Chapter Text
The fall was not fun.
Debris, in the form of dirt and grass and muck, flew as Grian hit the ground hard and fast. It caked itself onto Grian’s clothes and body, sticking to his hair and clinging desperately onto his skin. It poked and prodded at his already throbbing flesh, making a game out of it.
Sharp inhales and exhales rose and deflated his chest, breaths coming in fast. The remnants of their power, of the cruel lightning that crackled through Grian and connected in between veins, nerves, and bone, still shook his body. It dug its way in, tracing paths and leaving him sore, his blood pumping only serving to irritate the ache deeper. He could not see and he did not try to see. The sun was heartless, and always loved to scorch Grian in particular.
The weather was pleasant, and yet it still beat down on Grian and set him ablaze. It burnt and peeled the skin back so it could reach in, scoop his fat out and let the smolder reach as far as it could. Much like himself, the sun did not care for what spilt—viscera carefully dragged its way down his side and plopped itself onto the ground he lay on the longer he stayed still.
A gentle breeze blew over him, rustling the leaves and plants surrounding him. From what he could hear, there were no voices or signs of human activity. It was a much needed break, and the knowledge he wouldn’t be found for a little while longer had him offguard; tired. Grian could sleep here, if he so wanted. The sound of birds singing and flying about filled his ears, and the disturbance of grass could be heard a little closer as the wind pushed it.
It was so nice, no hot sand melting through skin in an expansive desert or freezing nights gnawing past blankets and flesh. It was just good , and cool air held Grian gently and weaved softly around him as he laid there, growing accustomed to the pain that shot through him with every breath.
Cold, raw earth smooshed his cheek as he shifted, and slowly, the world came into view. A small crack breaking through the black turned into a scene of overarching trees and flowers, a little bug crawling away from him. It was untouched, beautiful, and alive. Nothing sat dead with dried blood surrounding it, and there were no craters or burnt down forests; weapons didn’t sit abandoned near where a corpse once lay, and there was no sign to have ever been bodies strewn about this world. It was lovely.
It was not Grian’s home, certainly, but it was Scar’s. This Scar’s. Not his, they had implied it was far too advanced into the future for that, but it still remained true that it was a version of him. Of his love. Right now, Grian was hesitant to ask for more than that. Greed always came back to bite him.
Knees met Grian’s chest as he curled in on himself, restlessness and adrenaline seeping out of his body and giving back to nature as fatigue forced it out. Goodness, he was tired. He wanted to rest, to close his eyes once more and just dream. Dream of a better time, when Scar was alive and he could still hear his voice calling him…
“Hello?”
Any content left Grian’s body as he shot up, a voice out of breath and confused sounding far too close to be safe. A voice that sounded much too familiar to be safe. Grian realized then, as he grabbed at a sword that no longer sat on his hip and looked up at him , that this was not going to be a quick job. There was no blade, bow, or even potion he could reach for, and standing up would do nothing for him. Unless he found dirt to be a reasonable weapon, or instability for a good minute as he stood, he had to witness. Grian had to witness Scar; talk to him.
Talk he says, but really, as he tried, it was nothing more than having his mouth flail about like a fish out of water. Something about seeing a version of his sunflower—of the person he held dear—in front of him now, perfectly unharmed, hurt something he couldn’t name. The bullet pierced his chest and lodged into his heart, the beating driving it deeper and deeper. Red spat out and coated his eyes; blurred his vision. He swore it wasn’t anything else.
The man— Scar his brain drilled into him, not computing that it shouldn’t yearn for a stranger—cleared his throat, “...Gri?”
And if that didn’t shatter something in him, Grian didn’t know what would. God, he sounded tired and raspy and broken . And yet he sounded so present, he sounded alive. What more could Grian ask for? This wasn’t him, he couldn’t remember everything his beloved did back in their world or hold the knowledge of what happened during the game, but Grian wished so deeply for that to be the case. He needed to want.
“Scar…”
More than wind disturbed grass as feet tripped over themselves to make their way forward, to put hands on Scar’s shoulders and hold the winged man’s stumbling form, “Scar!”
