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thetomorrowshow · 2 months ago

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Whumptober 28 - Denial

title: just one bite

fandom: secret life smp

cw: violence/gore, very unsafe/gross food practices, vomiting

Jimmy’s barely stepped out of the Cherry Blossoms’ Nether portal when—

“What? Hey—!”

Someone jumps on him from behind, shoving him almost to the ground. He staggers forward several steps, trying to toss them off—he catches a glimpse of red hair swinging in his face—

“Gem—” Jimmy grunts, shoving her backward against the edge of the portal. “Get—off—”

She growls in his ear, tearing at his shoulder (between his neck and his armor, a small patch covered by his shirt and usually his jacket, which he had shucked for his trip to the Nether) with her teeth, both hands occupied by holding onto him.

Her weight is heavy on his back, too heavy with how he’s still out of breath from dodging a ghast on his way to the portal, and he shoves back again and this time her grip loosens.

“Someone, help!” he shouts out of frustration, glancing around for anyone as he bucks, finally throwing Gem to the ground.

She scrambles up almost immediately, and for a moment, Jimmy’s certain she’ll jump him again (there’s a glint in her eye, something red that he really doesn’t like), but Scott comes sprinting out of a building, and Impulse comes down the hill from their tower, and Gem backs off, slowly wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Everything okay?” Scott asks, stopping at a safe distance away, keeping a suspicious eye on Gem. Gem moves closer to Impulse, and the two of them have some moment of communication—she nods toward Jimmy, gives Impulse a significant look. He nods back.

Jimmy huffs, clutching his chest. “Jeez, Gem, give a man a heart attack! She jumped me on my way out of the portal!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come through our portal,” Impulse suggests, voice . . . flat, less joke-y than Jimmy would have expected.

Right.

“Well, I’ll just be going,” Jimmy says loudly, backing away toward the stairs—

Only to get bumped into by another person, sprinting on past like they didn’t even notice him.

Bdubs makes a beeline for Gem, where he stops and she . . . nods, again, at Jimmy.

He looks back.

Bdubs is Red, now, Jimmy saw that pop up on his communicator, but when did he throw in with Gem?

And why is the look he’s giving Jimmy almost . . . hungry?

Jimmy doesn’t like this.

He doesn’t like this one bit.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” Gem says, thoroughly unconvincingly, her voice devoid of emotion. “We’ll see you soon.”

And, erm.

That was.

“That was ominous,” Scott laughs nervously, and Jimmy has to agree.

Then he leaves, not quite turning his back on them.

There’s something strange going on there, no doubt. Probably best to let it be and focus on his own task.

When Jimmy gets back to Baxter (not back-to-back at Baxter, Martyn isn’t there and he really isn’t sure that he trusts Martyn, anyways, as the man is now the only Red and Jimmy thinks he might jump at the chance to make them both Red), he strips off his armor to replace his jacket and notices the tear in the shoulder of his shirt.

He frowns, tugs down the collar of his shirt, checks out his back in the tiny mirror that Martyn had found.

Okay, not bad. Where Gem had gotten him through his shirt, his skin is a little red, some small bruises sure to bloom soon enough. There’s a bit of blood with the fading imprint of Gem’s teeth, only two or three of them deep enough to actually pierce his skin.

Why on earth did Gem bite him? He can’t taste that good. What kind of task would she, a Yellow, have that would make her attack (and bite?) another Yellow?

Weird. It’s all weird.

Well, he has a minute, and he’s already at Baxter, so Jimmy pulls off his shirt and sets to fixing it up real quick, messy stitches pulling the hole closed.

That’s life. Sometimes your friends ambush you and bite your shoulder. Usually it’s their dog that bites you, of course, but sometimes they need to cut out the middle-man.

So really, Jimmy doesn’t pay it much mind. It doesn’t feel strange compared to some of the things he’s done in the past, honestly. Not normal, not necessarily, but not weird.

What possible bad effects could it even have, anyway?

“Timmy! Get in here!”

It’s that evening, and Jimmy was just stopping by the Roomies’ base to ask for a trade (his pickaxe just broke, he’s short one diamond to make another) only to find the place seemingly abandoned. He’d wandered around for a bit, knocking on doors and glancing about, but he’d finally assumed that nobody was home and decided to go try Pearl instead (though she did die earlier today, and he isn’t sure how amenable she’d be to trading).

But right as he was about to head out, a whispered shout got his attention.

Jimmy looks around again, frowning.

“Grian?” he asks uncertainly. “Are you here?”

A long sigh, and a couple of meters away, a trapdoor pops open, hidden by surrounding grass. Grian’s head pokes out, and he frantically waves Jimmy toward it.

“This isn’t suspicious at all,” Jimmy says. “Is this part of your task?”

“Forget the tasks, get in!”

Which is very unlike Grian.

So Jimmy lowers himself through the trapdoor, follows Grian down a ladder and then a thin, rough-hewn tunnel, then up another ladder until they come out . . . in the Roomies’ base.

“Why couldn’t we use the front door?”

“Trapped,” Cleo says shortly, coming down the stairs, Etho right behind her. “Grian? I thought you said that we weren’t letting anyone in?”

“It’s just Tim,” Grian waves her off. “We need someone we can use as bait.”

“Bait?!” Jimmy sputters, taking a careful step away from Grian. “I’m—I’m not bait! Bait for what?”

What’s with people and having tasks that seem to directly harm him?

Grian, Etho, and Cleo all make dark eye contact. Eye contact that Jimmy doesn’t trust, not one bit.

The front door’s trapped. He can try to go back the way he came, but he can’t get down a ladder faster than someone can drive a sword through him. His pick broke, so he can’t mine out.

“Have you noticed anything . . . weird . . . going on?” Grian asks after a moment, and Jimmy scoffs.

“Weird? Other than you luring me here to use as bait?”

“They’re zombies, Jimmy,” Etho says ominously, and Jimmy blinks.

“What’s zombies?” he asks, assuming they aren’t talking about normal zombies. Everybody knows that.

“The others,” says Grian. “Gem, Bdubs, Impulse, Pearl. We think it started with Gem—she killed Bdubs, right? Then Impulse. But—”

“She killed Pearl,” Cleo interrupts. “And I saw it. Tore her apart with her teeth.”

Jimmy’s stomach turns.

He’s not the biggest fan of violence, but he can get his hands dirty. Figuratively. He usually has to be at least a sword’s length from any death he causes, because he really isn’t a fan of blood and flesh and all that! It makes him queasy just to kill from a distance.

To imagine Gem, literally tearing into Pearl with her own teeth, blood and viscera dripping everywhere until Pearl eventually died in her arms?

Traumatizing.

Jimmy actually wants to vomit just thinking about it. He really doesn’t like gore.

The injury on his shoulder aches, just a little. He rubs it absently, trying to shake the horrible image from his mind. “So—so what makes them zombies?”

“They’re hunting,” Grian says. “Bdubs wasn’t allies with Gem, but now he won’t leave her side. Same with Pearl and Impulse. They’re all together, hunting every Green and Yellow left. They were after Scar, last I saw.”

“They look wrong,” Cleo frowns. “They’re stiff, and their eyes are . . . off.”

“They’re zombies,” Grian repeats, and Jimmy. . . .

Jimmy still doesn’t really believe them. Why—how would there be zombies?

“Sure,” he says, glancing back to the trapdoor. “Can I go now? I have a task, right, and—”

“It isn’t safe—”

“If you don’t want—”

“We need to find other people,” Etho says reasonably, silencing the other two. “Maybe Jimmy can go get Joel?”

“Or he can be bait,” Grian suggests again. Cleo nods.

“Well, now I don’t want to leave,” Jimmy mutters. “Prove that they’re zombies.”

“Right. Come with me,” Cleo says, pushing past Jimmy to head down the ladder.

Which is how Jimmy witnesses the hunt.

Cleo leads him across the map to the Secret Keeper, where they hide behind one of the boulders, poking their heads over just enough to see what happens. They make it there just in time for the hunt to cross past them.

It’s . . . disconcerting, if he says so himself. Four Players on horseback, chasing after Scar, who runs by, panting and exhausted, his hair damp with sweat. Scar climbs up the boulder they’re sheltering behind, shoots a couple of arrows at the pack that has stopped, waiting.

“C’mon, Scar,” Gem calls, and Jimmy hears it again. That odd emotionless quality, the feeling that, perhaps, she prefers not to speak. “You, of all people, will love it.”

“It’s right up your alley, Scar,” Pearl entices, and maybe it’s a trick of his ears, but she sounds the same way. Still Pearl, but . . . not-quite-right.

“No! No thanks!” Scar yells, voice jumpy and panicked and downright terrified. “I don’t want to join your little murder cult, thanks!”

He ducks as an arrow whizzes over his head, and Scar shrieks before running away again.

The pack follows.

Cleo stays frozen for another moment, head tilted slightly as she listens, presumably ensuring that they’ll be safe.

That. . . .

That wasn’t right. Like, Jimmy’s sure that he can justify it with relatively few mental gymnastics, but it wasn’t normal behavior.

“I need to get some stuff from my base,” he whispers, and Cleo shushes him, but doesn’t tell him no, so Jimmy scrambles down from the boulder and makes a break for Baxter.

What does he need? Some food, probably. A note for Martyn—hey M, zombies!!! bye -J—enough iron to craft up an iron pick if he never gets another diamond, a change of clothes, some other necessary survival-y things.

And when he leaves Baxter, he finds Cleo with Scar again, over at the Heart Foundation.

“Scar,” Cleo’s saying, looking down at him from a horse (when had she gotten a horse?) that seems to be very skittish around the quite new fire spreading up to the heart. That hadn’t been happening when he left. “Scar, the ones chasing you—”

It’s out of nowhere that Pearl and Gem ambush Scar, shooting at him as the man jumps away, fear fresh on his face—

Then Pearl leaps off her horse and sprints, faster than should be possible, diving into Scar and knocking him to the ground. Jimmy winces as the arrow in Scar’s back get twisted under her weight, but he barely has a moment to notice it before Pearl buries her teeth into Scar’s upper arm.

Scar screams, flailing, and Pearl pulls back, stringy flesh snapping free in a burst of blood, and goodness gracious Jimmy might throw up, his legs are trembling and his palms are all clammy—

Gem dives to Scar as well, and her teeth dig into his cheek—

A hand grabs the back of Jimmy’s shirt and he panics, kicking out blindly, he doesn’t want to die like that—but it’s just Cleo; she sits him in front of her on the horse and snaps the reins and off they ride.

Jimmy doesn’t watch. He doesn’t watch, but he can’t cover his ears. He can’t not-hear Scar’s warbling pleas for help, his agonized screams, the slow trail-off.

His communicator buzzes.

He doesn’t have to check it to know.

“I told you,” Cleo reminds him, and Jimmy swallows several times.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Jimmy manages.

“Not on me.”

That night, back in the new housing arrangement, Jimmy’s hand brushes against his own shoulder while changing and his breath vanishes from his chest.

No.

If the zombies is a real thing, and Gem’s the one who started it—

Jimmy doesn’t look at the bite. He can’t. Well, he can—Grian has a mirror, but he won’t. He won’t look and see if it’s progressed.

His skin is a bit warm under his touch, though.

Probably just because he’s had his hand on it for so long. He just warmed up his skin, is all. He’s fine.

It still hurts. It still twinges when he presses on it, his shoulder aching just a bit, through and through.

He’ll be fine. They probably have to kill him, right? He’s fine.

Jimmy pulls on his nightshirt, careful that the collar doesn’t slide down in the back, and opens the door to the bedroom, before pulling the rough wool blanket off Grian’s bed and laying it out on the floor, where he’s decided to spend the night.

Goodness gracious. He didn’t expect this to happen this week.

“There’s five of them, then,” Grian says, walking in and stripping off his sweater, left in his white undershirt. He stretches, briefly flexes his muscles (defined by the hard work that comes with joining a new server) in the mirror before throwing himself onto the bed. “Great. I really wanted to have to worry about a zombie apocalypse on top of all my other problems, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy chuckles. “I’ve got a task to do, dude!”

“I’m just surprised they haven’t got you, yet. You’ve cheated death way too many times already.”

Jimmy doesn’t touch his shoulder. He doesn’t even think about it. “Yeah. Guess I’m stuck with you, huh?”

Grian groans. “Tim, I really don’t want to babysit you this week. I’ve already got a dishwasher to keep an eye on, I don’t need two responsibilities.” “You won’t even notice I’m here.”

“Right. You’d better not betray me after this. I gave up space in my bedroom for you.”

Jimmy would never betray him.

He hopes.

It’s day two, and Jimmy’s feeling . . . fine.

Which is a relief, honestly. He skips breakfast to go on a walk, the early morning fog not-quite-cleared, around the back of the base and up the hill, where he stops on the bed monument and sits, the sheets a bit damp from dew.

He slips off his pack, massages his shoulder as he looks out.

He’s not spent much time on this part of the map. It’s nice, different from where he’s set up. It’s very green here, plenty of trees and scurrying animals and whatnot. If he looks to the left, he can see a bit of the mesa, and he briefly hopes that Martyn’s doing all right.

Who is he kidding? Of course Martyn’s doing all right! It’s Martyn, he’s been Red for ages and fine the whole time. And it isn’t like he could even become a zombie—he’d just be out of the game, wouldn’t he?

Facing forward, he can see the Heart Foundation, a grey drab of smoke still hanging over the remains of their heart. Jimmy can see them down there, Tango cooking something up in their open-air kitchen, Skizz feeding their horses.

It’s quiet, this morning.

Jimmy likes the quiet. He really, truly does. He complains about it sometimes, and he’ll be the first to admit that he can get a little loud, but some of his favorite moments in the Southlands had been those nights on watch, just him looking out over the wall at the rest of the world, thinking fondly of the friends who trusted him to protect them.

They should set up a watch, shouldn’t they? Sure, they’ve trapped the entrance, but that won’t stop a dedicated Player by any means. Especially not a team of five of them.

Has Scott been recruited?

(By which he means, of course, has Gem pinned down her closest ally, tearing chunks out of his face as he begs and screams for mercy, her loyal zombies descending upon him like a pack of hungry wolves.)

He left his communicator inside, hasn’t checked it since last night.

Scott could be down. Joel could be. BigB. Not Tango or Skizz, he can see them. Not Martyn, Red as he is. Not Grian, Cleo, or Etho. Not him.

Not him.

Jimmy scrubs a hand down the stubble on his cheek, resolutely ignoring the soreness in his shoulder.

This is just a task. A task that's turning a concerning amount of people Red, but a task nonetheless. If the aim of the task is to change everyone into a zombie, then they'll either achieve it or the time will run out.

They have to survive a week, all told.

They can do that. Jimmy isn't great at surviving in the best of times, but he refuses to let himself die.

