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liloinkoink · 2 years

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might be best to not look back

“Traitor!” Grian vaults over Bdubs’ body, not sparing the corpse a moment of consideration on his single-minded path toward Scar. His boots send water sloshing out in waves, but the sound is covered by the clanging of diamond on diamond. His sword crashes down on Scar’s chestplate, just short of slicing one of Scar’s eyes. Scar stumbles back, dropping to the ground, water splashing out from under him.

“Traitor! After everything we’ve been through!”

When Scar looks up, it’s to red eyes, shimmering with equal parts fire and water. Scar’s mouth clicks shut as the blade of Grian’s sword slides in below his chin, resting against the skin of his neck.

“What?! Nothing to say for yourself?!” Grian snaps, though his voice shakes, fumbling the rage that’s carried him this far.

Grian holds grudges, Scar knows, but anger can only fuel a person for so long before it burns itself out, revealing devastation in its coals. The fire at Grian’s heels is already sputtering.

Grian’s hand trembles, just a bit, around the hilt of his sword—Scar feels it in the way the tip of the blade bobs up and down against his throat.

Scar has always been an expert talker. At least, he assumes he has. He doesn’t remember anything before waking up in the forest months ago, but he assumes those skills must have some basis, to have saved his hide as many times as they have. He wouldn't have lasted nearly this long otherwise, or else Ren or Martyn or Skizz or Impulse or Bdubs or Cleo or anyone, really, would have stuck an arrow in his throat months ago.

(Grian knows it, too, has seen firsthand the way he’s escaped a hundred deaths with nothing more than a smile and some empty words. He pauses to ask for Scar’s last words anyway, though he doesn’t dwell on why.)

Scar has never goaded anyone into killing him before.

It’s not that Scar’s never done anything to make anyone want to kill him. He’s threatened, he’s insulted, he’s wounded and poured salt. A thousand times Scar has put on a voice and a too-sharp smile and laughed his way into making enemies of every person on the server. But even taunting a half-crazed, crossbow-wielding Bdubs, he’d been careful not to do anything that could rile the man up enough to raise his weapon with the intent to draw Scar's blood.

That was a line he’d never crossed. And why would he? What could he possibly have to gain by pushing someone over that edge? What could be more important than protecting his own life?

Grian—loyal, dependable Grian, always at his side, watching his back—standing in front of him with fury and grief blazing in watery red eyes. Seeing his sword and shield, his armor and his castle and everything that kept him alive and made living worth it cry, all Scar wants to do is apologize. He wants to take it all back, to take Grian’s hands into his own and beg for forgiveness.

But there can only be one winner. Grian has stayed by his side this long. Dying is the least Scar can do for him.

“Yeah,” Scar says, and despite everything, he scrambles to think of anything to say that isn’t I’m sorry, ”I shouldn’t have let Bdubs kill you.”

Grian lowers his blade, just a bit, his resolve and rage already receding at the hint of an apology. Scar bites his tongue to keep himself from giving it.

If Grian feels half the affection for Scar that Scar feels for him, he’ll never act without some great push. When Scar releases his tongue from between his teeth, he forces into his voice every ounce of fake cruelty he can muster.

If all that stands between Scar and the victory he desires is Grian and a bit of charm, then he can do away with both.

“We spent so long together,” I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, “I should have finished you myself.”

The last thing Scar ever sees is a flash of heartbreak in Grian’s eyes. Scar doesn’t have time to decide if Grian winning is worth Grian looking at him like that.

Scar slumps back into the pond, his body falling into the shallow water. He gurgles something, though whether it’s some last words or just a noise of pain is lost in a spray of blood and bubbles. A few more bubbles shoot out of his mouth, his nose, and the gash in his neck, though Grian doesn’t watch as the last of Scar’s life leaves him.

Grian doesn’t check if Scar has any decent items on him, either. He never wanted the enchantment table, anyway, so Scar can keep the stupid thing for all Grian cares. Grian doesn’t need it, anyway. He won. He won.

There will be no need for enchantment tables, not anymore, not when there are no kingdoms to defend himself from. No need for gleaming diamond forcing sharper and faster swords to pierce it just to stand a chance at winning, and no flaming swords or infinite bows forcing stronger and stronger armor just to keep the two of them alive.

…Or just the one, now. Just Grian.

Just the victor, knee-deep in a shallow pond. How does victory feel?

Why, Grian wonders, does his chest feel so hollow?

