things from me and that’s fine, you don’t owe me anything, but I’d like to know, just this once, if you are hurt, because I’ve been thinking about us, and if you don’t know what you want I’ll have to figure it out myself.”

“Scar—”

“Shhh. You’ve been doing a lot of comforting, G, let me be the one who does the comforting, for once.”

“Scar I’m,” sorry, not okay, seeing BigB behind your back, your soulmate—“fine.”

Scar sighs, and steps back until he’s further from Grian, but he’s blocking the door, the only way out. He crosses his arms. “I don’t need to know all of your secrets. I hope that one day you’ll trust me with them,” Grian opens his mouth to respond, indignant, and Scar shushes him, “but until that happens, I just want to know if you’re hurt. I care about you, Grian, and I don’t know what will get it through your head, because something isn’t being communicated properly. So just—are you hurt?”

Grian stops. Thinks. Opens his mouth and closes it again. He nods.

“Thank you. Did you get care for it?”

He nods again, mouth dry and eyes fixed on the floor. There’s a plank that Grian didn’t put in quite right and will probably need repairing soon, he wonders if Scar will notice it or not.

“Okay,” Scar says, and then retreats back out of Grian’s space until he’s on the opposite side of the room, “Okay.”

Grian turns to leave, gets halfway to the door and stops. Scar is looking at him, concern written clearly on his eyes, and he’s not doing anything about it, he’s just sitting there, letting Grian make the next move.

He swallows, coughing to clear his throat and then berating himself when it hurts his already raw throat more, and says, “I want to talk to you, I do—just. Later, yeah?”

And Scar nods, relief written plainly in his eyes.

…

He runs to Scott. He runs to Scott, where this little problem of his first occurred, where he found the meaning of what will surely be his death—but will it, after what Scar said? Does it have to be?—and where he knows Scott spends most of his time.

He fumbles open his communicator while he’s fleeing the cake-house, and sends a quick text to Scott without bothering to check what he’s written, hoping he got the meaning through well enough.

The trip isn’t long, but Grian goes through the entire conversation in his head twice, and then starts again before he trips over a root and lays on the ground for a good two minutes.

Scott probably got the message, and if he didn’t, was just generally concerned, because he’s standing outside when Grian stumbles in, sweater dirty and hair wild, no longer bothering to hide the heavy limp caused by the arrow he pulled out of his leg.

“Woah.” Scott’s voice is high with surprise and Grian pulls his mouth into a faint smile before his lips fall again.

Grian says, “Hey,” breathless, and then Scott is rushing him into the ranch and sitting him down on a chair inside. Grian lets it happen, moving with Scott’s instructions mindlessly.

Scott says something, but it sounds echoey, and his thoughts can’t quite grab onto the meaning, drifting lazily over his head as he jumps to grab it.

Time goes fuzzy, and Grian blinks slowly when a hot mug is pressed into his hands, curling automatically around it and staring at the brown water like it’ll give him a hint about the secrets of the Universe.

He blinks, and Scott is next to him, pulling the cool cup out of his hands, still full, and replacing it with another cup, just as hot as the first one used to be. Something warm and heavy is placed on his back, and he slumps into himself, shoulders pulling up and into his ears as he feels it settle.

Scott is murmuring lowly about something he’s building, and Grian blinks at the mug in his hand, taking a sip and making a small, pleased noise when he tastes the tea.

“Hey Grian,” Scott says, still in that same low murmur, but moving closer to him, “You back with us?”

He hums a positive note, and Scott cracks him a small smile. “I got your message earlier, and if you want to talk you can but you can also just sit here.”

Grian doesn’t say anything, but he puts the mug down and pulls the blanket on his shoulders tighter around him.

“Not up for talking?”

He shakes his head.

“That’s fine, do you want me to talk?”

A nod.

“Well, I was building this cattle enclosure today…”

…

Later, Grian tucks his head into the crook of Scott’s neck and talks to him about Scar.

“Grian,” Scott says, “Do you think it might be possible to, you know, talk to Scar about this?”

“Nooooo,” Grian whines, “Scar cares for me but he doesn’t want to be my soulmate.”

Scott makes a displeased noise, but he says, “Despite all evidence against that, I’m gonna go with it for now, do you care for Scar?”

“Obviously.”

“And this flower thing,” he doesn’t name it, not after Grian told him not to, that it was unrelated to that disease, “It hurts him too?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Why don’t you tell him, just to stop it from hurting him. Nothing has to change.”

“Well that’s the thing,” Grian says, “I think it would change. There’s no way you can know that about someone and not treat them differently.”

“Okay, but what’s really stopping you?”

“I, uh. Ilookedupthemeaninginyourbook?”

“Sorry, what?”

“I looked up the meaning in your book. Snapdragons, I looked up what they mean.”

Scott sighs, body sagging and taking Grian’s head with it. He pulls away, and Grian sees the look in Scott’s eyes, a deep ocean of concern and warmth and kindness. “Grian…”

“I know I shouldn’t have.”

“Grian, what makes you think he won’t want you as his soulmate?” Scott looks pained, like he already knows what Grian’s going to say.

“The flower means indifference,” Grian spits.

Scott doesn’t say anything, just pulls Grian close again and runs a hand through his hair. Grian buries his face in Scott’s shirt, and Scott lays back so that they’re both more comfortable.

“Grian, I think you’re forgetting something important.” Grian doesn’t respond, shifting against Scott’s chest and listening to the steady beat of his heart, “Snapdragon flowers can also mean virtue and strength. They can mean protection. They’re beautiful, Grian, and you can’t just ignore the parts of them that don’t support how you feel,” he flicks the side of Grian’s forehead, “You love Scar, I can see it, and Scar loves you. You need to go and let him know that you do.”

“Well you know what Scar could do?,” Grian asks bitterly, “He could tell me himself.”

“Grian…Scar is—worried about you. To him you’re scared and skittish, he doesn’t want to scare you away. If you don’t reach out to him, Scar will fall through your hands and you won’t be able to find him again.”

Grian sniffles into Scott’s shirt, eyes watering. “Scott,” he confesses, “I think I've made a mistake.”

