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Grian never made a grave for Scar.
Although admittedly Grian didn’t live long enough after his death to have a proper burial.
To be honest, Scar’s not sure he’s supposed to remember the first game. Or the second game, for that matter. No one else makes comments about it, but he remembers.
He remembers the brilliant crimson of the desert sunsets, the walls of tall cactuses, the waving banners of Dogwarts, the peak of Magic Mountain, the shady crystals that were always on ‘pre-order’, the dying again and again and again and again and –
(He’s positive Grian also remembers everything. He hides it very well, but every once in a while Scar catches him staring at another member of the server—or Void-forbid him —like he’s seen a ghost.)
(In some ways he technically has.)
Scar turns to look back at the hill, braces creaking as he moves. Snow dusts the peaks in the area and the goats that once called the land home are nowhere in sight. In the distance, lights from burning bases dot the world's far corners. Grian is still crouched in front of BigB’s grave, wings drooping and brushing the ground. Even though he is too far away to read the words, he can see Grian has carved and posted signs on the grave.
Weirdly, it reminds him of Pizza’s grave.
And that.
That's the kicker, huh?
Scar could pretend not to care about the whole ‘secret soulmates’ deal, he could ignore the missing wheat and smell of freshly baked bread that lingered in the kitchen, he could even amicably agree to keep watch while Grian built BigB’s grave and mourned.
But despite all that, he can’t pretend that he doesn’t miss when Grian and him were functional.
(It’s the night before they blow up the Sandcastle.
Scar sits on the roof of their home, legs swinging over the ledge. Jellie sits in his lap, purring despite her relative closeness to the roof's edge. Pizza’s grave is barely visible from Scar’s position on the roof, the scrappy bouquet of flowers laid on top beginning to wilt. The light from the lava moat illuminates the edge of their domain with a molten and golden glow. Rabbits leave their hideouts from the blistering sun in search of food, jumping and bounding through the darker parts of the desert. Dogwart’s walls stand tall on the edge of the horizon, an attempt to look intimidating. The lack of light pollution on Monopoly Mountain allows hundreds, if not thousands, of stars to dapple the night sky.
Below him, buried under the house Grian built for them sits enough TNT to completely demolish the base and, hopefully, get rid of Dogwarts for good. Scar looks up at an exceptionally bright glob of stars, wondering if the pulse of the redstone set up matches the thrumming of red in his veins.
“Please be careful, I don’t want to have to fight Ren and Martyn alone.”
Jellie, hearing the sound of his voice, hops off of Scar’s lap and ambles over the Grian.
Fake exasperation laces Scar’s sigh. “Oh come on! How does she like you more than me?”
“It’s ‘cause she knows who feeds her in the mornings.”
“Excuse me! It’s not my fault you always wake up before me.”
Grian chuckles, picking up Jellie in his arms and holding her like a baby. He makes his way over to Scar. Still balancing the cat, he sits down and swings his legs out over the edge.
Scar wiggles his eyes at Grian. “Why hello there!”
Grian lightly smacks the back of his head. His wings, freshly preened from earlier in the evening, splay out behind the two.
The two sit in comfortable silence.
As the moon begins to rise, Scar asks, “Are you– are you nervous about tomorrow?”
Jellie purrs as Grian scratches under her chin.
“... No. I believe in us.”
They look out at the desert.
“Besides,” Grian continues, “Ren and Dogwarts in general remind me of a poem I heard a while back.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it's called– Ozymandias? I think? To be completely honest, I don’t remember the actual words of the poem but– it’s basically about this broken statue of a king, Ozymandias, in the desert. There's an inscription on the bottom of it that talks about how everyone will remember him and his kingdom forever– but the only thing left is the broken statue. Everything else was destroyed by others or eroded away by the desert.
It’s not, like, a great correlation or anything– but since Ren is the ‘Red King,’” Grian makes mocking quotation marks with his fingers, “and everything, it seemed fitting, y’know? All the talk about time eroding and presumed—as well as failed—legacies.”
Scar giggles. “Are we the desert in this analogy?”
“Well,” Grian draws out the last syllable in the word, “I’m not sure that winter, red or otherwise, does very well in the desert heat. Besides, who better to stop a tyrannical king than the only people on the server that literally can’t keep sand out of their clothes?”
Scar shudders. “I don’t even wanna think about getting sand out of clothes. My braces are gonna be clogged with the stuff forever .”
He pauses. “And… thanks. That does strangely make me feel better.”
“Aren’t the red lives supposed to be the ones giving the murder pep talks?”
“Eh, maybe, but you and I have never been too good at following the status quo.”
Grian laughs. “You’re not wrong.”
One of Grian’s wings wraps around Scar as he rests his head on the taller man’s shoulders.
“You realize this proves that you did like Pizza, right?”
“Scar!” )
Realizing he was staring, Scar turns his attention away from Grian and the grave.
The longer Scar thinks about it, the more the events of the first game and the current situation mimic each other, like looking at one's memories through a funhouse mirror. Instead of Pizza's grave next to a well-loved house, it's BigB's grave hidden in a quiet corner of the world. Instead of wrapping each other's wounds with care, it's begrudgingly shared injuries. And instead of intertwining lives built on a tall desert mountain, it's a strained and echoing relationship tied together by fate itself.
Looking through that distorted mirror, Scar sees that somewhere throughout the death games and traps, a small part of himself has been buried.
Far away, the cry of a goat horn rings in the air.
Neither of them move to respond.
Scar looks, really looks at Grian again, who hasn’t moved from his earlier position.
Grian, who has killed for him.
Grian, who makes cookies for his secret soulmate.
Grian, who would—and has—followed him to the ends of the earth.
Grian, who never made Scar a grave.
Grian, his soulmate .
… To be fair, he hasn’t been a great soulmate either.
Scar laughs to himself, quiet and sardonic.
‘Dogwarts wasn’t the only thing that was destroyed in the desert.’
(Part of Scar wonders where he lost that bit of himself to, the burning desert sun or the deadly ravine.
Another part wonders if he gave that part away, through promises and time and poppies and lilacs.
If the newest game is anything to go by, the second option is the right one.)
(He wonders if Grian has had the same realization.)
“Scar, you ok?”
Scar snaps his head towards the voice.
Grian walks up, standing close enough to touch. Concern flits across his face. Scar knows him well enough to also see the guilt, hidden but visible in the way his eyes scan Scar’s face and his wings shift behind him.
He looks up with a small, nervous smile.
Scar’s eyes flick to the grave on the top of the hill before meeting Grian’s again.
(Scar thinks if he looks really, really hard he can see affection written into Grian’s face too.)
(Remnants of a life, broken and buried in the desert dunes for someone to stumble across.)
Scar brushes a streak of sand dirt from Grian’s cheek.
“Yeah. I’m ok.”