Archive of Our Own ^beta

Scar looks to the sky. He stands in the patch of earth he has made his home for the last, what feels like, eternity. Golden flowers that face the sun sway with the wind. His hands are dirty with the soil he was just ripping up to plant more of said flowers.

Something’s different. Something is changing.

He thinks maybe it’s his hallucinations again. He thinks maybe he’s finally being pushed past the point of insanity that this isolation is driving him to.

Maybe his sanity was finally cracking as he thought the sky was.

He let out a long sigh and grabbed his cane. He aided himself by leaning on it to lift up from the ground.

He’s started letting things like this not bother him. He wants to believe some day he’ll leave this place, just maybe not as soon as he’d like.

They have to know he’s missing. Grian has to know he’s missing….right?

The thought scares him so he quickly lets it leave his mind in favor of carrying one of the dead flowers back to his cottage. He will add it to the compost pile with the rest of the rotten produce and dead foliage.

He’s been past the point of making too much food for him to eat alone. Not that he has much appetite anyways. He imagines his constant depression doesn’t help that fact.

Not too long after the end of the game the animals started to not regen, not helping with the overflow of food. Probably another cruel joke to his imprisonment here. Closed borders and no one to talk to, not even mobs.

He feels like it makes the shadows worse. The voices worse.

As he makes his way back down the field to his cottage he hums a soft tune. He remembers it from one of Grian’s shops back on Hermitcraft, though he can’t remember which one. He supposes it doesn’t matter.

He reaches his cottage uneventfully. Nothing ever happens here. Nothing will ever happen here again.

That’s the scariest part of all of this. Nothing might not ever happen again. It could just be a cruel pointless eternity. An eternity of insanity - and shadows - and voices.

It depresses him to think such things but he has come to terms with the possibility. It took him a very long time to settle his anxiety of that.

That’s why he’s ignoring the sky, he promises himself that he won’t get hopeful again. He doesn’t want to shatter like he did when he realized the shadow that resembles his best friend was just that, a shadow. His voice still haunts him as well as the small touches that the shadow tries to reach out for. It can’t hurt him if he tells himself it’s not real.

Maybe nothings ever been real.

He occupies his mind with his chores. He puts the dead flower in the compost as planned, he washes his hands and the small amount of whittled dishes he’s made since being here, and he makes dinner. He hums his song all while doing this. It makes the voices stay away. It fills his head when the silence tries to consume him. It fills his head when he thinks he can hear the hum of the end portal opening because that’s not possible. The portal is open already, Lizzie could have attested to that if it hadn’t been her demise.

He chooses to ignore it.

He gets ready for bed. He’s taken his day clothes off and puts on a softer simple shirt and some softer pants. He washes his face in his makeshift sink and then heads to his bed.

His bed is cold and just another reminder of him quiet and lonely this world is. He wishes he had his songbird next to him.

_____________

He wakes up breathing heavy and clutching his chest. He inhales and exhales shakily a few times before swallowing the lump in his throat.

He tries to steady his breathing and his racing mind. His eyes start to tear up as he recalls his dream.

The nightmares persist every night almost. He very rarely gets proper rest anymore.

Breathing still heavy, he tries to ground himself. His nails dig into his legs that he’s brought closer to his chest. He lets out a scream through gritted teeth. All of his frustration and panic feels like it’s being held in how tightly he holds his jaw. He lets the tears fall down his face and chokes on his sobs.

Why? Why is he being punished? Punished for winning a stupid game? What has he done to deserve this?

He allows his sorrow to consume him. He screams and digs deeper at his calves. He’s bleeding, he can feel it, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t feel like anything. The pain from all of this is so much worse. It hurts worse than dying, it hurts worse than his death loops ever have. He remembers the feeling of his flesh being torn apart rapidly by the zombie pit he fell into in double life; it still hurts more than that.

Slowly he descends from his hysteria. It slowly gets easier to breath and to move his limbs from the tense position they had been kept in. The tension leaves his body as well.

He tries to focus on things he can feel; the scratchiness of the wool blankets, the billowy shirt that has a slightly silky feel, the roughness of his pants, the blood he can feel under his nails. Things he can see; the red of his bed covers, the dresser beside him, the room’s slightly purple hue illuminated by the moon- wait.

He had been charting the stars and the moon hoping for the return of the mobs to come back. Tonight was supposed to be a new moon.

It takes him a few more minutes to get out of the scrunched up position he had found himself in, and a few more minutes to find the steadiness to walk to the window.

He looks into the sky where he can see the cracks that he had thought he had seen earlier. They’re bigger and eminanting a purple light from in between them. He can almost see the slow expansion of the slivers across the sky.

