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The fire crackled, burning the hair off of Grian’s skin.
Scar was standing there, giggling to himself as he threw more items into the burning sand. Everyone else was dead. It was just him and Scar, normally against the world, now against each other. There could only be one winner, despite the fact that both of them agreed it had been a double win.
He stood up straighter, dusting off his hands, face slightly pink from the sun. “Well! I guess it’s time, right?”
Grian nodded reluctantly. “They want blood.”
Scar scoffed, waving a hand in dismissal. “Yeah, yeah, blood and Watching and all that. Fight me!” He stuck up his fists. Grian wanted so desperately to correct his form, show him where his feet were meant to be. He stayed quiet.
Scar aimed for his chest- Scar should know better than to aim for his chest, he should be aiming for his face, why was he doing that? Grian punched him in the jaw, a pang going through his heart. The man kept going, hitting Grian’s side and arm and even his throat. It wasn’t enough.
Eventually, both with bloody noses and bloodier fists, Grian had Scar pinned. He punched and hit and cried, the sound of Scar’s grunts and groans making him sick to his stomach. The eyes were cheering him on, waiting for their moment.
“Scar, I’m- I’m so sorry,” his voice broke as he hit the other in his nose, right between his eyes. Scar only grinned loopily at him, teeth red.
“You did incredible,” he whispered before the next punch came.
Grian sobbed, tears sizzling against the sand, splattering pitifully. Scar’s chest stopped moving, his eyes lost their color, his head rolled to the side. The desert was silent, a place once so filled with joy and laughter replaced with a broken home and a broken man.
The eyes cheered in celebration. They kept calling for one more thing, something Grian wanted to give to them. He wanted to leave, to be with Scar again, and they could give it to him.
Scar wouldn’t want him to. Grian might have just murdered the man, but he had known him well enough to know that despite all of their banter, Scar would have been more heartbroken to see Grian afterward than to know he was alive- even if it meant Grian would spend time sitting in their cold home without him.
So instead he pulled himself off of the body, pointedly avoiding the blood on his hands and his face and his clothes. He said nothing as the eyes watched him walk back into the house atop Monopoly Mountain, settling on the sandstone flooring and weeping.
*
There had been silence for weeks.
The wind blew the sand around and Scar rotted. His body attracted crows and vultures, and Grian had warded them off every hour of every day. He couldn’t bring himself to pick him up, to move him to a proper burial like he deserved. It hurt to see Scar decay, but it would hurt more to pretend that he hadn’t been the one to do the deed.
Grian did nothing in the meantime. He sat on the floor, sometimes on the windowsill, staring aimlessly into the horizon. The eyes continued to groan in boredom, unable to move on until Grian himself passed away. He began having to force himself not to leave the sandy house for fear that the temptation to slip off the edge would overtake him. There was little food, but he never felt like eating. Scar would have had him eat, he knew. But Scar was gone and lifeless on the ground right outside Grian’s door, and so he continued his hopelessness from the warm and cold home.
*
There had been silence for two months.
Grian was barely himself anymore. He felt frail, the food he managed to scarf down barely doing anything to help him. The world seemed tasteless, colorless, a shell of what it once was.
And then there was a sound.
It was faint, so small and short that Grian had to strain his ears to hear it. After the silence of the desert, the only thing breaking it being the wind and Grian’s own tears, it wasn’t difficult to identify that something had changed. Mentally, he cursed himself for dozing off for a couple of minutes. What had he missed in that time?
It sounded again, a little louder this time. Grian pushed himself off the floor, eyes going hazy for a second before he balanced himself. His wings dragged him down, messy and unkept, but he continued until he felt his feet dip in the sand. It burned his heels, making him wince, and then he almost blacked out at the sight in front of him.
Scar, beautiful and kind Scar, was no longer rotting into mush in the sand. Instead, he was sitting, an arm propping him up, and breathing . He wasn’t exactly grinning as he normally would, but he smiled so brightly when he saw Grian that it made him want to sob.
Maybe he did, because suddenly Scar’s expression was sad. “G, are you okay?” He looked around in confusion, trying to pick himself up. “Why are we still here?”