So, maybe Grian was a little bit greedy. Maybe he did want to let himself believe this was his love for a while longer. That didn’t mean much, it really didn’t, considering Grian knew it never could be. And he was sure, deep down, Scar knew the same thing. They weren’t each other’s to have, their loves had long died.
Grian felt a hand move upward, tentatively wrapping around his wrist and pressing in. He reasoned he could feel his pulse as much as Scar must’ve right now. It hammered against every vein and artery, he could hear it rushing blood throughout him. But Scar , whose eyes were wide and teary, who looked absolutely gorgeous and soft, could feel it now too. It was a shared existence—however superficial—now, and knowing he wasn’t alone loosened the thread around his soul a faint amount.
If he was Grian’s, if this Scar wasn’t from somewhere so distant, he felt he might have embraced him right there. He would have no trouble pulling him down, peppering his face with kisses; willing away his tears. He would be holding Scar and keeping him there for as long as he could.
And as much as Grian had self control, as much as he knew this Scar wasn’t his, old habits die hard. It wasn’t a crime to indulge a little bit, and he was so warm as Grian nuzzled into his chest. He felt so complete right there, as he relaxed his muscles and let himself feel safe for the first time since Third Life. And, god, did he want to cry as a large, comforting hand held and cradled his head; as the other wrapped around him and kept him close.
“You— oh my gosh , you’re back? You’re here?” Scar shook where he touched him.
Grian’s voice was awfully small as he spoke, peeking his head out to stare at rows of trees, “Where is—where are we?”
“This—it’s just beside my base, It’s okay.”
The hand shifted, petting his hair and pushing him back down against Scar, ear to his heart. His heart that still pumped blood to his body and kept him alive. It was comforting. Even with the eyes on him, the anger and jealousy he felt setting fire to the clothes that wrapped around him and burning the skin on his back, Grian felt okay; like he couldn’t be hurt.
“G…” His voice was shaky, “They—those three, they killed you.”
Scar buried his face into his hair, and Grian didn’t need to see him to know he was crying. Hands on him scraped at his back, keeping him near, and choppy inhales and exhales moved against his cheek. They were all Grian needed to know what state he was in. Scar thought he was his; that he came back. And maybe in some way that was true, but reality couldn’t be ignored. The separation between them—even while pressed together like this—was so large.
Wings wrapped around Scar, shielding him and keeping him close. They held him there protectively, unwilling to let what was so precious go. A small noise left the taller man, surprised and soft. Hesitantly, warmth bloomed from the underside of Grian’s wing, fingers carding through the feathers gently. Grian, for the record, did not melt further into the arms of the man, and did not feel the need to cry. He did not, decidedly, feel fondness for this foreign flower.
“...This is new! The uh—wings and everything, I mean.”
“Hm?”
“You’re different. No, okay—not in, like, a bad way! Definitely not, I mean, you look stunning, really! The purple suits you—but, ah, I’ve never seen you wear anything like this before?”
And for every damned god listening, Grian was not , and never would be, affected by being told he looked good by Scar. Certainly not with this version of him. That much remained true as he looked up at the man infatuated with the feathers on his back, and as he felt his face warm. Grian was not a weak man, and this man was not his. To hell with him if either of those statements weren’t true.
“Gosh, you’re warm, arent’cha?” Heat left his wing and traveled to rest on his forehead, “Well, you got quite the layers for a sunny day, and the black isn’t doing your temperature any favours.”
Maybe Grian was a weak man. He let himself lean into the hand, nodding half heartedly, “Mhm. I—I don’t quite know where…I got these from?”
“Where you…got them from…?”
“...Yup.”
A sigh, before Scar’s hand ruffled his hair. Grian was given the mercy of moving onto a different topic as his fingers caught, “Gee, Gri. Your hair is a mess! I know I usually kept it clean but…this is bad!”
Grian gently swatted the touch away, “When have you ever—”
“C’mon! All the time! Seriously, did'ya leave me just to get yourself killed?”