Breathing seems trivial for a moment. He feels the small spark of hope wash over him again as he stares out into the night sky.

“You’ll be home soon.” He hears a familiar voice behind him.

He stiffens at the sudden voice.

“We’re getting you out of here, just a little longer.”

“No, you’re just a shadow. This-this isn’t real….I’lol always be stuck here” dejected, he turns around to face the intruder.

His breath catches when he doesn’t see the normal shadow of his friend. Instead what stands there is a crystalline translucent projection of him.

“This is real though.” He says simply.

“No this is just some- some new way for my mind to trick me!” He throws his arms up. “Or maybe it’s the watchers playing yet another cruel joke!”

He feels anger blossom in his chest. This is cruel. This is hell.

“And now you’re taunting me with images of him. This is low, I finally get somewhat settled with everything, then here you come, giving me false hope again!”

The projection stays silent for a moment. Scar glares at it as it watches him.

“I know I can’t say anything to make you believe me-“

“You’re right, you can’t.” Scar spits.

It sighs. “You will see soon.” It looks sorrowful at Scar. “You will be home soon….oh how we’ve missed you.”

The projection fades and Scar can feel that anger boil over as he screams once again.

______

When morning comes Scar returns to the field.

He pauses once he ascends to the top, staring out into the golden waves. The flowers have grown tall and consume the land to the distant tree line.

He smiles small at all the work he’s done. He wonders if lilacs and poppies could find their way to coexist with the sunflowers. A silly thought.

The sky has expanded even more. He kneels to sit himself in the grass nestled between the flowers. He lies down to face the sky. The golden petter block part of his eyes as he stares up at the purple cracks littered in the milky blue abyss.

He doesn’t feel like following his routine today. The words exchanged with the specter of his friend still bounce around in his mind.

Is he really going to be able to go home?

Home is a distant blur. A faded memory that slips more and more out of his grasp. He’s been aimlessly wandering this world for too long. Is this home?

No, home feels warm like a sunny day. It feels like fresh baked cookies and the scent of lilacs. It feels like soft rainbow wings wrapping all around him. It felt like a soft warm purring cat following you wherever you go. It feels like friends and laughing until you cry. It’s where he’s free to build whatever he pleases because there’s no borders preventing him from getting resources. Home isn’t supposed to make you feel like you want to claw at your own brain until it’s nothing but mush so that the voices will stop.

This isn’t home.

He stares, and stares, and stares up at the fissure that promises him home. He watches as it expands and his hunger starts to drop.

At first he started to count the days, the cycles of dark and light. He watches as the cracks expand with the growth of the sunflowers. He realizes that they grow about as slow as the flowers do. They reach into the sky as the sky expands to them.

He waits in that field, unmoving.

He wonders if there were mobs in this world would they come and pick at him until the fleshy parts of his ribs edged away to bones? Would he let them? Death serves no purpose here. Sure there’s pain but it all feels tolerable here.

He feels like he is slowly dying, like every breath is getting shallower. In a way he is, but it feels like more. It feels like letting go.

He feels like he is decaying into the soil even though he is still alive.

Hunger eventually takes him. He is still staring at the sky when he hears the last tick of his hunger going down. He doesn’t care.

He wakes up back in his bed and stares at the ceiling. The cracks had gotten much bigger. He frowned at his ceiling. He couldn’t see them here.

If he could remember correctly tonight was a full moon. He wondered how the bright moon would clash with the purple light of the cracks.

His bones and muscles protested as he went to leave his bed. When he had originally departed to lay out in the field he felt confident enough without his cane.

He’s thankful for his prior decision, he doesn’t feel like he’ll make it back to the field if not.

He doesn’t try to reason with himself anymore why he needs to be there. The voices and shadows have been gone since the sky opened up. He is thankful for that.

It’s a slow process of getting back to the field. His throat is dry and breathing is hard.

It’s a little after sunset once he reaches the top. The light blue fades to a deep navy only disrupted by the fissure and the moon.

The moon is bright and leads its rays to the sunflowers, offering them solace while the sun is gone.

The sky has been opening a little faster recently. It expands over half of the sky and there is now a constant rumble like someone picking away at it.

He wonders how much longer it will take.

He lays back down in the engraved spot in the field. The rest of the night the sky expands impossibly more.

______

Scar estimates that it’s a little before noon when the sky opens completely. The inky void stares back at him. It pulls him closer, into the void itself.

His body instantly feels colder and like there is no need to breathe .

The end feels this way. Cold and empty. However when you fall into the void there, not being able to breathe means your demise. This felt like being pulled into a hug. It was embracing him unlike the clawing emptiness of the end that rejected you.