Grian shakes his head. It’s probably just the adrenaline wearing off. He’s been running on fumes since he woke up in his bunker, hunting down the two traitors all night and day without stopping to sleep or rest or think or breathe. He just needs to find an in-tact bed, and with a bit of rest, he can enjoy his win.

For a moment, he considers returning to the bunker, but his gut twists at the prospect. He’s exhausted, he decides, far too tired to walk all the way back… Joel’s house is still mostly in one piece, bar part of the roof, and Grian’s swaying on his feet at the base of the hill it rests on.

Without another glance to the pond, Grian starts trekking up the hill. The first rays of sunlight are already coming up on the horizon, but that doesn’t matter. Golden hour sunlight illuminates the battered cottage, and to Grian’s too-tired mind, the rays streaming through the charred roof could pass as divine.

Grian’s never been a poet, however, nor prone to any flights of fancy. There’s no hesitation to watch the shining sunbeams, to appreciate the first sunrise earned as the cruel game’s winner.

No, Grian simply pushes open the door and stomps up the stairs to the open-air bedroom. He doesn’t bother to take off his armor before falling face-first into Joel’s bed, only adjusting himself long enough to pull the thick blanket over his head and hide from the light.

By some act of celestial kindness, Grian dreams of nothing at all.

Grian has not slept alone in months.

He and Scar had rolled out their blankets in the space between the chests and the furnaces in their first night in the desert, close to each other and the furnaces' smoldering coals. They’d resorted to burning surplus dark oak in a bid to survive the freezing temperatures, way back when the Sandcastle was only foundation and imagination, and slept near to each other even as Scar’s newest burns still stung from his death just hours before.

Scar had never been far after. This was a habit that had carried over even after the Sandcastle was constructed, with beds pressed together in the tiny tower that served as a bedroom. The chill was lessened when they were no longer sleeping in open air, but the windows still let in too much of a draft, or so Scar complained, and so they stayed near. Cold necessitated closeness, after all. There’d been hesitation when Scar had come back ashy, but only from Scar—red eyes and a cold heart didn’t stop Scar from sleeping shirtless, and Grian wouldn’t have his charge freezing to death, regardless of whether or not Scar claimed he could still feel it.

And the desert was always cold, a fact which did not stop being true when they moved to the bunker, as the desert’s underground was no more forgiving than its surface. The excuse changed from fighting cold to easing paranoia when they moved out of the desert entirely, sleeping within arms’ reach at all times to pretend they could protect each other from being stabbed in secret on unfamiliar soil. It would have been wiser to sleep in shifts, but at no point did either man think to point it out, and somehow they'd ended up lucky enough not to pay for their sentimentality.

But this is the prize of the winner; to wake up alone.

The sun crawls across the sky and sinks below it, the moon giving chase from one horizon to the next. Without a threat hanging over him for the first time since Scar went red, Grian sleeps away the whole day and succeeding night.

Unfortunately, his still-beating heart demands he wake eventually, and so despite himself, he does. Light crawls onto the blanket, prodding at Grian’s eyes, drawing him back to the land of the living. His stomach rumbles, having barely been fed since he last died. Their combined efforts succeed only motivating him to reach across the bed.

His hand closes on cold fabric.

Grian sits up, shoving the blanket off himself, barely coherent. Scar isn’t here, where is Scar, Scar is—

Scar is on his back in a pond at the base of the hill.

Scar is dead. Months at Scar’s side and Scar is dead.

Grian swallows, staring blankly at the forest below him. If he stood up and craned his neck, he imagines he might be able to see the pond from here.

…The roof needs to be fixed, Grian thinks, if he’s going to stay here, in Joel’s cottage. Can’t have the sun waking him up every morning, and how will he sleep if it rains?

Not that Grian can really remember the last time it rained here. He doesn’t think it has once since they arrived, but he’s spent so much time under dry desert skies…

With a shake of his head, pulls himself from the bed. He must be hungry, he decides, and he’ll finally be able to appreciate his win once he’s eaten and cleared the hollow feeling from his chest.

Joel’s farm, Grian finds, has seen better days. Certainly it was better before Grian breezed through here yesterday—two days ago?—and raided the place trying to refuel before his fight, but, well. There’s still mutton in Joel’s storage that Grian is more than happy to help himself to, and he can figure the farm out later.

The meal is a quiet affair. It’s been a long time since Grian has been able to simply sit and enjoy some peace and quiet, without needing to worry about any unseen dangers.

So Grian takes a seat out in the yard, back against the outer wall, in a spot where the sun casts light over the side of the cottage. It wouldn’t have been safe to sit so exposed, but with no one left to take a shot at him, he can simply lean his head back, roll his shoulders until they’re loose for the first time in months, and sunbathe.