He refuses to become a zombie. It makes him want to vomit, even as he pushes his imagination away from the idea of biting down on one of his friends, chewing dripping mouthfuls of—

Jimmy swallows. Twice. He won't throw up.

Then, from behind—the crunching of bramble, footsteps through the woods—

Jimmy spins around, and Joel freezes, sword raised.

“Are you—?” Joel manages, voice rough. He doesn't finish his question. He doesn't need to.

Joel looks like he's been living in a nightmare. His hair is unbrushed, leaves and twigs stuck in it. His hoodie is missing, shirt is torn and fraying at the edges, one long thread trailing down to his mud-stained knees. The shadows under his eyes are deep and oily, his eyes just the tiniest bit red around the rims.

Jimmy shakes his head. “A—a zombie? No, I—are you—?”

Quick as a flash, Joel launches into him. Jimmy barely has time to put his hands up, to do anything, he didn’t bring a weapon with him like an idiot and now he’s going to die—

Joel knocks them both to the ground (Jimmy’s shoulder lands on a stone and a whimper of pain escapes his lips), entirely on top of him, his sword thrown to the side, and Jimmy doesn’t have time to protest because he knows with sickening certainty that Joel’s teeth are about to rip out his throat and it’ll be so gross.

Joel’s face is right in front of his, suddenly, and Jimmy swallows. His wide eyes are fixed on him, unable to leave his face.

Joel is very close. Far too close. Jimmy doesn’t struggle, terrified as he is (though his face warms, blood rushing to it).

Joel’s breath is hot against his nose, his chest heaving against Jimmy’s chest, and Joel grins, teeth shining with saliva, and leans in even further.

“Me neither,” he whispers, lips practically touching Jimmy’s cheek, before rolling off of Jimmy and onto the dirt.

Jimmy swallows again.

“You should’ve seen your face,” Joel laughs, sheathing his sword. “You absolutely thought I was going to eat you, didn’t you?”

Jimmy shakes his head (less as an answer, more as a way to dispel the embarrassing lack of thoughts). “I just—well, anyone could be—”

Joel just laughs again, then starts picking his way down the hill. “Is Etho all right, then? I imagine you wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t someone here already.”

Jimmy rolls onto his side. He’d had bread in his backpack; hopefully it hasn’t been squished by his sudden slam to the ground.

He did not expect to get pinned by Joel when he woke up this morning.

And—not pinned, not—even if that’s what happened, it isn’t—

Right. No more thinking.

Jimmy rubs his shoulder, then follows Joel in.

It’s day three, and Jimmy definitely isn’t feeling quite right.

He’s fine, of course. He’s doing well, even. It’s really just the pressure of everything terrible that’s stopping him from feeling entirely perfect, and nothing else.

Martyn shows up around seven in the evening, and he stands outside of the barricaded wall built around the base with crossed arms as Grian looks down disdainfully from the top of the hill.

“I was Red last week, and you let me in,” Martyn shouts up at him. “It’s not fair! You can’t discriminate against me, just because I’m Red! I’ll file a report with . . . with somewhere, I’ll get you canceled!”

“The rules are clear,” Cleo calls down, standing beside Grian. Jimmy, up on the wall, grimaces an apology to Martyn. “No Reds.”

Martyn does the best impression of a kicked puppy that Jimmy’s ever seen, eyes huge and lip trembling.

“Please?” he asks, voice wavering. “I won’t do anything bad, promise!” “He’ll pee on everything,” Jimmy tells Etho beside him.

Etho raises an eyebrow.

Martyn ignores them. “Security wasn’t near this strict before,” he says, voice smoothly segueing into conspiratorial. “What’s with all the extra care? A couple of Yellows are feeling insecure?”

Cleo and Grian exchange a look. Joel, still working on reinforcing the wall, glances over.

“You . . . you know there’s zombies, right?” Grian asks slowly.

Martyn shrugs. “I mean, yeah? Every night. There always have been, I don’t know why this is news to you lot.”

“Other zombies,” Cleo clarifies. “There are. They’re becoming zombies.”

Martyn’s head tilts in confusion. “What’s becoming zombies? The horses? I thought that was established already.”

“No, it’s—it isn’t—”

“Is this someone’s task? Something to do with not seeing a single zombie all week?”

“Just let him believe that,” Grian says tiredly, as Cleo tries to continue explaining. “He’s immune, anyways. No real use trying.”

“Sorry,” Jimmy says, leaning over the wall.

Martyn clicks his tongue. “Timmy. What happened to the Big Dogs, huh?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you were gonna kill me this week. . . .”

“I would ne—well, I would do that, actually, can’t really blame you. Still, Baxter’s missing you. He gets lonely, up on that hill all by himself.”

Jimmy shrugs. “Sorry,” he says. Then, because he does feel a little bad about abandoning Martyn with barely any warning, adds, “I’ll be back next week, okay? It’s . . . part of my task.”

“Oh,” Martyn nods knowingly. “Infiltrate another alliance. All right, Tim, see you around!” He skips off, whistling a high-pitched tune, and Etho shakes his head and clambers down from the wall.

Cleo and Grian leave the hill, go inside through the secret tunnel, and Joel finishes up the part of the wall that he’s been working on and follows Etho in, and Jimmy’s alone on the wall, staring out after Martyn as he leaves.

He’s fine.

His hands are shaking.

“Jimmy, come get dinner,” Joel calls from inside the base, and Jimmy shouts back some sort of response but he doesn’t move.

They have to die to become a zombie, don’t they? His—it doesn’t count. He’s still alive, he’s still Yellow.

The aching pain in his shoulder doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a bruise. It’s a bruise that is taking a little too long to heal and that’s okay. It’s probably a bone bruise, honestly. That’s why it’s healing slowly. Bone bruises take forever.

He really, really doesn’t want to be a zombie. He hasn’t done anything for his task all week because all he can think about is this awful apocalypse. How on earth Grian’s managing to do whatever it is he’s doing with that Magma Cube is far beyond Jimmy.

He can’t die. If he dies, he might become one of them. Even if he only has the tiniest bit of zombie infection in his shoulder. If that’s even true. Which it isn’t. More likely, it’s just a normal injury that’s part and parcel of these games.

“Oh, Jimmy!”

Jimmy’s heart freezes in his chest.

At some point, his eyes had drifted down to his shoes, scuffed and dirty, but now he looks back up, dread sinking down his throat.

Scar, coming into view down the path, twirling a shining knife around (one that Jimmy knows, with horrid certainty, he won’t use). His voice is oddly flat, his pace somewhat jolting as he skips his way toward the wall. Behind him, on horseback, are Gem and Pearl. Impulse and Bdubs are nowhere to be seen—that gives them something of a better chance, at least.

But before Jimmy can feel any sort of relief over that, another group catches his eye—Tango, Skizz, BigB, all headed around the side toward the base.

Oh no.

No, they’re being flanked, aren’t they?

“Come on, Jimmy!” Gem yells. “You know you need to, let’s just hurry things up a bit!”

His tongue feels stuck to the roof of his mouth, his feet welded to the ground. They’re here, and this is going to prove once and for all that their defenses don’t work and then it’ll be a bloodbath and goodness gracious he wants to vomit just thinking about it—

“Hey! Leave them alone!” That’s Skizz’s voice, loud and spitting fire, storming over to stand between the zombies and the wall, and oh so they haven’t been turned, that makes things quite a bit better.

“H-Help!” Jimmy manages, given strength by the Heart Foundation’s stance, and they’re human and he can’t just abandon them, can he? “Grian! Joel! They’re here, help!”

He fumbles for his bow, leaning on the wall of the parapet—but his fingers feel weak and can’t quite grasp the string. He drops his arrow before he can fire it, and is he even allowed to fire it? He’s still on Yellow, after all—can he fire it?

His moral quandary is brought to an abrupt halt as Grian pops up from the tunnel, scaling the wall in a matter of seconds. He frowns down at the opposing groups below, then whistles sharply.

“BigB,” he says, and BigB, now beside Skizz, glances up.

“Oh, hey, G.”

Scar grins, his eyes glinting, and Jimmy takes a step back.

“What’s going on?”

Joel has shown up, pushing himself out of the ground, and Etho follows him, both already drawing weapons.

“They’re here,” says Grian grimly. Etho shrugs, stretches.

“Guess we’d better face them, then,” he says, resigned in an almost upbeat way.

“Is Scott with them?” Cleo asks, rolling out of the hole and onto the ground.

Grian hums. “Don’t see him.”

“We aren’t here for a little chat,” Impulse calls up to them. Pearl hums, practically drooling. “We’re hungry. You all get it, don’t you?”

Jimmy swallows. He does feel hungry—just a bit, in the pit of his stomach. But it’s probably because he only had a piece of bread for lunch and he hasn’t eaten anything for dinner yet. It isn’t—it’s not the same kind of hunger.

“Plenty of food on the server,” Grian says evenly. “If you wanted a lunch invite, you should’ve just asked.”

“Oh my gosh, they smell so good,” Scar stage-whispers, loud enough that Jimmy can clearly hear. “Can we please just go for them? I really want to sink my teeth into Etho.”

“Nobody move,” Grian throws behind himself, digging in his satchel. He turns his attention back to the intruders. “You’re out of luck, fellas! Nothing to see here. Nobody’s home, even!”

“Hey, uh, Grian?” Tango asks nervously. “You mind letting us in?”

“Don’t let Tango in!” objects Etho, striding toward the gate to get the man in his line of sight. “He died earlier, he’s one of them.”

“I—what? No, I’m—”

“Come on,” Pearl drawls, then everything is thrown into chaos.

Skizz lunges at the zombies, sword drawn, forcing Gem’s horse to stumble back and Pearl to slide down from her saddle, pulling out her axe. At the same time, Grian finds what he’s looking for and throws it at Scar—an Enderman spawn egg that cracks on the ground next to Scar, an Enderman folding up out of it.

And Etho, sudden panic choking his voice, says, “Oh—Grian, I looked at it—”

The Enderman vanishes with a vwoop, then reappears in the base, arms reaching out toward Etho—

Etho runs, shoving out the gate and across the thinning woods, Scar whoops and takes chase, Tango darts in through the now-open gate, and Jimmy leaps down from the wall and follows after Etho, the screaming Enderman, and Scar.

He isn’t sure what he intends to do—kill the Enderman? Stop Scar?—but he follows, struggling to get his sword out of its sheath.

“Get him, Scar!” Gem encourages, far too close, and Jimmy glances to his left to see her loping along on her horse, keeping easy pace with the train of runners.

She could kill him, no problem. She would just have to divert her course a little bit, slam an arrow into his chest, swing her sword as she galloped by.

The fact that she doesn’t is more disconcerting than anything.

Jimmy just keeps running, feet pounding against the ground, backpack bouncing on his back, air coming in gasps.

Etho is having a worse time of it—he’s dodging and weaving to try and keep away from the Enderman, but his detours mean that Scar is quickly closing the distance between them, his sword poised to strike.

Can Jimmy attack him if he tries to kill Etho?

Does he dare?

He can hear Etho’s heaving breaths, the stones on the beach of the lake scattering under his feet, and Etho’s sword clatters against those same stones as he tosses it to the side and splashes into the water, immediately slowed by the drag of water against his legs. Scar continues in after him, slashing out—the sword cuts across Etho’s arm, just missing his armor, and Etho grunts but keeps pushing until the water becomes deep enough to swim.

Jimmy slows to a stop as he approaches the beach, the burned Heart Foundation base a dark shape over the murky water. Etho’s trying to make it there, the water chopping loudly under his windmilling arms, but Scar strikes—

“Don’t—” Etho cries out, the sound half-drowned as his head sinks under the water—

And again—

And Scar takes a weakly struggling Etho and drags him up onto the Heart Foundation, ignoring his waterlogged coughs to straddle his legs and bite into his chest.

Jimmy does vomit this time.

He really, finally does, he falls to his knees on the rocks and just turns his insides out, hacking and coughing and trying not to hear Etho’s screams over his retches.

He fails.

He hears the flesh tearing from bone, squelches and creaks and horrible gurgling, and what’s even worse is that he can smell the blood.

He can smell Etho’s blood from here, where the stones dig into his knees and his vomit paints the ground—he can practically taste the coppery viscousness floating over on the air. It rests heavy on the back of his bile-flooded tongue; Jimmy bites the taste back (not swallowing it, not devouring it) and pushes himself to his feet, even as the last of Etho’s cries fall silent.

He couldn’t save him.

When Jimmy looks up, Gem is still there. Sitting on her horse, watching him.

She’s going to kill him, now. She’s going to lick her lips and leap for him, and Jimmy’s too shaky from puking to even think about defending himself.

She doesn’t move, though. She stays, and offers him a humorless smile, and raises an eyebrow.

“Ready?” she asks, and Jimmy isn’t sure how to respond.

Instead, he picks up Etho’s sword in the hand that isn’t holding his own and sprints back toward the base.

“I’ll be fine,” Joel reassures Grian, hitching his backpack higher up on his back. “They know I’m here, they’d never think I’d go back to my base.”

It’s the fourth day, and Joel is leaving for supplies.

Jimmy’s feeling. . . .

Well, he wouldn’t say that he’s doing well.

His entire arm is burning. All the way down to his fingertips, buzzy and painful and nauseating. He hasn’t eaten anything, his stomach churning near-constantly.

He’s been ignoring it for too long, but he doesn’t dare look at his shoulder in the mirror. He can feel it, feel the heat that radiates from it, how swollen it’s become.

He’s fine.

He’s fine, and he’s hungry, and he’s fine.

(He’s hungry, but the food that Grian cooks tastes like ash in his mouth, and his stomach is constantly rebelling, so he usually only manages a couple of mouthfuls before feeding the rest of the plate to Cleo’s dogs.)

(And Jimmy watches Joel go, and something in the pit of his stomach growls at the sight of his friend.)

Grian’s certain that the zombie curse is Gem’s task, that she has to turn everyone she can. If he’s right, then it should wear off when the new week starts.

Jimmy’s already made it four days. That’s over halfway through. He can do three more.

Joel, apparently, can’t.

It’s after lunch that day that their communicators buzz with a dreaded message. Joel’s fallen to Gem, which means he’s joined the zombie crew.

That leaves so few of them. Grian, Cleo. Skizz, Tango, BigB. Scott, presumably.

Jimmy.

Jimmy spends most of the day away from the others, gathering food in the surrounding woods. There isn’t much to scavenge, at this point—he finds some berries, an apple tree (nothing that looks remotely appealing). One of Cleo’s traps has a rabbit in it, but he doesn’t touch it.

The bloody fur and raw flesh is the first thing to look somewhat appetizing to him.

On second thought—

Before Jimmy realizes what he’s doing, he’s disabled the game trap and dug his teeth into the mangled fur of the rabbit, tearing into its flesh with wild abandon. His handkerchief of berries falls to the ground and he eats, congealed blood smearing onto his cheeks, it’s—but he barely manages three bites before he’s violently vomiting all over his hands and the carcass, dropping to his knees as his body spasms and rejects the horrid meal.

