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"Sorry, could you say that again?" Scar tweaked his head to the right, for the third time in the last three minutes.
It had been a few days of this: of sudden winces from an invisible pain, of a head cocked to the side for better hearing, of tugging on earlobes, and of a constant, aggravating hand waving his friends concerns away.
"I'm fine," Scar would insist, head turned to the right with his thumb and forefinger pinching his earlobe, pulling it south. "Nothing to worry about, you know me," he would reassure.
It was words like that which left his friends especially wrought with concern. Those were the words of a man who was deflecting, and Scar was famous for playing the two-faced game.
Unfortunately for him, his friends knew all of his signature moves.
"Ahem, ahem," Grian cleared his throat, calling to attention the other three hermits before him. "I've called this Boatem meeting for one reason and one reason only. We've got to do something about Scar."
There were general murmurs of agreement amongst the group, and Pearl spoke up. "I saw him working on his base at nine in the evening. For his timezone, that's two in the morning!"
"I saw him standing outside his front door and said hello," Impulse added, "but it turns out he was sleepwalking into it. I had to carry him back into bed," he sighed.
"And then there's all the constant falling into the Boatem hole," Mumbo pointed out. "I asked him about it, and he told me that when he's especially tired, he'll toss his items aside and jump in so his health will reset. And he counts that as rest! It's getting ridiculous."
Grian nodded, a grave look on his face. They all had their bouts of overworking, but this was especially bad. And knowing Scar, he would sooner jump to his demise for the umpteenth time rather than admit he was worn down. That, with his odd recent symptoms, were a recipe for disaster.
"This ends today," Grian said, cracking his knuckles. "Operation: Scar Takes a Sick Day is official. Everyone remember their roles from last time?"
The group nodded, and from Grian's inventory, he fished out a map of the Boatem Village. "Good, here's the plan."
"Hey, Scar!" Impulse called out from across the lawn, watching as Scar made his usual afternoon dip into the void to replenish himself.
Not this time, that was for sure.
It was the left ear that Scar couldn't hear out of, they all knew that for sure by now. Impulse called again, doing a light jog to get closer. Scar did hear him this time, slowing his movements and turning his head with a wince to see where the muffled sound came from.
Despite his signature beaming grin at Impulse's arrival, several things were already off. Scar was more disheveled than usual, his black ascot missing along with his lopsided top hat. He leaned heavily on his walking cane, with such a tremble in his hand to the point that Impulse wondered why Scar wasn't in his chair instead.
Bags under bags lined his eyes, as though Scar hadn't slept in days, and his free hand kept tugging at his earlobe, a very faint, sticky, popping sound emitting from his left ear.
"Well hello there, Impulse," Scar drawled, fatigued beyond belief and not paying the foggiest bit of attention. "If you'll excuse me for just a moment, I have personal business to attend to—"
"Woah there buddy," Impulse shot his arm out in front of Scar's chest, blocking him from taking a step further. "I mean, what's up? I walk over to say hello and you're already tired of talking to me?" he joked, trying to inch Scar away from the Void.
"Oh, Impulse, you know I love to chat with you," Scar blustered, stumbling back somewhat, "but I'm just a little preoccupied—"
"Too preoccupied for your good friend Impulse? Scar, I'm insulted, honestly. I was going to invite you over for lunch and everything, Pearl and I've been working on a stew since last night, but I guess if you're too busy jumping into holes—"
"No no no! Impulse I'm sorry," Scar whined, dragging the word 'sorry' out until it was grating. "I've just been a little... out of sorts, I'd love to come over for lunch. Can it wait five minutes?"
Scar was floating in the balance, so this was the delicate part.
Impulse gave Scar a patient smile, and gently shook his head. "Scar, we'll have you in any state you're in. And we both know this rinse and repeat cycle you're doing isn't making you feel that much better anyways. How about we get some food in you and you can get back to what you were working before?"
Always promise a return to normalcy, that's the trick.
