Work Text:
Pearl wakes up screaming. Explosions go off in her ears, a final goodbye ringing in and out of existence. Scott. She clutches at her bedsheets, grounding herself in the feel of linen and wool, screwing her eyes shut, trying to remember where she is, who she is. The burns fan across her face, and she lifts a hand to splay against it, only to find smooth, unblemished skin, phantom pain tingling beneath it.
Breathe in, she hears a voice saying, though she can’t tell it apart from all the ones in her head. She obeys nevertheless, because it’s good advice. Breathe out. Slowly, her erratic sobs cease, and she musters the strength to open her eyes, squinting in the sunlight filtering through her window– her window? Why does that feel right?
“It is right,” the voice says again, sounding far more real– and far closer– this time. Pearl blinks. “You’re home. Hermitcraft, remember?”
She looks up, eyes catching on a glimpse of green, and stops, wide-eyed. “Oh,” she says, breathless.
Grian’s wing stretches over her, like a feathery blanket, green and black. The man himself sits on the bed next to her, hair mussed like he’d run all the way here. Home. Here.
“Grian,” Pearl rasps, voice hoarse from screaming, “what– I?” I’m alive. I’m not crazy. At least, she thinks she isn’t.
“It’s–” Her brother hesitates, looking up like he’s expecting to find the words he needs carved in the ceiling. That’s when Pearl realizes there’s something very, very wrong.
She scrabbles out of the nest of blankets, clutching at her chest. Grian, mouth opened, stops. He watches as Pearl presses her hands to her heart, and finds only one beating there. There is no bond tugging at her bones, no red string of fate pulling her to her soulmate, there’s nothing, nothing, nothing ever again–
She curls into Grian’s wing, shaking. “Grian.” It’s all she can get past her numb lips, but her brother seems to understand. He hugs her, pulling her in tightly.
“I’m sorry, Pearl. I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and it’s not really comforting, but she doesn’t really care, either. What matters most is that he’s here.
After a few minutes, her face wet and eyes stinging, Pearl pulls away slightly. “I should– I should apologize. To everyone.” To everyone I can, she thinks miserably. The person she wants to apologize to most is worlds away, where she might never find him again.
Grian’s wings ruffle. “You can’t.”
Pearl stares at him, thinking he must have gone mad too. “What do you mean? I can’t just–”
“Pearl–”
“--pretend like nothing happened! They deserve better than that!”
“Pearl.”
“I can’t–”
“Pearl!” Grian’s shout shocks her into silence. She uncurls slightly, pulling her hoodie (blue, blue, not red) tighter around her face.
“They don’t remember.” Pearl blinks. They don’t remember.
“What do you mean they don’t remember?” she demands. “You can’t just– forget something like Double Life.” And then she pauses. The look in Grian’s eyes, like he’s far away, impossible to reach. The way his wings tuck in close to his spine, like they’re trying to hide. The way her skin tingles, like she’s being Watched–
“No.” It’s a plea. Please no. Anything but that. Anything but them.
“They don’t remember,” her brother repeats quietly, watching Pearl with eyes that don’t quite see her.
“Why do I remember?” It’s torn from her in something not quite resembling another sob. “Why do you?” Do the others?
“You won.” You deserve this more than me. Tilly death do us part, Pearl! She shivers. I won.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like that.” Grian’s talking now, babbling like he can’t stop. “It was supposed to be two, but none of us could give them that, could we? Hah–” and he folds, shoulders shaking in near-hysteria.
“I won,” Pearl finds herself saying, “so I remember. But why do you?”
Grian looks up, eyes wet with tears– though Pearl couldn’t say what emotion is in them. “Did you think you were the first? Do you think there was only one game? Think, Pearl. Do you think they’d be that kind?” She can only stare at her brother in fresh horror.
“How many,” she says, rough and panicked. “Grian, how many?” His gaze is distant again, seeing something else. She puts her hands on his shoulders and shakes him. His eyes snap back to her.
“Three. There were three.”
“And we… we always forget?” The knowledge crawls uncomfortably up her spine. How much of her life had she missed? How had she never noticed?
Grian nods, firmly back in himself. His wings drop, fanning smoothly across Pearl’s bed. “I won the first game. Third Life.” He spits the name, like it leaves a bad taste in his mouth. “You weren’t in that one. I don’t– I don’t know why.”
“But I was in the second one?” she asks, morbid curiosity prompting the next question. Anything to forget. “Who won?”
Her brother inhales, slow. “You don’t want to know.”
“Maybe not. Tell me anyway.”
“Scott. He won Last Life. Somehow.” Grian chuckles wryly, as though he hasn’t brought Pearl’s world crashing down around her head again.
He knew? He knew what would happen? Is that why?
You deserve this more than I do.
Suddenly, her brother reaches up. Pearl freezes as his thumb brushes under her eye, over scarred, bumpy skin that she was sure shouldn’t have been there.
“Scars stay,” Grian says. “You lose everything else, but the scars stay.”
“I don’t understand,” Pearl whispers helplessly. “Why us again? Haven’t they taken enough from us?”
She remembers nights before Hermitcraft, screaming herself raw at the stars, feeling the prickle of gazes on her back. Why him? Why my brother? Why would you take him and leave me behind?
Why would he leave me behind?
Grian sighs. There are dark circles beneath his eyes, shadows of stress and sleeplessness. “It won’t be enough. It’ll never be enough.” Not unless he goes back. He wilts, slightly, like he’s heard her thought, and she clings tightly to her brother. I’ll never let that happen.
“You lose everything,” Grian mumbles again. “Things. People.” Pearl thinks; she’ll never be able to tell Cleo she’s sorry, never laugh with Scar about their tricks with powdered snow, never see red again without thinking of the moon, and the blood on her hands.
“Who did you lose?” she murmurs, not really intending him to hear. He tenses slightly, and his heartbeat picks up. His wings sweep forward to encase them in a green-and-black cocoon, shielding them from the world.
“The love of my life.” His shoulders shake slightly, and he gasps a hiccupping laugh. “And there’s no going back.”
Pearl hugs him tighter.