No. No, that’s—

There are probably bugs on it, maggots, even, he just started eating a dead, raw rabbit without even wanting it, and there’s fur caught in his teeth and his mouth tastes foul—

He has to get rid of the evidence.

He isn’t a zombie. He isn’t.

Jimmy picks up the remains of the carcass and starts sprinting, down to the lake, where he throws the rabbit as far as he can. It lands with a plosh in the water, sinking instantly, and Jimmy sticks his hands in the water as well, washing them of his vomit and the rabbit.

That was—

He feels shaky.

Of course he feels shaky, and it has nothing to do with his cravings. He hasn’t properly eaten anything in ages and he’s thrown up twice in the past two days, there’s nothing in his body to fuel him.

But how can he eat when nothing sits in his stomach?

He’s not going to become one of them, but if he starves himself it’ll be the same difference. He has to figure out a way to eat something. Something close enough to whatever it is he craves that it’ll stay down. And it has to be closer than a rabbit carcass, he thinks, shuddering.

He unstraps his waterskin and swishes some lukewarm water around in his mouth, spits onto the stony beach.

He’ll make it through this.

And he’ll get this horrid taste out of his mouth.

Cleo has a bucket of rotten flesh that she keeps outside the doghouse, used to feed her pets.

That’s where Jimmy gets his supper.

He feigns eating the porkchops that Tango serves, squirreling bites away in his napkin when no one’s looking. Then, when Cleo wakes him up for the second watch, he sneaks out to the doghouse and raids the bucket, taking whole handfuls of squishy, dripping flesh, flies buzzing away.

He eats it right there, leaning over the bucket, too hungry to be as disgusted as he wants to be. He stuffs fistfulls of stinking, green-tinged meat into his mouth, barely chewing as it slides wetly down his throat, landing in his stomach with a sensation that’s almost physical.

It isn’t quite what he wants, but it works. It doesn’t satisfy the craving, it doesn’t make his arm stop burning, but he starts to feel like he can think through the hunger again.

He stops himself before he can eat too much. It wouldn’t do to finally find something that’ll stay down, only to overstuff himself and get sick. And he can’t take enough that Cleo notices that her stock has depleted.

Jimmy washes his hands with a calm sort of detachedness, willing himself not to think of what he’s just done and how revolting it was. If he doesn’t think about it, he can ignore it.

And ignore it he does, until he’s patrolling up the hill, looking out over the server.

There’s someone out there, far off. Climbing around the Secret Keeper’s boulders. Martyn, hopefully. Martyn’s still out there kicking, somewhere, and Jimmy doesn’t want to think about what would happen if the zombies were up at this hour.

Then he freezes, every line of his body going stiff, as he feels something hard poke into the small of his back.

“Hey, babe. Been all right without me?”

Jimmy swallows, his throat gone dry.

The pressure on his back releases, and he turns around as slowly as he can manage, hands held up to show that he doesn’t have a weapon.

Joel’s there. Of course Joel is there. Jimmy had recognized his voice, flat and unaffected as it was.

His eyes glint dully with red, his skin pale in the moonlight. He sheathes his sword, sweeps back his dark hair.

Jimmy swallows again, the rotten flesh threatening to make a reappearance. Joel takes a step closer, his eyes boring into Jimmy.

“I—get out, I’ll wake the others—”

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

Jimmy clamps his mouth shut. Joel smirks, eyes lighting up.

“You are,” he says. “Gem told me you’re one of us. I didn’t believe her. How’ve you been hiding it this long?”

He’s not. He’s not hungry, he’s not one of them.

“You didn’t really eat much, though, did you?” Joel contemplates aloud. “I made you a sandwich yesterday, and you didn’t eat more than a bite. Are you really starving yourself over this?”

“I’m not starving,” protests Jimmy. “I’m—I’m fine.”

“When did you last eat?”

“I—half an hour ago.”

Joel raises an eyebrow. “So late? What, were you waiting to sneak raw meat? I’ve heard that raw pork is about as close to human flesh as you can get.”

“Rotten flesh is closer,” Jimmy argues, before he realizes what he’s just admitted. Joel chokes out a shocked laugh, just as flat as his voice.

“You—sorry, rotten flesh? Rotten flesh? Jimmy,” Joel says, voice dripping with astonished pity. “That’s probably the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. How could you—?”

“You don’t get it!” Jimmy bursts out, and now he can’t control the words spilling out of his mouth because he’s been on edge for days— “You don’t—I’m fighting every day! Nothing tastes good, I keep throwing up, my friends are dying all around me and then trying to kill my other friends, my arm hurts so bad—”

He cuts himself off, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. The rotten flesh had filled the gaping hole in his stomach momentarily, but the hunger is roaring again, stronger than ever. He can’t even think about it—just the idea of cannibalizing his friends makes him tremble in fear, but it seems so—

So—

“Jimmy.”

He shakes his head, eyes on the ground. “No. I don’t—”

“Just give in.”

“I can’t. I won’t.”

Joel places a gentle finger under Jimmy’s chin (when did they get so close?), tilts his eyes up to meet his. Jimmy’s breath catches in his chest; he stares at Joel, lips trembling.

“Just let go,” Joel breathes, eyes fixed on Jimmy’s. “Don’t you want to be satisfied? After so long of denying yourself?”

Jimmy’s tongue darts out, wets his lips. As much as it disgusts him, he really, really doesn’t want to be hungry anymore.

“Does it hurt?” he whispers. Perhaps it’s that, the fear of the pain, the fear of letting go, that’s been making him hold on so long.

Joel winces. “Yeah,” he says, voice still low. “It hurts. But after that . . . after that, it feels so good. Better than you can imagine.”

It does hurt, then.

If there’s anything that Jimmy doesn’t do, it’s pain. He hates pain almost as much as he hates violence and gore, getting anxious over the smallest anticipated harm.

He’ll hold out. The hunger hurts, but it’s a pain he knows.

“Think about it,” Joel says softly, his breath warming Jimmy’s lips. “I’ll be waiting.”

He slips away, into the darkness of the woods. Jimmy stands there a moment longer, chin still elevated, until he can no longer hear Joel’s footsteps heading away.

Then he falls to his knees and sobs.

It’s the fifth day, and Jimmy can barely breathe.

He can’t look at any of his friends without craving them, without longing to sink his teeth into their flesh, and it grosses him out but he can’t stop thinking about it.

Grian’s skin looks so soft, especially the skin right under his chin, above his adam’s apple. Jimmy watches it move as they eat, scrambled eggs that squirm their way down Jimmy’s throat and will surely come back up later. He keeps his eyes fixed on Grian’s throat, pretending that he’s chewing that instead of eggs, and the imagined sensation of blood and skin filling his mouth makes the food almost bearable.

It also makes his hunger that much worse, though, so he abandons the breakfast table as soon as possible, hurrying out to check the game traps.

His arm is useless, at this point. It hurts almost as much as the hunger, has become a chunk of deadweight at his side, heat branching out from him to spread to the rest of his body.

For far too long, Jimmy contemplates just cutting it off and eating it, but would that count? Would it count to eat his own flesh, or does it have to be someone new?

Also, then he’d probably bleed out and just die anyway. That wouldn’t be helpful.

He ends up digging in the bucket of rotten flesh after he pukes up the eggs, shoving the gooey, stinking flesh into his mouth, shuddering and gagging with each piece he forces himself to eat.

It isn’t enough. It isn’t enough, but he can’t. He isn’t one of them. He’s human.

He’s sweating all the time now. The heat from his arm has started burning away at his body, carrying an incurable fever. It’s like his body knows exactly what he’s resisting and is determined to make him suffer about it.

“Jimmy, you doing okay?” Tango asks later that day (evening, the sun beginning to set, Jimmy’s head pounding and his stomach growling every other minute), as they feed Cleo’s dogs. Tango turns the bucket over into the yard, frowns as only a small pile plops out.

“Yeah? Why? Why wouldn’t I be doing okay?”

Tango shrugs. “I dunno, man. You look like you’re coming down with something. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m—I’m great!” Jimmy blusters, tension flowing through his stomach in choppy waves. “I, I mean—maybe a bit warm, but—”

“Better than the zombies?” Tango quips with a grin.

Jimmy swallows. “Um. Yep.”

Maybe it’s speaking of them that summons them. Maybe they just can’t resist such succulent, intoxicating human flesh. Jimmy’s having enough of a hard time with it, and he isn’t even one of them.

But the zombies turn back up, jeering and chanting for them to come out and fight, and Jimmy heaves his chestplate on and picks up his sword to go meet them at the gates before remembering that someone should make sure they aren’t coming in from the back.

He pokes his head over the wall—Gem and Pearl and Impulse are there, but there’s no sign of Joel or Scar or Etho.

That can’t be good news.

“Grian,” Jimmy hisses, sidling over to where Grian is boredly listening to the zombies’ cries, his bow trained on them. “The back. Half of them aren’t even here, they might be coming in the back!”

Then, high on the air, a whistling sound—an arrow flying toward them—

Jimmy moves instinctively. He leaps onto Grian, pushing him down against the parapet, his nose buried into Grian’s soft hair, the hilt of the man’s sword jabbing into his stomach.

The arrow soars over them, landing somewhere on the other side of the wall—landing in Gem, if the answering scream has anything to do with it.

“Sorry! Sorry, I was aiming for Grian—”

Grian’s skin is so close to Jimmy’s mouth right now.

He goes still, breath catching in his chest. Wave after wave after wave of desperate hunger crashes into him.

He—

Then Grian pushes him off, and the moment is broken.

Right, right, Jimmy needs to get a hold of himself—

“Thanks,” Grian mutters, then rolls to his feet, turning his bow behind them.

Sure enough, Joel, Scar, and Etho are standing on top of their base, not far from where Jimmy had spoken to Joel just last night. Had that talk been Joel scouting out the area for a surprise attack? How could he have let it go on for so long without alerting anyone to Joel’s presence?

Joel—it looks like he smirks at Jimmy, though from this distance, it’s hard to tell. Jimmy turns away, raising his sword threateningly toward the zombies on the ground.

Down there, Gem is on the ground, trying to work an arrow out of her chest. Pearl and Impulse are beside her, swords raised against any further attack.

“Tango! Uh-oh, uh-oh—”

Skizz, on Grian’s other side, sprints past Jimmy, almost knocking him off the wall. He jumps off and runs toward the staircase up the hill, and Jimmy watches—Tango’s on the steps, fleeing the hill, panic in his eyes and an arrow in his shield—

Skizz doesn’t last long.

It’s mere moments before screams echo down the hill.

“Come on!” Grian yells, and Jimmy blindly follows him down and up the hill, joining Cleo and BigB already on their way. The four of them round the top of the staircase right as Joel pulls a bite of flesh away from Skizz’s arm with an awful ripping sound, blood spurting everywhere.

Grian leaps into action, forcing Etho to drop Skizz’s other arm and defend himself, even as Scar bites Skizz’s neck, blood quickly soaking Skizz’s shirt. Skizz screams and screams, free arm twitching up and back down, his lifeblood and chunks of flesh just falling to the ground as two zombies tear at him like they haven’t eaten in weeks—

Even as Cleo starts forward, Skizz’s tortured eyes roll back into his head and his body goes limp, dropping like a deadweight. Joel enjoys one more bite (and there’s something in his eyes, boring into Jimmy’s, something inviting and proud and gloating) before abandoning the body, running for the woods. Scar and Etho follow, Etho getting a good slash in on Grian’s upper arm before fleeing entirely.

Jimmy stares at Skizz’s remains, at how much red there is. Someone tore off his cheek before they got there, part of his jaw visible, redstained teeth eerily peering out at them. The air stinks with the scent of his blood, worse than any butcher’s shop, worse than any battlefield.

Jimmy’s stomach turns.

It always does. It always does, he can’t stand gore and violence, he can’t see it happen without bone-shaking terror and enough nausea to make a shipful of sailors hurl their guts over the railing, and right now is no different.

Jimmy collapses to his knees and pukes, two meals’ worth of rotten flesh coming up slimier than it had gone down.

“Timmy saved my life, really,” Grian says, slapping Jimmy hard on the back.

It’s the sixth day.

“Then puked on your shoes,” Cleo points out.

“Yeah, well. He knows I won’t forgive him for that, no use trying. But I think Scar’s arrow would’ve hit me off the wall if Tim hadn’t tackled me.”

“It’s good to have you on our side, Rancher,” Tango says proudly.

Jimmy doesn’t say a word.

He can’t open his mouth.

If he does, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to resist digging his teeth into Grian.

The man is right beside him, one heavy arm still weighing down his shoulders, and Jimmy is overly conscious of how close their cheeks are. He can’t think of anything but that, can’t think of anything at all except turning his head to attack Grian’s face, tear his skin from his flesh, eat and eat and eat until he can’t feel the starving fever that gnaws on his very bones.

It hurts so, so much.

He can’t continue like this.

If—a deal. A deal with himself. If Grian keeps holding on for ten more seconds, he’ll go for it. He’ll give in. He’ll finally give in. But if—if Grian lets go, then—

Before he can finish defining the deal in his feverish, disconnected thoughts, Grian hops away, off to the small kitchen in the corner, dishing up toast for everyone.

“Skizz will definitely come for me and BigB,” Tango says, taking one of the plates from the counter and sitting at the table. “This place isn’t working anymore—every time they get another one, they’ll just be one closer to totally overwhelming us.”

“So we need to hide,” nods Cleo.

“We need to get out of here,” Grian agrees. “I was thinking maybe the mesa? We can pay Martyn off to keep them distracted, maybe, and hide in the tunnels where we got the Warden.”

“Wouldn’t Etho want to check there?”

“Oh, right, that might be the first place. . . .”

“We could go to my backrooms,” BigB says.

“That sounds terrifying.”

“What? They’re totally normal!”

Sweat drips into Jimmy’s eyes.

The conversation blurs into background noise.

Grian’s not wearing any armor. Cleo already slapped on a chestplate, and Tango and BigB are fully kitted out, but Grian’s still just wearing his sweater and jeans.

He looks. . . .

His stomach is so empty. Jimmy’s stomach feels like it’s tearing itself apart. That’ll kill him. He’s starving.

Surely. . . .

Surely one bite won’t turn him into a zombie?

Just—just one bite, just something to ease the hunger pangs the slightest bit, something to tide him over until the end of the week. He won’t take any more than that, just that one bite, and then he’ll be quiet and do his job, he promises.

Just one bite, one bite of Grian’s mouthwatering flesh, surely he wouldn’t begrudge him one bite? Jimmy saved his life, after all. One bite won’t turn him into a zombie—after all, Jimmy was bit ages ago, and he’s fine!