Chapter Text

The cake-house is quiet but the walls are bulging with tension. Grian is sitting on his bed, listening to the squeak of the stairs as Scar makes his way up.

Scar doesn’t know he’s here yet but they haven't seen each other for almost two days and Grian is miserable.

When Scar walks into the room, he freezes. Grian can see the moment his eyes catch sight of his frame, and watches as Scar’s face goes through a complicated series of expressions before it settles on a kind of loose neutrality—lips in a slight smile that doesn’t quite make it to his eyes.

Grian scoots back on the bed, “Hey, Scar.”

“G! It’s good to see you dude!”

Grian nods, patting the mattress next to him, “C’mere.”

Scar looks tentative, making his way to the bed slowly and sitting down next to Grian, who pulls his Match into his chest and leans against the headboard.

“I’ve been thinking,” Grian says, “about what you said.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I haven't been honest with you—I didn’t realize you’d noticed, honestly, and I want to tell you.”

Scar smiles, “Tell me what?”

“I’m—” Grian swallows, the words caught in his throat. Indifference, denial. “making another monopoly.”

“Oh.” Scar says, blinking, “That’s why you’ve been sneaking out? Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was upsetting you.”

Lie. Lie, lie, lie.

“Well,” Scar says, “What’s the monopoly on?”

“Sand.”

“Sand? Why would we need a monopoly on sand?”

“It’s how you make TNT,” Grian says.

“Oh, yes!”

“I think I’ve collected most of it, but you can help me get anything I’ve missed, if you want.”

“Sure, G. Sure.”

…

Scott’s words stick in his head, looping in a way that twists them and makes Grian want to hit his head against the wall.

“They can mean protection.”

Hasn’t that been what Grian’s doing? Is he not protecting Scar? It feels like no matter what he does Scar ends up getting hurt. Short of putting them both in a sealed cave there’s nothing he can do except take the brunt of the pain. Scar’s creative energy burns bright, but it burns the bridges he tries to create just as easily, ideas that would work brilliantly falling apart quickly when something isn’t planned correctly, ending with Grian hiding a limp and Scar reaching down and brushing against phantom pains, trying to get them to stop.

He wonders, briefly, what would happen if he was to leave Scar, if part of why Scar has been getting into trouble so often is because there’s someone to protect him, but dismisses the idea selfishly when he remembers that he couldn’t even avoid the man for two full days.

The thing is—Grian is selflessly selfish. He takes the hits meant for Scar to protect him, sure, but sometimes he does it because he would rather take care of the wound himself. Why should he let Scar take a hit and have to deal with the transferred pains of the aftermath, deal with any prolonged pain if it got infected, when he could just jump in front of the blast. Besides, Scar doesn’t have to deal with any worrying about Grian himself, too focused on the pain of his soulmate, and the longer Scar doesn’t know that his Match is Grian, the longer Grian can go without being smothered and prevented from getting things done.

Scar is upset about not knowing who his soulmate is, that much is obvious. Sometimes, when Scar thinks he isn’t looking, Grian can see this look on his face, like he’s waited for a thousand years for something and knows he will wait for more, eternally tired and mournful. He gets this wrinkle between his eyebrows, lips turning down, and he stares at Grian—and even if Grian wasn’t pretending he didn’t know Scar was looking in those moments, he doesn’t think he’d want to make eye contact—eyes burning.

It would be so easy, a couple of muttered words when he’s too tired to think better, or out of his mind with pain, or desperate for breath in the middle of a coughing fit, for it to all come crumbling down. So easy for Scott or anyone else who knows to come around and say something to Scar, changing the tides and pushing Grian out to sea.

See—he knows where he is, with Scar. Scar is this brilliant, relatively insane, panda lover, and Grian is the one who makes the big builds, Scar comes and details behind him. Scar is the one who suggests they do things, Grian makes sure they don’t die. Scar goes out and talks to people, Grian hovers over his shoulder and worries. Scar sleeps peacefully and talks about his dreams, and Grian plots traps and protections, tossing and turning through nightmares of betrayal and heated words.

But Scar is happy with their relationship, and that’s enough for Grian.

It has to be.

…

They’re outside again, Scar and Grian, and they’re collecting sand for their monopoly, the riverbed almost entirely dug up, when Scar says something.

“Hey Grian… how are we supposed to sell this sand when the last monopoly went so badly?”

“That is a good question, my friend, and it’s one I don’t have the answer to.”

“Grian,” Scar says, voice flat, “are we collecting this for nothing?”

“It’s not for nothing!” Grian says, and then takes a moment to think, “It’s just—not a full plan yet!”

“Okay, I’m trusting you.”

“You better.”

Scar smiles, and then dips back under the water to dig at more sand, Grian watching from the surface for a second before he turns to float on his back.

He feels the transferred pain of his throat closing up, but he hears Scar surface and it starts to—

Oh. Well that’s not good. The pain should be fading by now. Huh. He turns and calls a quick goodbye to Scar, and then runs, ignoring the shouts from behind him.

He’s sopping wet and running out of energy, and his only hope is that Scar is too, since he was doing most of the digging and Grian was just swimming. He runs up the trail they made up the valley, then branches off in the direction he thinks Scar would least likely take, pulling his hoodie off while he runs and ignoring the invasive pain from his arm as he does, trying not to double over and vomit while still in eyesight of the trail.

He gets to a secluded area, uncaring of where he’s ended up other than that it’s away from Scar, and lets the coughs rack over his body, forcing him first to his knees and then further down, curling up in a tight ball and trying not to jostle and of the arrow injuries.

The flowers climb up his throat, cutting off his airflow and leaving a clump in the middle of his throat, bulging uncomfortable against the walls of his throat and forcing him to hack harder in an attempt to get them out.

They don’t move.

The flowers refuse to budge, and he’s running out of air fast, vision blacking out and fingers scrabbling uselessly at his throat, leaving nail tracks down the vulnerable skin. He coughs and coughs and fails to get anything to move, unable to regain his breath until he sticks a finger into his throat in desperation and feels himself heave.