How does he feel? Does he feel good?

The warmth, he decides, is nice, much more comfortable than the smothering, sweltering hot he’s gotten used to over the last few months. He feels it against his back, soaked into the wall behind him, and against his face. There’s no immediate risk of burning, but a gentle glow, perfect for learning how to relax.

As he sits there, enjoying the day, his eyes fall on the village.

For all the damage the server has taken over the last few weeks, the village is relatively untouched, having suffered the bulk of its battering in the very first week. Most of that had been Scar, of course, with the flint and steel he’d been given by Grian himself, but Grian will admit he’d taken out a few terracotta walls, too. Not that he’d gotten to use them, as he’d soon run off to the desert, and…

At the thought, Grian’s stomach turns, traitorous as the man he’d just been thinking of. So much for a good meal, he thinks, pushing off the ground and brushing himself off. Even now, he brushes sand out of the red fabric of his clothes, and he cringes as he watches it fall.

The village is tainted with the memory of Scar, and really, what isn’t? Can a single thing remain untouched when Grian still tracks sand with every step?

There’s a shattered window in Joel’s cottage, and a dark oak roof replaced by Scar’s hand. Two craters in the desert, once home, made deadly by Grian and killed dead by Scar. Two of Grian’s lives, even. Not taken directly by Scar’s hands, but the loss of which Scar initiated. A lever flicked too late, a sword pointed at his open back without hesitation.

Grian gave everything to a man who clearly didn’t return the sentiment. Scar had been a conman, and Grian had been bought with honeyed words and sweet flowers. He’d been used and betrayed and abandoned.

And despite it all, he’s won.

How does he feel?

He’s free, he decides, from Scar. The backstabber, the madman. Grian had said for months he’d cut free as soon as he could, had spent weeks in the desert thinking about where he would go as soon as the chain snapped. Grian knew it would end like this, had warned every single person Scar had smiled at not to ignore the sharpness of his teeth for the way they shined. He knew, he knew, and the sword in Scar’s hand hadn’t shocked him, hadn’t hurt him.

Doesn’t hurt him. Can’t. Because if it does—if he doesn’t feel good about this, about winning—then how does he feel?

They’re even now, at least. He’d owed Scar his life and Scar had taken it, pulled the lever on Grian himself, trapping him in his own moat so Martyn could finish him off. He’d thought it an accident and gone running back, desperate to make sure Scar wasn't next, but in light of Scar’s betrayal, he has to wonder. Had Scar only been waiting for the chance?

There will never be a chance to ask. Only a hundred fond moments casting sinister shadows as they’re examined under the mid-morning sun.

Grian turns over in his head a hundred times he’d turned his back to Scar—running from Ren and his Army, pulling Scar’s wrist in his hand. Standing out front the Crastle with Scar at his back and a crossbow aimed between his eyes. Overlooking Dogwarts, face alight with a wicked smile as the grief-stricken Hand consoled his soot-stained King.

Standing on the peak of Monopoly Mountain, one of Scar’s arms around his shoulder, the other gesturing at a poorly-lit desert. Walking together on a dozen petty errands without so much as a glance at Scar over his shoulder. Cooking, back when the Sandcastle still had a kitchen, as Scar filled the air with useless chatter somewhere behind him. Scar popping a disc into a jukebox and pulling Grian out onto a patch of sand between their meager farm and Pizza’s grave, trying to convince Grian to dance with him. Sleeping soundly, night after night, unconsciousness unremembered and unconcerned.

On a platform high in the air above it all, bow drawn back and pointing at this foe and that, Scar over his shoulder with a dumb joke, asking for another flint and steel. Grian had asked for Scar’s true allegiance, then. In the end, he’d got an answer.

With his betrayal, Scar took from Grian every happy moment, every roaring laugh, every victory.

Well. Every victory but one.

So Grian won. Claimed the ultimate victory, conquered kingdoms, toppled castles. Outlived friend and foe and people who were both. Where, exactly, does that leave him? How does he feel? Does he feel good?

He does, he decides. He has to.

What else does he have?

#goodtimeswithscar #grian #desert duo #third life #third life fanfiction #lew writes #lew library #alt. desert duo finale #in which scar does not tell grian it's okay to kill him. and the winner does not change #i am of the opinion scar not only threw the final fight #but that he turned on grian and teamed w bdubs to goad grian into killing him and winning by taking revenge #but doubled back on this plan so that they could have a proper fight and genuine closure #which. ;)

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