#ALSO THATS THE TITLE!! THATS THE OFFICIAL TITLE!!! AAAAAAAA i love love love it im so pleased at how well the song fits the fic

[definitelynotshouting]

everything i loved and feared (first 1k)

hello scarianblr beloveds this is the unedited very beginning of my completed scarian fic that im posting for the hell of it. fic is 7k rn but that will likely expand after the final draft rewrite<3 so this is just a funky little teaser thats gonna be rewritten anyway, hence why i dont mind sharing.

CWs for: blood, graphic injury, implied character death. Enjoy :]

Grian’s eyes are red now.

It’s an odd color on him– not because it doesn’t suit him, but because it suits him far too well. Like a glove, Scar thinks past the hazy, heady fog settling over his mind. Red like his tattered sweater– like the blood that beads between Scar's neck and shoulder, clouding the water he kneels in. Red like life.

Red like love.

That’s the fog settling thick over his senses. Love, the amalgamation of it, something so beautiful and terrible that anyone else wouldn’t– shouldn’t– look at it head-on. But inside Scar’s chest is a warm purr; he has rolled the die, shown his hand, and now Grian stands over him, vibrating red, red, red. He’s gorgeous like this, all righteous, trembling fury. Scar wants to pull him close and kiss him until they’re both dead.

“You can kill me” he says, and his voice shakes with the cost of this victory. “Grian. You can kill me.”

Above him, an avenging angel falters. Grian’s sword, so swift with its raging swing, lowers by a noticeable fraction. “What? No.”

“For everything you did to me,” Scar says, breathless, “to keep me alive this long– you may slay me, and take the enchanter.” He lowers his head, until his forehead brushes against cool, rippling water. It feels like benediction. It feels like a curse.

Grian will win. It is both the least and most Scar can do for him.

When Grian speaks, his voice is small. “No– no, I can’t. I literally can’t. Scar–”

“Do it,” Scar insists, that eager haze billowing through his veins, unfolding to rest with steady pressure against his bowed spine. Distantly, he wonders why nothing is singing. There should be war horns, trumpets, a blazing, crescendoing melody. Birds, at the very least.

Instead there is only miserable silence.

Grian sucks in an audible breath. “I’m not–” he starts, then breaks off; Scar lifts his head to watch him struggle, how his grip loosens on the hilt of his sword, how his eyes pinch around the edges. Grian flinches, presses his free hand to his head, eyes going middle-distant.

“The spectators want a fight,” he says at last, hollow.

And this is what he's waited for, this moment of realization; the other shoe dropped, the culmination of the game they've waltzed around. Scar smooths his voice, curling it around the two of them with gentle, insistent pressure. “It’s okay, G. You can kill me. You can be the winner.”

For one, long moment, Grian holds his stare, expression flayed open for only Scar to see. Raw and wild, his eyes gleam in the dawning sun– thin strands of hair curl around his ears, damp from their earlier struggle in the pond.

Slow, so slow it’s almost imperceptible, Grian shakes his head. Clenches his jaw. “Scar, they want blood.” Something in his face shifts– some beetled brow, a muscle jumping before smoothing out. He’s shaking: ripples blooming around him as he wavers on his feet, as if adrenaline has finally retracted its claws.

Scar’s shaking too. Even in this, they are together.

Scar opens his mouth– to push, to press, to snap him out of whatever spell holds him in suspension– but Grian beats him to it; his sword lifts from its helpless stance, glittering bright and blue in the sun. His mouth twists, tired affection curling the corners of his lips.

“Scar,” Grian says, “no matter what happens, we can claim this as a double victory. Right?”

The words are a cool caress against his fevered skin. Scar sinks into them, eyes drifting shut– because even now, with victory dancing through his veins, he can’t look Grian in the face when he kills him. “Yes,” he breathes, and braces for the blow, the cut of diamond against his carotid–

It never comes.

Instead, a rush of air as the sword comes down; the sharp, wet schlck of a blade entering flesh; a choked-off, gurgling yelp. Scar’s eyes fly open just as Grian falls to his knees with a splash, and–

And blood is tumbling from his gut in great scarlet waves where his sword is buried, slicking around his hands where he grips the hilt. Grian’s teeth are stained as he grins up at Scar, sharp and feral, eyes alight with more fire than Scar has seen in them since he knelt to die. “You win,” Grian hisses, and shudders, one hand flying out to sink into the silt of the pond they’re both kneeling in. Like a toppling tower, the rest of his body follows suit, falling sideways into bloody water.

The fog clouding his mind is ripped away in one fell swoop. Scar isn’t sure if he screams– all he knows is that one moment Grian is collapsing, and the next Scar is holding him, breath stuttering in his lungs.

“Grian– Grian, no, hang on. Wait, wait, wait, no, no– no, no, no, no. Grian.” His hands find the hilt of Grian’s sword, but make no move to pull it out– that would just kill him faster. It's like he's been punched– the bright, earnest rays of the sun have missed their mark, gilded the wrong death in stunning, flagrant gold. “What are you doing?” he chokes, like that will reverse everything.

Grian was supposed to win. Grian was supposed to be the winner.

“They never said what kind of blood,” Grian says, hazy. His lips wobble. “I can’t– I couldn’t, Scar. I couldn’t kill you.” When he coughs, blood bubbles on his lips. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not,” Scar whispers, fingers shifting to catch in the wet strands of Grian’s hair. “You did that on purpose– Grian, you were supposed to win.”

He’d done everything– cast the die, folded his cards, offered up his life, because Scar knows himself; he could never handle being alone. Not in that emptiness. Maybe it’s selfish, how he’d planned to let Grian take that fall instead– but Scar is selfish. And more than that, he’s in love: awful, truthful, scarlet love, with a man now dying in his arms.

“You weren’t supposed to die,” Scar wails, terror thick in his lungs, despair a weight around his ankle. He leans forward, brushing his forehead against Grian’s, until the trembling puffs of breath from Grian’s lips fan over his own. “Grian– how could you?”

When he pulls back again, Grian grins at him. The sun slips across his face, revealing the pale, faded remnants of freckles scattered over his cheeks. Scar has always wanted to count them. He’s never gotten close enough until now. “Guess I’m just not cut out to be a winner,” he murmurs, one hand lifting to rest, delicate as a butterfly, over Scar’s cheek.

He does not say I love you. He does not say anything at all. Instead he guides Scar’s head down, until their lips brush, the taste of copper flooding Scar’s tongue. Then his hand drops, breath hitching, head lolling back–

Scar wakes up choking on his own desperate scream.