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Season Nine is ending.
It’s a little sad, Scar will admit. He’s grown so used to these surroundings, and the memories within them. He’s familiar—intimate, even—with the way the hills roll and the buildings and monuments rise above the horizon. And right now, familiarity is important.
At least, it is for him.
Secret Life ended with a bang, and Scar woke up with his heart pounding and the feeling of blood beneath his fingernails. He woke up safe and secure in bed, like nothing had ever happened. The only sign of it was a few new scars to his name, and the memories burned into the back of his mind. The memories that he had lost, for a while there, before his victory. He threw himself into work, for about a week, but time is running thin and he doesn’t have the time or materials to dedicate to another project, and there’s only so many hermits around, and—
Well, one thing at a time. Scar breathes in deep, grip tightening on his cane. He just needs… something. A distraction, for now.
He’s sorting out the whole death game thing at his own pace. Pearl had messaged him a day after they’d all gotten back to offer him a shoulder to lean on. It sort of stung a bit that Grian didn’t extend a hand, too.
Scar had taken Pearl up on that offer, though. They’d talked. He had a little bit better of an understanding than he’d had before. But now…
Scar shivers, an involuntary thing. Ugh. Distraction. He pulls up his comm with one smooth motion, eyes narrowing as he checks to see who’s online. Quite a few names come up—the last week of the server is upon them, after all—but his attention is caught by one in particular. One he, of course, was going to be drawn to. Grian is online, and Scar knows he doesn’t have many last-minute projects to be working on. Maybe he can wrangle the pesky thing into helping him with something small. It would be nice to at least ease back into talking about regular things again.
Though Grian would loathe to admit it, Scar is certain that he’s missed hanging out. And… well, of course Scar has missed him. They’re still friends. (Maybe more than that.) Mysterious entities beyond his understanding aside, Scar still cares about Grian. Even when Grian… creates a death game to appease some—not godlike, he’s not a god, Pearl had been very adamant about that, but… some kind of. Need, almost? He needs to stop thinking about it, before he gets too confused again. It was hard enough to parse the first time Pearl explained it all to him. Maybe he’ll ask Grian to explain it again, from his own point of view. Not now, of course, it’s far too soon for that, but… maybe once they’ve settled into the next season. For now, Scar flicks open his elytra, typing away on his comm.
> GoodTimeWithScar: Hey G where are you?
> Grian: base
> Grian: whats up
Shoot. He could’ve checked there without asking in chat. Now Grian will be expecting him. What if he’d wanted to prank him? Stupid. Scar checks his inventory for any goat horns, or anything else he can use. He’s got one, but he doesn’t know what sound it’ll make. A few eggs sit beside it. He’s… not sure where those came from. Maybe he can throw them at Grian from above?
Well, now he’s just stalling. Scar throws himself into the air, letting his cane drop into his inventory. The elytra do most of the work for him, carrying him along through the sky. He’s gotten much better at controlling them, though, and the skill shines through as he does a few loops around Scarland, just for himself. He has plans, however, and so he soars over the exit, pitching upwards and landing on one of the boulders that make up Grian’s base. The bird is somewhere around here, Scar thinks as he braces himself against the stone. He just has to find him.
It’s not that hard, all things considered. His feathers stand out, bright and colorful, against the earthy tones of his base.
Scar grins, snatching up an egg from his inventory, holding the goat horn with his other hand. He pushes off from the rock, gliding down toward Grian, who keeps looking down at his comm, none-the-wiser.
It is so, so easy to crack the egg and drop it on Grian’s head. At the same time, Scar blows into the horn, and the sound echoes, reverberates in his bones. Even from here, Scar can see Grian’s feathers all stand on end, and then his shoulders hike up to his ears as the raw egg lands in his hair. He yells—wordless and disgusted, shivering and shaking the egg out of his hair, feathers ruffling with displeasure as Scar cackles, quickening his descent.
“Scar!” Grian shouts up at him, scowling good-naturedly. “What is wrong with you?”
“It wasn’t me!” Scar lands in the grass a few feet away, pulling his cane out of his inventory to balance himself. “It was Poultry Man. You know how his tricks are.”
Grian wipes some more egg off of his shoulder, grimacing as he does so. “You know full well it was not.”
Scar shrugs. “I guess it’ll just be a mystery, then.”
“Right.” Grian flicks the last of the egg from his fingers. “Was that all you wanted to do, then?”
Well, shoot. He didn’t think this far ahead. Scar reaches for any idea, any project he needs help with—and comes up fairly empty. “Uh,” he says, floundering, “well, no, you see, I wanted to—or, well, I thought maybe you could—we could—”
Grian raises his eyebrows, looking more than a little confused.
“—hang out, or something,” Scar finishes lamely.
“Or something,” Grian repeats, frowning. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course!” Scar smiles. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
They both know the answer to that. Scar looks at Grian, all wide-eyed and nervous, and Grian just stares back, eyes flat. Scar fidgets with his cane, finally averting his eyes.
“If this is about the games,” Grian starts, voice gone somber, “I—I understand if you have some words for me. If you’re upset with me.”
Scar looks up, startled. “Why would I be upset with you, G?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” Grian echoes, eyes wide. “Scar, I made you and our friends fight to the death for weeks. I’ve done it multiple times. And you—you know all that, now. You remember it all.”
He glances away, tucking his hands into his pockets. His wings fidget against his back. “You remember the win, and the losses, too.”