Scar's shoulders sagged, as though the weight of keeping up appearances were finally rolling off of him. It made him look like a wet paper bag, the poor thing, about to collapse into mush on the ground. "That sounds nice... but a good guest doesn't show up empty-handed. Let me think, I've got some leftover honey from my farm at my base..."
"Perfect!" Impulse exclaimed, already walking with Scar towards his front door. Hook, line, and a perfect sinker.
"Honey sounds great, I'll message Pearl to get some tea going, why don't I walk with you? It's been a minute since we got to chit chat, you've been so busy lately," Impulse smiled, flipping out his communicator and giving Pearl the A-OK.
"Alright everybody, Scar's skipped lunch for the third time this week, but I wanted to wait until after noon just in case he dipped back in for a snack," Pearl explained to Mumbo and Grian, the three working to set up their stations in Scar's kitchen.
Impulse was off on Scar-watching duty, making sure he didn't collapse or try to reset his health again. As much as they all wanted to help Scar now, certain preparations had to be made first for the whole operation to flow smoothly.
"This recipe is relatively straight-forward, the cooking process is what takes the longest. Grian, you're on meat, I want you to break down these two chickens and de-bone them. Give me the bones the minute you've got them, I'm working on the broth," Pearl delegated.
"Mumbo, you're on veg, there's a sack of potatoes and carrots that need peeling and cubing, but keep the pieces relatively big, we don't want them disintegrating while they cook."
"I wonder what the ethics are in regards to me, a potato, peeling another potato," Mumbo hummed, visibly unbothered as he began skinning. "Like, I guess it's fine because it's not a breathing thing, but I'm not sure, you know?"
"Look who you're talking to, buddy," Grian joked in return, the irony of a bird cutting open a slightly smaller bird not entirely lost on him.
"Maybe I should've put Mumbo on stock and you on veg then, Grian," Pearl laughed, prepping a handful of garlic cloves and dicing up some onions. "Now get to work, we've only got a few hours for this to be ready."
"You're going to make the emergency soup too, right?" Grain clarified.
"Of course I am, chances are Scar's not going to go down without a fight," Pearl nodded, cracking the garlic open with the flat side of her knife. "Some of the stock from this is going to the base for the potion, I've tweaked the recipe so the glowstone dust smell won't tip him off."
"Redstone dust," Grian corrected.
"I'll redstone your dust if you don't de-bone those chickens faster," Pearl playfully threatened, tossing a handful of crushed onions skins at him.
Mumbo stifled a laugh, flicking a potato peel at Pearl. "That doesn't even make sense," he grinned.
"You don't make sense," Pearl cackled, blowing a raspberry at him, along with a head of garlic.
They'll clean up the mess later, promise.
Pearl's communicator buzzed from the kitchen table. Grian tossed it over, and Pearl scanned the message, giving a firm nod. "We're on track, Impulse and Scar in-bound in less than ten minutes. Everything set up upstairs with Mumbo?"
"His bed is freshly made, the windows are open for fresh air, and Mumbo set up a jukebox with soft music looping to help him sleep," Grian rattled off, stepping around Pearl to inspect the two batches of soup. "The smaller one has the strength potion in it, right?"
"Yup," Pearl answered, digging around for bowls and spoons, setting up a meal tray as she spoke. "It's a lower dose, I didn't want to pack him full of magic if his body's still on a decline. It shouldn't taste like a strength potion, but if it does we can water it down more from the other batch," she added, portioning out soup and reaching for a pile of napkins.
Gentle thumping came from upstairs, and Mumbo made his descent. "Everything ready?"
"Just waiting on the front door to pop open, which should be any minute now," Grian answered.
Pearl turned to face Mumbo with the tray beautifully set up: a steaming bowl of potion-laced chicken soup filled the kitchen with a warm aroma, alongside a spoon and handful of nicely folded napkins; alongside it was a small pot of honey ("in case he has a sore throat," Grian had reasoned) and a tall glass of water.