One bite can’t hurt. It would just be to quell his shaking mind. He’s fine, he just needs one bite. Just one bite.

The sun coming through the window warms Grian’s cheek, a slight rose tinting his pale flesh as he laughs at something Cleo said. It looks delectable, melt-in-the-mouth, disgustingly delicious and it’s everything Jimmy needs, he just needs a little bit, just one bite, that’s all, just the cheek—or some other part, wherever is least inconvenient for Grian, wherever he wants it to be, just one bite—

“Don’t you think, Tim—”

Jimmy can’t hold himself back. He dives across the table with a crash that shakes the whole house, sending toast and plates flying, reaching for Grian, mouth already open—

“Jimmy!” “Hey, what—” He has to! None of them understand, he has to, Jimmy can’t survive any longer like this, he needs—he needs it—just one bite, he just needs a little bit, he just needs to tear Grian apart under his teeth, he needs blood and flesh in his mouth and sliding down his throat in satisfying chunks, he just needs—

Strong hands pull him back. Everyone is yelling, all around him, and Jimmy’s teeth snap down around nothing as Grian scrambles back, knocking his chair over and falling to the floor.

No, no no no, he just needs a bite—

“Just one bite,” he sobs desperately, tears streaming from his eyes as drool drips from his lips. “Please, any of you, just one—just one bite, I promise, I just need one, I’m so sorry—”

They don’t give it to him.

They want him to starve.

They pull him down hard into his chair, and Jimmy barely has time to struggle before they tie him down, heavy ropes pulled tight around his growling stomach and over his pounding heart. He writhes, tries to get at whoever is closest, but his mouth can’t quite reach anyone.

No, no, please! Please!

“Jimmy,” Tango says, and Jimmy manages to focus long enough on his face to see the shocked disappointment painting it. “Jimmy, how long?”

Jimmy takes in a shuddering breath, one that doesn’t fill the hole in his stomach. “Please,” he begs. He can’t take it anymore, he can’t, it hurts so much, he’s going to fall apart but he only needs a little bit to keep going! “Please, just one bite, please!”

“Of course!” Grian says angrily, tossing up his hands. “Of course it would be Tim, of course Timmy would hide that he got bit! You’re the person that everyone hates in zombie movies, Tim! You aren’t special, you moron!”

He doesn’t get close enough for Jimmy to even attempt to reach for, but his lips tremble as he stares at Grian’s flesh anyways, desperate for just a taste. He’s finally broken, he’s finally given in, but he doesn’t need much. Anything, please, anything.

They don’t give him anything.

They leave.

They leave, and they leave him there, and they show Jimmy Grian’s communicator—

<Grian> left you zombies a gift at the base

And he’s there alone.

Alone, shaking and starving, fever and pain radiating through him in waves, he just needed one bite. . . .

“Well. You know, we don’t usually have a taste for people like us, but. . . .” Joel smirks from the entrance, eyes fixated on the tears streaming down Jimmy’s face, at the reddened veins crawling up his neck from his useless arm, at the hunger etched deep into his fearful eyes.

Joel lunges for him, and Jimmy closes his eyes and hopes that he doesn’t throw up as he feels his stomach be literally torn open.

23 notes · View notes

sherlockggrian · 1 year ago

Text

tried my hand at writing a little secret life. I've had this scene in my head for a few days, and I just wanted to establish how I see Grian and Scott's characters this season. A heart is just a heart. (heavy on the desert duo). Enjoy.

This was stupid. Grian winced against the stinging pain in his shoulder from where the arrow had whizzed past. Barely a scratch, and still he cringed at the fact that it wouldn’t heal until the next time he visited the secret keeper. And it was right under where the leather strap crossed his shoulder, and he was stupid for leaving the safety of his lit-up hill at all. He gathered his breath, keeping the shield close up against him as he panted behind the tree. He felt the thunk of another arrow hitting the trunk, and took a deep breath before whirling around, squinting in the darkness. He managed to dart forward and cut down the skeleton, which withered on the ground beneath him. Grian grunted, kicking the bones amongst the rocks. He rubbed the scratch on his shoulder, feeling where the fabric was ripped and he was bleeding slightly. It was fine. He’d just have to watch it for infection. Bandages were a damn commodity, he thought, feeling slightly dizzy at the prospect of having to visit Scar’s stupid trading hut for supplies. Because of course he got everything from the Secret Keepers.

Grian readjusted his shield, shivering slightly in the cool night air, before turning back toward the distant glow of his base. As he was about to step forward, something shook in the bushes behind him, and Grian whirled around, instantly brandishing his sword. Metal clanged in the air as he crashed into something, and whatever it was stumbled back, shaken.

“Jesus Christ, Grian”, rasped Scott, whose startled face was now illuminated by Grian’s lantern.

Grian lowered his sword, sighing. “Don’t jump me like that, Scott,” he grumbled.

“Relax, nobody’s red yet,” said Scott lowly. He was wrapped in thick dark blue cloth, his wavy hair falling in parts around his elf ears. His unnatural green eyes blinked slowly in the darkness.

Grian shoved his sword back into its sheath. “What are you doing all the way out here at night? You know it’s dangerous. I thought you were across the river, with Gem and Impulse.” Grian motioned vaguely into the copse of forest, where mountains rose in the distance.

“I could ask you the same question”.

“My base is just up the hill,” muttered Grian.

Scott sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. But I don’t mean to interrupt your nightly walk, either. I’ll be on my way.”

Grian glanced down at Scott. Upon further observation, he was clutching his left arm tightly, and Grian could see dark blood soaking through the cloth. “You’d better bandage that,” he remarked.

“It was stupid. Spider jumped me from above, I wasn’t even thinking, I can’t believe I-”

“Come on,” Grian muttered, motioning for Scott to follow him up the hill. He picked his way up the red rocks, feeling the dry, seeding grass brush against his legs as he climbed. “There’s no point in wandering around like that.”

Mist shrouded the dark valley below them, with the glow of Scar’s hut and the distant village cutting through the darkness. Grian was sort of glad he could see Scar so easily from the hill. That was partly what had made him choose this place. That and the rocky, red hills behind him provided a little shelter from the cold nights that were beginning to descend on the world.

Scott shivered, and Grian dumped down the bundle of firewood he’d been collecting. “It’s too fucking cold at night,” he muttered, and Scott hummed in agreement, already tenderly unwrapping the cut on his arm.

Grian ducked into the small lean-to he’d built against the trees on the hill, and pulled out a roll of bandages. He tossed it to Scott, then bent down the arrange the fire. It was the least he could do, he supposed. They were all still green, after all, except for Martyn, though Grian hadn’t seen much of Martyn recently. Which was usually for the better.

“You’re on your own this time.” Scott cut into the silence after a while.

“So,” said Grian. “It’s better off that way. This always ends in chaos, anyway.”

Scott grinned “Only cause you’re here.”

Grian cringed a little, unsure if it was supposed to be a joke. “Yeah, whatever,” he said. “I’m better at picking apples than pretending to be loyal to somebody”.

Scott sighed. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think.”

It wasn’t a question. Grian went silent for a bit, scanning the edges of the darkness around them. A prickle of unease had crept up on him, like the feeling he got when he knew there was a creeper behind him, but couldn’t react in time. Scott was studying him with that look he always had, like he could read everyone like a book. Then again Scott had always been able to see through exactly what Grian was.

“The tasks are easy now,” muttered Grian, fiddling with the flint and steel in his hands, “but wait until we turn red. They feed off of negativity. They’ll have us at each other’s throats eventually. It always ends that way”. He made a point of pronouncing the they, avoiding the inevitable we that he refused to speak into existence.

Scott grimaced. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t have to. I was thinking, what if it’s different this time. What if-”

“It’ll never be different, Scott, you and I both know that.” Grian turned to look at Scott, who was standing in a hunched position, still wary of his surroundings.

They were silent for a few moments, green eyes looking into green, perched within a tense energy that cut through the cold. Grian felt a little guilty, but then again, he felt that most of the time these days.

Scott broke his gaze, turning to look over the valley. His eyes landed on Scar’s small glowing shack. “You’re still watching him.”

Grian sparked the flint and steel a little more aggressively than he meant to. “So? It’s better than teaming with him. We both know what happens. What’s happened. We’re just gonna end up killing each other. I’d rather not get attached this time.”

Scott laughed, which both annoyed and comforted Grian slightly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “But it still feels…pointless, like, what are we fighting for?”

Grian lowered his gaze. “You know you can’t beat them.” Scott’s voice went darker. “You’d say that, wouldn’t you.”

Grian tensed, sensing Scott’s hand slide over the handle of his sword. He realized that Scott remembered more than the others - being a previous winner, he had clearer memories of the past games that the other players could only allude to. And there had always been something up with Scott anyways. Something Grian couldn’t describe.

“I would have teamed with you, you know,” Scott went on. “I thought we’d agreed, that we would find a way to stop this. But you’ve just given in. You give them everything they want. You’re not even supposed to be here. We could do something, this time could be different, we could stay together, we could-”

“Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about,” hissed Grian, staring into the fire that was starting to crackle and pop in his face.

“I’m just wondering why you’re even here.” A few rocks tumbled down the hill behind Scott. “You have the power to stop them and yet you-”

Grian flew to his feet, and in a few seconds he had his knife pressed against Scott’s neck, breathing hard into the elf’s look of surprise. “You really fucking think I want to be here? You think I want to see my friends keep dying, over and over? You think I can just snap my fucking fingers and they’ll listen to me?”

Scott let out a careful, steady breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

Grian lowered the knife a little, still tense. “They hate me just as much as they hate you, Scott.”

Scott didn’t seem to know what to say. He paused for a moment, glancing at the cold, dark desert behind them, and the warmth of the fire. “We’re on green, Grian. It’s alright. I don’t want to kill you.”

Grian sighed. “I know,” he muttered, and the knife clattered as it landed on the rocks at his feet. He turned back, looking at the moon that glittered coldy above the distance mountain that seemed to hum on the edges of the world, and some darker part in Grian fluttered. He choked it back. He had been hearing their voices in his head a little more recently. “I just want to protect my friends,” he admitted. “And I can’t, not really, but I can try. You and I both know the only way out of this world is to die. If I wanted out I would have killed myself the moment this started. But I don’t want them to do this alone.”

Scott released his grip on his sword, and ran his hand over the wound on his arm. “I…I know.”

A puff of smoke rose from Scar’s chimney. Grian wondered if he was awake.

“You broke the rules for him, though. You always do it for him. Even though you pretend not to.”

Grian winced, knowing the words were true. “I just…I don’t want to know what would happen if they saw him,” he admitted. He knew Scott knew what they were talking about. He knew Scott knew the word watcher, knew Scott had come looking for him last time, had told him of Martyn’s dreams and threats, had screamed at him for answers, had looked into Pearl’s eyes as he’d blown himself up, had faced the watchers himself, at the end, when he’d won, all those years ago. Scott and his endless optimism, his sense of righteousness, his refusal to follow the watcher’s rules that made him such a target of them, that made them torture him, over and over. If it was anything, Grian saw himself in Scott, himself before the watchers had given him the ultimate punishment.

“What happens if you fail a task?” asked Scott.

“I don’t know,” sighed Grian. “Nothing good.” He remembered the look in Jimmy’s eyes as the Secret Keeper's face had flashed red for a moment, locked in a world only he could see. And the change in his temperament afterwards. “I just don’t want them to find him. I don’t want them to find out how much he-” means to me.

Scott nodded.

“I’ve kept him safe this long,” Grian went on, fear tugging at the bottom of his stomach. “I learned, after the first time, it’s better to do that from a ways away. You know I- last time, when he was- he had 10 seconds left, and I couldn’t let him run out of time, I knew if he ran out, that he’d see them, so I-” Grian gulped, remembering the way his sword had run through Scar’s chest, the way his eyes had slowly faded from red to hazel before his body fell to the ground and lightning crashed overhead, and a handful of sand had slowly appeared in Grian’s hourglass. The panic in his mind at the thought of Scar’s hourglass running out on his own, and Scar being forced to come face to face with the watchers. The only way out of this world is to die.

Scott took a seat beside the fire. He stared at the flickering flames, pulling Grian out of his unpleasant memory. “I’m worried about Gem,” he admitted. “I don’t even know how she got here. But I wanted to keep her safe,” he went on. “And I- I’m worried about Jimmy.”

Grian let out a long breath.

“You never bothered protecting him, did you?”

Silence. Grian wanted to eat glass. He cringed, flashes of Jimmy on the end of his sword flickering in the back of his mind. “Jimmy and I couldn’t be more different.”

“He’s your brother.”

“That was a long time ago.”

The fire popped and sparks fluttered up into the night air.

Grian changed the topic, turning over a log. “You know you came to me last time,” he breathed. “You wanted to do the same thing. To fight them. But it didn’t work. It never works. You believed in Martyn, and they still took him, just like Pearl, just like Jimmy. He promised you he’d fight them with you, together, and he lied. The red takes everybody. It’s better to die with your allies than to make it to the end, and have to watch what’s bound to happen. To have to face them. In fact it’s better not to have allies at all.”

Something unreadable passed over Scott’s face, and deep down, Grian wondered if what he’d just said was really true.

He remembered what it had felt like when Scar had given him the heart, earlier that week. A gentle flutter in his chest, a warm feeling, something completely opposite to the cold, tumbling darkness that settled in his stomach. It was like a breath of sun on a cloudy day, a shred of warmth in the autumn cold. Scar was all of those things. Scar was laughter, the gold that still lingered in the trees and shrubs, the pounding heat of the desert and the quiet grip of nightfall. Scar would bicker with him, and Grian would play along, and they would reach some sort of agreement eventually, which would usually end with Scar selling him something. Still, Grian knew how the story went. He would probably end up with a knife in Scar’s chest, only because Scar would never kill Grian, he could never - Grian would never let him.

“Good luck, Grian,” whispered Scott, after a long pause of staring into the fire. “You’ll need it.”

Grian wrenched his eyes away from the smoke in the distance and glanced at Scott, who was wrapping himself back up in the thick cloak. He tossed him a chunk of bread that he’d been gnawing on. “I’ll see you around.”

Scott’s green eyes flickered for a moment, but he only nodded, turning away from the fire. “You were always good at keeping secrets.”

Grian watched him go, wondering absentmindedly what task the watchers had set him on, to have him wandering the world alone, at night. Or maybe Scott was breaking his own rules, too, off to find Jimmy, wherever he was.

The smoke from Scar’s hut had all but dissipated, and all that remained was the dark hum of the secret keeper, the statue that rose into the night. Grian tore his eyes away from it, but the image remained, and he winced in sudden pain as the familiar words echoed in his mind.

YOU WERE ONLY MEANT TO WATCH.

