Work Text:
“For everything you did to me to keep me alive this long, you may slay me and take the enchanter.”
Scar’s words wouldn’t stop echoing through his head.
He didn’t want to kill Scar. He had wanted to, before, when Scar had betrayed him and left him alone alone alone. But Scar had turned to him with blood on his face and Bdubs’ body beside him, and how could Grian hurt him then?
How could he not?
Even if they tried to coexist, to rebuild their castle and stay together, just the two of them, a double victory…. well, wouldn’t the red life rage get them at some point?
Grian didn’t know how Scar hadn’t already killed him. He’d only been red a few hours, and that rage had burnt him up from the inside, left him nothing but the want want want to kill. And that was without whispers of voices heckling him, telling him to kill his best friend, his partner, his everything.
A double victory wasn’t possible. It couldn’t happen.
His hands shook. He clenched them into fists.
“Can we at least do the duel, if we have to, at Pizza’s grave?” Scar said, eyes wide and red red red.
Grian didn’t care where they fought. It didn’t matter. One of them would die. The other would be alone.
Scar’s eyes were almost too wide, his smile too cheerful. He didn’t want to die. Of course not, neither did Grian. But while Scar was trying to drag it out, Grian just wanted it over with. He made Scar get out of his little boat (the pond was full of Bdubs’ blood anyways, and the smell was making the red creep in on the edges of his vision) and climbed out of the water.
Scar… didn’t. He just stood there, looking strangely anxious.
“You sure we can’t just stay here? It’s not too late to—to defy the ghosts, have our happy ending! Like Katniss and Petey. Would the ghosts make us poison ourselves?” He laughed, a sound that would normally make Grian join in, but right now just made him grit his teeth.
“Scar. We can’t do that and you know it. And it’s Peeta.”
“I dunno, maybe we should try poisoning ourselves. And, hey, if it goes down like Romeo and Juliet instead of Petey and Katniss, that’s—that’s at least cool and dramatic, right? Can’t have a double victory, how about a double loss! Wouldn’t that just make the ghosts chuckle, that seems like—”
“Scar.”
Scar stopped talking. His face looked ashy and grey; it always did. Like a dead man walking. He supposed they both were, in a way. Schrodinger’s winner. Right now, it could be either, it would be either.
Some theories held that all of time was happening simultaneously. That right now, they were on their yellow and green lives, and one of them was dead, and Grian’s TNT trap was going off. All at once.
One of them was a dead man walking. There was no way to know who.
Grian hoped it was himself. Grian hoped it was Scar.
He wished they could fix up their home and live there, surrounded by bodies, until the bones turned to dust and the two of them could forget.
“Grian, I—” Scar took a step forward, and stumbled. His face pinched in pain, and Grian remembered.
“You’re hurt,” Grian said flatly. Of course.
Scar was bleeding, deep red dripping down the blue of his armour, some blood that could’ve been Bdubs’ if you didn’t pay attention to the placement splashed across his face. Grian had done that. Slipped right into the cracks in Scar’s armour with his sword, before he realized his best friend was just taking it with a grin.
“Well, yes, you’re the one that stabbed me. Pretty good shot, if I do say so myself!”
“Don’t you have food?”
Scar laughed nervously. “No. Do you?”
Grian felt a little pang of panic. He double checked his inventory—nothing. He didn’t want to look back at Scar and his bloodied face and tell him that no, this time Grian couldn’t help him. It was Grian’s fault, and Grian couldn’t help him.
“I bet Bdubs did,” he said instead of admitting that he somehow hadn’t brought basic supplies to a fight, though it wasn’t like Scar had either.
He didn’t. Grian triple checked the items floating in the pond, even though the muddy, bloodstained water on his skin made him feel disgusting, even though he knew after the first pass that there was nothing, nothing, nothing.
Somehow, between the final three people in this entire server, there was no food at all, and Scar was bleeding, and one of them was a dead man walking and he hoped it wasn’t Scar.
“There’s some food up at the castle,” Grian said. He wanted to get this over with. He never wanted this to end.
