#this is three times longer than the first part KAKSJDHJD I think I was possessed /j

[happy-hermit]

LAST LIFE SCAR ANGST PART TWO BABY :D

Thank you everyone for your enthusiasm with this fic akdkjdh it really kept me going. ( @stiffyck this is still for you)( @hopepetal here’s the tag u asked for I love your writing by the way I’m so happy you like this fic alskjdjd)

Part One

———

A few days pass where nothing and everything happens in equal measurements. The returned hermits work on settling back into normal — well, relatively normal — life, and they tend to only see each other in passing. They get caught up in old and new projects, filled with an urgency that came from being away for so long.

Scar himself spends most of his time gathering items. It’s mindless, repetitive work. Time consuming. Calming, almost. It’s boring enough that he doesn’t think anyone will bother to bother him. (He ignores the way his chest pangs at the thought. It doesn’t matter. It can’t.)

Jellie follows him around most of the time, even if he can’t always see her. She’s a comforting presence, and he knows that she’s only there because she wants to be. He doesn’t have to write up a contract to convince her to stay. She’s there for him. It’s just… nice, is all. To know that.

Scar wanders around with shulker boxes full of wood and leaves and sand and he pretends that he’s not avoiding everyone. It’s not like he doesn’t see them at all, and in fact he always grins and waves when he happens to run into someone. He just — doesn’t stay long. Doesn’t want to overstay a welcome he isn’t sure he has.

Daytime is easier. He can be busy during the day. He can forget. At night, though, he lays in bed and he hurts. His chest aches, and he’s cold, and he’s alone, always. Jellie is there, sure, and she counts, of course, but—

Well. Jellie can’t hug him. She can’t talk to him. She doesn’t know why he’s sad.

More than once, he finds himself outside of a Boatem member’s base in the dead of night, hand poised to knock and heart tugging him forward. He can’t do it, though. He doesn’t really know why — doesn’t want to think about it for too long. He’s pretty sure his mind would lead him back to an isolated mountain with a single bed set haphazardly in a corner. Thinks he would only be reminded of the way people had only ever visited if they’d wanted something from him.

He never knocks, those nights. He instead demolishes frankly absurd amounts of land for resources he doesn’t yet have plans for. He doesn’t sleep at night. It’s fine.

He manages to believe that for two weeks before it all falls apart.

———

The nights have been getting colder, since they all got back. Maybe it’s the season changing, or maybe it’s whatever has started happening with the moon; either way, Scar is thankful that he’s wearing a jacket. The fact that he’s soaked through to the bone is a little less ideal.

It’s a well known side effect of glow squid hunting, though, so he can’t really blame it on anyone but himself. It certainly ensured that he wouldn’t be falling asleep on his feet anytime soon. Of which there was a very real danger, if the cotton stuffed into his head and the lead weighing down his eyelids is any indication. The glow ink splattered on his hands and sleeves is starting to look a little blurry, and he instead focuses on just making it back to the Swaggon without keeling over.

The universe has it out for him, though, so when the first phantom crashes talons-first into his back, all he can do is fall.

He hits the ground with a strangled yelp, his sack of hard-earned glow squid ink flying out of his hand and splattering across the grass. It’s pretty. And heartbreaking. He supposes he hadn’t really needed it for anything…

The phantoms screech angrily overhead, and his back throbs and he scrambles to roll over onto it anyway, because he can’t stand up just yet and he at least wants to be able to see what’s coming—

He lurches to the right as another phantom dives towards him, and the talons only connect with his upper arm as opposed to his chest. He’ll call that one a win.

“Oh geez— Ow, come on, you can’t kick a man when he’s down!” Scar scrambles backwards across the grass, voice high and eyes wide as he resorts to attempting to reason with things that don’t understand him.

There are three of them circling him, and he scrambles to his feet just in time to catch a set of razor-sharp teeth in his shoulder. He yells and swats at it blindly, somehow managing to hit its eyes and smear glow ink across its wildly flapping wing. The phantom detaches itself from him, and he doesn’t even have time to be relieved before another is diving towards him.

He runs.

His shoulder hurts and his arm hurts and his back hurts and he’s cold and wet and no one has touched him gently in months, and he runs.

He doesn’t mean to go to Grian’s house. He had wanted to go home. (Maybe it’s telling, that he’d ended up here instead.)

