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When Grian awoke, he was seething. He could barely keep track of his own movements, of the things he saw and heard, vision flooded with red and tunneled in on one blinding singularity.
He was going to kill Scar.
But, no, that wasn't quite adequate to describe what he wanted.
He was going to lace a thousand cuts onto Scar's skin, go over scars he'd once tenderly traced with gentle hands and reopen those wounds, watch blood mar the flesh that had once belonged to him, that he'd once dedicated himself to.
He was going to tear the limbs from Scar's body and grin as his once companion was reduced to a motionless pile of skin and viscera, he was going to brutalize him.
They'd been partners. Together against the world. Loyal only to each other, sworn to each other through hundreds of intricate promises that could never be revoked.
Until they were. Undone, unraveled, a mess of cut strings and empty words lying in a heap on the ground, dead.
Grian was furious. Mostly because he didn't know how to be anything else, in the moment. The red that tore across his veins, that screamed and pounded in his ears anew on his third life, begged him to get revenge tenfold. To reduce Scar to ruins, just like the bond he'd made a mockery of.
Grian listened. He didn't have the strength to do anything else, not after a betrayal of that magnitude.
It was a beautiful day in the desert. Grian couldn't even tell as he ran across searing sands, not even cognizant of the way they scorched his bare feet, as he ran through forests getting caught and nicked by every stray branch, seeing each new drop of blood only as a reminder of his mission, as he ran with only one goal in mind. His vengeance.
As it turned out, running across the entire continent wasn't a quick trip, even to what was essentially a heat-seeking missile. Grian lost steam pretty fast, but kept doggedly marching on at a brisk pace, face grim-set and determined to carry out what he deemed his justice.
Even in his state of hysteria, echoes of his former self whispered to him. Notions of thoughts came to him half-formed, almost lost amidst the chaos of his rage.
He'd been here before. Not intentionally, the first time, but back at the very beginning he had stood beside Scar's corpse and known the charred skin and bubbling blisters were his own doing. Truth written in the gunpowder streaking his hands, in the smoking crater where a monster once lurked and groaned and hissed.
And here he was, back again, ready to finish the job with purpose this time.
So much for repaying his debt. Earning back Scar's forgiveness.
…There was a part of him that had thought traitorously, for a while, that Scar had forgiven him the second he had laid himself bare, had pledged him his life, even before he paid his due in service.
There was a part of him that thought that Scar would always forgive him. That's just the kind of person he was—the kind of person Grian had thought he was. Had wished, futilely.
He didn't quite know how to fit Scar back into the picture of him he'd created. It seemed impossible to reconcile the funny, goofy, ever-so-often witty ray of sunshine with the cold-blooded killer who'd taken his second life.
Maybe that comparison wasn't so hard. He recalled snatches of conversation, off-hand, unhinged comments that seemed to slip by unnoticed, hints of the deadly, cutthroat beast that lay beneath.
Every time Scar killed, he'd do it with a smile, looking slightly more deranged each time.
Grian tightened his grip on his sword, and kept going.
At some point, the thought struck that this might be some sort of karmic irony. The dots connected in his brain, and he wondered how he hadn't seen it sooner.
He took Scar's first life, surely Scar deserved to take one of his.
He was being facetious, though. After all he'd done? Everything he'd put into Scar, into the both of them? He couldn't let his one mistake justify this. He couldn't let it tear apart the one guiding light he still had left in this wasteland.
But the thought nagged, even as his anger sparked anew. It tugged and it ebbed, just slightly there, just barely unable to be drowned out by the storm inside his head.
He couldn't linger for too long, though.
He was there. Scar. Bdubs was, too, but that was less important in the grand scheme of things. Grian couldn't really blame Bdubs for wanting to keep himself alive, whereas he could absolutely blame Scar for putting them in the situation to begin with.
Not that he'd pass up the chance to wipe that disgustingly crazed smile off Bdubs's face, to watch in glee and madness as he snapped like a twig under the weight of Grian's wrath. It was just lower on his priority list, for the time being.