The hand returned nonetheless, this time pushing the two of them far enough apart to delicately undo the clasp of Grian’s robe, pulling it off and letting the sun reach his thin, black undershirt and flowy trousers. It kissed his skin and let him breathe. As lightweight as the cloak was, the weight it seemed to lift off of him was enough Grian felt he could move freely again, his muscles grown used to being limited by something so insurmountably heavy it held him to the ground.
Newly folded cloth sat upon Scar’s shoulder, and his other arm reached out and tenderly guided Grian through a worn path, through bushes and flowers that all stood vibrant and alive. Greens shifted, slowly, into something much more yellow and flat. Rocks and little hills flattened out into smooth, flat ground, and trees whittled out over time to be far more dispersed.
Scar let a small tune fill the air as he hummed. It floated through the air and led Grian to push his head against Scar’s side. It was something that he remembered from the desert, something his beloved had always done when doing anything. Hearing it now, so soon after war and destruction had meant no free time, carved him hollow.
Among the empty, leveled ground was something that stood much out of place, contrasting soft oranges and yellows with sharp, dark greys. It resided, tall and spiky, in a shape that wrapped around something much smaller; much more fitting to its environment. A small house, resembling something of a cute storefront, nestled itself inside the rough walls. Orange overwhelmed the exterior, and attached to the side sat newer, less worn wood. Whether that extension was to make up for the ruins of something white and quartz-like beside it was not as easy to answer.
“What’s all this, then?”
The lovely humming stopped and the hand upon his back tensed slightly, “Why, this is my base! You’ve been here before.”
“Ah. My memory—my memory isn’t the best.”
Something incredibly cruel about this view, however, was the fields. Sunflowers upon sunflowers sat nicely in the area, covering the ground. Yellows covered greens, and Grian wasn’t able to look away from it. It was a horrible comparison to Scar, something so alive and delicate.
Faint footsteps crunched grass and made their way up the hillscape the house sat upon, and a feeling that ached like foreign familiarity racked through Grian’s body. It weaved itself between his veins to find his heart and constrict it. The feeling left it struggling to beat, blood trickling from the incisions it tore into him. Scar held onto him tighter, keeping most of Grian’s body weight on himself.
This was not his world, far from it, but it felt as if it were. Grian knew this tug on his soul, he knew this world’s Grian had loved it; loved him, too. It placed itself deeply in his being, something he wasn’t able to get rid of no matter what. He still refused to let it sway him.
These thoughts stuck with him, hanging off his back and yanking his skin from his spine as damaged, sunken in steps supported their weight. The door at the front was more so a set of bars on a hinge, and inside was something so horribly Scar that it seemed to pull the threads around Grian’s heart so tight it burst.
Barrels and chests lined walls and sat upon high-placed shelves, a counter stretching from one wall to another, only broken by a set of gates leading into the back. From the opened archway that sat behind the small doors, he could see a shallow hallway. As they passed through, he found the only thing the room held was cabinets and drawers, paintings—a non-surprising surplus of sunflowers amongst them—and a door that was much more full than the main one.
Scar had snuck away from his side and past the door as Grian had begun looking around, emerging with a towel and letting him glance at the white room beyond—a washroom. Grian’s view, however, was quickly taken away as said towel was thrown at his face.
His shoulders slacked, “Scar.”
“Grian!”
He, once again, did not need sight to know of the grin that rested on his friend’s face, “I don’t—”, a hand patted his head through the fabric, “Dude! I’m fine, I don’t need to wash myself!”
The towel slid off of Grian’s face as he struck forward blindly and Scar scuttled behind him, giggles leaving his mouth. Feet skidded across the carpeted floor as the winged man was ushered forward into the threshold of the room, “Nonsense, you silly goose!”
Grian turned on his heel as soon as the touch left his back, swaying as he focused his vision, “Seriously, this is ridiculous—”
“Take your time, G!”
He was not given time to respond before a hatch that hid a rickety ladder was opened on the other side of the floor, and he was left alone. Alone, with nobody to talk to. Alone, if he ignored the set of eyes that ignited with envy as they watched him. Even past the barricade of the door, as it clicked closed, Grian could feel it.