If there was a need for medicine or a deeper look into Scar's health, Doc was always just across the bay, and Cub was right around the corner. Hopefully, this would only need a few days of good bed rest and sleep.
"You run this upstairs, I'm on muscle duty from here on out," Pearl said, handing the tray off to Mumbo, who accepted it with a stifled sigh.
"You guys are always on muscle duty. I'm strong, I could take Scar easily," he huffed, no heat in his voice.
"Mumbo, this is a kindness that I'm sparing you from wrangling Scar into bed. You can't hurt things this season, and I'd be lying if I said it was in any way fun." When Mumbo gave him a doubtful look, Grian deadpanned in response.
Truly, it was his least favorite part of the job, but if somehow Grian could handle this part alone, he would without a second thought. It always stung whenever Scar tried to push away his friend's kindhearted efforts to look out for his health, but it cut Grian deeper than Scar could ever understand.
To grab his weakened, flailing wrists and drag him to bed, with at another set of hands shoving him along, it twisted Grian's stomach into knots that didn't loosen until the light came back into Scar's eyes.
It was worse knowing he couldn't do it alone. Physically, Grian could probably over power Scar when he was sick— hell, he did it all the time when Scar was perfectly healthy. But there was something about kicking a man when he was already down that didn't feel fair.
Curse his broken heart, but Grian hated letting his friends help Scar into bed. He hated someone else touching what he felt was his alone to protect, even if Grian had no real stake in making that claim.
If he had it his way, that would be Grian's job, and Grian's job alone. He wasn't a fool to try, but sometimes, he just wanted to take control.
A key clicking into the door lock snapped Grian out of his thoughts— right, this wasn't about him. This was about someone infinitely more important than himself.
"Just give me one second, I'll be in and out in a jiffy," Scar reassured Impulse, who was starting to err on the side of polite impatience. The sooner they had Scar inside of his house, the lower the chances were of him making a run for it.
Because he had made a run for it before. Several times, in fact. It was exhausting trying to track Scar down when he has an elytra strapped to his back.
Scar fumbled with his key a few times, bracing himself more on the door frame rather than his cane. The arduous walk over was enough to exhaust Scar, a pinched look to his face and a flushed pink in his ears that gave hints to a deeper issue. Nonetheless, he managed to get the door open, and within the first handful of steps inside, Scar realized three things.
One. Someone was making soup in his kitchen, and it smelled delicious. Scar hadn't touched his kitchen all day.
Two. All of the lights were on. Scar was forgetful, especially as of late, but these lights ran on a sensor for that very reason. Someone else was inside his house.
Three. Scar hadn't seen a single other Boatem member since this morning. Uh oh.
The front door clicked shut behind him, and it felt like a gun going off in Scar's ears. Rather, ear singular— his right was doing all the work of hearing at the moment, and it made processing any sharp noise a newfound sort of agony.
"Sorry buddy," Impulse said with a sheepish smile and barring Scar from the front door with his body, "but I think you know what's going on."
Scar's grip on the handle of his cane tightened as he weighed the odds of thwacking Impulse upside the head with it and making a mad dash outside. Before he could make his choice, two other set of footsteps approached, and suddenly Scar's options were incredibly limited.
"You're not going anywhere Scar, come on now," Pearl said, arms wide and slightly hunched over, as though she were expecting Scar to barrel right into her. "Let's get you upstairs and taken care of, alright?" she smiled, his voice laced with poison-coated kindness.
Grian seemed the most subdued of the bunch, but equally determined, if not more so. "You don't need to fight us on this every single time, you know. You can just let this happen, and we can take care of you without any fuss."
Scar felt like a cornered animal, but his pride was wounded alongside his head. It wasn't fair for them to think Scar couldn't take care of himself, he managed himself just fine! Just because his health wavered the most, or he got into the most accidents, or he had to use a cane, or leg braces, or a wheelchair, it didn't make him any less competent than the rest of them.
Just because the simple act of waking up the morning took the wind out of him before he could get in his first breath of the day, that didn't make him weak. He didn't want to be worried over for something so small as a passing sickness.