He wasn't sure how it happened, in the end. For as much as he'd anticipated the moment of his strike, the animalistic scream of "Traitor!" that had ripped from his throat, the moment his sword would slice through tissue and cartilage, it all just… went by in a blur.
One moment, he'd launched himself from a forest cliff, laser-focused on the demise of his once-partner, his bloodlust only fueled by Bdubs's shouts of dismay.
Then, he'd watched Scar stab Bdubs in the back in the exact same way he'd done to Grian, and they were falling, thrashing about in a murky, shallow pond of all places, and then…
Grian held the sword to Scar's throat, hands shaking, hair mussed, eyes blown wide with some terrible concoction of fear and fury, and he met his eyes.
Red to red, for the first time. He wasn't green. He wasn't yellow. They were finally on level ground.
Grian had a single, fleeting thought about just how much restraint Scar must have shown to not immediately eviscerate him, if this was what being red was really like.
Hands shaking, hair mussed, eyes blown wide, he almost did it right then and there, crossed the few inches necessary to cleave Scar's head clean off his body, but he was shocked into stillness by words that filled the pervasive silence, words that he could feel rumble all the way up from Scar's chest to his mouth, from the way he was perched atop the man in the pond.
"You can kill me." he said.
"For everything— everything you've done to keep me alive thus far." he insisted.
Grian's hands went slack, for perhaps the first time since he'd awoken in that crimson trance.
"It's okay." Scar pleaded, without meaning.
Reluctantly, Grian dragged his eyes back up to meet Scar's, from where they'd been hyperfocused on the pulsing veins in his throat.
Red to red, for the second time.
"No— no, I can't." came the instant response, from some part of Grian that still clung onto days in the desert long past. He wasn't sure he even believed the words himself, but just as he said, he let the sword fall from his hands and sink into the water, left there to rest, forgotten, for what would become an eternity.
He recognized the words as they tumbled from Scar's mouth, recognized them because of the ghost of the past he saw in them.
I'm sorry.
There was an apology hiding behind those words, behind that action of vulnerability, one that couldn't be conveyed just in the sentiment alone.
Because it was too great a mistake to be atoned for in the sentiment alone.
Because he had made a mistake too great to be atoned for in the sentiment alone.
A life for a life, wasn't that always how it went. A life of service or a life ended, they really were just the same.
What was forgiveness, in the end? Did it matter? Did it really matter whether Scar forgived him the very moment he returned, whether he carried that grudge with him until now? They would still stay together. Partners in crime. They were too similar to stay apart for too long.
I'm sorry, Grian didn't say, as Scar begged once more for him to end it and take the victory he deserved. As he apologized in words that no one could hear.
I know you are too, Grian didn't say, as he hoisted Scar to his feet, as they made the journey back to their homeland.
I forgive you, he let linger on his tongue, as Scar looked back at him again with those same eyes as always, red to red for the final time, staring him down in a ring of cacti against the glare of the sun.
Eventually, inevitably, the words died. Grian would never be able to speak to Scar through his words. Their relationship was built on hatred and forgiveness. Sin and absolution. They'd always come back, in the end. They were too similar to stay apart for too long.
"I'm sorry," he said, finally, as a corpse cooled in his arms. Scar knew, Grian was sure he did. He'd finally spoken the unspoken during their duel, tears betraying the guilt he'd carried like a locket against his heart. All Scar could do was smile, and respond in kind, and Grian knew that he had been forgiven the moment Scar heard the words. That only made it hurt worse.
"I know you are too," he repeated aloud, finally, releasing the thought from the prison it'd held in his mind.
He got up. The sun was high in the sky. It was a beautiful day in the desert, and the sands were stained with blood.
"I forgive you." he asserted, finally, not that it was necessary. He would always forgive Scar. It was just the kind of person he was.
But, it was something he needed to get off his chest. Something he needed to clear from his mind, to release into the world. It wasn't a burden he wanted to take to his grave.
And as he fell back down to the earth, right back to where he started, as he let his mistakes consume him whole, Grian felt lighter, knowing that wherever he ended up, he would be forgiven.