He feels his stomach contracting and pushing his lunch out of his throat and he doesn’t have the energy to be disgusted because the flowers are gone and he can breathe, he can breathe and he does, sucking in greedy gulps of air, throat burning and sides heaving. There’s a horrible aftertaste in his mouth and his clothes are surely stained, but he can breathe and the flowers are out maybe for real this time, and he lies back on the grass and just lets himself be.

Of course, it can’t be that easy. The Universe is punishing him for something today, because not even a minute after he lies down again, his throat is itchy and there are flowers creeping up it, and he doesn’t even try to stop them this time, just letting himself cough it up, body contorting in the fetal position every time the air is forced out of his body and into the forest around him.

He rolls himself over and rests his head in his arms as he coughs the rest of it up, and he feels so empty by the time the coughing stops, nothing left in his stomach, no flowers left to fill the void that sits right where his heart should be. He collapses, arms giving out and head hitting the floor hard, too tired to hold himself upright.

He hasn’t come away unscathed. His sweater, somehow, is stain free when he pulls himself together enough to lean against a tree and take stock of his situation. His undershirt, however, is soiled and completely disgusting to even think about, so he takes out a knife and cuts it off, throwing it away from himself. The bandages he’d applied to his wounds are fine, but his undershirt was soiled and he doesn’t trust that the bandages didn’t get anything under them somehow, so he peels them off.

They stick to his skin, covered in dry blood and catching on puffy, pulsing wounds when he pulls them off.

They don’t look infected, so Grian pulls out his canteen and runs clean water over the wounds before sealing them back up with a bandage and checking the minor wounds that haven’t healed yet.

When he’s sure that everything is fine, he pulls his sweater back on slowly, allowing his injured arm to stretch just a little bit more than he normally would and wincing at the pain.

When he’s collected himself, he takes a deep breath and looks at the mess on the ground. There’s a mixture of vomit and petals on the floor, chunks of food covered in flowers that seem to cover every inch of the mess. There’s enough petals that Grian thinks he might have almost died.

It’s not everything, though, there’s an entire flower, stem and everything, on the ground in front of him and he shudders, closing his eyes and trying to get the image of the ripped, bent flower out of his head. It looks broken, like someone picked it and stuffed it in their pocket and forgot about it for days.

…

Scar hasn’t talked to him much since he ran off. It hurts, but Grian knows he deserves it, so to pass the time he works on building better walls around the cake-house. He heaves rocks up from the mines, carving them into perfect spikes that look defensible but will do effectively nothing. Scar spends the time outside in his panda sanctuary, talking to the pandas and feeding them, landscaping the area to fit them better.

Grian spends a lot of time just looking at his Match, watching him coo at the pandas and carve the land out to be exactly what he wants, putting in so much care and effort that Grian can’t help but watch. He runs his hands over the bracelet, remembering slow mornings with his soulmate, soft voices and quick callused fingers over his own, correcting little mistakes and smoothing out the string. His friendship bracelet, so carefully designed, tied onto his wrist with a smile and light in Scar’s eyes, the design faded and speckled with drops of red. The explosion of color, once vibrant, is frayed and dim, shining gold dull from fidgeting, and Grian puts one finger under the material and brings it around his wrist, looking at the rest of the design, all of it messed up. He wants to ask Scar for another one, spend one more morning with each other in a comfortable silence, watch Scar’s eyes as he finally gets the string to do what he wants, feel the burst of happiness he used to get every time he saw the bracelet he made around Scar's wrist. But he can’t anymore, so he watches as those hands cut bamboo and offer it tentatively to happy pandas, splitting wood and placing it carefully in its place.

He stays away from the panda enclosure, but sometimes he rests his head against it when he takes a break from his own work, listening to Scar’s voice as he talks to the pandas absentmindedly while he works.

Scar names the pandas, all of them, and he makes them all collars, meticulously crafting the leather until it has the design he wants, almost similar to their bracelets, and engraving each panda’s name like they’re the only thing to ever matter in the world.

Grian’s productivity slowly trickles down until he’s spending all of his days on top of the walls, watching Scar work and twisting his friendship bracelet around his wrist.

He starts a new project, making his way down to Scott’s house to have a quick conversation with him for ideas and then grabbing the materials he needs. The figure comes into shape slowly, and he carves it out of the best wood he could find, trying to get every small detail right.

In the end, it comes out almost exactly as he’d imagined it. A small charm, with two levels, perfect to hang on Scar’s backpack. The first one is a panda curled up and eating a bamboo stick, and the second is Jelly, as best as Grian could remember her. He paints them with the appropriate colors and then connects them with a small chain, hesitating briefly before he places them on Scar’s bed instead of interrupting his Match in whatever he’s doing.

…

Grian’s asleep, kind of. He wakes when Scar walks into the room, floorboards creaking under his feet, and blinks. Grian’s groggy, thoughts blending into each other and eyes heavy, but he focuses on Scar as he walks over.

Scar settles down on the ground next to him, smiling. He fiddles with a bracelet on his arm, eyes soft. He makes a short happy humming noise, and pulls the charm out of his pocket, running his fingers down it absentmindedly while he looks at Grian, who closes his eyes to slits and tries to breathe even.

Scars eyes bore into him, something intense there even with only the moon to light them. The room bathes him in shadows until all Grian can see through squinting eyes is his general shape, but his face, closer to Grian and looking upward to see him on the bed, is in full light, soft blue caressing his face and smoothing the creases. The scar on his eye, normally so prominent, is softer, less ragged. It makes Grian want to reach out and run a hand over Scar’s face, for just a moment, trace the places he’s seen lines form, smooth over the place he knows Scar gets a furrow in his brow.

He wants to spend days watching Scar’s eyes, watching the green shift colors with his emotions, wants to document every shift of expression, name every emotion and find the one that makes Scar the happiest, wants to watch his eyes sparkle and shift. He wants to lay his forehead against Scar’s and breathe together, wrapped in his warm embrace.

He wants, and he wants and he wants, and Scar says—-

“If we could choose our soulmates, I would choose you.”

And see—

That—

Yeah.