It stayed even as he slid off his shirt and grabbed a cloth, plunging it into the water that sat in the tub pushed in a corner. It stayed as he washed and dried himself; as he rebuttoned his shirt. And it was prying . It melted his flesh back to reveal what made him vulnerable, what he held close to himself, and it did not care for feelings. Grian hated her for that. Grian hated Eros for being so foul, like that.
Cold seeped into his skin as he touched the doorknob, and Grian paused. This job, this murdering of trust and life, would crush him so much less if he didn’t get attached; if he didn’t let himself stay. This much was obvious. He couldn’t dream of killing Scar without a weapon, either. The only reason he had done it before was because the man let himself be beaten to death, and, certainly, that was not something either of them wanted to happen again.
This was what drove him to turn on his feet, letting them hover above the ground as his hands fumbled with a window that sat high in the room. It did not lock, there wasn’t time for any such luxuries in these games, but it did open and close without much of a fuss.
And that was what allowed Grian to leave without a sound, wings as uncooperative as they were when wet.
—
Bone drummed against wood for the third time in a row.
G had been in there for a few hours, and as much as Scar wanted to believe he was just taking his time, something also nagged at his mind; reminded him that his sweet was always one to run away, never staying in one place long enough to be caught exposed. This was what made his anxiety less of an unfounded knocking on his heart—speeding blood flow up and sending him into overdrive—and more of a reasonable worry. His knuckles hit wood again, incessant and pleading.
The echo of his voice heightened as his volume increased, “Gri, you’ve been in there an awful long time!”
Scar couldn’t hear any signs of life on the other end of the door, no wringing of cloth that spilt water, or tapping of feet as G paced—he couldn’t even hear breathing. Talking didn’t seem to help either, then. Eyes drifted down with his hand, warm skin wrapping around cold metal, and Scar sat waiting; hoping that, maybe, he hadn’t run this time. It was never the case, and his hand turned white as flesh flattened out on the round handle.
“G?” Any prior giddiness, any joy at finally having someone , let alone his someone again, dissipated.
Forgoing decency, and impatience pushing the back of his feet forward, Scar let the door click open, showing him just how empty it had been left. Only the towel remained, damp and thrown on the floor with little care. At the very least, Gri had cleaned himself off. Scar was only that much more ashamed of the way he deflated, how hurt he was that he was left once again; forced alone. Scar’s vision went white, then, and he was forced to squint.
“Oh,” Sunlight poured into the room, his hand shielding his eyes from its path and allowing him to see more clearly.
Turning his gaze fully upward, he found—as one would expect from a disappearing act such as this one—that the window was left ajar. A soft breeze flowed in and cooled the room, lessening the burning in Scar’s cheeks after his foolish expectation that Grian would stay with him.
The towel was moved to sit nicely on a hanger, left to dry in the empty room, and Scar made his way through his small home. He shuffled past the storefront and into the sun, walls blocking any view of where Grian could’ve gone. His sunflowers remained healthy, and nothing stood majorly destroyed—excluding his courthouse—in the small safe haven. Inconveniently, as he observed, there was also no sign of a particular bird.
—
The sun had begun to paint everything orange when Scar finally found him.
He'd searched the clear, close areas first, and made the executive decision to look at Grian’s old base before anything more than that. Scar wanted to be quick, find him before he hid away for who knows how long. The walk there—past memories and familiar plains—wasn’t painfully long, but it wasn’t the quickest journey. He blamed the holes that embedded and stuck themselves into the ground for that. If one stepped wrong, outside of the small areas Scar procured for himself after countless inconveniences, something would certainly kill them.
Wither didn’t just go away , and that held true even more so when it had something alive to feed on. It clinged onto grass and flowers, eating away at them but still letting them grow. The patches of blood were particularly loved by the rot, too, and just having to stare at it, walk beside it as he searched, made Scar sick.
Treading up the hill, charred wood and crumbled staircases sitting lonely on the ground, his eyes wandered. The egg, birch and built for one person, was left abandoned and rebuilt—something Scar had done when he was particularly missing Grian. A few months ago, he would have rather zipped his mouth shut and thrown away the key before ever admitting to that.
