Chapter Text
Grian has been distant lately.
It wasn’t incredibly unusual, but Scar could tell that something was… not necessarily wrong, but just… different. Something was up, and he didn’t know what.
They took time apart, of course. It wasn’t like they were attached at the hip 24/7, but Scar hadn’t seen his partner pretty much at all since Impulse began breaking the bedrock at the bottom of the Boatem hole.
It was early on in the season still, everyone was running headfirst into their projects, but this was bothering him. It didn’t seem like Grian was necessarily avoiding him, he was just… nowhere to be seen.
So instead of working on the Swaggon today, Scar decided to scout around instead.
It didn’t take long for Scar to find him once he started looking. He had a sneaking suspicion Grian’s absence had something to do with the void hole under Boatem, and so it was the first place he checked.
Sure enough, there sat Grian - but he looked different than he usually did. Either his feathers had magically changed color, or he had molted in an extraordinarily quick timeframe. Whatever the case, his red, yellow, and blue parrot feathers had exchanged themselves for ones of an iridescent black, dotted with white specks like a starling’s. That was new. Grian had had the parrot feathers since he first showed up, two worlds (and what felt like two lifetimes) ago. They almost looked like the void itself, with its swirling nebulas and distant stars.
Scar landed quietly a few meters away, observing. Grian didn’t seem to have noticed his presence, his gaze firmly focused on the void in front of him. In fact, as Scar stood and watched, the stars on Grian’s wings glowed, pulsating faintly, not entirely a simple marking on his feathers as he had first assumed.
“Hey, G,” he said softly, taking a step forward.
Grian didn’t react, still frozen in place.
Scar frowned. This wasn’t like Grian at all. Was he drugged? Was he sick? Oh gods, had the Boatem hole somehow broken him? He wasn’t quite sure how that could happen, but how would he know? He had never gotten close to the void. Not when he wasn’t falling out of the world, that was. He had never gotten close and not died, so maybe this was a side effect? Would it infect Boatem? He had never heard of such a thing, but then again he hadn’t not heard of it either…
This was too dangerous and unknown, he decided. He jogged to Grian’s side and shook his shoulder gently. “Cmon, G let’s go,” he said, anxious to get them away from the object of Grian’s fascination.
That finally woke Grian from his trance. “Huh- what? Scar?” He seemed out of it, maybe a little faint. His words slurred together a bit as he blinked. “What’s going on?”
“We gotta get you away from this- this hole,” he explained. “It’s doing somethin’ funny to you.” He watched as Grian’s brow furrowed, and then he seemed to come to a realization. Of what, Scar had no idea.
Grian laughed. “You mean the void?”
Scar nodded.
Grian smiled, and stood up. “The void is harmless, Scar. At least to me, and those I protect,” Grian said fondly, looking up into Scar’s eyes.
As they leveled with his, Scar noticed that his eyes had changed color too: they now held deep purple nebulas of their own, that seemed to flash in time with Grian’s amusement. He lost his train of thought as he followed the intoxicating swirls and pulses in the dark.
“Hmm? What was that?”
“Scar, I said that the void is harmless,” he emphasized, tugging at Scar’s arm and pulling him out of his reverie. Right. The void.
“I don’t know, G, you looked pretty close to jumpin’ in,” he said, tearing his gaze back to the actual void - which was far closer to them still than Scar wanted it to be. He took a step away from it. Grian didn’t follow him.
“The void won’t hurt me, Scar. I used to live there, remember? I told you, back-” He trailed off, but Scar understood what he was talking about. Memories of hot sun and sand and new beginnings flashed through his head. He dismissed those for memories of another conversation they had had: one about Grian’s true nature, and the reason they had been planted in that game. Oh!
“Wait, are those wings the ones that you got- the… the- the Watchlings? Watchers? Watches?” Scar stammered, forgetting which exact iteration of the word was the correct one.
“Yes, these are my Watcher wings. Not all of them, though,” he said, and there was a sound like a hundred birds taking to flight, as two more sets of wings burst out from Grian’s back, one above and one below the main, largest set on his back. Scar lost sight of Grian’s face as three more pairs apparated on his head: one set pointing up, one set to cover his eyes, and one set to cover his mouth.
Scar yelped in surprise, jumping backwards in shock - and tripped straight into the void. “No! No no no,” he groaned, plummeting down, down, down, until…
He braced for pain, expecting the pressure of the void to force his respawn at any moment - but that moment never came.
Instead, something caught him. Or, someone. He felt an arm under his back and his knees, supporting him and keeping him stable in the cold vacuum of the void. That… should be impossible.