Chapter Text

Grian’s not sure how to continue, like this. The thing is—he had been so sure, you know, so sure he knew what Scar wanted, that Scar was the leader and he was just the follower. He had thought, somehow, that it would be better that way, had molded himself to fit in the perfect shape that Scar needed to be happy and it’s not—

Scar doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want what Grian has sacrificed, wants to be more, in the same way that Grian wants to be more, except Grian knows that being more is possible, and Scar—

Scar doesn’t.

Oh sure, there’s always the possibility, however small, that he knows. That Scar knows what Grian has been hiding and has been playing the long game, waiting for an opportunity to say something. Grian had thought—after the pillagers attacked—that Scar had figured it out, that he would’ve connected the dots between the outpost and subsequent chase with the pain in his arms and legs, the feeling of a knife digging into skin, the pain of taking an arrow head out. When he walked into the room and Scar said I know you’re hurt his heart dropped, hand straying to the arrow wound on his arm, taking a deep breath to say I can explain only to be cut off by worried rambling.

Scar is—

Scar—

Grian’s not quite sure what to think, anymore.

…

The whole Secret Soulmate thing is—not good, Grian can admit that. It’s just—there’s something so nice about spending time with someone else, someone you don’t have to worry about, exchanging gifts and soft words, leaning on each other and pretending, for just a couple of hours, that there’s nothing else in the world that matters.

They meet in the woods, far away from any houses, and climb trees, laughing on the ground when they fail, helping each other up and swinging from the branches. The best part: there’s no pressure. The second Grian’s out of the cake-house and in the forest, or the cave, or wherever he’s agreed to meet with Bigb, it’s like wings have grown on his back, he can throw caution to the wind, uncaring of who might hear him, just living. Of course it can’t last forever, but who cares? Who cares, when the wind is in his hair and the grin on his face is making his cheeks hurt, and he can just be happy without worrying about slipping up, spilling secrets.

“B, watch this!” Grian takes a running leap on top of a branch, jumping right before it cracks and falls to the ground, a thunderous noise cutting through the forest.

“Grian,” B laughs, “Don’t do that! You’re scaring me!”

“Oh yeah? I scared you with that? How do you feel about this?” He takes a running start, jumping first to the ground and then running, pushing off the ground onto a tree and running up it as far as he can, grabbing onto the lowest branch that will take his weight and—

falling.

He hits the ground hard on his back, breath leaving his body all at once and leaving him gasping, coughing trying to get the air back into his body. B is there in an instant, checking him for injuries, calming slightly when Grian gives him a thumbs up, helping him move until he’s got his back resting against a tree.

Grian can't stop coughing.

Of course he can’t have this one thing. Of course the Universe takes the only secret he’s ever hidden from B and rips it out of him, in the middle of the forest with nowhere to run and not enough breath to make any excuses. B is concerned, that much is obvious, but he doesn’t say anything, or Grian doesn’t hear it over the sound of his heart thundering in his ears.

He motions B closer best he can, frame shaking and sputtering, and when B is close enough he launches himself into his Secret Soulmate’s chest, squirming until his back is against the man, face facing out so he doesn’t stain his friend’s shirt.

The petals come first, and Grian’s hands flare, fingers curling and uncurling desperately, trying not to reach through his throat into the void by his heart and rip the flowers out. B grabs his hands, pulling them close to Grian’s own chest and covering them, warm and heavy.

Grian gasps and heaves, pushing away from B and coughing up a bloody mixture of flowers and breakfast, hoping desperately that it will be over soon, hoping desperately it won’t, that he won't have to answer any questions.

BigB doesn’t say anything, just pulling Grian back against his chest when he’s done coughing his guts up. Grian smiles as best he can, leaning his head back and resting it on the heavy weight behind him, and as the coughing starts to die down, frame-racking violent coughs becoming small and breathy, he closes his eyes.

B rocks, slowly and smoothly, back and forth on the grass, fingers tracing light patterns on the backs of Grian’s hands. He doesn’t say anything, but as Grian regains his breath he hums a faint song. He waits.

“B–” Grian croaks, “I’m—sorry. About this.”

“Mmm, do you want to talk about it?”

“I—”

“Grian… I know this is probably hard for you, I just—I don’t want to pressure you.”

“B…” He doesn’t know what to think, mind reeling and thoughts bouncing off each other. B doesn’t say anything, just rocking them both back and forth on the grass, swinging in a nice calming motion that screams safe. “I’m, uh, I guess you can see that—well, Scar doesn’t know.”

B makes an encouraging noise.

“Yeah… I didn’t tell him? It’s just—he didn’t seem like he would want to be my soulmate, you know, and then we started getting closer and now I don’t know what to think!”

“And you’ve got… hanahaki?”

Grian breathes, just for a second, taking deep breaths and allowing his hands to tap frantically on his Secret Soulmate’s. “Yeah, I—I think I do.”

“Okay. You know this doesn’t make me think any differently of you?”

“It doesn't?”

“No. I mean—it does, but not in a fundamental way. It’s like: you’re still you, yeah? So why should it matter if your soulmate knows that you’re Matched with him or not?”

“You don’t—”

“Wait, Grian, I think you need to tell him. You’re dying, yeah? That coughing fit seemed pretty bad. Clearly you care about him… that one’s obvious with all of the flowers you’ve just coughed up, but it doesn’t mean you can’t care about me too.”

“B…” Grian doesn’t know what else to say, brain blissfully quiet except for the buzzing feeling of doubt in the back. “If he doesn't want to be my soulmate, you know I won’t…”

“Survive?” B asks, voice soft. He brings a hand to Grian’s hair, running his fingers through it and Grian can feel the soft exhale of laughter he makes when Grian makes a pleased hum. “I know that. If he doesn't accept you…well, I won’t say that it’s fine, but you can come and live with me, for a while. I’ll take care of you until…until.”

“You will?” He can imagine it now, and he swallows against the phantom pain in his throat, the void next to his heart gaping. He thinks about his coughing fits so far, and the more recent ones. Staying with B until he couldn’t get out of bed without coughing, unable to keep meals down, staying with his Secret Soulmate until the flowers got too much, climbing up his throat and choking him for good, the panic fading into pain and then nothingness. Death.

“I will.”