Before he could make those very points to the trio, a sharp needle-like pain struck straight through both of his ears, as though someone were passing a thread through one ear canal into the other, and Scar staggered on his cane, letting out an unconscious yelp of pain.
Eyes pressed shut, chest heaving, the pain rocked through his despite feeling nothing moments prior, and Scar felt his whole body turn to ice, trembling from the cold. He felt the movement of each of his friends position themselves around him, ready to catch him if he fell.
He felt a cool hand press against his cheek, and from his right ear heard something about a fever, something about going into shock.
Screw his pride, this pain wasn't worth dealing with alone. Scar tried to take a step towards his bedroom ladder, but that needling pain wasn't letting up, determined to drag him to the floor, and the rest of his dignity along with him.
Leaning against the first warm body Scar could find, he spat out through gritted teeth, "bed, now. Please."
A soft wing wrapped itself around his torso, before Grian's calloused hands scooped Scar up into his arms, two pairs of feet trailing after them. There was fuzziness after that, of being placed into a soft, warm bed, of Jellie snuggling herself up on Scar's lap while his friends did some basic check ups on him, trying to find the source of his pain.
There was the beeping of communicators that gradually became inaudible to Scar's ears, and the stunned panic of the group when Scar stopped responding to his own name.
There was relief in seeing him look around, still alive, and a mutual grief watching the random bouts of pain rocket through Scar's head, his fists curling up into the blankets and his mouth hanging open, pleading for it to stop, for someone to put him out of his misery.
They all stayed with him that first night, sharing pained looks whenever Scar so much as shifted in his restless sleep, bracing themselves for the screaming. There wasn't anything they could do except spoon mouthfuls of strength potion for him to take, and hope that magic was enough to stifle the pain.
After that, it was shifts, always at least one, if not two Boatem members hovering around the house, keeping it clean and tidy, prepping meals, and most importantly, fetching new tissue boxes for when the last one inevitably ran out.
Cub was kind enough to make a hasty visit the next day, and one peak into Scar's ears told him everything. With a bottle of antibiotics, and an order for regeneration potions instead of strength, Cub explained that this was just a matter of waiting the infection out.
Scar would be fine eventually, and probably hearing by the end of the week, but there was only so much they could do for the pain besides let him wail. The potion would help cut the agony, but this kind of pain would still take a toll on him.
He slept, for the most part, the first two days. He slept, and cried, and heard nothing of the world around himself, despite seeing all of it. Of all his friends, who initially all evenly split up caretaker duties, Grian ended up taking most of the rounds for himself.
At his own insistence, too. Grian justified it to himself and his friends a million different ways: that he owed Scar a favor, that he had the most experience dealing with him when he was ill, that he brewed the best potions out of the group, so clearly he should be sticking around the most, but everyone knew what Grian meant whenever he said he was free to cover someone else's rounds.
"I love him too much to let him suffer alone," went unspoken, but largely understood.
The other three decided not to fight Grian on this, mostly because he was doing too good of a job for them to argue otherwise. As much as it pained Grian to see Scar sobbing for relief, at least he was the one to dry his tears and let Scar dig his nails into his skin, let him have some kind of pause.
He would whisper confessions that he longed to say with his full chest, and watch with a mixed, bittersweet feeling, as Scar did not acknowledge a single word of his.
Grian really, really wanted to be there when Scar started hearing again.
Scar, throughout all of this, was only focused on not dying. Because that's what this pain felt like to him, it was like the frozen nothingness of the Void had compacted itself in the space between his ears and around his brain, and every neuron in his body was fighting against it.
He went to sleep sitting up to keep even a fraction of the unpleasant pressure changes out of his head, awaking every thirty minutes or so from the pain to wail, and feel Grian's calloused hands wrap themselves around his own. Scar would sometimes be able to force his eyes open, and watch as Grian spoke to him.
