#thank u tho anon i freaking LOVE flipturn i am so glad u sent this its SO them

[minecraftbed]

a desertduo fic based on the songAugust by flipturn

it’s so them right im not delusional

August: a song about a relationship that only works out during the month of august, wherein it seems perfect. After august it falls apart, until the next august comes around. 

title: octagonal

wordcount: 971

rating: T

ao3: HERE

“Hey, catch.”

Grian barely had time to finish pulling off his sweater before something equally as red entered his peripheral. He jumped backwards with a squeak and a fluff of wings, the object landing by his feet with a thud. An apple, shiny like glass under the desert sun.

“That wasn’t… you can’t just throw things at me, Scar—” the words were annoyed but laced with amusement as he adjusted his tank top. “—and expect me to react on time.” 

“Well,” Scar bit into his own fruit like an animal, juice running down his fingers, down his wrist, down his arm. “What if I’d been an enemy?”

“You aren’t.”

“And…! —And what if that had been TNT.”

Grian sighed. “Then I wouldn’t have wanted  to catch it, would I?” 

Scar took a second, canting his head and staring at him, apple frozen in motion towards his mouth. Then, the lightbulb went off. “Oh…” a chuckle. “Oh, I guess not.” 

It was contagious; the way they bickered and laughed, the constant back and forth as they worked. Hands splintered from planks of wood, then calloused from rough sandstone bricks. The foundations of their new …home… were beginning to take place. 

(Really, it was Grian doing the work. Scar stood around shirtless and thought up ways to scam people.)

The sun, high in the sky, unchanging as they changed beneath it. 

————————————-

The new world was different.

Grian noticed it from day one; the shift in tone, they went from orange to blue. 

It didn’t help that there was the looming threat of what everyone was calling ‘the boogeyman’. As if they were twelve. As if the insatiable, sudden need to kill one of your friends was as light as the stories parents told their children so that they would go to sleep.

Maybe it was, Grian hadn’t experienced either. 

But he felt the effects. People stood further away during conversations, hands itching by their sides ready to draw. No one wanted to be alone, either, but it was worse to be alone with another. Anyone could turn. Anyone could kill.

The curse brought on an ultimatum: them or you. And who in their right mind wouldn't choose the former? 

It was dark when he saw Scar for the first time. Part of him knew he should be cautious, memories burnt fresh into his brain of blood on his sword, in his hair, his skin. Together they had taken down everything and everyone, including themselves. Behind that annoying lopsided smirk and fake diamond armour, Scar hid what he was capable of. 

Grian wasn’t scared of his violence. No, no. His words, they were a completely different thing to fear.

“...So I can’t put you on the back of a llama and take you to the desert?”

It hurt, in an unexpected way. The type of way where you end up angry at yourself for not preparing on time. His mental walls were only half constructed, architecturally weak, and Scar had found the point to prod on his first try. Grian laughed, shrill and light as his heart crawled further inside. 

He needed severance.

“Hey… have you tried transferring a life yet?” 

The new world was different.

“No, I haven’t!”

He would be different.

————————————-

His throat stung, dehydrated lips cracked. Grian’s scream would unendingly echo throughout the ravine.

He waited, and waited, and waited. Alone in the desert, dizzy with heatstroke, uncertain of what was to come. When Scar finally showed up, he wasn’t sure if he was real or a mirage; he spoke to him anyway. 

The flowers. Lilacs and poppies. Grian clutched the wilted bundle in his fist, torn between them and the new shade of Scar’s eyes.

“Can we still be friends?”

Could they? Did Grian care if they couldn’t? It was just stupid rules of a stupider game. Half of everything was made up on the fly, and the other half broken whenever someone felt like it. They were too carefree, when nothing was there to enforce them. 

Grian didn’t want to admit it, but somewhere along the muddied lines, his obligation had grown into greedy devotion. He needed Scar, and Scar needed him. At least if they got any more parasitic the vultures would have something to feast on. 

“I think so? I still owe you my first life,” and the one after that, and the one after that.

They rearranged their sleeping quarters that night, silently communicating as they pushed two beds together. It was sticky and humid, but their hands stayed entwined until morning. 

Grian left the flowers on the windowsill, with thought that they would dry. 

————————————-

Grian had never experienced the boogeyman curse, but he had felt the effects.

“At least his bed is out here, so we don’t have to ruin his lovely house.”

That was something, right? 

They had built the obsidian spawn-camping death trap OUTSIDE of his lovely house. For that, Grian deserved a pat on the back. Joel gave him a funny look as the words left his mouth, the absurdity of the situation crawling down his spine. 

They needed these lives. Scar… Scar had too many. He didn’t need them like him and Joel did. —- Hell, he would lose them himself soon enough. All they were doing was stopping such an important resource from going to waste.

The method was… justified. 

So when Scar refused their offer, backing away from his beloved mountain, spewing lies, silver tongue tangled, Grian didn’t feel bad, loading his crossbow with bolt after bolt. Each one finding a place in flesh, in armour. Scar had made his choice.

At the end of the day, his heart was just a muscle behind his sternum. 

And Grian only knew how to touch skin when it was to brush away stray grains of sand.