…

Grian’s love is a double-edged sword. He loves Scar, wants to spend his life with him, wants to make silly projects and pranks and let Scar into his heart, cut the lock and let the feelings out, but there’s something stopping him, something making it hard to accept that Scar wants to be his Match.

Grian gives and he gives, but he also takes, and he takes far more than he gives, Scar’s concern a permanent fixture in his mind, soft hands and careful words and the way Scar is so careful around him.

The thing is—if Grian dies. If Scar was joking, or just wishing but not ready for all it entailed—if Grian dies, Scar dies with him.

They will go out kicking and screaming, they’ll fight the Universe to the very end, because Grian never knows when to stop and Scar—Scar wants to live. Despite his self-preservation being small, his Match has never thrown himself into truly deadly situations, at least, not without help.

But if Grian tells him—if Grian tells him and it turns out Scar doesn’t really want to be Matched, if it was just sentiment talking, no amount of luck, no amount of fight will stop it. They will die, and Grian will be forced to watch helplessly as his Match withers with him, forced to his knees by pain that isn’t his own.

He doesn’t think he could bear to see Scar’s eyes, usually so expressive, fade.

…

Scar is a force of nature. He is a hurricane, a whirlwind eating everything up and leaving nothing behind. He takes what he wants and then rebuilds the ruins into something beautiful. He forces the world to yield to his command, shaping mountaintops into jungles, fluttering around while the wildlife follows him, something out of a movie.

He’s perfect and he’s terrible. Scar takes and he laughs and he grins but the moment your back is turned he plunges a knife into it. He makes silly jokes and builds cute structures, talking to the animals as if they can understand him, only to turn around and charm his way into getting things that people didn’t want to get rid of. He heals with his touch and takes with his words, painting masterpieces out of vowels and shaping consonants into valleys. He watches you plunge into a trap of your own creation and laughs while you fall.

He is everything you should be afraid of and everything you adore.

Grian is drawn to him in a way the others aren’t. Grian took one look at him and dismissed him as foolish and injury prone and, before he even knew they were soulmates, took a plunge into the darkness. He has seen Scar scam the others out of precious materials and important items, watched as he steered conversations in a direction that left them powerless, and decided to follow along with a grin.

Scar is charisma and love and happiness, and Grian is chaos and longing and pain. He’d like to think that they would have always found each other. They were made for each other, the Universe carved them out of the mold and shaped them until they fit, tied a string around their souls and let them loose in the world.

The Universal carved them out of the same wood and smoothed out the edges with sandpaper, but clearly it got something wrong because they just don’t seem to fit quite how they’re supposed to. Maybe the Universe had done all that it could and Grian has messed up the pieces, screwed around with fate until the only thing left for the Universe to do was force them together.

Or maybe—maybe Scar is waiting. Waiting for Grian to say something, giving up the control that comes so naturally for him and allowing Grian to lead the conversation. Maybe the only thing stopping them from being closer together is Grian’s own stubbornness.

…

Grian goes to Scott’s again, sitting outside the house and thinking, waiting for him to get back.

He’s muttering to himself when Scott comes up and taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Grian, what brings you here today?”

Grian looks up at Scott, and the other man sits down next to him. Grian says, “I think I want to tell Scar.”

“You do? That’s great, Grian!”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Can I ask why you want to?”

“It was—the other day, when he thought I was asleep—he told me that if he could choose his soulmate, he’d pick me.”

Scott makes an ‘awh’ sound. Grian sticks his tongue out at him, “It just made me think, y’know, about Scar. I don’t—I don’t know if he knows, I mean, he’s gotta at least suspect it, by now, but he hasn't said anything and I think it’s ‘cause—I think he might be afraid to.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think—I think he’s scared I’m going to run, like he’s gonna scare me, or something, by trying to get too close.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you Grian, but you’re not really proving him wrong, are you?”

“No, I’m not and it’s like—it’s weird. Because I was pushing him away ‘cause I was so sure that he didn’t want to get to know me, and he’s been avoiding me because I pushed him away.”

“Yeah… I don’t think Scar knows quite what to do right now.”

“I want to tell him.”

“So tell him, stop telling me that you’re gonna tell him and do it!”

Grian sighs, getting up and turning to leave, “Yeah, yeah, why do you always have the good ideas?”

“I think the Universe gave me all the ones it took from you!”

“Rude!”

“Bye, Grian! Good luck!”

“Thanks, Scott.”

…

Scar isn’t avoiding Grian anymore. It’s a slow change, he spends less time with the pandas and more time with Grian, they eat together at mealtimes, provided Scar remembers about them, and they talk more. Grian is—happy isn’t the right word, but he can’t think of anything else.

Scar wakes him up one morning with a smile, pulling him outside and dragging him along.

He takes them to a pond, a beautiful clearing in the middle of a forest, with crystal clear water and a waterfall.

“Scar,” Grian says, “How did you find this?”

“I was adventuring!”

“Adventuring? Why were you adventuring?”

“I was bored and you weren’t home!” Scar pouts, but it’s playful, and he grabs Grian by the hand and drags him closer to the pond. “Come on, G! Get in!”

“Okay, okay!” Grian laughs, pulling off his belts and leaving them on the ground. He’s turning around to look at Scar and—

Bubbles. The shock of cold on his skin wakes him up completely, and he blinks his eyes open in surprise. It’s nice, under the water, but he kicks up and splutters for breath at the surface.

“Scar!”

“How could I resist?” Scar asks, “How do you expect a man to resist seeing someone at the edge of a pond like that and not push them in!?”

“Alright, alright,” Grian says, swimming over, he grabs Scar’s ankle, “C’mere!”

“Grian! Grian, wait, we can’t talk about this, Grian? Grian!”

Scar falls in the water with a splash. He comes up a second later, laughing. “I can't even be mad at you for that!”

Grian splashes him and he retaliates, and they swim and laugh until they’re too tired, climbing out of the pond and laying on the grass to cool off. He coughs a little, the back of his throat itching incessantly, and Scar looks at him in concern.

The itching turns into a burn, and Grian coughs again, harder. Scar looks like he wants to do something but doesn’t know what, so Grian crawls over to him and curls up against his side.

