Scar has had a day.
A fun day, certainly! He would never say that he didn’t have fun. That would be a lie, and Scar is not a liar. (A schemer, a swindler, yes, but a liar? Why, he’d never!) But several hours of running Decked Out, one near-death-experience after another, has him shaking all over. He’s sweating in places he didn’t even know he could sweat, and his heart is pounding even faster against his ribcage than the dungeon’s at max clank.
But he had fun, and he’s achieved his goal of two new cards and a victory tome, so he’s about ready to head home to Scarland for some nice relaxing time—
There is something in the hallway with him.
The hair on the back of Scar’s neck prickles, and he can feel the ravager’s breath against his skin, a sudden rush of hot air in the otherwise frozen crypts. He feels his body freeze, lungs ceasing to function without permission, and he needs to run, needs to flee, he’s going to lose—
“You got lucky at the end there. When you were leaving? There was a ravager coming at you across the thing—”
“Oh gosh!” Scar stumbles backwards, heart in his throat, looking up at Tango as he approaches Scar and his shulker deck across the hall. His words spill out of him so fast he stumbles over the sounds, and Tango stops, staring, as Scar nearly keels over backwards from fright. “Jeez, Tango, oh my gosh, I thought you were a ravager, I’m a little still paranoid, it’s been a—a captivating day—”
Scar’s back hits the blackstone rim of the door behind him, and the sudden terror he’d felt at Tango’s presence suddenly vanishes, leaving him sagging against the wall. Tango blinks owlishly, looking around the dungeon like he’s missed something.
“H-Hi? Do I…?” Tango looks down at himself, like he’s expecting to see something different, like he might suddenly be a beast with shaggy grey fur and deadly horns, and not a Tango in his frosty blue robes. A laugh wheezes its way out of Scar as the relief turns into an odd sort of dizziness. He feels a little sick. “Wow. Scar? You okay…?”
Scar pulls himself out of the corner, towards his friend, because Tango is his friend, and he’s just—he’s just Tango. Not a ravager, or any other kind of danger, just Tango, who’s spent the last thirteen months making this amazing game for all of the hermits, and who Scar is not scared of.
“Y-Y-You get heightened tension, right, when you play? It’s crazy, like—”
“You are on edge,” Tango tells him with a laugh, and Scar laughs along.
“I was on edge!” he agrees, opening his shulker once again so that he can avoid Tango’s gaze. There’s something about his eyes that are just—Scar doesn’t know. He’s not afraid of Tango. Why would he be afraid of Tango?
“Rarr,” Tango jokes, the worst ravager impression in the world, bearing his teeth and raising his hands like claws, and Scar does not jump. “And stuff.”
…Everything is fine, and normal, and Scar just needs—needs to go back to Scarland. And relax. Because his heart is beating too fast, and he’s played a lot of Decked Out, and he’s had a lot of fun, but he’s jumping at shadows, and at Tangos, and that—that simply won’t do.
(And he does not entertain the notion, not even a slightest bit, that maybe it’s not just him—that maybe there is something going on with Tango—because, really, it’s just Tango. Come on.)
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