He couldn’t see the world around him anymore and he felt as if he could cry. He found it odd that the void was more comforting than that world.

It was a weird solace.

He drifted for a while. Nothing to keep his mind occupied. He stopped needing things like that a long time ago though.

He wasn’t sure in the end if he had chosen to believe the specter of Grian or if he had just given up.

He assumes it doesn’t matter.

It didn’t take too long for him to drift enough into the void to find something intriguing. A bright purple light, just like the one that had crept through the fissure, could be seen sputtering in and out of existence. It felt like a beacon.

He drifted closer to it gradually. As it got closer he felt something watching him.

Taking a glance behind him nearly sent him into a heart attack.

Impossibly massive there stood three watchers that seemed to partially encase him. It made his body feel miniscule and vulnerable.

The one in the middle slowly raised an arm as if to grab him.

Before they could, the light that he was drifting towards started to pull him in. It felt the same as when the void pulled him from the ground. It felt freeing and like a triumph against the figures that were reaching out to him.

He smiled as the light took him, his consciousness leaving him.

_______

When Secret life had ended all Grian wanted to do was to race to Scar and congratulate him on his win. When he was spectating he had been the one to announce his win. Pride bubbled to the surface and overflowed for his partner. It felt like something released that he held onto after third life. Some small part of him that couldn’t seem to let go was finally freed. Maybe it was guilt.

He took a deep breath and summoned everyone back to their home worlds after saying farewells. He smiled and waved at the players he wouldn’t see until the next game.

The summon back to Hermitcraft was a short process. Everyone was transported almost instantly to the server.

His feet landed on the grass of spawn and he couldn’t help the grin that formed. Once his vision adjusted to the overworked they were searching for Scar. His eyes met his comrades that had fought in the games with him one by one, but something- no, someone was missing.

Those green eyes hadn’t met his after he had scanned the group. Panic started to set in.

He brought up his communicator to inspect the world chat. There was a spam of players' names beside “joined the world”. However many times he read through the list Scar’s name wasn’t there.

Panic started to set in and the group began to pick up the pieces. They began to murmur amongst themselves.

Xisuma had appeared at some point while Grian was scanning the chat over and over. He greeted everyone enthusiastically. Once he saw everyone’s worried looks he paused.

“What’s wrong?” He asked the group.

Grian looks up to the group panicked. “He’s not here….”

“Who’s not here?” Xisuma questioned. It sounded distant to Grian.

“Scar’s not here.” Mumbo spoke up beside him. He went to place a hand on Grian’s shoulder.

He flinched back. His wings flared out dramatically and he launched off the ground. He had to find him. He searched the landscape of Hermitcraft, looking for any sign of his lost companion. He searched until he found himself at Scar’s base.

He searched his base frantically. He searched every cabin of the train, every place he knew he had hidden beds, every place he thought he could be hiding.

Grian searched for what felt like hours. He even went over to his base to look. There was no sign of him.

Eventually he landed back at Scar’s main cabin of the train. He sat down on his bed deflated. He brought his hand to his forehead and tears started to roll down his cheeks. He took shaky breaths.

He tried to collect himself, he took his hand that was on his forehead and brought it to the covers below him. His hands ran over the wool as he tried to gather his thoughts.

Was he still in Secret Life? Could he have been transported to one of the other players' worlds?

He had never tried summoning himself back to one of the game worlds. He wasn’t even sure it was possible, but he had to try.

Grian summoned all of his strength to try and transport himself back to Secret Life. The world sputtered to white before it turned to the familiar landscape of the game world. He looked up to see the Secret Keeper and a very frantic Scar. His heart ached.

Scar was in front of him lying slumped against the task button. He kept pressing it over and over, all Grian could do was watch. He looked down at his hands to see they were nothing but pitch black shadows. Grief overtook him.

“Scar?” His voice sounded broken to himself.

Scar turned his head and his eyes widened. He didn’t respond.

“Scar it’s me, Grian!”

“No, no my mind can’t already be playing tricks on me. You're not him…” Scar sobbed.

Grian choked out a small chirp of surprise. His heart broke, he felt like this was all his fault.

_________

Months went by, there was no change in their circumstances. Scar was still stuck and no matter how many times he visited Scar he never believed it was really him.

It was a constant habit. For a long while it’s all Grian could do. He watched and watched for days as Scar slowly declined. The isolation had gotten to him fairly quick, and Grian felt like his was going just as fast.

The longer he visited and tried to convince Scar it was really him, the more Scar didn’t believe him.

