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“Hey Grian, does this… remind you of anything?”
“Hmm?” Grian inquired distractedly, as he finished setting down the bed rolls and gave the cave another cursory check for anything sharp that could fall on them in the night. It was a rushed camp, settled in the best shelter they could find on short notice. Being on the run sort of did that to you.
It was tempting to build a fire or light a torch, just something to push back the gloom and give some warmth. Such a thing was too dangerou however, when there was a target on their heads.
“This,” Scar replied, still not specifying what he was looking at. “It kinda looks… I don’t know, familiar?
Grian rolled his eyes and stood up, dusting his hands off on his pants as he turned to Scar who was lingering outside the cave. “Alright, what did you-“
-A stab of pain on the tip of Grian’s finger.
Suddenly he was getting to Scar a lot faster, at the entrance in the blink, nearly blinded by the setting sun.
“Scar! Scar, what’s- what’s…?” Grian hesitated, staring at the sight before him.
Against the multicoloured sky, half hidden in the shadow of the hill, Scar was crouched in the scraggly grass near a sandy patch in the dry dirt. Before him, beneath his hand which hovered uncertainly, was a small cactus. A bead of blood dripped off his finger from where it had been pricked, but Scar didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were unwavering, fixated on that cactus.
For a moment Grian wasn’t sure how to breathe.
“I saw this little guy out here and… I dunno,” Scar murmured absently, almost to himself. “I felt like there should be more of them. But it's only this one.”
“It’s just a cactus,” Grian said, reflexively, something nauseating curling in his gut. Images of a mountain flashing in his mind, of sand as far as the eye could see, of a sun that burned warmer than the blood on his hands. Of Scar looking at him with red eyes and a melancholy smile.
Eyes that were green now, scrunched up in confusion, and at the same time lost, never leaving the cactus. A hand reached out, brushing again, and Grian felt a familiar sting as a thorn tugged on another finger, drawing blood. Neither he nor Scar commented on it.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Scar asked, voice soft. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”
Grian’s body went rigid, but when he spoke, he kept it light and joking. “Are you talking to me or the cactus? Should I leave you two alone?”
“Grian.”
Scar looked up at him, hands bloody. Eyes green and full of tears that leaked down his face, dyed red with the setting sun. Dripping into the sand at their feet.
“Grian… why do I remember you killing me?”
And how could Grian respond to that? How could he admit to it? How could he explain just how much they’d done this song and dance before, a performance only he ever remembered?
All due to the thousands of eyes boring into him, and looking out of him, whenever he was weak enough to relax.
“Probably the nightmares,” Grian offered, desperate. “Sometimes they kind of mess with reality, you know?”
“We first met weeks ago,” Scar said without acknowledgement. “In a ravine. But we also met on a mountain. In a desert.”
“Scar-“
“Grian.”
Scar was still crying, but he wiped a sleeve across his face, mottling it with dark imprints. He stood up, leaving the small cactus in his shadow, scuffing his boots on the sandy earth.
“When I look at you, the first thing I think is that your eyes should be red,” Scar whispered. “And right now your face is too guilty to tell me I’m wrong”
“It’s…” Grian swallowed, throat dry. Suddenly he couldn’t look at Scar, gaze sliding down to the cactus at their feet. “It’s not something you should be remembering. It’s… better not to. Better to think of it as just a series of dreams.”
“And this?” Scar asked, brow furrowing. His hand reached forward, hesitant and shaking, before it brushed against Grian’s, running over the callouses and scars that they shared. “Is this also going to be a dream?”
“It will be,” Grian answered, feeling the blood dripping off his fingers. It splattered into the same sand stuck beneath his nails. He couldn’t ignore the rough texture of Scar’s skin against his. “I don’t want it to be though. Because I know how it’ll end.”
Scar didn’t speak for a moment, but then he reached up, brushing against Grian’s cheek, leaving a bloody smear. “Your hands at my throat.”
“Your knife in my back,” Grian countered softly.
Scar shivered, and slowly he drew forward, until he was wrapped around Grian in a hug. “Hey,” he said, quietly into Grian’s ear. “When we wake up, can we still be friends?”
Grian swallowed, closing his eyes for a brief moment before returning the embrace, burying his head into Scar’s shoulder. “Yeah. Of course we can.”
“Good,” Scar murmured. “That’s good. I think I’d miss you otherwise.”
Grian didn’t say that he already missed him. That he was already weeping for when this dream would end. Because, simply put, the next Scar would be different then the one in this embrace.
All he could do was hold on.
It was just the two of them, standing outside a hollow cave, sand on their skin. Crying for a reason no one else would know. A cactus at their feet.