Now, in a time where Scar had his sun back—where he had nothing to miss—he was nowhere to be found. Gravity worked against him as he half stumbled his way to the bottom of the steps to the base again. Still, G remained nowhere to be found. He’d have no reason to travel the entire map, and certainly wouldn’t want to, considering his wings were most likely wet, and his legs had never worked as well as other people’s. And, if that was the case, maybe he hadn’t left the area Scar kept presentable around his base at all.
This line of thought had Scar mapping out the zone entirely. Grian had never liked being cornered, and rivers and tall mountains definitely wouldn’t leave him anywhere to run. And, really, if G felt it, he may have gone back to the base, or wandered closer to it after seeing it was empty. In the end, it just meant looking somewhere more covered.
Upon looping his way back around, everything in his home still existed dormant and quiet. Nothing was shifted and nothing creaked. Grian had never been known to be particularly quiet, and so Scar had ruled out the house as an option. He did, after a moment of thought, pause and crack open a barrel that sat in the corner. Gri, for all his recklessness, never liked being powerless or exposed. An extra weight added itself onto Scar’s person.
Imprints left in loose dirt formed a path where Scar walked, a trail that led to a clearing he nearly never visited—especially not when the man who showed it to him had gone. It held pretty flowers, pops of colour that bloomed and shone in the sun, and tiny boulders and rocks that dotted themselves around.
It really, really, was beautiful. The man in the centre, his little sun that sat with gorgeous, reflective wings on his back, made it all the more breathtaking. Scar's ears twitched as birds sang, tweeting and trilling as they flitted between the branches and leaves. Reds and blues surrounded the figure in the centre, muddling together in little bunches of blossoms as Scar approached. He tried not to disturb the plants.
—
Grian really hadn’t been paying enough attention when Scar had found him. He knew he should’ve been looking out for the animals making a ruckus and flying off, or the grass folding in on itself as feet forced it down, but he couldn’t. He had to kill a man, this man , as soon as he could. How was he expected to be fully present during the whole ordeal? It was straight-up ludicrous; Grian wanted to will it all away and make Scar leave.
The voice came anyway, wishes disregarded, “Oh, man, there you are!”
The person it belonged to—by the time Grian blinked—was in front of him, standing so close and so tall. Flowers crumpled and cried out as he let himself fall backward, heart racing to move muscles faster than his brain could manage to work.
“Oh my goodness—Scar!” His hand moved to his hip, and still, nothing laid there.
On Scar’s hip, however, there was something new. As chipped and beat as it was, a sword sat nicely on his belt. Grian pulled his legs closer to himself, anything but eager to be backstabbed—his brain worked against him; shouted at him that his dear would never.
His eyes set the sheath ablaze, melting the metal inside of its casing, “Y’know, you don’t need to—you didn’t have to chase after me…”, his voice dropped to a mutter, “Certainly didn’t need to scare me like that.”
Scar’s shoulders slumped, worry knitting his brows even as he spoke with tease coating his tongue, “Can’t a man be worried about his friend? You’ve never just up and left—especially after I’ve treated you so well!”
“Dude!”
Forming a scowl, Grian let his face twist. This man—this stupid, silly man—couldn’t just watch his words one time, could he? Grian didn’t need somebody else to answer that, actually. He couldn’t. It wasn’t that he was particularly mad at Scar, but seriously. At some point the things he let slip past his lips became horrifying.
When Scar spoke up again, Grian was reluctant to look in his eyes, “Yada, yada. You know what I mean! Now, mister, I think we should go back and—”
“I don’t need that. I’ll work it out, Scar, it’s okay. Just—let me take a—I’ll be fine, I promise.”
“...Well. I know, you’ll be fine, of course you will! You’re ama y zing G, I’m just wanting to take care of ya! Make sure you’re okay, take you home, treat you nice!”
As he said, horrifying, “I—You know what? You know what, sure . A hundred percent, Scar, I get that.”