The sun blazes down and Scar sees sand and red behind his eyes when he closes them. It had hurt, to leave Grian on his own—to give his life and let him win, to abandon any chance of a happy, red life together, just the two of them—domestic and devoted in the desert. He does remember, now, nights shared in the same bed, feathers between his fingers and warmth against his back. It had hurt more when Grian had left him. He hadn’t known why it hurt, at the time, when Last Life began and any hope of companionship died that first night. And then Double Life—
Scar’s grip tightens on his cane. “Yeah,” he says, and it comes out tenser than he’d have liked. “Yeah, I remember. But G—”
“You’re upset,” Grian says, miserably, “it’s okay, Scar. I deserve it.”
“I’m a little upset,” Scar admits, “but I missed you, Grian. I’m not mad at you.”
They stand there for a few moments, quiet settling over them like a heavy, tense shroud. Scar shifts his weight from foot to foot, before clearing his throat. “I’m not, really. I just—I want to understand why.”
Why Grian had done any of it. The games, the desert—why he had stayed by Scar’s side even after he died the first time, when he didn’t have to at all. Why he’d refused to do so afterwards, why he left him in the cold on the mountain by his lonesome. Why he’d been so angry about being tied to him, why he’d fled and made new friends and a new home in the arms of other men—
Okay, he’s a little mad. Maybe. “Why’d you leave?”
Grian seems to freeze, wings stilling against his back. He looks up at Scar with wide eyes. “What?”
“Why,” Scar repeats, slowly, “did you leave, G? I would’ve stayed by you.”
“Well, I’m not you,” Grian retorts, pulling away. “And if you were really in my position I think you would’ve understood why. Just because you finally won doesn’t mean you get it, Scar.”
“Okay, so explain it to me.” Scar spreads his hands out, palms up, fingers outstretched. “What don’t I get? It feels a little bit like I’m being stabbed in the back, here, G. We had something in that desert, and you know it. So why did you abandon it that fast?”
“Because I didn’t want to have to kill you again!”
It comes out sharp and biting, like talons piercing flesh. Scar flinches back from the outburst, Grian’s wings splaying wide, feathers all puffed up. He stares up at Scar, looking more earnest and angry and heartbroken than Scar’s ever seen him. He steps forward, jabbing a finger into Scar’s chest.
“You try being in that position,” he bites out, “having to kill the man you love, and then just act like it never happened. Would you want to just do that all over again? Do all that grief again? I didn’t want to watch you die again, Scar. But yeah, sorry that you missed me, even though we saw each other all the time.”
“Just like you saw Joel and Tim all the time,” Scar mutters.
Grian’s feathers ruffle. “Excuse me?”
He waves a hand. “No, it’s fine. Go on.”
“We aren’t even together, Scar,” Grian says, eyes narrowing. “You cannot hold them against me when we aren’t even in a relationship.”
To be fair, he’s not wrong. Scar isn’t even really upset about that, truth be told. It just—well, he’s just feeling petty, he supposes. He shrugs, leaning in a bit. Grian leans back.
“Well,” Scar says, “do you want to be?”
He says it slow and sly, in that way that makes Grian shiver. He’ll admit: he sort of likes this. Even when they’re arguing, he can still find a way to make Grian speechless, and it seems he’s just hit the bullseye. Grian flounders, mouth opening and closing wordlessly for a moment, before he finally squawks out a response.
“You are ridiculous,” he gasps.
Scar grins, cocking an eyebrow. “That wasn’t a no?”
Grian splutters again, before throwing his hands up. “Yes, I want to be with you, Scar. What is wrong with you?”
He pulls Grian into a hug. Grian tenses, just for a moment, before relaxing into it with a sigh. Scar threads fingers between feathers, resting his chin on top of Grian’s head, staring beyond him at grass and moss and stone. He just holds him, for a minute, closing his eyes.
“I’m not upset,” he says, quietly, “about the death games. I know there’s something more complicated going on, and I don’t really understand it, but there’s a reason you do it. And I trust you, G. And sometimes, it’s actually kinda fun.”
Grian sighs into his shirt, leaning his cheek against Scar’s chest. “But,” Scar continues, “I am upset that you didn’t talk to me. That you didn’t try to keep us going. I—I think I get why you didn’t want to, but now…”
“We both remember,” Grian finishes, quiet. “So it’s less stakes when we get into a game.”
“You can team up with whoever,” Scar says. “I don’t really care about that. It’s good to hang out with other people. I just—want to know, I guess, that under all of that, there’s still us.”
“There’s always gonna be us.” Grian pulls back, looking up at Scar. “I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise. I just—I get scared, Scar, that I’m going to bring you down, or…”
“We kill each other all the time on Hermitcraft.” Scar shrugs. “Sometimes you just have to kill your friends dramatically.”
“I suppose it’s less harrowing when you know you’re just going to wake up on-server again,” Grian muses. Scar grins, letting his arms rest on Grian’s shoulders.
“Exactly,” he says.
“And you want this,” Grian says, running a hand along Scar’s arm. “Like, you really, truly want this. You want…” he swallows, not looking Scar in the eye.
“Whatever you want to give me,” Scar murmurs, low and sultry in Grian’s ear.
He snorts, swatting at Scar’s chest. “Stop that. I’m trying to be serious.”
“That was serious,” he protests.
Grian just giggles, leaning against him again. Scar looks down at him, running fingers through his hair. Grian gazes back at him with wide eyes.
“Can I kiss you?” He blurts, shifting in Scar’s arms.
Scar grins. “God,” he says, “please. I was waiting for you to ask.”
(It’s everything he was hoping it would be and more. When he wakes up the next morning, there’s feathers in his face and warmth pressed against his chest. It’s everything, everything, everything.
And it only gets better from there.)