He replaced it with thoughts of Scar, remembering how they’d trained for this, far far away in a world that perched on the edges of Grian’s conscious memory. He felt Scar’s heart beating inside his chest, and the distant taste of a kiss, and what it felt like to fly.

The fire flickered on into the sky, and the edges of the desert frosted over, and the world turned. Stars glimmered above, and Scott’s shadow vanished into the darkness. The scratch on Grian’s shoulder still stung.

A heart was just a heart, after all. He was bound to lose it soon enough.

#me?? writing something that isn't fucking warrior cats??? wow #secret life #slsmp #last life #grian #smajor #smajor1995 #scott smajor #desert duo #scarian #scarian fanfic #secret life fanfic #flower husbands #i guess?#trafficblr #spark writes

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trafficlife · 1 year ago

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Kiss Me Quick, Steal Every Secret I Keep

Etho sees his hard task as a test of skill more than anything else. He thinks it's time he shows Tango what he learned.

Word Count: 3041

A gift for @acolorboom

The reward is none.

Etho stared up at the darkening sky, a collection of whispers flooding his mind.

The risk is great.

He held his breath and closed his eyes. He could only hope that the task wouldn’t be completely impossible.

Let me open the door.

At least, for the most part, Etho was good at completing his tasks. How bad could this one be?

Accept your fate.

The scroll appeared in front of him, an ominous aura radiating from it. He walked away from the Secret Keeper—it’s been a few weeks, yet it still gave Etho chills—to read his secret privately.

A few words stood out almost immediately: Grian, wither, warden, battle, deep dark. And surprisingly, Etho actually felt excited for this task. Would it be chaotic? Absolutely, but that’s what these games were made for. He was also very happy that Grian was tasked with the summoning wither—the last time he tried to bring a warden up to the surface, he ended up dying.

Etho grinned behind his mask. An idea was already forming in his head: he wanted another person to come with him. But Etho didn’t need help. What he needed was an audience. And he knew exactly who would be interested in watching this.

****

“.... Hold up, you want me to do what?”

“I told you: I want you to come with me and see me bring the warden up to the surface.”

Tango blinked several times at Etho, trying to process the absurdity of this situation: Etho had walked onto the Heart Foundation island and almost immediately grabbed Tango’s sleeve and pulled him away from Skizz and BigB. Then, he tells Tango this plan, which pretty obviously seems to be a task. Tango slowly lowered his rose-colored glasses for extra flair and chuckled. “You- You realize this is a crazy idea, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you realize that this could go either very right or very wrong?”

“Yes.”

Tango pursed his lips, tail swaying behind him. “Well, lucky for you, I do like me some chaos! It would be very impressive if you also succeeded to lure the Warden up.”

“I hope I will. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

A surprised noise escaped Tango’s throat and he felt his face burn. The way Etho said that, with a voice sweeter than honey, coupled with a stare so intense but still so gentle, made Tango short-circuit. And Etho, the smug bastard that he was, knew about this. He walked over to Tango, leaning over his ear and whispering “I want to show you what I’ve learned from your game.”

If dying from being too flustered was a thing, Tango would’ve exploded then and there. However, he was already very close to doing so: his face, neck and ears exploded with heat and his pupils were blown wide. His tail dragged across the cherry blossoms, setting them on fire, but he was too flustered to notice.

Etho chuckled softly and, oh, he was doing this shit on purpose wasn’t he? He stomped on the flames, leaving black petals on the ground. Tango blinked to look at Etho again, trying to hold on to what was left of his resolve.

“Fine, then.” Tango purposefully ignored the way his voice wavered and he hoped Etho did too. “Show me what you got.”

****

Somehow, Etho knew exactly where to go when heading to the Deep Dark. Not once did he turn around or hit a dead end; he kept going, as if the directions were seared into his mind. He was so confident, it was both impressive and suspicious.

“How do you even know where to go?” Tango asked, as he set up a ladder for them to return to the surface later.

“I stumbled across the Deep Dark at one point while I was mining,” Etho said. “I figured I’d save the location, in case I felt like doing something… Well, crazy.”

Tango raised a brow. “Really… Sounds like a task to me.”

“Does it, now?” Etho turned to look at Tango again, the fabric of his mask twitching as he smiled underneath it. “Why don’t you guess what it is?” The question came out a soft, tender whisper that faintly echoed off the cobblestone walls.

Tango sucked in a breath.

Fuck.

That was the only way to summarize Tango’s racing mind: Fuck.

He was green so he couldn’t guess—both he and Etho were aware of that. But even if he wasn’t, would he want to guess? Absolutely not.

Etho came to Tango, wanting him to see Etho bring the Warden up. And Etho wanted to make Tango proud and not disappoint him. The thought of it made Tango giddy and his stomach swarmed with butterflies. However, in the very back of his mind, a condescending voice hissed at him: This is only a task. He doesn’t really mean what he says. He wasn’t going to listen to that voice. But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t having doubts.

“Tango?” Etho’s voice brought Tango back to Earth. “Tango, you good? You’ve been staring at me for a while… Are you thinking about what you want to guess?”

Tango slowly shook his head, swallowing thickly. “No… No, I’m not going to guess,” he responded slowly. “You know that I can’t guess either way, I’m still green!”

“Fair, fair. But if you had to guess, what would you say?” Etho asked, as he went back to digging.

“I don’t know, you have to bring the Warden up to the surface and make sure it kills someone? You do have a hard task and it’s not like this”—Tango gestured randomly— “is a piece of cake.”

It was time to summon the Warden.

Etho sighed. “That’s not it. If only it were that simple—” Sculk coated Etho’s pickaxe and the stone that he had mined. He raised a brow, shaking the sculk from his pickaxe. “Well… Maybe this’ll be easier than we thought.” He made a larger hole for Tango and himself, and the two of them crawled into the Deep Dark.

As expected, it was pitch black, the only light coming from Tango’s tail. Sculk was everywhere, creating web-like patterns on the ground and crawling up their legs. There were some shriekers visible, along with sculk sensors that were barely obscured by its surroundings. They swayed slowly in the distance, similar to how kelp does underwater. Tango took a deep breath, heart pounding against his ribcage. He met Etho’s gaze and they nodded in sync.

But before Tango could leap down, Etho gently grabbed his sleeve. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Huh? Why?”

“We’ll need the water elevator.”

“Oh. Right…” Tango grimaced a bit at the thought. He couldn't take damage from water but it didn't make swimming any less unpleasant.

“We could also make stairs,” Etho suggested, “if that makes you more comfortable.”

“What, and risk getting stuck and dying to the warden? I don't want that happening to either of us. I'll…” Tango took a deep breath. “I'll take my chances with the water.”

“Are– are you sure?” Etho asked hesitantly. His concern was very touching, Tango has to admit. But the water was far less risky than the stairs.

“I'm positive.” Tango smiled. “But, thanks for worrying about me.”

“Of course. Why wouldn't I? Now c'mon, let's go.” Etho leaped down from the ledge he made and crouched down. But Tango still sat there, Etho’s sincere words looking in his mind.

Why wouldn't I?

That was a good question, why wouldn't Etho worry about him? Tango couldn't even say he hated Etho, though they'd had their differences in previous games. Tango didn't know if he loved Etho either but, with how eager he is to spend time with Etho, it was becoming more and more obvious.

“Tango!” Etho whisper-shouted. “You coming?”

“Yeah- Yeah, hold on.” Tango leaped down, one of the sensors picking up on his movement. Thankfully, the shrieker didn’t set off prematurely. They lurked closer to a shrieker, like wolves stalking a sheep. Only they knew that the sheep could strike anytime. He met Etho’s gaze and nodded, communicating with his eyes. I’ll watch your back.

The ground cracked. A dark claw emerged from the fragmented sculk, followed by a low growl. Etho whipped his head towards Tango, handing him a water bucket and making sure none of it spilled. “Get up the ladder- pour down the water when you reach the top.”

Etho understood instantly and went closer to a sensor, making a swift movement.

The shrieker activated in sync with the sensor, the wail bouncing off the walls. Once it faded away, there was tranquility for a moment. They knew very well that the calm wasn’t permanent.

Tango nodded, holding the bucket with one hand and climbing the ladder with another. He shouldn’t have been worried about Etho; he was essentially an expert at this and was already on his way to winning Decked Out. But still, there was a lingering fear that Tango just couldn’t shake off. Maybe it was the nature of this game. If Etho were to get hit—which Tango doubted would happen—he couldn’t recover easily. And if Etho died, it’d set their progress back. Tango knew Etho was strong. Strong, quick-witted, charming, sensible… For goodness’ sake, Tango, this was a life-or-death situation, it was not the time to fawn over Etho.

Tango could feel the ladder shake underneath him, the heavy footsteps of the warden sending shivers up his spine. He knew Etho could avoid the warden but he didn’t want to delay him. The moment he reached the top, Tango took his bucket and poured it down, creating an elevator for Etho to go up. Tango leaned over the edge, eyes wide with anticipation. “Please, come up all in one piece,” he murmured under his breath, despite his confidence in Etho’s skill.

Suddenly, there was an explosion.

It was mostly muffled but still loud enough to make Tango jump. And it sounded like it came from underground.

Tango physically felt his heart plummet to the pit of his stomach. No, no, no, no, no, please don’t let Etho be dead. Etho was only green but the thought of him dying made Tango sick with dread. He pulled out his communicator, frantically looking through the names, and-

He was honestly torn between sighing in relief and continuing to hold his breath.

Good news: Etho didn’t die. Bad news: Lizzie did. And Tango felt incredibly bad, especially since she’d be alone the entire game.

In the water, he saw a figure slowly rise to the surface and heard a low growl from below. Etho’s head popped out of the water, brushing his soaked hair back (which wasn’t hot at all, thank you very much!) and swiftly climbed out. “Warden- warden’s on its way. Stay close to me, I don’t want to lose you.”

Tango nodded, tail flicking behind him. The warden crawled out of the water, outstretching his limbs as its tendrils clicked. Tango felt Etho grab onto his wrist and pull him away, paying attention to make sure the Warden was following them. “We’re bringing him to spawn,” Etho murmured against Tango’s ear, his breath lightly tickling his skin. Tango’s own breath hitched but he still managed to nod. “By the way… What was that explosion sound?”

“Lizzie. She died.”

Etho winced a bit, some remorse flickering in his eyes. “Oh, gosh… That really sucks. We probably should’ve gone to her party, huh?”

Tango nodded solemnly. “Yup. But hey, we can make it up to her after the game ends! That’s the least we could do right?”

Etho chuckled a bit. “Ah, Tango, you’re always so thoughtful.”

Tango beamed proudly. “I try to be!”

The warden was right on their heels, stumbling about and flailing its arms around. Somehow, Tango and Etho didn’t run into anybody for a long while. The moon was high in the star-speckled sky, shining down ominously as if it knew the chaos that would follow. Eventually, they saw Grian talking to Scar. Grian saw Tango, Etho and the warden waddling behind them, a mischievous smirk on his face. He was hugging something black to his chest and- wait, was that a wither skull?

Tango blinked several times, trying to make sure that he was seeing properly. What was that pesky bird planning? BigB, who had just approached Scar and Grian, seemed to notice what Tango and Etho were planning because his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. When Scar turned around and saw the warden, he was so startled he was pushing back on his wheelchair.

“Etho! Is this- is this central enough?” Grian asked, trying to stifle laughter from Scar’s reaction. He moved closer to the firepit, setting up soul-sand in a very suspicious position.

“Wh- Grian, what are you doing?!” Scar asked, having now noticed the wither skulls that Grian was holding. Scar scrambled to take the skulls from Grian before he placed them down but Grian was too feisty to let go. Tango watched the spectacle, eyes wide. He then turned to Etho, who had a mischievous glint in his eyes. Clearly, there was much more than he was letting on.

“Wait, Etho, did you know about—?”

Tango was interrupted by a loud, raspy hiss, as a wither emerged from the soul sand, growing in size and flying into the sky, obscuring the moon. There was absolute chaos. The warden had stopped following Etho and Tango and went to chase the next player it detected, wither skulls rained down from the sky, and everyone was screeching “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” at the instigators.

Grian had the largest shit-eating grin on his face and Etho definitely had a similar expression under his mask. Tango, on the other hand, was biting his lip to keep himself from mirroring that expression. He should have been more scared by the wither but he really wasn’t. Partially because he was so close to Etho and that mattered more than anything.

Mumbo and Jimmy seemed to be running towards the warden rather than away from it and they because of it. The sonic boom rang in Tango’s ears, in synchrony with the lighting that struck. First Jimmy, then Mumbo right after. The flash made Tango’s heart jump but Etho remained completely calm.

“Where’s the wither?” Tango asked, running alongside Etho.

“Guys- guys, please.” Scar, in his wheelchair and somehow outpacing the wither, rolled up next to Etho and Tango, scared shitless. “Please, do- do you want to give me a hand?” The skulls rained down behind the trio like a meteor shower, plummeting into the Earth and creating rather large holes. The grass and the flowers began to wilt, shriveling up and dying as the skull drained the life out of them. “Please- I don’t know how much longer I can keep up with this—”

Before Etho or Tango could respond, the two of them fell into a pit that Scar narrowly avoided. Scar went back to being chased by the wither, begging for others to come out and help him, by leading the wither directly into their bases. Honestly, the fact that Scar was able to avoid the wither for this long was incredibly impressive.

Tango groaned a bit, bringing his hand up to his hair, accidentally elbowing Etho’s chin in the process. “Oh, sorry, I-” He immediately shut up when he noticed the position they were in. Etho was directly on top of Tango, nearly laying on his chest. Etho’s eyes were piercing through Tango’s, as if he wanted to read his soul. And Tango couldn’t help but wonder, would Etho know how Tango feels about him?

Tango didn’t really want to get out of this position. And, since Etho didn’t move, neither did he. Their bodies were flush against each other, and Etho’s face was so close, his white hair was brushing against Tango’s skin. The mask slipped off of Etho’s face and-- if he lowered himself any more, their lips would be touching—

Oh, void, the realization that he was so close to kissing Etho made Tango’s face bloom bright red.

“Tango.” Etho’s voice was a hushed whisper and, to anyone else, it would’ve been completely muffled by the wither’s explosions. But Tango kept all of his focus fixated on the man who was laying on top of him, ignoring the wither and the world that was falling apart around them. And it was all because Etho was here, his world was right here. “I didn’t let you down, I hope.”

“Never,” Tango gasped instantly. “You could never let me down.”

Etho chuckled. “I’m glad to hear that.”And then he leaned in, closer and closer and closer until it was finally enough. His lips were warm against Tango’s, and it made him melt almost instantly. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been waiting for this forever. Tango’s hand snaked up into Etho’s hair and oh goodness, it was so soft.

“Etho- Etho, the wither killed the warden!”

“Etho, stop making out with Tango, and come press the damn button!”

Grian was shouting at them from… somewhere. But they were too busy to care.

