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In the aftermath, Grian tracks Scar down with purpose. When he finds him, there are new scars on the side of his face and his eyes are a dim yellow, like a cat's. For as furious as he must be, he doesn't look at Grian with contempt.
But Grian is sorry. And he doesn't want to make any enemies, not yet. This was no strategic kill, it was just a poor accident.
So he sinks to one knee before the victim of his recklessness and he offers him what he can:
"My first life is yours. Use it as you will."
-
Scar, Grian quickly discovers, is a reckless idiot.
He wanders around at night without worry of mobs and he forgets to wear his armor half the time. Grian spends half his time telling Scar to put his clothes back on just so he doesn't have to keep looking at his bare chest.
It turns out that he really had no clue what he was getting himself into when he signed himself up for this. And though Scar doesn't outright tell Grian to protect him, he feels that it's kind of implied as part of their arrangement.
So they build a house together, a towering structure at the peak of what they dub Monopoly Mountain. It's not the prettiest view, but Grian appreciates that the barren desert makes it near impossible for anyone to sneak up on them.
Scar has taken up the hobby of scamming people out of their stuff while Grian watches helplessly as people continue to hand over their armor in exchange for meaningless words. (Grian is, begrudgingly, a bit impressed.)
At the very least, Grian no longer has to keep averting his eyes whenever Scar has his abs exposed beneath the shining desert sun.
And the dark oak and sand monopoly doesn't exactly work out, but chopping trees in a shaded forest with Scar, he has to admit that it's fun. For a little while, it doesn't feel like they're in a death game. They're just...finding harmless ways to fill their time.
They even have a pet, now, a kind of child they're co-parenting. Pizza, the "cat's" name is. Grian may not be quite as enthused as Scar is, but his clear happiness is contagious.
He doesn't want to jinx it, but he thinks that maybe things worked out alright after all.
-
A week passes. Scar fall in a ravine, killed by their own home terrain. Grian hears the crunch his body makes upon impact.
He runs back to their tower, to Scar's bedroom, where he'll wake up one more life short. He doesn't understand why his hands are shaking and his breath comes too quick.
There are other yellows in this world by now, but Scar will be the first red. No one knows what to expect, but when he wakes up gasping in his bed, Grian is there waiting for him anyway.
Scar opens blood-red eyes. It suddenly occurs to Grian that he should be afraid—Scar is a red-life now. He's hostile, he's dangerous. There's no rules saying he still has to honor their arrangement.
Scar's hands twitch against the sheets. His eyes are bit wild. But all he says is, "Are you leaving, then?"
Grian lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Of course not," he says, "I'm with you for the duration of my life, not yours."
That night he stares up at the sandstone ceiling and wonders why he didn't just take the out.
-
Scar never does turn against him, just picks a handful of lilacs and poppies the next day and presses them to Grian's chest without saying anything.
Grian's chest, where there is an odd fluttery feeling that is surely unrelated.
He takes the time to make a small glass vase, just so he has something to keep the flowers in. He fills it with water and places it on his bedside table, right beside his sword. If Scar notices, he doesn't comment.
-
Things don't change much, except for the way Scar will sometimes clutch desperately at his head and rake his nails down his arms. Except for the constant bloodlust and the quick temper.
Grian, for some bizarre reason, feels guilty. There is no logical way he could've stopped Scar from falling in time, and yet, if it weren't for Grian's stupid prank, he would only be on his yellow life right now.
So he makes a new resolve: aside from merely protecting Scar, he'll now do whatever he can to ease the red violence and the soothe the voices in his head.
They set traps. Most of them don't work, but they do get one triple-kill out of it, even if it doesn't go down the way it was meant to. Scar doesn't seem to care; for a while, he's calm again—almost back to normal.
But it doesn't last.
Fights begin breaking out in earnest as the threat of Dogwarts looms over them. Suddenly there are more reds and yellows than greens, and Grian finds himself growing restless.
-
Pizza dies. They bury him together, and Grian finds that he ended up caring a bit more than he meant to.
Scar is, predictably, hellbent on revenge—but this time, Grian knows there's nothing he can do to assuage the red's hold on him.
-
They make a couple tenuous alliances, though Scott is really the only one they truly trust to have their backs in a battle.