He coughs again, expelling a couple petals into his hand before he grabs his handkerchief to cough into.

“Scar?”

“Mmm.”

“Do you ever think we could be more?”

“What do you mean, more?”

“Like. I don’t know, you see all of the soulmates, right? And they fit together so well and it feels like we fit together well too, and I was just wondering, you know, if you wanted to like—be closer. With me.”

“Romantically? Because, Grian, if that’s what you’re saying I hate to—”

“No! No! Oh for—no! Not romantically that’s—that’s weird. I meant like. Close friends.”

“Are we not close?”

“Well we’re not soulmate-close, that’s for sure.”

“Grian…”

“I—uh.” Grian’s brain stutters. It’s fine, he can—just tell Scar. Get the cat out of the bag and hope for a good answer. He closes his eyes tight and then looks over to Scar, who’s looking back with a tender expression on his face, waiting for Grian to continue. “We’re—soulmates.”

Scar’s face lights up, eyes creasing as the biggest smile Grian’s ever seen him with forms, “Yeah?”

That’s—that’s good, “Yeah. Uh. Here let me just—“ Grian pinches himself hard, and sees Scar’s hand drift to the spot.

“Oh, gods, we are soulmates!”

“Yeah—we. Yeah.”

“How long have you known?”

“About that…” Grian sits up to look at Scar better, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “Since we first met?”

Scar blinks. “What.”

“Yeah, when we met, I uh—you got hurt, and so did I, so, uh.”

“You’ve known this whole time?”

“Yeah? I’m uh, sorry for not telling you but I just—I wanted to know if you would figure it out, I guess.”

Scar leans forward and rests his face in his hands. “I did!”

“I—sorry, what?”

“I knew!” Scar says cheerfully. “I mean, I didn’t know for sure, but I was kind of suspecting it.”

“You knew?” Grian asks again, burying his face in his hands, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I wasn’t a hundred percent yet, I wanted to make sure and you—you were being so careful around me, I wasn’t sure you’d want me to know.”

“When did you figure it out?”

“Oh back when you had that big coughing fit around me.”

“Scar!”

Scar laughs.

“Scar, why didn’t you say anything!”

“You were so, I don’t know, panicked, I didn’t want to make it worse!”

“Scar,” Grian groans, “how am I supposed to recover from this?”

“I don’t know G, good luck.”

They fall silent, listening to the sounds of the forest, but they’re both smiling. Grian leans his head on Scar’s shoulder. “So about that ‘being more’ thing…”

“Oh my gods Grian, yes! Yes we can be closer, soulmate-closer.”

Chapter Text

So—

Scar has known. Scar has known, and he hasn’t said anything. Scar had seen him coughing up flowers and felt the pain in his own throat and didn’t even think to tell Grian about what was going on.

Grian’s not quite sure how to feel about that.

It sits in his head, heavy, something he can’t help but go back to, late at night when Scar is asleep, breathing deeply and peacefully across the room from him.

Scar had known.

There is something to be said, Grian supposes, that instead of confronting him right away, something that Grian would have done himself, Scar had waited for Grian to say something. Something to be said about the name he can now give to those looks Scar gave him when he thought Grian wasn’t looking, the longing, the familiar feeling of what you want—what you need—being right there, close enough to reach out and touch, and not being able to have it.

It’s just—

See—

Grian hadn’t told Scar for one big reason: he didn’t think Scar would care. And so now, it’s like—taking a weed whacker to a single flower. You just don’t do that. You don’t tell your Match—suspected Match, whatever Grian was to Scar—that you think you’re soulmates with your pandas, or with the cat, or with anything you come across that makes you even remotely happy. You just—you don’t. You don’t look at the person you think might have been made for you, shaped by the Universe to be your perfect companion, and tell them no, tell them that you don’t care if you get hurt, if you hurt them.

Grian sits on his bed, in the same room as Scar but so far away, wishing desperately to reach out and hug his Match, and he cries.

…

The empty feeling in his chest is mostly gone now, replaced with a warm glowing sensation, but he knows he’s not out of the darkness yet.

Scar told him, quietly over breakfast, that if Grian was coughing up flowers, he would very much like to know, please, and Grian had already lied so much, is still lying about so much, and so he told him.

Scar said, “Oh, Grian.” and then, “What did they mean?”

“What?”

“The flowers, what did they mean?”

“Oh! Uh…they were snapdragons.”

“But what do they mean, G? This is a once in a lifetime experience, not everyone gets to know how the Universe decided their soulmate should be represented!”

“Okay…uh. It means protection.”

“That’s it?”

“Well there’s more, that’s just the important bit.”

Scar had stared at him, and then, “Okay!”

So that’s one conversation over with, only a thousand more to go.

Scar is, rightfully, curious. He asks Grian questions, reaches out more often, pulling Grian close and resting his head on Grian’s shoulder. It’s nice, having a friend who feels comfortable with him, confident enough to be tactile and soft. Scar’s got calluses on his fingers, rough patches dragging and catching on Grian’s when they hold hands, the texture nice against his own skin, a smoothing catch and pull that leaves him drawing his own fingers down his skin when Scar isn’t there, seeking the same texture and falling short.

There is a comfort in being with someone who knows you so well, being able to exist in the same space, let each other learn and grow, see the changes and chart them in your mind. There’s something nice about being able to reach out, a single line of text away from comfort, a contentedness with each other.

There’s a happiness in living and breathing with someone, spending almost every waking moment together and not getting tired of it. There’s something in spending time with your friend, reaching out and grabbing their hand, pulling them close and resting your head on their shoulder, that feels right.

…

He was right, in some aspects. Scar knowing that they’re soulmates does change things, on a small level. Scar is less hesitant, seems less afraid, texting Grian unabashedly at all hours of the day and sometimes into the night, proposing ideas that most certainly won’t end well but they end up doing anyway.

It’s simple, in a way Grian wasn’t expecting. They move their beds together, sleeping near to each other and letting the nights race away in a blur of whispered conversations and muffled laughter, pillow fights ending in soft cuddles.