Tango, dizzy from suffocation, reluctantly pushed Etho off of him. “Gah… I had a feeling that part of this was part of a task.”

“Well… Not the part where I asked you to come with me,” Etho murmured. “I did that voluntarily. I was serious when I said I wanted to impress you.”

Tango couldn't stop the giggles climbing up his throat, a large smile on his face. “You did, Etho, you really did!”

“Are you talking about my warden wrangling, or the kissing?”

“... Yes.” Tango smirked. “I'm not going to elaborate. Go press that button!”

Etho nodded, lightly kissing Tango on the cheek, putting his mask on and leaving with Grian to the Secret Keeper. Tango lay there in the withered grass, hands on his cheeks and grinning. Nothing could ruin the happiness and satisfaction he felt at this moment.

… Not even the fact that Tango forgot to complete his own task.

He'd make it up next session. But now he just wanted to make out with Etho for the rest of this session.

#꒰☆彡꒱— karma speaks #꒰☆彡꒱— karma writes #꒰➳꒱— writings #secret life #trafficblr #trafficsmp #life series smp #secret life fanfic #tangtho #tangotek #ethoslab #hermitshipping #trafficshipping

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deityoftherain · 4 months ago

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you're not tango, are you? - Treebark during Secret Life Session Six Fanfic

Rating: General Audiences

Relationship: Gen, M/M

Achieve Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Status: Completed Oneshot

Word Count: 1,187

Summary: Ren(go) retreats to a cave during Secret Life Session 6's break, but Martyn follows after him, finding something about him familiar...

Full fanfic underneath the cut! Please reblog, leave kudos on the AO3 fic slash notes/likes here on Tumblr, comment either place, and etc if you enjoy the story :D

Ren ducked into a lit-up cave that some other Player must have used for mining at some point as soon as the mid-day break was called on their communicators. He was grateful for the break because he knew he could only run around like he was for so long without taking a breather. The Watchers may grant them increased endurance, stamina, and resistance to pain, but that only went so far in the grand scheme of things. Ren put his hands on his bent knees, letting his head hang as he processed everything that has happened in the session so far.

Secret Life wasn’t like the previous Life Games he’s gone through before, and he was way out of practice. The last game the Watchers forced him through was Double Life, and then They went ahead and switched Ren out with Tango on Session Six! At this point, there was so much information “Tango” was supposed to know that Rengo didn’t! Imitating the blazeborn was difficult, but he must be doing decently, right?

He had to be, he reassured himself. If They found out he failed, who knows what They would do next? They said They would hurt Martyn if he didn’t comply, that They would hurt his friends… hurt them more than they already are hurting. Ren feared They may cause permanent damage to their code, if not figure out some way to destroy them completely. It was a lose-lose situation, one where he had to choose the lesser of the two evils.

It took everything in his power not to run to Martyn and kiss him, hold him tight enough to hopefully never lose him again. Void, did he want to, but Ren didn’t think Martyn nor Tango would appreciate Rengo making moves unexpectedly. Ren just had to wait for the Watchers to get Their fill and reunite them once more, reunite them until the Watchers needed to feed off of their pain and suffering again…

Suddenly, someone called his name, Tango’s name, causing Ren to almost jump out of his skin. He hadn’t expected anyone to follow him in here! He spun to face the voice, his body tense as his heart beat harshly in his chest. “Oh my goodness gracious, dude! You’re givin’ me heart palpitations!”

“Ah, sorry, mate,” Martyn stopped approaching, putting his hands up by his head to show Rengo that he didn’t mean any harm. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to have a bit of a chinwag with you, that alright?”

Ren cleared his throat, attempting to prepare his vocal cords to speak at a higher pitch than he normally did on his own. He pushed up his– Tango’s sunglasses. Thankfully, Tango decided to wear sunglasses this time around. Ren wasn’t used to going without them. “Yeah, sure, no biggie. Sit down?” Martyn nodded his agreement to the offer, but he didn’t sit or stand beside Rengo, which Ren couldn’t help but be disappointed by it. It made sense for Martyn to want to keep distance and stay across from Tango– they were a part of different factions, after all– but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, even if just a little bit. Martyn never actually sat down, but he leaned against the parallel wall, so Ren copied him.

They stared at each other in silence for several moments, Ren enamored by his lover who couldn’t remember him and Martyn studying Rengo’s features. The Watchers had decided to give Martyn hybridity this time around to accord with The Big Dogs branding.

Ren couldn’t help but wonder if They did that on purpose, knowing that Ren would see Martyn with features like his. Did They know that They would need to switch Tango out with Ren for a session? Did They predict that Tango’s code would suffer from the stress and need tending to? Did They do this to mess with him?

"Hey,” Martyn started, hesitant. He rested his curved pointer finger against his chin, resisting the urge to bite the knuckle. Ren knew that look well. He often bit his finger like that when he was trying to work something out. “I don't want to sound like a stalker, but I think I know you. Like, know you, from whatever our lives are like away from this game.”

Ren sucked in his lips briefly before shaking his head, letting his gaze fall. “I know just as much as you do, dude. I don’t remembericate much. Bits and pieces of my past, sure, but nothing concrete.”

“You’re lying,” Martyn stated confidently, Red Life eyes narrowed into slits. There was no question in his tone, but Martyn has always been fairly good at identifying lies and pretending that he wasn’t just as scared as everyone else. His detection skills were nowhere near perfect, but Ren couldn’t claim to be a decent bluffer. “You’re not Tango, are you?"

“Not Tango?” Ren sputtered, waving his hands out in front of it. “Don’t be crazy bonkers, Martyn. Who else would I be?”

“For someone claiming to be Tango, you sure don’t sound like him.” Martyn pulled out his sword, casually adjusting and then readjusting his grip on it as if the movement wasn’t meant to be a passive threat. “Do you want to tell me the truth or do I need to drop another anvil on your head?”

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” Ren reminded him, slowly slinking toward the mouth of the cave. His heart ached like a dagger was stabbed through his chest. Having Martyn look at him with such a whirlpool of mixed emotions was almost enough to break Ren, make him throw all caution to the wind. All he wanted to do was hold him close like they did on quiet nights back at Dogwarts, but that wasn’t his right as Tango.

Martyn pursed his lips before sheathing his sword once more, the strong persona he put on faltering. “You’re lucky I can’t bring myself to kill you right now– plus, it’s against the rules– but if I see the opportunity to take hearts from you once the session starts again, I will take it, so watch your back.”

Stay near Love Island or teammates, got it. Ren gulped as he tried to formulate a response. He was saved by a sound pinging on both of their communicators, announcing that the session was starting soon. He hated that he was relieved to get away from the man he loved way too fiercely. “I’m gonna go findificate Skizz and BigB. See ya!”

With that, Ren darted out of the cave, running as fast as Tango’s lithe body would allow him. Ren was used to having longer legs, but Tango’s shorter, smaller frame meant there was less weight he was having to carry. He would be curious to race Tango some other time and see who was truly faster.

While Ren refused to turn back, refused to look Martyn in the eyes after fleeing like a coward, he could feel Martyn stare hopelessly after him. We’ll reunite properly one day, me hand. I promise.

#deity writes #treebark #renchanting duo #secret life fanfic #trafficfic #life series ren #life series martyn #secret life martyn #secret life ren #secret life rengo #secret life tango #technically #trafficblr #trafficshipping #trafficshipblr #life series fanfic #traffic life fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic

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soulfireblue · 1 year ago

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So here’s the thing— this isn’t Scar’s first time being alone. The difference this time is that it’s not a loneliness that he can blame on the others, as much as that would make it easier. It’s not even a loneliness that he’s at blame for— if the others knew it was his secret, telling him over and over again to be the villain, maybe they’d argue that he could just reroll, but then they’d all be hypocrites, because it’s become pretty well-established that the only time people reroll or fail is if they are physically incapable of their task, and. Well. Scar’s proven himself pretty capable of being a villain by now, hasn’t he?

But he can’t blame the others, either— he knows Mom offered him her home again, but he wasn’t allowed to take his place in it. And this time he’s the one running away from Grian, as much as he’d prefer to do otherwise. It took an external force to remove Scar from the cycle of chasing after him again and again, and it took that same external force for Grian to finally turn around and look at him.

And Scott— he doesn’t want to think about the look on Scott’s face as he stood with Pearl. Scott was kind to him, when no one else was, when Scar wasn’t allowed to even be kind to himself. It shouldn’t feel like a treachery, because Scar was too alone to have anyone to betray. But turning on Scott feels more horrible and twisted and villainous than any murders he may or may not have committed.

But Pearl— Scar knows she knows how this feels, because she’s been here too. She’s been twisted into the villain before, and she knows the same loneliness he feels. But she’s alone again now, in a different way. Whatever promises she might have made her team are void now, because they’re gone, and she’s here with Scar. She could have chosen Gem, because they were friends, too, Gem screams, just like he could have gripped the handle of his sword and chosen Scott. It’s just the two of them together at the end of the world, and they’ve chosen each other.

In a kinder world, there would have been no sides to choose, no horror and betrayal in anyone’s eyes. There would have been no villains or heroes. In no world, though, would Scott choose Scar over Gem. In no world would Gem choose Pearl over Scott. So maybe it can’t be a betrayal, because if either of them chose their other ally, they’d be leaving the other alone. And they know too well what that feels like. So this is the way things have to be, even if Scar has to admit to himself that he’s only here because he was lucky enough to be standing next to Pearl when it really mattered.

In that other world, Gem is probably the winner, no matter what configuration it ends up with. Pearl and Gem and Scott against Scar, he loses immediately. Scar and Gem and Scott against Pearl, he lives long enough to see everyone turn on Pearl before Scott lets Gem kill him and they 1v1. Almost everything ends with a 1v1 against Gem, because Scott chooses Gem every time, even over himself. And Gem vs Scar, sword vs bow, Scar knows he would lose.

And if they all declare a truce and embrace old allies, it just becomes a repeat of stories already told— four people in four corners, rushing at each other, unless Scar embraces the villainy that’s been thrust on him and decides to repeat Martyn’s story instead. Scar’s too much of a storyteller for that to be satisfying.

So Scar changes the narrative. Scott gets to go out how he wants, how he always has, but Scar refuses to let Pearl do the same. “You may slay me and take the enchanter.” Maybe he’s been here before too.

And maybe now Gem’s the one who’s alone, because Pearl isn’t fighting for herself, and maybe that’s a little unfair, but she has the strength of Scott with her and maybe anything else would have been a little bit unfair too. Maybe things are always unfair, as much as they’d all like to convince themselves otherwise. Maybe there are no heroes after all, because no matter what happens, the cycle continues, and people choose each other, and people choose love, but in the end, there is no choice at all.

And Pearl and Scar both understand this, both the choice and the lack of it. They understand what it’s like not to be chosen, and they’ve chosen each other in the last moments of this world. But in the end, it’s Scar’s narrative, not hers. It doesn’t end in an explosion of self-sacrificial TNT, but in a cactus ring and pulling punches.

And then it’s silent before Scar even gets the chance to contemplate what silence might be like.

And Scar is standing there alone again, and he’s everything everyone has made him into, but he’s won. He’s finally loved, in a twisted kind of way, in the gaps between final breaths that let him look back and see that maybe even with everything that’s happened, maybe the love’s still been there all along. Amongst everyone else’s tragedy is his happy ending, because he finally gets to embrace that love. He’s the guy without friends, and he’s made it to this point partly because of the people who see him and love him anyway, but he’s mostly made it all on his own. Maybe the difference between this and the other times he’s been on his own is that this time, he embraced it instead of continuing to chase after them. This time, he feels like they were instead the ones chasing after him, and he’d like to think that was purposeful on his part, a means of revenge, but it was not the role he would have chosen. But it’s the part he has played, and he has won.

He’s the villain they’ve turned him into, but he’s also himself.

And he thinks maybe he’s okay.

#secret life smp #secret life spoilers #goodtimeswithscar #pearlescentmoon #secret life #life series #trafficblr #life series fanfic #secret life fanfic #i wrote this like three hours ago but the tags weren’t working so i decided to wait #it started off as a meta analysis but kind of became a fic lol whoops #it was written in my notes all and it’s not perfect but i have so many feelings about scar

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royal-songbird · 1 year ago

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The Origins of Etho's Dishwasher

Hello all !! I got bored so. i decided to write out this silly little drabble of grian first discovering his magma cube, ethos dishwasher, in my secret life apocalypse au :D i wrote this for fun, so ignore any mistakes or whatever

Word count: 508

Grian has terrible impulse control. He’s quite good at pretending he actually does have good control over every little thought pinging around in his skull, and only indulges in them for the bit, but in all honesty, it's almost abysmal how little he’s in charge of his own thoughts.

Of course, in general, this isn’t much of a problem. The worst that comes out of his incredibly impulsive nature are months-long prank wars, but those usually end on a good note, with everyone pitching in on the cleanup. In fact, Grian would even argue that his prank wars help bring everyone together, no matter how much the others may insist otherwise.

But that is not the point of this observation. What brought Grian to this unsurprising realization is the little glob of hell sitting at his feet, blinking innocently up at him, as if it's done no wrong.

And, one might ask, ‘glob of hell? Isn’t that a bit dramatic?’, and no, no it is not. The creature in front of Grian seems to be made up of actual lava, its eyes a burning orange, chunks of the molten rock swirling beneath its dark, hardened exterior. Grian’s wearing pants, but he can still feel the heat radiating from the thing, like standing too close to a campfire.

Now, that brings another question around- Why is Grian with a glob of hell in the first place? Well, that’s where his impulsivity plays in. He’d been out looting, as one does in the middle of a world-end apocalypse, when he had stumbled directly into the ‘corrupted’ part of the city. It had been long since overtaken by a strange, other-worldly growth with towering, basalt spikes and strange red trees and vines, pools of lava seeping through fissures in the streets. Basically, a walking death pit.

But, Grian being- well- Grian, did not retreat like a normal, logical person would do. No, instead, he headed deeper into the city, ignoring any scrap of self-preservation he might’ve had. Look, he had thought there would be more untouched supplies there- he hadn’t once seen a single survivor go in there, so logically, there had to be some things leftover. In the end, his brave exploration did not yield much, aside from the glob of hell now following him around.

He had run into it after narrowly avoiding death from a giant, floating octopus-like creature that shot fireballs, and it just…hadn’t left his side since. Grian tried getting rid of it, he really did, but the thing refused to leave. And now, against his better judgment, Grian has gotten… a tiny bit attached to it.

In his defense, the creature is quite cute, if he looks past the made-from-lava part. And sure, there’s an apocalypse going on right now, and taking in a pet is probably not the best idea, but is that really such a big deal?

Grian frowns as he looks at the magma cube. It blinks back, letting out a gurgling noise, lava bubbles popping inside it.