“Oh! I actually have a healing potion!” Scar said, managing to pull himself out of the pond.
Grian waited for him to pull out a potion. “...Are you going to drink it?”
“Oh, no no, I meant up at the castle. I’m pretty sure one of my chests of supplies didn’t get destroyed.”
“Well… let’s get going, then.”
The pond was a pale red. Some of that was Scar’s blood. Grian had done that.
Far away, in a village, a grave read It was just a prank. Grian had done that, too.
He wanted to live. He wanted Scar to live. He just couldn’t decide which one he wanted more. That was a bridge for the future, though. He’d cross it when he had to, and not before.
Scar stumbled when he walked, hands pressed to his stomach. Grian stood near enough to offer a shoulder to lean on, and Scar took it, heavily resting a hand on Grian.
It was a burden he was happy to bear.
“I kind of wish you’d just killed me when I told you to,” Scar said abruptly. His words were clipped, sharp, something Grian rarely heard from him.
“Why? I mean, why’d you even do that?” Grian’s blood was full of something heavy and sludgy and dark. He tried to ignore it. Something burned inside of him, and he pushed down the flame as best he could.
Scar smiled. “I mean… it felt right. Right? For it to end like that. For you to get revenge, and me to give my thank-you. You know?”
“Why did you let Bdubs kill me.”
Scar’s face dropped. “I…”
“If you were just going to kill him anyways, if you were just going to let me win anyways, why did you let Bdubs kill me? Not even—not even let. You told him to do that.”
“It… made more sense at the time. I mean. I had to level the playing ground, you know?” Scar’s free hand, the one pressed to his stomach and covered in blood, fluttered in some gesture that Grian didn’t understand. “You were a yellow life. I was red. It’s not fair, y’know?”
Grian felt that flame inside of him spreading. “It’s not fair.”
Scar laughed, the sound grating. “It’s not. It wouldn’t be right. I want you to win, but I want it to be on even ground. I mean, not literally even, we are going to the top of a mountain. Metaphorically.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
“I don’t want to say sorry, because it wouldn’t be true.”
“Yeah.”
“If you win our duel, you better not say sorry. That’d really make you look like the better man of the two of us. If I die, I want to look like a hero. Ok?”
“You’ll be dead. You’ll look dead.”
“I already do. You don’t think I look good?” Scar winked.
“Scar, you look like a zombie,” Grian said, deadpan.
“Wh—zombies are green! I’m not green!” Scar protested.
“A pillager, then.”
“That’s not better!”
They were about a third of the way home now. Grian found himself walking a bit slower, and felt a stab of guilt when it seemed that Scar walked a bit easier.
They walked in silence for a while. It was almost painful. Almost soothing. Ended up somewhere in between.
“Seriously, though. Why did you let Bdubs kill me?”
They’d talked about it, a little bit, but Grian felt just as weighed down as before. There wasn’t much time, and even if he was about to die, he wanted to understand first.
Scar sighed. “Um… I don’t really know, I guess. It’s all a game, kind of, isn’t it? So it was part of the game. Whoever gets it first lives. Also, everyone was always saying the no-kill passes were worthless. It felt right to use that to, y’know, end that part of the game.”
Grian didn’t think he was going to understand. “...I don’t… I—”
“I’m not sorry. So I’m not going to lie to you. But… I do wish you didn’t have to be red. I wish we could both win.”
“We can’t, though.”
“No, we can’t.”
“What do you think we’d do? If we could? Or, what would you do, anyways?”
Scar looked thoughtful, a rare occasion. “Hmm… get a cat, probably. Get all the blood off Ren’s old crown and wear that around.”
Grian stifled a laugh. “Of course. Would you want me to get the axe and behead you, then?”
“Oh, me hand, I need you to kill meeee! Rrred winta! Red winta is comin!” Scar said, thrashing around dramatically and doing a truly terrible approximation of Ren’s already terrible fake accent.
“Stop, stop,” Grian said, bending over laughing.
“Me hand, we must—we must defeat those desert hippies! They are too powerful, too cool, me hand! They’re going to show us up!”