Early mornings spent sleeping in the sunlight shining through the windows, boneless on the bed with the radiating warmth of the day starting and not feeling any pressure to get up with it. It’s easy to reach out to Scar, wake him with a soft word and talk about what they’re going to do for the day, the warmth in Grian’s words as he watches Scar, the happiness in Scar’s when he realizes Grian’s still there.

The changes are slow, Scar reaching out slowly, shooting Grian questioning glances before moving again, cutting himself off when he rambles only to continue when he looks up to see Grian watching intently, keen to watch the look in his Match’s eye when he talks about something he cares about. His hands flare, flapping happily as he paces back and forth across the room.

Grian finds it easy, too, to stop jumping in front of all of the hits meant for Scar. Scar gives him a look, the first couple of times Grian flinches forward, planning to get in front of a skeleton, or a zombie, only to pull himself back and let Scar deal with it. The bruises constantly adorning his body fading now that he trusts Scar to care.

The phantom pain, still there, grows in intensity when active, but flares up less often, with Scar more aware of his surroundings than Grian thought he was, and the amount of pain they’re in on a daily basis fades.

…

“You were taking hits for me, weren’t you?”

“I mean—”

“Grian.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“You don’t need to do that anymore, you know you can trust me.”

“I thought you didn’t care about your soulmate?”

“That was before I knew it was you!”

Grian stares at him, eyes burning and vision going foggy before he turns away, “Don’t you ever think that if you had even remotely cared about your Match before you knew it was me, we would be having a much easier time of this right now?”

…

He meets with B again, in a clearing in the middle of a forest, bathed in moonlight.

“I told him.”

“Yeah? How’d it go?”

“Good. It went good.”

“That’s good.”

“B—I know that, like, Scar’s a good soulmate now that he knows…”

“But?”

“But I don’t want to stop meeting with you.”

Grian misses the adrenaline, the thrill of sneaking out and the peace of being with someone different, holding hands in the darkness and leaning on each other, confessing secrets no one else knows.

He misses seeing B’s face, care and concern written plainly on it, misses looking into deep brown eyes and seeing nothing but compassion shining back at him, irises gleaming in the light.

“Who said we would stop meeting?”

“I’m scared B,” Grian confesses.

“Scared of what?”

“Scared of Scar finding out.”

He’s not scared, he’s terrified. The new dynamic to their relationship is one wrong move away from shattering completely, but Scar looks at Grian like he’s hung the stars in the sky and Grian doesn’t think he can live without that.

“Then we’ll be more careful. I’ll text you directly, we can make a code.”

“A code?”

“Yeah, so we know when to meet, where to meet, but don’t have a risk of our Matches finding out.”

“Secret Soulmates?”

“Secret Soulmates.”

BigB looks at him with eyes filled with adoration, hopeful and caring in the cold light. He’s smiling, but it’s tinted with a sadness that Grian’s not quite sure how to heal.

“You know I’m not going to start ghosting you, right?”

B’s expression stutters shut. Voice clipped, “I know.”

“Are you—I don’t want to hurt you, B, I really don’t.”

“Grian, it’s fine.”

“But you looked—” Grian’s sentence tapers off.

“I’m fine, Grian.”

“Okay…”

They spend the rest of the night together, Grian pointing out the stars and making stories out of the shapes he can see, uncaring of the proper constellations, and B laughing along beside him. The sadness slowly drains from his face, and Grian is glad that, even momentarily, he could make B forget about the world, about the Universe’s unfair games and the way they seem to rotate around each other, never quite meeting up in the way they both want to.

They’re both busy, busy with their Matches, busy building themselves a life out of nothing but their own hands and bouts of kindness from friends. Grian misses the simpler times, the cave with two mats for beds and a campfire cackling in the middle. He misses playing tag in the forest, misses picnics and warm cookies and loud laughter, unafraid of the consequences of being caught.

He reaches out a hand, grabbing B’s fingers in his own, and hopes that whispered conversations and tentative proclamations will be enough.

…

Nothing goes away immediately. Of course it doesn’t. Despite everything, the Universe is cruel.

See, the thing is, when flowers grow in your lungs, they have to get out. Grian thought he was done, he thought that once Scar knew, if Scar accepted, everything would be fine, all the hurt would go away, the pain would smooth over and even out, the hole in his chest next to his heart would fill with a flood of love and the deal would be done.

It doesn’t happen like that, what happens is this: Grian confesses to Scar on a warm day, sun shining in the sky. He tells his Match what the flowers meant on a cold afternoon. It really hits on a cold, rainy morning.

The flowers are climbing up his lungs again.

Grian shudders, reaching a hand down to his communicator even as he starts coughing, typing out a frantic text—not to Scott this time, not anymore—to Scar, and his hands are shaking when he drops back onto the bed, feeling helplessness wash over his body.

The flowers are leaving, and there are more than Grian thought there could ever be.

Scar bursts into the room, door slamming against the wall as he runs in, eyes frantic and hair tangled. Grian gives him a halfhearted wave. His Match rushes over, sitting on the bed next to Grian and bringing the man into his arms, cradling him when the coughing gets too hard.

The feeling is familiar, flowers clogging his senses and rubbing his throat raw, petals coming up crumpled and red with his own blood, falling onto the floor as Grian watches in dismay.

The difference is what matters. The difference is this: Grian reaches to his heart and feels the warmth and love there slowly fill up, feels the heat of Scar’s body behind him and the strong arms keeping him from falling sideways. The difference is the words spoken softly to ease the pain and the understanding in the face of his Match when Grian risks a glance up.

The difference is in the way Grian can’t feel any flowers reaching down and digging roots in his skin, can’t feel flowers reaching for the sun and trying to live. The difference is in the way he can feel the flowers wither and die, the way the bulbs he coughs up are smaller, in the handkerchief he no longer keeps in his pocket, in the way he doesn’t have to hide anymore.

The difference is in the freedom.

“Hey, G,” Scar says, when the convulsing has stopped and Grian is just sitting there, breathing.

“Hey,” Grian croaks. “I’m—sorry. About that.”

“Grian, you don’t need to apologize.”