Yeah, this is fine.

#sl!apocalypse au #secret life smp #secret life #mcyt #grian #secret life grian #secret life fanfic #mcyt fanfic #grian fanfic #finch does stuff

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howdybeetle · 1 year ago

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Caught in the Eclipse

Word Count: 792 -------

"Shes dead scar."

"You won."

Scars breath hitches in his throat, the adrenaline still thrumming in his veins. His eyes lose focus on the message sent through his communicator. "Oh.." It sounds choked out and fake, to his own ears.

"Really? Oh my god..." The world around him doesn't feel real. Somewhere, somehow, in the back of his mind he's aware of the zombie clawing at his skin, tearing him apart where he stands, but it doesn't seem to register what that means yet.

He laughs, and it's strangled, tears that he doesn't understand forming in his eyes and falling down his cheeks. "How did that happen? How did the guy with no friends-" He chokes, and the sound is something wretched, clawing its way between the gaps of a sob and a laugh.

"How did the guy with no friends win?" He laughs again, wet and awful and cruel, and for a second, the only thing grounding him is the smell of his own blood when the zombie's teeth tear through his shoulder.

He thinks about it for a second, to sit there. To fall to the ground, to let himself join his family. It would only take a few more ticks...

"Well, there's only one thing left for us to do..." Speaking to himself helps, he finds. It dulls the ache of knowing he's alone. Again.

His legs shake, and he ignores the zombie trailing behind him while he walks, just as well as he ignores his half a heart that could burst with the smallest gust of a summer wind.

"Might as well succeed the task."

"Here's to all you villains of the world..."

His voice doesn't compute in his ears when he presses the button. It feels muffled, with his throat and ears and mouth stuffed full with cotton and wheat.

He feels like he's in a dream, in the way that he's watching his body move outside of himself, as if he were a ghost alongside with his friends.

He can feel his heartbeat stutter with new life, the prize for succeeding. For playing the game.

For playing their game.

He closes his eyes, swallowing thickly around the dryness of his throat.

"I'm ready."

And that was the only thing they needed to hear.

"Scar!!"

The voice is muffled.

He blinks open his too damp eyes, and his lashes press cold with salty water against his cheeks.

Scar's kneeling, from what he can tell, through his head full of fog.

The space around him is other worldly.

They're in the void, but the floor below them feels elastic, like an invisible trampoline's tarp. He can see someone running towards him, long hair whipping over her shoulders.

She looks angelic, with the sun floating behind her. It's not quite heavenly though, with how the dark black fog of the void cancels out the light before it can spread too far; to touch too much. They wouldn't allow them that joy, of bathing in a full sun's beam. That's something you have to earn.

He chokes on a sob, shoulders shaking when he curls in on himself, hugging himself around his stomach as he screams - He wails, something dark and hurting and aching - and finally, she reaches him, coiling herself around his fragile and delicate existence.

She cries too, cradling him close against her chest.

"Hey." A broken laugh makes its way through her tears, and she pets his hair in a comforting way. It feels like home.

A sob chokes out of his throat on his first attempt, but after a shudder, he manages a fractured, "Hey yourself."

Her giggle is manic, rocking them both in her arms.

It's nice.

It feels like an eternity that they sit there, but really it could've only been a few seconds at most. Who cares though? Time is meaningless in the presence of grief, after all.

Shaking footsteps make their way towards them, and when Scar manages to lift his heavy head from a caped shoulder, he catches the fractured gaze of the Sun.

And by the Gods above, what is he if not the Earth, sheltered in the Moon's hold while gazing into the firey rays of the Sun's presence?

He figures that anything else will never matter more.

He turns his face back into the crook of the Moon's shoulder, and stretches his arm in a reach for the Sun, no different from the branch of a tree searching for the nurturing caress of the Sun's life giving light.

And finally, in the empty, unforgiving vacuum of the universe, the Sun joins their embrace.

Scar finds that he has his home once again, settled in the center of a total lunar eclipse. He never wants to leave it’s shade.

#secret life #secret life spoilers #goodtimeswithscar #gtws #secret life fanfic #goodtimeswithscar fanfic #gtws fanfic #pearlescent moon #grian #life series #life series fanfic #life series spoilers #howdyfiction

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hopepetal · 1 year ago

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Read on AO3

Reblogs do more than likes!

They had been running for some time now, chasing after Gem and Scott ever since proclaiming themselves allies. Chasing, without end, prey that was an expert at evading. It was frustrating, and not to mention exhausting.

Pearl took a moment to gasp for air, her footsteps stumbling to a halt. It took Scar a moment to notice, but when he did he stopped as well, turning to look back at her. “You good, Pearl?” he asked, tilting his head slightly in question.

“Yeah,” she got out, “doin’ lovely, mate. Don’t worry about me, just need a second.” She bent over, resting her hands on her knees as she gasped. Her lungs and legs burned from the strain, and despite his calm demeanor she knew Scar was feeling the same.

It took Pearl a moment to realize that her hair was cascading down around her, falling into her face despite the fact that she had tied her hair back earlier. With a groan, she realized her ponytail had come loose, the ribbon she had used still tangled in her hair. “Hold on,” she got out, straightening back up, “I have to tie my hair back up. Can’t be fighting with my hair down.”

“Wait!” Scar set down his shield and bow before stepping forward. “I have a better idea.” Before Pearl could protest, he gently took the tangled ribbon from her hair.

Pearl frowned. “What are you planning, Scar?”

“Sit down, Pearl.” Scar lowered himself to the ground and sat with his legs folded beneath him. “I’ll braid your hair.”

Pearl raised an eyebrow, laughing. She still clutched her bow in her hand, looking around nervously– they were almost a full death game in, and she still was on edge. As if she was planning on winning. “You know we don’t have that kind of time, Scar. Gem and Scott are still out there, and who knows what they’re planning?”

Scar shook his head, patting the ground in front of him. “Sit down. We need this rest, you know. Can’t fight too well if we’re exhausted.”

Pearl sighed, reluctantly setting down her bow as she sat. She kept her shield in her hand, laying it across her lap and fidgeting with the handle. “Alright.” She felt Scar pull her hair back, gently beginning to comb his fingers through her tangled locks. “Y’know, the final fight would go a lot easier if you killed me.”

Scar shook his head, still continuing to carefully brush through Pearl’s hair. “You know why I won’t do that, Pearl. I don’t like all those ‘heroic sacrifices’.”

Pearl laughed, continuing to fidget with her shield. Something about her laughter sounded a little bitter, nostalgic for something that had never happened. “Yeah, I can’t imagine why.”

Scar began dividing her hair up into sections, humming softly as he began to braid. “You have nice hair,” he commented, “very shiny. And soft.”

“You think so?” Pearl asked, free hand drifting up to play with one of her free locks. “Honestly, it just gets in the way during these games. I’m thinking of cutting it.”

Scar gasped, though the smile remained on his face. “Oh, I can only imagine… this game hasn’t even given us hairbrushes, the nerve!” After a moment of silence, he continued. “If you cut your hair, I won’t have any to braid, you know. How’s a man supposed to keep his hands busy like that?”

Pearl laughed, finally seeming to relax slightly as she set her shield to the side. “Grow out your own hair, you goof.” There was a sadness in her voice that Scar couldn’t physically understand– he’d never had long hair, so why did she sound like she was grieving something that never happened? And something so small at that.

For Pearl, the reason why was simple. How could she not grieve the parts of her friends that they’d forgotten they’d ever had? A smile that was missing its mischievousness, a laugh that was missing its depth. A look that had no recognition, no shared secrets. Memories like missing puzzle pieces, lost somewhere unknown. That was what she saw every time blood stained the ground, every time family was pitted against one another like soldiers at war.

Scar continued to braid Pearl’s hair, humming a cheery tune that Pearl knew he couldn’t recall learning. Deft hands paused, lightly holding the strands of hair, before Scar pulled away to grab something. Pearl heard him pick up his sword then hesitate, considering something.

“Aren’t you afraid of me stabbing you in the back?” he asked, to which Pearl laughed. “What? It’s a serious question!”

Pearl turned slightly to look at Scar, giving him a smile. “If you were going to stab me, Scar, it would’ve been when I asked you to. Besides,” she added, turning back around, “even if you did stab me now, I wouldn’t be upset. You’d get ten extra hearts.”

“Eh,” Scar dismissed, far too nonchalant for a discussion of death, “I don’t need ten extra hearts.”

Pearl raised an eyebrow, though she knew he wouldn’t be able to see that. “You might not think the same when we’re fighting against Gem and Scott, mate.”

Scar cut something with his sword before setting it back to the side, his hands taking Pearl’s hair in them again. “That’s a problem for future Scar. Present Scar doesn’t kill his only friend in the entire server.”

Pearl felt a pang of guilt shoot through her. She knew that feeling well– loneliness, grief. Loneliness was an old friend that had once been her only companion. She recognized that in Scar, in his voice and his eyes. She had seen it once before, in the second game. Not that he would remember it.

He might, soon. The voice that whispered to her was none other than her own, her deepest thoughts given words. He could win this. He could become like us.

I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, she shot back, unknowingly tensing up. It was a little silly, getting into an argument with herself, but Pearl had always been a rather silly person. Unconventional, even. At one point, she’d been called insane. Perhaps it was fitting.

And yet you want him to win. The voice made a good point– she made a good point. If she didn’t want Scar to win, she could easily just kill him now. She should kill him now if she so desperately wanted to spare him the fate of the victors. He’d put up a fight, and he was good with a sword. Pearl knew that much, knew that there would be a moment of surprise before his eyes narrowed and heart hardened and the battle began. She also knew that he wouldn’t win against her on the chance she did try her hardest, that she fought with all her might.

Scar knew this too, and perhaps that was why he teamed up with her in the first place. Maybe he had found kinship in their shared loneliness. Maybe he’d wanted protection. Maybe he needed a friend. It was unlikely, but maybe he’d felt drawn to her by a bond he couldn’t quite understand, one made by witnessing the violent and sudden end of a server he couldn’t remember. There were a thousand possible reasons as to why he’d chosen her, and perhaps she’d truly never left the tower after all, because the fact he had chosen her at all still slightly baffled her.

Well. No matter. He chose her, and in the end they’d all die anyway.

“You have gentle hands,” she commented. “Joel tried braiding my hair before. Nearly tugged my whole head off my neck, that man. It’s a wonder Lizzie’s put up with him this long.” No matter what memories they lost, it always seemed like Joel and Lizzie’s marriage remained an unchangeable fact. Maybe it had something to do with “‘til Death do us part’”, though Pearl wasn’t really sure.

Maybe she’d try marrying someone when they got back to Hermitcraft, just to see if it carried over to the next death game. And wasn’t that a strange thought, the next death game? There would be another, Pearl knew, if Grian had anything to say about it. He was a little strange like that, but she’d come to expect those kinds of things from her brother.

“Why thank you!” Scar was beaming, she could tell by his voice. “This just comes so naturally to me. Maybe I should’ve been a hairdresser instead of a trader.”

Pearl laughed, remembering the intricate braids Scar would put his hair in during Last Life and their home server, Hermitcraft. Although he couldn’t remember them, he remembered how to do them. That was a small relief, at the very least. It was nice to know that her friends kept some parts of themselves, instead of being the blank slates she had originally thought when she first regained her memories.

“Maybe,” she responded, starting to pick at the grass in front of her, plucking a small flower from the ground. “I’d go to you all the time if you were my hairdresser.” Her voice took on a teasing lilt as she continued. “Just as long as you promise not to do anything too crazy with my hair, alright?”

Scar giggled, his laughter another part of himself that he had kept even after the loss of his memories. “I can’t promise anything, sunflower! Who knows what might happen if you stop paying attention? I might turn you blonde if you aren’t careful.”

Pearl snorted, twirling a strand of grass around her finger idly. “And where do you suppose you’ll get the dye for that, mate? Or the means to make my hair lighter so it’s easier to dye? We’re not exactly exploding with resources here.”

“Hmm, true…” Scar hummed thoughtfully. “We’ve found ourselves in a bit of a pickle, Pearl!”

Pearl shook her head, rolling her eyes. “No, Scar, we aren’t. I didn’t want to go blonde in the first place, so there’s no need to get the materials we’d need for it. Just keep braiding my hair, you goof!”

“Aww, alright!” Scar laughed softly as he went back to braiding Pearl’s hair. “Almost done.” His voice took on an uncharacteristically serious tone. “How are you feeling? Injuries, exhaustion? General… mental state?” He gave a small chuckle on the last one. “I mean, other than the obvious. This game has been… a trip.”

Pearl groaned, stretching out her arms in front of her. “Tell me about it. I lost all of my Mounders.” Her shoulders slumped. “I really wanted them to win, Scar. I really did.”

“I know,” Scar murmured, “and I’m sorry you didn’t get to see that through. You did your best, Pearl.” He paused. “And what about you? I would’ve thought that after all your allies… got out… that you would want to take up the sword and win for them. But you haven’t really… been doing that. You even offered to let me kill you.”

Pearl held back a shudder, wanting to wrap her arms around herself to fight off the sudden cold that had settled over her. “I don’t want to win,” she mumbled, “Even if I did, I don’t think they’d be too happy if I tried.”

Scar made a confused noise. “What was that? I couldn’t quite catch it.”

Pearl shook her head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She took a breath. “I just don’t want to win. Don’t see the point in all this, really. Never have. What’s a victory when everyone else around you is dead?”

Scar hummed thoughtfully, thinking about it. “I suppose you’re right. But in the end, isn’t it better for it to be them than me?”

Pearl chuckled sadly. “Not when you have to live with the consequences.”

Scar paused for a moment, as if struck by a sudden revelation. “...I think I understand. Thanks for, uh, answering my questions.” He continued braiding for another moment. “Alright, I think we’re all done!”

Pearl stood with Scar, reaching back to gently touch her braid. There was a shallow pool of water nearby, and she walked over to check her reflection. “Really, Scar?” Woven into her braid was a sunflower, which must’ve been what Scar cut with his sword earlier.

Scar laughed, joining her by the water. “Doesn’t it look pretty? I thought it was fitting. And!” he continued, over Pearl’s soft laughter, “it adds some brightness to the whole ensemble!” He gestured at Pearl’s outfit, the same she had worn in her past games.

Maybe she would change up her red look next game. If there was a next game. “It does, it does,” she agreed, stifling her laughter. “Thank you, Scar. I look very pretty now, and my hair is out of the way.”

Scar looked over at her, eyes wide. “You mean you won’t cut it? You promise?”

Pearl smiled, reaching out and putting a hand on Scar’s shoulder. “I promise I won’t cut my hair, Scar. Not after you put so much effort into braiding it. I wouldn’t do that to ya, mate. That’s just cruel.”

Scar grinned. “I knew I could trust you!” With that, he turned away from the water and walked back to where he had left his sword and shield.