The man’s smile slipped for a second, fully willing to return full force as he processed what Grian said. It sat so prettily, stretched across Scar’s face and pressed dimples into the sides of his mouth. There was nothing he loved more in his Scar, but the skin around this one’s eyes seemed to wrinkle differently as they squinted with his grin. Teeth didn’t show as much, and there wasn’t nearly as much pink in his cheeks.
The light in Scar’s eyes shouldn’t have hurt so much, considering all of their differences, “Yes! So…!”
Grian never should’ve had so much trouble responding—surely not as much as he did in that moment. Hope was always very fragile, but it was especially so when it landed into Scar’s hands. It was dangerously misleading when it nestled its way between his fingers and wrapped around his wrists. Hope trapped Scar, it always had, because some hope meant the possibility for a future much better, and his flower was always one to strive for things far above him.
Words had to be grabbed and pulled up from his throat, scratching against the sides, “So, no.”
As much as seeing hope build up hurt—beading and leaking its way past Scar’s bundle of nerves and into the front of his eyes—witnessing it leave was agonizingly worse. It dripped off of his cornea and pierced into Grian’s skin as it dropped.
That shattered hope crawled its way up toward his throat, and his words came out rushed and constricted as it emerged and guided his lips vaguely upward, “I got to get my bearings again, y’know? I’ll be back to see you again after, I promise.”
Lips pursed together for a moment as Grian was observed, a tentative smile taking its place, “Right, right. Of course, G!”
As nothing more left either of their mouths, Scar seemed to be increasingly interested in a blade of grass beside Grian, his hands moving to tap on the sides of his legs. Clearly, he wasn’t leaving just yet. It did mean more time to know what made this version of his love tick—what made him react and feel and move—and Grian wouldn’t have been particularly bothered in any other situation. Getting him to leave was important right now, though. He did genuinely need to get his bearings.
“Look, Scar—”
“No it’s all good, all good…! Uhm—oh, yes! I do have this,” his hand rushed to get to his hip, the sword that weighed down his flimsy belt being extended toward Grian, “Bayum! Cool, right? It’s for you, my sun!”
The ridiculous smirk that overtook Scar’s face had him hesitating, staring, “Oh,” Grian’s eyes reluctantly drifted down, taking it in his grasp.
It wasn’t particularly heavy, as he usually hated in any weapon of his, and it wasn’t awkwardly sized. Long, bulky blades were always a pain Grian believed was specifically made for him. This one was nice, though. It would sit nicely on his side, and wasn’t so saddeningly old it’d fall apart if somebody breathed too hard on it. This gift would also, coincidentally, be what ended up taking Scar’s life. It wasn’t his fault it was handed to him.
The image of the sword blurred as his gaze moved up to look at Scar…or, rather, where Scar had been. His head whipped side to side, tilting like a bird’s might once he found nothing. It was what Grian wanted, but he hadn’t even been given the chance to utter a thank you or a goodbye.
Perhaps it was for the better, really. With how weird he was acting, whenever Scar so much as smiled or looked at him, Grian would’ve had a hell of a time wishing him farewell. Knowing Scar, thinking back on what his love was like, he’d get a warm, soft look. He’d feel a hand ruffle his hair or wrap around his back to pull him closer and hold him tight. He’d feel something he didn’t want to right now.
Those two were too similar for their own good, as obvious as that sounded.
So, really, yes. It was definitely, completely, and entirely, for the better that Scar left. The greenery below Grian felt torturously itchy now, urging him to get up and move, as slow of an endeavor as that was. Little bits of soil that clung to the fibres on his trousers were brushed off, and a new heaviness sat on his left side.
As much as it brought bile up his throat, a hand guided him forward and kept him balanced as it led him deeper into the forest. It masqueraded as gentle, it always had, but assuming it was anything close was ridiculous. Soft steps and a gentle tap against Grian’s hip as he walked was all that could be heard as he made his way to wherever it had wanted him to go.
Forest thinned out into fields, and it became increasingly obvious that this map was where one of their games was held. Navigating would be tiring, given the straight-up chaotic terrain, and nothing about it had Grian eager. But if it meant getting this over with—if it meant killing Scar faster—maybe he’d get over it. He had to, he supposed.