A phantom bites at his leg as he reaches the alleyway, fake stars shining above him and horrifying undead creatures punishing him for his insomnia close behind him. Pain ricochets up his calf and down his ankle and he frantically tries to shake it loose, crashing to the ground again and crying out when the impact aggravates his other wounds. He knows without looking that his health is getting low. Dangerously low. And he hates respawning, he doesn’t want to, and maybe it won’t even work, maybe he’s used up his last life and he’s going to die alone just like he lived alone, and all he’ll be is a ghost haunting a world that barely notices his absence.

(That’s maybe too dramatic, but he’s dying and he’s tired and every night he holds his own hand and pretends he’s not alone. He feels entitled to a breakdown.)

He curls up against the ground with his eyes shut tight, resigned to the fact that he’ll have to get up and pick up his scattered items in a few minutes, resigned to the body aches that will follow him around for the next few days, resigned to the jokes that will pop up in chat after his death message goes out.

All he can hear is his own heartbeat in his ears, phantoms screeching and injuries stinging in a way that feels distant. Any second now. Any moment.

A hand lands on his shoulder, distinctly and painfully human, and he gasps, eyes flying open as he scrambles into a sitting position. His leg throbs angrily and his arm sends shocks of pain throughout his entire body and Scar tries his best to stay quiet — no one can know he’s hurt, they’ll kill him, they’ll make him give up a life — but a high-pitched sound of pain escapes his throat anyway. The blurry shape of a person kneeling in front of him freezes.

“—an you hear me? Scar?” The voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater, but it’s familiar. It feels like safe and danger at the same time. It sounds worried. “You’re hurt, please—“

“‘m fine,” Scar manages to get out, strained and quiet and mostly on autopilot.

“Wha— Scar, you are not fine, you absolute…”

The voice trails off into grumbling and Scar blinks slowly, looking down at himself. He’s covered in glow ink and his own blood and torn clothes. The clothes don’t look like the right color. He’s pretty sure they’re supposed to be purple.

“Wrong…” Scar mumbles, poking at his clothes. It seems important.

“Maybe because you’re bleeding all over it, Scar, just—“ The figure huffs, just a blob of red and tan, and something is moving behind him. Scar squints. The person seems angry. His weak heart rate picks up.

“D’ you… want a life?” Scar asks, confused and hurt. He can’t think. “I won’t… not for free. Let’s… A deal?”

The blurry person makes some sort of noise that makes Scar think he said something wrong. It sounds like it was punched out of them. Something’s wrong, he said something wrong. Scar’s eyelids are starting to droop, but he forces them open with a whine. The person lurches forward a bit, like they’re trying to catch him, but he’s not falling. Is he?

“D… Don’t go,” Scar pleads, mind scrambling to put together a sales pitch on why they should stay. “I can… I have— if you…”

His vision goes darker around the edges, as his own voice starts to echo in his head. The figure is saying something again, sounding frantic, scared. He wonders why. He hadn’t meant to be scary. He doesn’t think he’s in a condition to even try to be.

The last thing he sees before the darkness takes hold is a hand reaching out.

———

The first thing he’s aware of, when he wakes up, is not pain. It’s the gentle touch of a hand on his arm, lifting it and wrapping something around it. It still stings, but less so; most likely he’d been given a health potion. He feels warm. Sleepy. He opens his eyes.

The last thing he remembers is phantoms chasing him into Grian’s alley, and then someone finding him. Now with a slightly clearer head, he can only assume it had been Grian himself.

Slowly, he turns his head against the pillow he’s resting on, and he blinks sluggishly at the person currently bandaging his arm. It is Grian, with lines of worry in his face and his wings folded right against his back in that way that meant he was scared. Scar’s brow furrowed.

“…G?” His voice is hoarse, quiet, but Grian’s head still snaps up as if he’d shouted. “What’s wrong?”

Grian’s wings fluff up a little, something like angry disbelief swirling in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Grian repeats, half-hysterical. He drops the roll of bandages onto the bed and gestures wildly at Scar’s body. “You keel over in my alley dying of blood loss and you’re asking me what’s wrong?”

“Well, you do seem to be taking it harder than I am,” Scar jokes half-heartedly, attempting to sit up. Grian immediately pushes him back down, and Scar is too shocked to protest.

“Nope, you don’t get to deflect,” Grian says, and somehow it’s as gentle as it is stern. “I know what phantoms mean, Scar, and — and you didn’t even know who I was when I found you. So— so get talking. I know you know how.”