Somewhere within the logic of his mind, Scar knew that Grian was saying something, the sound of distant whispering the only thing he could make out of fully fledged sentences. But the first few times, it left him in distress, and he echoed over and over, "I can't hear you."
So Grian traced letters feather-light into his palm, and Scar never thought touch could transmit the kindness that "I'm right here," sounded like.
They tried lip reading, but Scar found his eyes too heavy the first few days to follow whatever Grian was saying, so they stuck to handwritten notes, and when the sun went down, letters traced softly into his trembling hands.
(Scar had a tendency to get distracted when staring at Grian's lips anyways, forgetting he was supposed to be looking for words, and not studying the curvature of his cupid's bow.)
It was on day three, when the pain stopped trying to strike him dead, that Scar could register sound again. Not full words, nothing concrete, but sound was real, it was tangible, and when tears of relief trickled down his face, he delighted in all but shouting at Grian's worried look, "I can hear you!"
Imagine Scar's confusion when Grian's face turned cherry red. He began spluttering, none of which Scar could make out, though he was very happy in getting to hear even just the idea of Grian's voice again.
Gently shaking his head to avoid agitating his infection, Scar pointed to his ears and loudly explained. "I can hear sound, not words! I'm not going to be deaf after all!" he said with a tired relief.
Immediately Grian shut his mouth, and he let out a full body laugh, one that Scar was delighted to hear. They laughed together, Scar more than aware that Grian was hiding something in that bashful smile. It only now dawned on him that Grian could have spilled multiple intriguing, riveting secrets in his time of deafness, and Scar's curiosity cranked itself up to eleven.
I mean, he couldn't let such a tantalizing mystery go unsolved, right?
As the days dragged on, and the pain simmered down to the occasional dull ache, Scar followed the same loud-mouthed, noisy speech patterns as when his hearing first started to recover. There was some concern from his friends at first, but they learned that sometimes hearing can take a little more time to recuperate itself, so they decided not to fret as much about it.
Scar was regaining so much more autonomy anyways, his smile bright and his spirits soaring. He was able to peter around his bedroom around day five, and eat full meals then too. He could hum along to the jukebox without it on max volume, and nearly cried when he heard Jellie purr again.
"Sounds are easy, I can make out sounds," Scar explained to Grian during lunch, sipping on a bowl of chicken broth. "Words are still tricky, especially if you're not talking in my direction or really quiet. If you yell, of course I can hear you," he laughed.
And while all of that was true in general... it wasn't exactly true to Scar anymore.
In reality, Scar's hearing was nearly fully recovered in his right ear, his left the first to fall ill, and thus still lagging along. If he tilted his head —and even better if he tugged on his earlobe to gently encourage his ear canal to open more— he could hear nearly perfectly from it.
Not that Grian needed to know that just yet. Scar was still waiting on whatever it was that had caught the other so wildly off guard a few days ago. It seemed Grian had put himself on guard against embarrassing himself, and at this rate, Scar was going to run out of sick days before his lolling around in bed became suspicious.
It was time to break out the top artillery.
The sun lowered over the horizon as Grian starting lighting candles in Scar's bedroom. He stepped around the spare mattress he'd been using as a makeshift bed the past week, and as he was about to wish Scar a goodnight, the latter made an X with his arms.
Shifting over in his bed with more than enough room for two, Scar patted the spot next to himself. Grian hesitated, the same way he did when first offered several days ago. It felt cruel to keep even a fraction of Scar's creature comforts away from him, even the smallest section of the bed.
But now Scar was insisting, putting on a fake pout and pulling the sheets away to make space. Grian took a seat, not to make himself comfortable, but to speak directly into Scar's ear. "I'm not sleeping in your bed," he said, lightly patting Scar on the shoulder and sitting up again.
Scar reached for Grian's hand instead, tracing shapeless nothings into his palm to keep him from stepping away. With a small, regretful smile, Grian tugged his hand away, moving to tuck Scar back in properly. "Sleep," he sounded out, ruffling up Scar's hair for good measure.