Sometimes he would just sit and watch. It eased his mind while not bothering Scar. He knew he shouldn’t be trying to talk to him, sometimes he can’t help it. He wants to be able to comfort him, he wishes Scar would believe him.

He mines to keep his mind off of things. He’s trying to pick up landscaping, something that Scar had been trying to teach him before the games. It was comforting, like there was still a piece with him when he was working.

He was in the process of removing dirt and gravel from his side of the mountain when he spotted a figure approaching from the air.

“I’ve done it!” Xisuma landed beside him, relief written not only in his eyes but in his movements.

Grian looked up from where he was digging out gravel from the side of Magic Mountian. His curiosity was immediately piqued at Xisuma’s loud interjection.

“You’ve done what?” He deadpanned.

“I’ve found a way to get him back!”

Grian’s eyes lit up. “Y-you have?!”

Xisuma laughed and brought his communicator up to his face. He sat there and fiddled with it before turning it to Grian.

“Look, there’s the slightest crack in his world. I’m not sure why, but we can chip away at it until we can reach him. If we break away at it, we can collapse the world all together.” Xisuma let out a small laugh that sounded like a relieved exhale.

“That won’t hurt him? I mean what happens if the world collapses?” He wasn’t fully convinced. He knew how powerful the Watchers were.

Xisuma shook his head, “This should all be safe. If the world collapses then we can grab him from the void. His code shouldn’t be effected, just the world.”

Grian nodded slowly, processing the information. “Let's get him back.”

__________

It was a slow process. When the bad first began chipping away at the crack it had been like there was no change at all. They had kept at it though.

When they had first made the initial break Grian visited Scar as he had many times before. He had told him of their plans to save him. He hadn’t believed him.

With Xisuma's admin powers and Grian’s watcher powers it was easy work to chip away at it. They would spend days at first in the adminscape trying to destroy the code.

They learned early on when Xisuma collapsed that they needed to take breaks. They would switch out constantly. There wasn’t a time where they had stopped chipping away at it. One of them was always at the helm while the other slept and took care of themselves.

It was a very slow process, it took half a month before they finally opened it to where the world would collapse. Now it was just grabbing him from the void before the Watchers did.

Grian sent out a beacon of light into the void as Xisuma searched. It was a slow process but nothing compared to what they just spent their last couple weeks doing.

Once Xisuma found him he let out an audible cheer. Grian felt as though he could cry.

As he looked out into the void and saw him.

He let out a shaky breath, “I see him!”

Xisuma pulled him closer and closer. As Grian stared out into the void he gasped as he could vaguely make out three watchers following Scar as he descended into Xisuma’s grasp.

They were fortunately too late.

Scar was home.

__________

Scar opened his eyes to a brown wooden ceiling. His vision was blurry and his head pounded.

As his vision came into focus he could see familiar hangings on the ceilings and walls. He blinked a few times before realizing how familiar they were.

He glanced around the room without getting up. He was in his train. His eyes widened. It had been just as we left it when Secret Life started. His chest monster was still present. The only thing changed was how neat everything was now, like someone had come in and cleaned.

He stared back up at the ceiling. Was he really home?

He lifted himself up onto his elbows to get a better look at everything. He noticed now that a recliner had been pulled into the room and there was a rainbow winged figure curled up and softly snoring.

Tears welled in his eyes. “G-Grian?” His voice came out scratched and broken.

The figure's winged ear twitched and his body stiffened. He turned his head to face Scar with a confused look that quickly changed to a soft smile that instantly said ‘you’re home.’

Scars heart felt full with emotions. He choked out a sob and brought his hand to his mouth. His face scrunched. He tilted his head to his lap and continued crying.

He was finally home!

Grian shot up from the chair and sat by Scar. He hesitated touching him.

Scar looked back up at him with pleading eyes and nodded.

Arms and wings were wrapped around him instantly. A gentle ‘I missed you’ was whispered into his neck.

Scar melted into him, into this feeling. He continued to sob into Grian’s shoulder. This is what home felt like.

Grian held him. He held him until Scar was drifting off.

When Scar started to drift off he positioned them to lie down in his bed to where Grian was still holding him. Scar slept with his head on his chest, and Grian layed there chasing away his nightmares.

________

Morning came and when Scar woke up in the soft embrace of Grian’s wings it felt like home.

When a soft furball hopped up between them and layed down to greet her missing dad it felt like home.

Staying in bed for hours just wasting the day away in each others embrace felt like home.

When hermits came to bring him presents and give him well wishes it felt like home.

When Grian comforted him and told him they couldn’t reach him when the nightmares started again it felt like home.

When months had passed and he could finally bring himself to wander, and build, and say hi to his friends it felt like home.

He was home.