Nerves flare in his stomach, and he breaks eye contact to stare at the wall, inspecting all the random knick knacks on the shelves. He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to explain what he’s been feeling since the games, especially since everyone else seems to have moved on already. It feels silly, suddenly, for his biggest problem to be that he’s lonely. That he doesn’t think anyone wants him around.

“Scar,” Grian says, and it’s softer now. “I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”

There’s a lump in his throat and a burning in his eyes, and for just a moment Scar pretends that his heartbreak is anger. He sits up, ignoring Grian’s protesting, and he points an accusing finger at the avian.

“Now you want to stay?” Scar says, powering through even when his voice cracks. “Because last I checked, all— all you wanted to do was leave.”

“Scar, what—“

“No, you wanted me to talk! I’m talking!” Scar’s chest hurts, and his hands are cold, and something in him has been breaking for a very long time. “You— you couldn’t wait to tell me that any alliance from the last games were over. And then when I— When I thought I had Mumbo you came and took him away, too.” Scar cradles his shaking hands close to his stomach and looks away, anger slowly draining. “And then Joel— and then I had no one. And no one wanted to— I tried, Grian, but no one wanted to—“

He closes his eyes tightly, trying to stop the inevitable. “No one wanted to stay,” he finishes quietly. “I… I don’t know what I did. I don’t know why no one…”

Scar trails off, laughing a little and rubbing at his eyes, trying to stop the tears before they fall on Grian’s blanket. “I’m sorry. I don’t— I’m just tired.”

“Scar,” Grian says softly, and something about his voice is strange. “Please look at me.”

Scar looks. Grian has asked him, and he looks.

Grian is looking back at him — a small, sad smile on his face — and he’s crying. Scar blinks in surprise, staring, and Grian laughs quietly, reaching up to wipe at his eyes. Scar doesn’t know what’s happening anymore.

“Grian?” Scar says uncertainly.

“Scar,” Grian says, and he sounds both intensely fond and profoundly guilty. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

Scar’s heart skips a beat in his chest, and he swallows hard. Grian keeps going.

“And I’m so sorry,” Grian says, voice cracking. He reaches out a hand and grabs Scar’s, squeezing it tightly. Scar’s breath hitches, his fingers twitching. The touch feels foreign. It almost hurts. He never wants to let go. Grian tugs on his hand, gently, and Scar looks back up at him. Grian looks heartbroken, but focused. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone,” he says.

“Then why did you?” Scar blurts, unable to help it. He feels a little bit pathetic. He can’t care anymore. “Why did everyone—“

“I don’t know,” Grian says, sad and frustrated and desperate. “I know why I did, I— We didn’t end well the first time. Scar, I couldn’t— I couldn’t kill you again. I looked at you and all I could see was…”

(Bloody knuckles. Sandy clothes. Only one gets to win.)

“I know,” Scar says, quietly, both an apology and forgiveness. And then, softer, “I was alone.” His shoulders curl forwards a little. “Everyone had someone and I was…”

Grian puts his other hand on Scar’s uninjured shoulder, and Scar meets his gaze. The avian’s eyes are full of fire, intense determination mingling with stubborn care.

“Never again,” Grian says, like he’s stating a fact of the universe. Like he’s challenging some malevolent god. Then he softens. “You’re not alone, Scar. Not anymore. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

Scar opens his mouth to say something eloquent and thankful and graceful. Instead, he bursts into tears.

Grian pulls him into a hug by the hand he’s still holding, wings coming up to surround them, and for the first time in a long time Scar feels warm. The ache in his chest is fading. His hands aren’t cold. Grian is breathing shakily next to his ear, and he’s being so very careful as to avoid Scar’s injuries, and he’s hugging him.

Scar tucks his face into Grian’s shoulder and cries.

———

In the morning, Pearl busts down the door with soup and a vendetta against apparently unwelcomed emotions.

(“I heard someone was sad. I’m here to beat it up.” She’s grinning, and Scar can’t help but laugh.)

Impulse arrives a few minutes later and drops Jellie into his lap, smiling softly.

(“I think this one missed you somehow more than we did!” Jellie curls up by his injured leg, and if Scar tears up, no one mentions it.)

Mumbo bursts in last, the salvaged remains of the glow squid ink he’d collected gathered into a little bottle.

(“I tried to get you the fresh stuff, but there wasn’t really a way for them to— to ethically sacrifice themselves. Sorry, mate.” Mumbo is covered in glowing ink, looking genuinely apologetic, and Scar laughs until his ribs hurt.)

And he is not alone.