It's funny, how no one really seems trustworthy in comparison to what Grian has with Scar. They've been together since the beginning, and though it might've been for duty at first, that kind of bond can't be replicated. Scar knows Grian in ways no one else does—knows where he keeps his valuables and how he likes his coffee and how many blankets he keeps on his bed.
Sort of like Scott and Jimmy, he thinks, though they're husbands, so perhaps that's not the best comparison.
So having new people in their circle only draws them closer; they cling to each other and the familiarity of it. Cling to the assurance that, no matter if the rest of their alliance betrays them, they'll still be safe with each other.
Grian begins work on a bunker and a minefield and a lava moat in the desert. It feels good to build something, to put his hands to use, even if none of his traps so far have worked as they're meant to.
And, really, he needs to build him and Scar a new place to live before Scar forgets about the trapped front door of their old home and blows himself up. The stress it's putting Grian under simply isn't worth it.
-
When Grian loses his first life, Scar is there waiting.
They don't have separate rooms anymore, just a single sad-looking bed in the corner of the bunker where they sleep together each night, curled close to conserve warmth through the cold desert nights.
He can feel the aftershocks of his death wracking through him, a phantom pain that clings to him though his body itself is whole.
"Weird, right?" Scar says, like he's talking about the weather. But Grian isn't thinking about his own pain.
"Sorry," he rasps, mouth dry. He's said it a dozen times before, but it feels different now. The words hold more weight now that he's experienced death for himself.
And maybe he's not just apologizing for the creeper, either.
Yellow eyes meet red and Scar smiles a bit, like he understands. "I forgave you a long time ago, Grian."
Neither of them acknowledge the fact that Grian is now, fully and officially, free of their arrangement. Free to leave, free to betray Scar, free to do whatever he wants.
He stays. He's not ready to admit why yet, not even to himself.
-
The war rages on.
People fight, people die. They lose Jimmy and then Scott shortly after. (Scott should've lived, but he was mourning, and his eyes were red in more ways than one, and he was off his game. He should've lived.)
Together they bring down the Red King; Scar slays him with a sword to the throat. It's not as satisfying as Grian had imagined it would be. All he can think is that we're running out of time.
And then it's down to just three of them, Grian and Scar and Bdubs. The next step should be easy, obvious: Grian and Scar, who have been aligned since the beginning, who have become something more, fight together to kill Bdubs.
That's not what happens.
When Grian wakes up in the bunker he was starting to think he'd never have to use, he finally understands what it means to be red.
Suddenly he has a newfound appreciation for Scar's restraint in not killing him immediately upon turning red; the fury and the bloodlust is all-consuming. He can barely see through the haze in his vision.
But beyond the rage there is something quieter, something deeper. Hurt. Betrayal. It feels like a gaping wound in his heart, like a heavy stone dropped in the pit of his stomach.
Because Scar betrayed him. After everything they'd been through together—after Grian promised himself to Scar and guarded him with his own life, after they built a home together, after sleeping curled up next to each other in a cold and soulless bunker. Grian was there when Scar woke up as a red life. He was there when Scar found Pizza and he was there to offer soft words of understanding when Pizza died.
He's been here, by Scar's side, for all of it—even after no longer being bound by duty. And Scar betrayed him, just like that.
Grian is going to make him hurt for it.
-
He's not really all too sure of how things happen. He thinks he's yelling, about betrayal or honor or something similar.
All he knows is that he's drowning in his anger and he needs an outlet, needs to make Scar pay. Needs it like he needs air in his lungs. And yet, when he finds the two of them near a pond in the forest, Bdubs is the one he aims his bow for.
It doesn't matter anyway. Scar is the one who lands the killing blow.
One more to go, he thinks, and turns on Scar with his sword raised.
But Scar is on his knees in the water, neck bared and sword sheathed at his side. All the cards are on the table, there's nothing left to play. No last tricks up his sleeves or convincing words from this world's salesman.
(He knows he can't win this. He doesn't think he wants to, anyway.)
So he offers Grian what he can.
"My life is yours. For all that you've done for me - take it. Take it and win."
-
In another world, deaths mean very little and everyone stays friends at the end of the day. In another world, Scar and Grian gravitate toward each other time and time again. In another world, they share slow kisses and have sleepovers in each other's bases and go on dates in nice outfits.