“But it’s my fault, isn’t it!” Grian’s throat burns and he winces, lowering his voice down to a whisper and bringing his hand up to feel the vibrations. “I was a coward, I was the one who wouldn’t tell you that we were soulmates, despite knowing it one-hundred percent. I’m the one that kept it a secret even though it could’ve killed you!”

“It could’ve killed you, too.”

“Scar.”

“Grian, I’m not joking.” Scars got his serious face on, brows knitting. “You talk all about how I’m in pain, you spend days apologizing to me because of the issues you’ve caused, and you fail to give yourself even the slightest bit of sympathy.”

“Scar, I hurt you. You’re my Match and I hurt you!”

“And?” Scar asks, “People hurt each other all the time. So what? Sure, you hurt me, and it was bad, but what’s important is that you apologized. Don’t beat yourself up over this, Grian, I forgive you.”

“Scar—“

“No. Stop doubting the things I say, I’m a person too, you know, and you don’t live in my mind.” Scar looks into his eyes, grabs Grian’s hands, a warm cocoon of safety. “I’m not lying to you, Grian. I try so hard not to lie to you, don’t let a misguided thought tell you what I think, when what it’s really trying to tell you is that you’re not good enough. You are good enough. You try so hard to protect me and keep me from hurting myself, you took hits that I could’ve taken myself and walked away from just fine, you put yourself in harm's way just to keep me safe and even if you hadn’t done all of that you would still be enough.”

“Scar…I don’t—that’s not—I’m not like that. I protected you, sure, but it wasn’t—it’s not like you think it is!” Grian is desperate, looking into Scar’s eyes and trying to communicate something, anything, that will make Scar stop looking at him like that, make him know that Grian isn’t what Scar thinks he is, that he is flawed and selfish and a liar, that Scar need to leave before this goes too far.

“Grian, you mean the world to me, and I would burn it if you asked me to.”

“You would burn the word even if I didn’t ask you to,” Grian laughs.

Scar gives him a look, “Not the point.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, G.”

…

“Rate this idea on a scale of one to ten.”

Scar is leaning against the doorframe, eyes intent on Grian, who fights the instinct to respond with a one right off the bat.

“Scar! Where did you come from?”

“That’s not important. Rate this idea: another animal sanctuary, like the one for the Jellie-pandas, but this time for misguided souls.”

“Misguided souls?” Grian asks, almost fearing the answer.

“Well I was thinking we could start with ravagers—”

“Scar, no.”

“But you haven't even heard the whole thing yet,” Scar whines, and does he—yup, he actually gives Grian puppy dog eyes.

“I don’t need to know the rest of the idea, it’s gonna get you killed. Ravagers need a raid to appear, remember what happened the last time we messed with pillagers?” Grian says, and then, “How does your rating system even work, by the way, is ten the best idea or the worst idea, does one mean I think it’s good or the worst thing in the world.”

“Ten is good, one is bad.”

“Your idea is a one, but only because zero isn’t an option.”

Scar gasps, mock offended, “Rude! Here I am, a lonely Scaar, just trying to live my life, and you come in and say something like that?”

“Scar…”

“It’s fine Grian, I see how much you appreciate me.”

He turns around and storms out of the room.

“Scar,” Grian laughs, “Come back!”

He hears snickers from behind the door, and then Scar slinks back in, hands behind his back. “I even got you a present!”

“What?”

“A present! One of those things you open for a surprise inside—”

“I know what a present is, Scar. Why’d you get me one?”

“I just—wanted to. Besides, if this doesn’t convince you, who knows what will!”

“Okay…”

Grian gets up and Scar makes a tutting noise. “Close your eyes.”

“Scar, if this is a prank—”

“It’s not a prank, G, close your eyes.”

“Okay… I’m trusting you here.”

“He shuts his eyes, the world around him descending into a soft darkness, and strains his ears trying to figure out what Scar’s doing. There’s no sound, but Grian feels a disturbance of air next to his wrist and—

“What the heck Scar!”

His bracelet is gone, the familiar weight of string pressing lightly down on his wrist isn’t there. Grian feels off balance, wants to claw the skin on his wrist off until it’s back, he needs the bracelet back, needs the symbol of Scar’s love right there on his arm, easy to move and fidget with.

“Calm down, G,” Scar says, and Grian realized he’s backed himself into a corner, one hand curling around his wrist and squeezing, irritating the skin. His eyes fly open, and he glares at Scar.

“My bracelet!”

“Shh, G, I’ve got another one, see?”

And he does. It’s a different design, one Grian can’t quite see from where he is, but he’s got a new bracelet in one hand and the old one dangling in the other.

“Okay…”

“Can I put it on you?”

Grian thinks about it, and then slowly lowers his shoulders from where they had creeped up to his ears, “Okay…”

Scar flashes him a beaming smile, walking forward and tying the new bracelet with the same reverence he did the first. It fits nicely the fabric hugging his wrist lightly but not enough to cut the blood flow, a nice weight on his wrist reminding Grian of their bond. He looks up.

Scar’s eyes are a brilliant green, intent and wide, watching Grian take in the new bracelet, and in the light he looks almost magical.

“Scar…” Grian looks down at the bracelet and then back up again, “It’s beautiful.”

And it is. It’s similar to the old one, unstained and unfrayed, but the designs are different, calmer, somehow. Scar’s added a thread of green through the entire bracelet, the same warm green Grian had used on Scar’s. The lettering on the bracelet is no longer just a simple G, though the G still remains, it’s got threads around it, branching out and reaching to the sides of the thing, intertwining with the explosions and bringing it all together with a grace that leaves Grian breathless.

“You think so?”

“I know so,” Grian says, a faint whisper. He grabs Scar’s hand, pulling his Match close and holding him tightly. “It’s perfect.”

“G…” Scar starts, and then pauses, “You are worth it, you know. There is nothing you can do that will stop me from caring about you,” he laughs faintly, “I’ve been looking for you my entire life, and I had given up, thought I would never find you, but you’re here, and you’re in my arms and you gave me a charm and let me teach you how to make bracelets and—” he stops, they both breathe.

“And?”

“And I think that this is all I’ve ever wanted.”