Pearl spent another moment there, gazing out at the water. Did he really mean that? Did Scar truly trust her? If so, had it just been this small moment that made him let down his guard? No, surely not. Scar was intelligent and cunning, and rarely did he let his walls down for anyone. Something must’ve happened for him to feel this way towards her. Something she had done, or said, maybe.

And that was just if he was being truthful with his words– she knew Scar wasn’t one to ignore the benefits of weaving lies and charm into his speech. He was a masterful manipulator, she knew many underestimated him for the cheery, unassuming front he put up. But that was just another reason as to why he was dangerous.

“Pearl?” Scar’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, and she looked back at her ally. “You comin’?”

“Yeah.” Pearl jogged over, feeling much more energized than before. Picking up her bow and her shield, she did one last check to make sure everything she had was in order. Once she was certain, she turned to Scar with a smile. “Lets win this one, Scar.”

Scar grinned in return, red eyes shining. “Why, I think that’s a wonderful idea!”

Lightning struck the ground as Gem took Scott’s sacrifice, and once again Pearl stopped Scar. “My offer still stands, you know. Kill me and take the hearts, you’ll stand a better chance against Gem if you do.”

Scar pretended to think about it. “I think I’ll stand a better chance against Gem if I have you on my team. So, no thank you! But thanks for the offer. Come on, we can’t let Gem get away!”

The chase continued, feeling much more light-hearted than the ones at the end of Double Life had been. To be fair, she had gone a little insane in the last few days, but still. Maybe it was Scar’s jovial attitude about killing. Maybe it was the fact that she still had an ally this late into the game. Maybe it was something Pearl would never be able to put her finger on, no matter how hard she tried to think of a reason.

The two inevitably caught up with Gem, who had grown exhausted from the chase. Despite being enemies now, Pearl still felt guilty as she raised her sword to attack, Gem’s wide eyes and shouts of an unfair fight making her hesitate and pull back. It was two against one after all, and Pearl had no intentions of winning. Ganging up on Gem like that felt wrong, but maybe that was just her old bond to the other holding her back. Scar had no such qualms, swooping in when she pulled back to quickly cut Gem down.

Pearl could hardly believe it had happened until lightning struck the ground, and silence rang between the two as Scar stood over Gem’s body. They’d discovered that bodies remained after the last death when Jimmy had died, but it was still a little disturbing to just see Gem laying there. Like she was asleep.

It didn’t feel right.

Pearl had to bite back a snort. Four death games in, and she was still disturbed by the sight of dead bodies. Honestly, it was a little pathetic. She’d killed, and been killed, and yet… somehow, it never got any easier. Somehow, it just got harder. The blood staining her hands had become so much that it was hard to hold onto her weapon, and her scars ached whenever she killed.

Pearl brushed her braid back over her shoulder and lowered her bow, offering Scar a weak smile. “You did it, Scar. Good job.”

Scar laughed softly, not turning around to face her just yet. “It’s just us two left, then. The last ones alive.” “Mhm. What’s your plan now, Scar?” Pearl kept her voice casual, trying to hide the trembling in her hands. How are you going to do it?

How are you going to kill me?

Scar answered her question by turning and raising his bow. Pearl hardly had any time to blink before he shot her, the force of the arrow sending her stumbling back with a shout. Instinct took over then, and she ran as Scar continued to shoot at her. All thoughts of sacrifice fled her mind as she dodged the flying arrows that missed her just barely, reminding her just how good of a shot Scar was.

“Going for it immediately, huh?” she shouted back as she ran, pulling her sword. Not that she intended to use it, not to kill. But she would put up a fight. If Scar wouldn’t let her sacrifice herself for him, then she would do the next best thing. She would fight him, and he would earn his victory. Not like the hollow sacrifice Scott made for her, where victory was force-fed to Pearl by his hands. No, she wouldn’t do that to Scar. She respected him too much to throw the fight.

That didn’t mean she would try to win, not in the slightest. But she would do her best to not make it easy for him. His victory would be painful no matter what she did, but at the very least she could make sure it wasn’t a hollow one.

The next arrow hit her as she ran through the field of sunflowers they had been sitting in just earlier, when Scar had offered to braid her hair. It felt like a lifetime ago as she crashed into the ground, yelping in pain as she tried to scramble back up. “Really, Scar?” She couldn’t help but laugh as she ran, the pain shocking as adrenaline flowed through her veins.

“This game!” Scar called, continuing the chase as he spoke. “There were more of them, weren’t there? And you won.”

Pearl stumbled, surprise catching her off guard mid-stride. She cursed and turned back, swinging her sword down and catching Scar in the side. He stumbled back, granting her more time to flee– but not enough. As she ran, Scar drew back the bowstring, aiming carefully. A running target was harder to hit, but Pearl was moving in a relatively straight path. All he had to do was aim a little ahead, steady, then release.

It was over the moment the arrow flew, striking Pearl in the chest and pushing her over the edge of a cliff, sending her plummeting into the caves below. Lightning struck, and then all was silent.

Scar stood, clutching his bow in a white-knuckle grip. “Pearl?” He took a step forward. The wind blew around him, rustling through his hair and shawl. Sunflowers bowed against the breeze, gesturing in the direction where she’d fallen. “Pearl?! Pearl, sunflower, where are you?”

The breeze led him a few steps further in a stumbling haze, until he stood at the edge of the caves that he’d sent his friend? Enemy? falling into. He didn’t know what he expected– maybe to see Pearl gazing back up at him, a smile on her face and weapon drawn, hurt but alive– but as he looked down into the caves, he found only the body of his first and final ally.

A presence danced around him, heavier than the wind but acting just like it. She’s dead, Scar. You won. Five words whispered in his ear, as thin as the passing breeze. Five words that would’ve meant the world to Scar, once upon a time. Five words that now meant nothing to him as he gazed down at the body of his only friend.

Crouching, Scar swung his legs over the edge of the cave, slowly and carefully lowering himself down. He had to find footholds so that he wouldn’t fall and possibly lose his life as well– the fight with Pearl had left him with fewer hearts than he would’ve liked. “Hold on, Pearl,” he mumbled as he made his way down to where Pearl lay. “I’m coming to get you, I’m… I’m coming, don’t worry, I’ll be right there.”

He dropped the last few feet, wincing as pain shot up his legs and sapped at his strength. Luckily, the drop wasn’t far enough to cause any actual injury, but it was closer than he would’ve liked. He stumbled to catch himself, pulling himself to a halt in front of Pearl’s body.

It was hard to look at her like this. Pearl was someone who was so full of life, always. She was strong and fierce, fighting for what she wanted every day, every moment. She never gave up, not once in all the time that Scar knew her. It hadn’t been long, and it was hard to really get to know someone during a death game like this, but Scar had always been pretty good at reading people.

He knelt by Pearl’s body, brushing her hair out of her face and gently closing her eyes. He didn’t delude himself with pretending she was asleep– what was the point of avoiding death now, when he had caused so much of it? His hands were stained red with blood that he would never be able to wash off.

Scar lingered a moment longer before shrugging off his shawl and gently wrapping it around Pearl. He was careful with her body, handling her as gently as he could as he settled her back against the stone. There wasn’t as much blood as Scar thought there should’ve been, but he wiped the blood that was there off Pearl’s face as best he could.

Then, his hands went to the braid. It had held up well, keeping the sunflower he had woven in secured in her hair. He hesitated for a moment before untying the ribbon that held it in place and beginning to undo the braid.

He began to hum while he worked. Slowly, reverently. A song that came from a place he couldn’t quite remember, a home he once thought he’d never forget. In another world, he would know he was humming the last rites for a loved one, to send them off into the stars. In this world, all he knew of it was the deep, longing ache in his chest and the tears that it caused to spring to his eyes.

Carefully, Scar took the sunflower from Pearl’s hair, placing it down in his lap. He gently combed his fingers through her hair one last time, before tucking it into the shawl. Picking the sunflower back up, he leaned forward and gently kissed her on the forehead. “Good night, sweet sunflower. And goodbye.”

He stood and once more began humming softly, climbing out of the ravine with the sunflower still in his hand. Scar took extra care to not crush the delicate flower as he pulled himself up onto solid ground. The sun was just beginning to set as he made his way toward the Secret Keeper, the intimidating statue that reigned over the entire server. The towering tyrant seemed to gaze down at Scar with eyes he knew he couldn’t see, taunting him with a victory that tasted at best bittersweet.

It grew dark as Scar approached the buttons, but he held tight to the reminder of the sun’s light in his hand. It gave him the strength to push forward even as his legs threatened to give out from under him. He could not hide the trembling, however, that came from the rush of adrenaline and fear.

He raised his eyes to meet the invisible ones looking down on him, a challenge held in his gaze, “You wanted me to be the villain?!” he called out, the weight of being watched settling on his shoulders. “Fine! Here I am!” He reached out and pressed the button to succeed.

Welcome home.

And Scar… remembered. What sounded like thousands of voices overlapping filled his mind, causing him to stumble back with a yelp. He dropped the sunflower, clutching at his head as he was forced to his knees in front of the Secret Keeper.

Sacrifices offered and refused. Atonement rejected, forgiveness given. Arms outstretched, to offer a helping hand. Tears falling into blood-stained water as the two left locked eyes. “For all you have done to keep me alive this long, you may slay me and take the enchanter.”

Bloodied sand, prickling cactus spines, heat waves and cool nights. Two impossible friends, against the world. Traitorous actions, painful fists, a killing blow. “Scar, whatever happens, I think we can count this as a double victory.”

A loneliness that echoed in the silence around him, howling as the wind at night. Bonds broken off entirely, leaving him with only the stars for company. “Everything that happened last season is null and void. Doesn’t count, okay?”

A bitterness that came from once tasting too much sweetness, like slightly burnt cookies. A loneliness that ached worse than when he had been truly alone, for this ache was born of lies and deceit. “I made them, they’re for your secret soulmate.”

A moment of joy, in the midst. A time of family, friendship, and security. Before the secrets, before the lies and the pain, before the fire and the red wars. “We’re the cockers!”

Allies for the first time in what felt like forever. People who truly had his back, no matter what. A place where he could let his guard down and smile, laugh, and live. If only for a moment, he knew what it was like to be loved. He was protected, and he was protective. “You don't go against the family.”

You are seated in a field, surrounded by grass blades, ebbing and flowing through the gusts of your imagination. Each of those blades represent a past life. Memories. Desires. Dreams. And past loves… By plucking one you shall reveal–

“Home,” Scar gasped out, eyes snapping open. “I need to go home.”

You are home.

The presence became louder, more unbearable. Each voice clamored for attention, every new memory begging to be heard. The weight of the universe pushed him into the ground, making him gasp for air in a strained panic.

It was too much. All the memories, all the emotions– it was too much. Scar yelled in pain as it just grew louder and louder, the pressure growing as the weight pushing him down increased. Just like a volcano, it felt as though he was going to erupt at any minute.

And then a cold wind brushed up against Scar’s skin, weaving and dancing around him. “Enough.”

The voices instantly quieted, the pressure vanishing as Scar collapsed to the ground gasping for air. He tried blinking away the tears and black spots that cluttered his vision, making it difficult to see properly.

What he could see, though, took his breath away.

Pearl stood in front of him as a shimmering silver spirit, facing the Secret Keeper with her wings flared out to their full span. She glowed as if she were made from moonlight and stardust, and Scar couldn’t help but stare at her in awe.

“He belongs with us. You will leave him alone.” Her voice was thin and brittle– as if it might snap were someone able to reach out and grab it. There was an echo to it as well, ringing in Scar’s mind as she spoke.

The feeling of being watched vanished completely, and Pearl turned back to Scar. She smiled a silvery smile, and held out her hand to him. “C’mon, mate. Let's go home.”

Scar took her hand, gasping at the sudden coldness that flooded his body– Death. He stood up, trying not to look down at his body that lay where he had fallen just moments earlier. As he stepped forward to join his friend, he couldn’t help but glance back and notice the sunflower lying beside his body, just inches away from his open hand. Nothing he could do about it now.

Scar turned back to face Pearl, noticing the three other spirits that had gathered. He remembered them all now. The winners of the previous games. His allies, his enemies, his friends. His eyes caught Grian’s, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“Well hello there,” he greeted his old ally with a grin, letting go of Pearl’s hand to bow dramatically. “Guess we finally cashed in on that double victory, huh?”

Grian laughed, rolling his eyes. His expression warmed as he took a step forward, reaching out to take Scar’s hand in his. “Little late, but I’ll accept it. How are you, Scar?”

“Well, he’s very dead, so I can’t imagine he’s doing great,” Scott interjected, ignoring the glare the two avians gave him. “What? I’m not wrong.”

Scar shook his head. “That you are! I’m actually doing much better now that I remember everyone’s going to come back. Makes me feel a lot less guilty about killing all those people!”

Pearl sighed, though she couldn’t hide the smile on her face. “Y’know, I felt the same way after I won Double Life. And now the games are so much easier for me! It’s nice to get all the murderous urges out now that I know everyone’s going to be fine eventually.”

“This is why everyone calls you two insane,” Martyn muttered, crossing his arms. “Now can we go back home now? I don’t like hanging out in these servers longer than I have to.”

Grian let go of Scar’s hand to pull up some sort of screen, typing commands into it. “Sure, just give me one second.” He continued typing on the screen, swiping through various options and closing others. “Good game, by the way,” he added, without looking up, “I don’t think anyone expected you to win.”

Scar gave a half shrug. “To be honest, G, I didn’t either! Totally thought Gem was going to get this one.”

Grian nodded. “But that’s just how these games go, mhm? Expect the unexpected. Pearl’s win should’ve taught us that much.” He spent another moment typing before closing the screen. “…Alright, we should be heading back to our respective servers soon enough.” He reached out to take Scar’s hand again, taking Pearl’s hand in his other.

“Can’t believe we almost have all of the Boatem crew here,” Scar blurted out, “do you think Impulse will join us next time?”

Pearl laughed. “I hope so! I don’t think Mumbo will be winning any time soon, though. So we might just have to settle for four out of five.”

Scar nodded sagely. “You speak very wise words, Pearl. I fear Mumbo may be too… how do people say it? I fear he may be too much of a wet cat.”

Martyn groaned. “Oh, don’t remind me.”

Laughter rose from the group as the code began its work, and they all began to fade away. Grian held tightly to Scar and Pearl’s hands, locking eyes with the both of them. “I’ll see you both soon, okay?”

Pearl giggled, squeezing Grian’s hand in return. “See you soon, Griba!”

“Goodbye!” Scar called to Martyn and Scott, their responding farewells faint as the server faded away around him.

And then there was darkness.

And then Scar woke up.

#my writing #pearlescentmoon #goodtimeswithscar #geminitay #grian #martyn inthelittlewood #scott smajor #secret life #secret life fanfic

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