In this world, Grian drops his sword in the water and pulls Scar up by the collar of his shirt to kiss him hard on the mouth.
It's messy, and harsh, only partially because of the red vigor that still compels them both. Scar's hands come up to cup his face like it's something precious, something delicate. Grian's hands loop around Scar's neck and slide up into his hair. They both ignore the blood still staining their hands.
Eventually they have to break apart, but they don't go far; can't bare to. Instead they rest their foreheads together and take deep breathes until their heartbeats are somewhere near normal again.
"I won't do it," Grian swears, when what he really means is I can't. Not like this.
Scar smiles softly, like he knows. "We'll win together, then."
-
In another world, Grian and Scar are enemies from the start. In another still they are bound by their very souls, meant for each other in every way. In many, they are close friends and never anything more.
But never are they nothing.
-
They hold hands as they stand before Pizza's grave.
Grian hadn't noticed, before, how quiet it was now: this world is empty but for them. The wind whispers against the sand and the broken remains of their once-home lay covered in ash.
He wishes he'd done something sooner. Wishes he'd said something when they were huddled together in the bunker. Wishes he'd taken advantage of all those lazy days of mining and farming crops and building up defenses. Wishes he'd decided to stand by Scar's side, no obligation necessary.
Wishes he'd never led that creeper over to begin with.
Pizza probably wished for a lot of things, too, in his final moments. Maybe he's still wishing for them now, in llama-afterlife.
There's a tear sliding down the curve of Scar's cheek. Grian brushes it away with his thumb.
They have their fight in the desert: where it all began is where it'll end. No armor, no weapons. Just fists and the ticking down of an oppressive, metaphorical clock.
-
Grian has always been the better fighter. That's what made them such a good team: where Grian had his sword and his explosives, Scar had his words. They completed each other, filled in the gaps of the other's weakness.
No one else ever stood a chance.
-
Scar is doing his best, Grian knows. But even as he pulls his own punches, it's not enough.
Somewhere between punches he starts begging him—begging him to hit stronger, to fight harder. Stay alive, he pleads, with Scar, with the Universe, with the moon. Please, please don't let me win.
And then Scar's on the ground, and the sand is stained red, and everything is messy and wrong.
Grian's mad, because Scar still betrayed him. And he's hurt, because he hadn't expected it even when he knew he should've.
He's grieving, for Scott and Jimmy and Pizza and all the other lives that were taken before.
He's empty, desolate, hopeless, because there is no other way for this to end and they both know it. They've been doomed from the start.
And here he is, with Scar, who he defended and fought, followed and lead, destroyed and was destroyed by. He hates him. He loves him. It doesn't matter; they both mean the same now.
"I'm sorry," Grian says. At some point he's started sobbing, though he can't quite remember when. "I'm so sorry, Scar. I'm so sorry."
Scar is dying rapidly. His breaths are coming shorter and that wonderful brightness in his eyes is flickering. He still looks beautiful. "I'm sorry, too," he says. His mouth is full of blood but he's looking up at Grian like he doesn't blame him, like he feels the same.
And then he goes limp.
Grian watches helplessly as the last red heart on his wrist fades away. This time there is no respawn. The body doesn't disintegrate before knitting itself back together again. This time there is a corpse.
Scar's eyes are brown.
In the midst of the storm of emotions raging through Grian, the only thought he arrives at is this: when they are not green or yellow or red, Scar's eyes are brown.
A sort of numb heaviness settles over him. Like the world has been dampened, muffled. Grian is empty, a gaping cavern, inhuman. There is nothing left inside of him.
He stands from the body and leaves it behind, turns to look at the view that surrounds him. Barren desert. Massive craters from his own explosions. The remnants of a tower and a bunker.
There is nothing left for him here. There is no one left for him here.
So he walks to the very edge of the cliff and looks up at the sky. "Are you happy?" he yells, voice raw. "You got what you wanted! I've won your game! Are you happy now?"
The sky does not answer.
Grian looks down at the drop. There is nothing but sand and jagged rocks below. But there is nothing but a corpse and the ruin of a home beside him.
Maybe Scar is out there somewhere, in another world, in another game, in an afterlife. Maybe they'll find each other again. Maybe they'll remember.
My life is yours, Grian thinks, and he jumps.
-
In another world, it might've been a wedding vow.