Grian wheezed as Scar posed and pulled a Dogwarts banner from his inventory to hold. A ghostly whisper that sounded an awful lot like Martyn angrily muttered in his ear, but Grian didn’t pay it any mind.
“Scar, I wouldn’t let you have that crown even if we could. No way. It’d go to your head.”
“That is where crowns go!” Grian rolled his eyes, and Scar just smiled at him and tucked the banner back in his inventory.
A moment later, he stumbled, and Grian quickly rushed back over to support him. “I forgot,” he tried to explain, but Scar waved him off.
They walked in silence again. The air was lighter this time, though, which… was better. Grian had to accept that the walk wasn’t long enough to work everything out. This was… better than nothing.
One of them was a dead man walking.
“I wish you hadn’t slipped down that ravine,” Grian said quietly. “Then… then we would’ve both been yellow. It would’ve been so much easier to not listen to the ghosts.”
Scar shrugged, making a face as it tugged at his wounds. “I mean, of course that would’ve been better. But it’s me. I’m just surprised I didn’t fall in it twice.”
Grian chuckled. “Yeah. I guess so. You would do that, wouldn’t you?”
“Big talk from the guy who took my first life!”
“Big talk from the guy who took my second life!” It was still a little raw to joke about, but the opportunity was too perfect.
“Technically— technically it was Bdubs.”
“Technically it was the creeper.”
Scar laughed. “I guess it’s a draw, then. Neither of us killed the other. I mean, I guess it won’t be a draw for long, ha! Someone’s gonna get more kills in on the other in the end. This really would’ve been easier if you’d just killed me in the pond, Grian, why do you have to make everything so hard ?”
Grian stifled a laugh. Half the time he wasn’t sure whether Scar realized he’d made an innuendo, but this time he was sure it was unintentional.
“What? Why are you laughing? I’m serious!”
“Never change, Scar.”
“Oh, well if you say so!”
Just ahead of them was the desert. Their home. Grian’s chest ached, his ribs feeling like they wanted to escape his skin.
They stepped out into the sunlight.
“Look, you can see the castle from here! It looks way less wrecked from down here, ha!” Scar said, excitedly pointing and then wincing as it pulled at his wounds.
The sand was warm and unstable beneath his feet, but Grian had lived here long enough to know how to keep his balance.
“Yeah… it does, doesn’t it? Can’t believe the TNT trap went so terribly…”
“Well, Grian, that’s kind of just all your traps, isn’t it?”
“Not all of them! I got—I got like, three kills off of that one!”
“Only cuz Jimmy couldn’t leave it alone.”
“Still counts!”
Grian wasn’t sure how Scar’s bare feet weren’t full of cactus spines, but he’d never even mentioned that being an issue. Grian had run outside barefoot once, and had to spend three hours picking the sharp little spikes from his feet.
The sun was familiar, familiar like Scar’s arm around his shoulder, familiar like blood soaking his sweater. He dodged lava pits and even Scar trying to trip him easily; for the rest of this walk, he was home. They were home.
Grian didn’t want it to end. God, Grian didn’t want it to end. But it was too late now. He should’ve accepted Scar’s offer of a double victory, ignored the ghosts, anything!
His time was slipping away.
They were almost there.
“Hey, whatever happens… I’m glad I was with you, Scar,” Grian said.
“Oh, don’t go getting all sappy. Save that for right before. But… I’m glad I was with you too.” Scar gave him a little smile, and Grian felt… whole. For a moment. Probably for the last time. He gave Scar a smile back.
And then they were there. Grian gently swept the sand from Pizza’s grave while Scar healed himself up inside of the ruined castle, looking up as his best friend stepped out onto the sand again.
“Are you ready?”
Scar ran past him clumsily, making Grian reel back a bit in surprise. Dramatically, he lit the sand where they’d come in on fire. “The ring is sealed.” He turned to Grian with a wide smile, something full of kindness and hope and love and bloodlust, fists held in front of his chest. “I’m ready.”