#yes he is a polar bear this is my polar bear grian agenda

[raichett]

Bear With Me

Please observe as I casually toss any and all bird-related symbolism for Grian out the window in favour of a hybrid that I have never personally seen anyone use in fanfic, despite the mob being in vanilla Minecraft.

This one could be read as both Desert Duo and Scarian. As always, tag as you will.

EDIT: this flash fic can now be found on AO3 here.

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BEAR WITH ME

“Down here again?” Scar asks as he steps into the Sandcastle’s cellar, sandstone and red sandstone alike spread along the walls somewhat haphazardly. He can clearly see the point where Grian ran out of the red variety and started using the standard one, a third of the way along the walls, the bottom dark and the rest of it pale in the lamps hung on the ceiling. There’s even a stray trio of cobblestone blocks in one corner of the floor; down here, there’s no façade to put up.

It’s not dark down here, just shadowy. And cool; much cooler than above during the day, which it is right now, the sun searing above in the cloudless sky. That’s the reason Grian is down here, sat on the edge of the water pool they placed in the middle, far enough away from the chests that it poses no threat of slipping. (Scar, of course, has managed to do so anyway.) His bare feet are in the water – it’s not their drinking water, it’s here for this purpose only – and he looks distinctly… wilted, slumping where he’s sat and skimming his fingers absently across the surface of the small pool, eighteen blocks of water in a three by three square, two blocks deep.

“Where else?” Grian mumbles. He raises his wet hands to his face, palming it and running his fingers through his hair. There are water droplets on his cheeks, on his eyelashes, dripping from his fringe, and Scar frowns at how tired he sounds. Grian’s ears flick. “It’s just… too hot.”

Scar steps fully into the basement and comes to Grian’s side, pulling off his boots and dipping his legs into the water as well as he sits down next to his partner. “You weren’t made for this heat,” he says. They’ve figured that out by now, even if the mob Grian is a hybrid of is not anywhere inside the borders of their world and thus completely unknown to them. I’m sorry, this whole desert thing was my idea, Scar thinks to say, but he knows that Grian would just get annoyed at that, as he does whenever anything close to the sentiment is breached, so he doesn’t.

“I just have to bear it,” Grian says, like if he doesn’t he’s failed – himself, Scar, does it really matter? Scar wants to shake him a bit, tell him that his suffering isn’t proof of his strength, but Grian’s looking far too exhausted to get into a topic like that right now, so he lets it go. “I’m dealing,” Grian goes on stubbornly. “Just bear with me.”

The roots of Grian’s hair is growing in pale, paler than the blond-brown of the rest. Dye, maybe? Scar squints at it in the light from above. It’s white-ish, matching the little round ears and cute button of a tail Grian has, poking out the back of his trousers. Whatever the reason Grian has for dyeing his hair, they’ve both forgotten it now, if Scar ever knew in the first place. “It’s not a problem,” Scar replies. “It really isn’t.”

“Void, what I wouldn’t give for some ice,” Grian groans, abandoning sitting altogether and lying back on the cold stone floor instead. Then he blinks up at the ceiling. “What the heck is ice?” he mutters.

“Don’t know,” Scar says. “But I think it’s cold.” He can feel his fingers grow chilled in some form of shadow memory, the sensation stark on his warm hands. It’s so cold it’s almost burning, and for some reason Scar feels – sticky? Sort of. Like this ice thing can abrade skin when handling it, or letting it go, or something like that.

“When’s sunset?” Grian asks. He squeezes his eyes tightly closed against what Scar knows to be a bad headache, caused by the heat outside. Grian’s so sensitive to it, far more than Scar.

“Few hours,” Scar says, apologetically. Some days, he counts them down, eager to see the return of Grian from below, climbing up the steps and into the cold night, the moon and stars glistening on his hair and skin. At night, he’s like a different person, and Scar loves it. “We can move the beds down here, you know. So you can sleep during the day.”

Grian shakes his head, grimacing as that motion worsens his headache. “No, don’t, I don’t want to be underground all the time. I just – sorry, Scar. I’m just really not made for deserts.”

Don’t be sorry, comes to Scar’s tongue. He doesn’t say it. Neither does he say, We can move, because as nice as that sentiment is, they really can’t. Not now, when the lines have already been drawn, and drawn so deeply. He wishes, and he’s sure Grian does too, that they’d known more about Grian’s biology before they set up shop in the desert. But it’s too late for regrets.

Scar reaches out and runs a hand through Grian’s soft hair. His companion rumbles in his chest at the touch. “We’ll get through all this together, you’ll see,” Scar says instead. “Game’s not over yet.”

Grian reaches blindly out, intertwining his fingers with Scar’s other hand. His blunt claws are large but non-retractable, and by now Scar’s deft enough to prevent them from accidently cutting into his skin. He’s seen zombies and skeletons not nearly so lucky, though, and he knows that Grian has a lot of upper body strength, enough to tear a mob apart with his bare hands.

Scar runs his thumb over Grian’s fingers, the two of them sitting in companionable silence, and thinks about that strength used against him. It’s kind of terrifying, kind of electrifying, but Scar knows – knows – that it’ll be both, by the end. 

But here, Grian is gentle, and Scar is gentle, and, for now, that will be enough.