Grian slunk away to the makeshift bed, lazily curling up on his side facing away from Scar, buried under a spare duvet.
Sinking back into his pillows, Scar let out a sigh of disappointment. He scrunched up his face in determination, the cogs within his brain turning as he tried to piece together another plan. Luckily, he didn't need to think so hard after all.
"Void, I love you too much for you to do these things to me," Grian muttered out loud, yawning quietly to himself. Or, it would have been to himself, if it weren't for Scar's eavesdropping.
"...You love me?" came from a voice in the flickering dark, and Grian felt his heart lodge itself into his throat, suffocating any words begging to come pouring out. He froze, unsure if his ears were playing tricks on him, if the exhausting past few days of playing maid were finally catching up to him.
"Grian? Did I hear you right?" Scar asked softly.
It took a monumental effort for Grian to un-glue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "...Up until five minutes ago I didn't think you could hear at all." A nervous chuckle followed, all still laying on his side, facing away from Scar.
Grian blinked. Wait a second, he didn't think Scar could hear at all! That tidbit was enough for Grian to shoot up into a sitting position, swiveling around to face Scar, who was slack-mouthed and annoyingly pretty in candlelight.
The two gawked at one another, both at a loss for words, but Grian pulled himself together first. "You can hear?!" he all but shouted, beyond flabbergasted.
Scar lifted his sheets to hide most of his face, letting out a sheepish "...yes? Not completely! But, I mean, my right's almost completely healed... and my left's getting there too..."
At first it was guilt he felt for making Grian work so much, but Grian only shook his head in disbelief, letting out a small, curt laugh. "If you wanted to take a few days off and sleep in Scar, you could've just said so," Grian said.
"But then you would've gone home," Scar mumbled behind his sheets. "I wanted you to stay here and take care of me." 'I wanted you to stay here with me forever,' died in his throat.
Grian sighed. "All you had to do was ask. I don't understand how of all things, this is what you chose to make difficult— I'm the one who's supposed to complicate things between the two of us, not you," he said, playfully indignant, if only for a moment.
Scar lowered his sheets. "You said you loved me," he repeated.
With fists balled up around his duvet, Grian looked Scar squarely in the eyes and nodded. "Why else do you think I've been the main one taking care of you?"
"Huh," was all Scar could think to say.
Oh.
Oh.
Grian's heart sank, but then again, it wasn't as though he weren't expecting this reaction. Scar didn't owe him returned mutual affection, he wasn't required to love Grian in equilibrium. They were still friends, in the end, that didn't need to change.
But that didn't mean he needed to sit here and wallow in the awkwardness left in his confession's wake. Space was good, space was definitely what they both needed right now. Grian pushed himself up to his feet, digging around in his inventory for a light. "I think, since you're doing better, that I should probably go home—"
"Sit with me?" Scar interrupted, a gentle pleading in his voice. Grian, still flicking through his items, was hesitant. They weren't children, he didn't need a silly, formal explanation for being turned down romantically.
"Please?" Scar added, and Grian caved instantly, shuffling over and perching himself on the very farthest edge of the bed. Scar gently tugged on Grian's arm to pull him closer, and Grian couldn't help but oblige, scooting over so that his legs were tucked up underneath himself.
"Close your eyes," Scar asked, and Grian grumbled quietly before doing just that, nervous about what strange ideas Scar had planned. Grian was still, eyes shut, hands twisting over one another in his lap, trying to relax.
He felt a hand brush his cheek, and Grian all but shuddered in response. "...Scar?"
"Just, keep your eyes closed," was his response, and now Grian was inclined to listen. Scar's hand cradled Grian's face, his thumb running over the fullest part of his bottom lip, and he felt his own jaw go slack, opening more as an invitation.
He hoped this was real, that he hadn't actually passed out twenty minutes ago and was having the most realistic dream of his life; Grian hoped that this wasn't a cruel joke either, that Scar was not so mischievous that he would use Grian's own feelings against him.
And then soft lips met his own, and Grian stopped thinking entirely.