Grian let out a choked noise before bolting forward, wrapping his arms around the man and holding him tight. He almost tripped as he did so, but Scar caught him, holding him close, and god, Grian would give anything to stay like this.
Scar’s hand carded through his hair, a greasy mess that, on another day, Grian would have been embarrassed about, but he didn’t have the energy. Scar hugged him, whispering kind words to him. He couldn’t stop crying, only muttering “I’m so sorry,” again and again.
Scar hushed him. “Don’t apologize for anything, Grian. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I- I won.”
“Yeah? Congratulations!”
Grian shook his head. “It’s not a good thing, Scar. They wanted me to,” he motioned vaguely to the cliff. “And I thought it would be bad to, so I didn’t.”
“So you’ve just been sitting here alone for..?” Scar trailed off, concerned.
“Eight weeks.”
“Eight? Grian! No wonder you’re a mess,” He said, ruffling his hair. His tone was light, but Grian could sense the worry beneath it all.
“I’m fine.”
Scar raised an eyebrow. Grian surrendered. Something about being alone in a desert with the rotting corpse of your best friend- lover?- made you not want to argue.
Suddenly, he stood up, wobbling a little bit, and Grian helped him stabilize himself. Once he did, he put a hand on Grian’s arm and began dragging him into the house. Grian scrambled in confusion, but he didn’t put any real effort into pulling away.
“We’re going to get you taken care of and all cleaned up,” Scar said proudly. Grian tilted his head.
“How? We don’t have anything, Scar, remember?”
“Oh.” Scar stopped in his tracks. “Yeah, I guess I forgot about that. How did I forget about that?”
“Well, maybe being dead can cause some memory problems,” Grian suggested with a shrug. Scar nodded reluctantly, continuing to lead him inside.
“Either way, we’re figuring it out together. You’re not alone anymore, okay?” Scar said, holding his hand so lightly it almost hurt.
“Scar, what if we can’t leave? What if we can’t leave unless-” His breath quickened, and Scar quickly grabbed his shoulders.
“That’s a problem for later. Right now, we’re both here and safe . Focus on that.” He said the words softly, and Grian couldn’t help but believe him, at least for that moment.
“Okay. Okay .”
“Great! Now, what’s first? Your wings are looking pretty rough.”
Grian hesitated. “What about you? You just came back from the dead, Scar. How can you just act like everything is okay?”
Scar stiffened, seeming to think for a moment. “It’s weird. Being dead has kind of made me sort out some priorities.”
“And I’m one of them?”
“The very first.”
Grian sighed, rolling up his sleeves. “Fine, we can do my wings, but then I’m finding a way to repay you.”
Scar sat down on the ground, hands outstretched. “Uh huh, sure. Let me help you first.”
And so Grian sat in front of him and let Scar preen his wings, pulling out feathers that were just hanging on- which turned out to be a third of them, concerningly. He brushed out grains of sand and Grian felt his tension release, more than just from his wings being clean. His time alone in the desert almost made him forget what it was like to be around Scar. He didn’t mind being reminded.
When he was done, Scar let out an obnoxiously loud yawn. “Huh, didn’t realize doing this much right after coming back would be so exhausting. I’m ready to nap.”
“Bed is in the corner,” Grian told him, readjusting his shirt. Scar wandered over and picked up the blanket with a single hand, looking at it strangely.
“This looks like it hasn’t been touched in years.”
“More like two months, but close enough.”
Scar turned to him quickly. “You haven’t slept in the bed for two months? Grian, where did you even sleep?”
Grian pointedly avoided eye contact with Scar, planning to come up with some kind of lie, but his silence was answer enough. Scar groaned, no real malice in his voice, walking back to Grian and dragging him over. He tried questioning what he was doing, but the man gave no response. Grian noticed the way his hands were warm and reminded himself that he was alive.
“Alright, come on,” Scar said, dragging Grian onto the bed. He nudged Scar with his elbow but melted into him easily. Scar put his chin on his head and Grian realized just how tired he was.
“Goodnight, Scar.”
“Goodnight, Grian.”
There was a beat of silence. “Welcome back.”
Scar smiled. “Thanks. It’s nice to be back.”