He looked up, just in time for Grian to pull away the wings covering his eyes and mouth. “Scar, I was going to tell you about the void; you didn’t need to fall in and test it for yourself,” he exclaimed.
“What in the world? How- how are you doing this?” he asked, eyes wide. He clutched more firmly at Grian’s shoulder, now that he had something to hold onto.
Grian thrust his wings down, propelling them out of the void and back onto solid bedrock, without using a single rocket. “I told you, I’m a Watcher.” He set Scar back down on the ground, letting him take a moment to breathe. “We live in the void. Well… most of them do.”
Scar paused for a minute, letting his heart calm back down. First the surprise of Grian’s apparent true form, and then falling into the void, and then not falling into the void, all in the space of a minute, was not something he had ever expected to happen when he woke up this morning. He was going to have to take a nap after this, he suspected.
While he calmed down, Grian sheepishly returned to his usual state. The extra wings disappeared, though his coloring remained dark. “Uh, sorry about that, didn’t really mean to scare you,” he apologized.
“It’s alright, just… glad we’re okay,” Scar sighed. He sat up straight, crossing his legs. “So how does it work?”
Grian frowned. “The wings, or… everything?”
Scar shrugged. “Either.”
Grian glanced about, casting his eyes back to the hole before responding. “I couldn’t tell you the physics behind how they work. They just… do. Just like how you want to lift your arm, and it just happens. I know my wings work in the void, and they just do.”
That was confusing. Scar wasn’t sure he fully understood, but he let Grian continue.
“I’ve just been thinking, ever since Third Life.” Scar inhaled sharply. Grian hadn’t called it by its name since they had returned from the death game. Grian ignored him and continued. “Being confronted with the… the Watchers. After having escaped them for almost three years, it was a lot. And now, in the same space that kept me safe from them, having access to the void is…” He trailed off, seeming unsure how to describe it.
“Also a lot?” Scar suggested.
Grian nodded. “Yeah.”
A comfortable silence fell between them for a minute. Scar watched Grian collect himself, taking a deep breath before joining Scar on the bedrock. Scar leaned over and rested his head on his shoulder. Grian tilted his own head, pressing a soft kiss to Scar’s crown.
It was peaceful down here. More than Scar had ever considered, actually. It was a bit chilly, but he always ran hot anyway.
Grian finally broke the silence. “I don’t mind it,” he whispered.
“The void?”
“Well, not really. I meant the hole to the void, specifically.” He shifted, reaching his right arm under Scar’s left to interlock their fingers. Scar began rubbing his thumb in circles, warming up the avian’s ever-cold hands. “It’s about choice, isn’t it? I was pulled back to the Watchers and their void against my will; but I chose to break this bedrock.”
“Wait, didn’t Impulse-”
Grian nudged his shoulder. “You know what I mean. I asked for it to be made. I didn’t break it myself.”
Scar pouted. Damn. “Aw, okay. It would be cool if you had special insta-bedrock breaking abilities though. Imagine the pranks we could pull!”
“We could do a lot with that, which is why I don’t. Too dangerous to use lightly,” he explained.
Wait a second. Scar’s brain took a moment to catch up. He sat up, pulling away from their embrace. “Wait, you can do that??”
“Not in my Player form, but as a Watcher, yes I am able to.” He spoke about it so nonchalantly, as if that were a normal thing to say.
Scar sputtered and waved his finger at him. “We will be talking about this later, mister, but I’ll let it go for now.”
“I’m sure we will,” Grian agreed. He paused, before continuing. “The void itself is not good nor is it evil. It is a place. It exists. But, like someone might be afraid of the dark for what they cannot see within it, I fear the void for the creatures who inhabit it. Or at least, I did until recently.”
“What changed?” Scar suspected he might know - it had been a very significant event for everyone who had been involved - but he left it to Grian to confirm it.
“Third Life, funnily enough. It was… terrifying. But being immersed in the void for the first time since I left reminded me how much I myself am tied to it as a Watcher myself. It is my home, and my own powers draw upon it. I am one of them, as much as I regret it; but I shouldn’t be running from my past anymore.” He stood up, holding his hand out to Scar on the ground.
“Can I show you something?” he asked hesitantly. He stood up, holding his hand out to Scar on the ground. Scar took it, and let Grian pull him to his feet.
“Always,” he responded.
“The other wings are coming out, fair warning. I don’t want to have to catch you again.”
“Warning taken,” Scar laughed sheepishly.
Grian released his true form again, and this time Scar barely flinched. Grian lifted Scar into his arms once again, and took a step backwards, this time falling into the void together.