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pidgeon-brained · 2 years

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Hand In Unlovable Hand

Desert Duo Angst Fic I’ve been thinking about for several hours. This is just straight up hurt/no comfort. Idk what to tell you.

Grian spawned into the world excited for a new season. He braced himself for a moment, waiting for the usual memory trade. Leaving a hermitcraft world stored the memories away in a separate file, many base things remained, his friends, builds and other ideas. But none of the real memories. Instead, the file containing his memories from various last lives filled his mind, The first to reach him was the desert. Pizza and the final battle. It burned in his chest like the lava pool they grew together by. Next came the anger of last life, his friends and their deaths, the betrayal. His hands shake as he remembers killing those who attack the ones he loves. He takes a deep breath to rid himself of it all.

This season will be different. The countdown begins in the sky and he can’t wait for his red string to materialize. It wraps around his ring finger and trails off into the distance, he smiles affectionately at the built in ally, before going off to do the normal start of season things, cutting down trees, mining for resources and getting food. Every once in a while, he feels a twinge of pain and discomfort through his string, and as they get increasingly more painful with fewer and fewer breaks, Grian’s hope starts going downhill.

After his session of collecting the necessary materials, he goes in search of others. He doesn’t care about meeting his soulmate, though he knows eventually he will. First he meets Ren and Scott, neither of which are his soulmate, but it's nice to see them. He continues on his journey, meeting a few more people. Including Scar.

Grian is messing with his string, pulling on it, when he watches Scar’s hand pull in his direction, like a puppet. Like it was pulled. . . by an imaginary string. He curses to himself, curses his luck, curses the minecraft gods and the creators of double life. He cannot be paired with Scar again. He owes him a life.

He owes him more than just a life. He owes him the first life of every series, he owed him loyalty and protection, he owed him his own life in trade. He owed him a home and safety. Then he owed him a stolen life, he owed him the betrayal and the stealing. He owed him over and over and over. A life for a life was the motto of the two. And now they would be the thing that destroyed each other. They would die together, tied in a way that could never be undone.

He turns to the others, notices them noticing what he’s noticing and sighs loudly. This’ll be insufferable.

“Aren’t you going to tell him?” Impulse raises an eyebrow.

“No way.” Grian feels the slight tug on his string.

“SCAR DON’T.” He quickly dives to place water, stopping Scar from taking a great deal of damage.

Through out the day he follows Scar, checking in on him, as the others begin to settle in with thier respective soulmates, Scar mopes about the fact that he hasn’t met his yet.

“Man Grian, this sucks, I can’t even see my string to figure it out.”

Grian’s hopes rose at this. “You can’t see your string?

“No! Jellie accidentally took it off my finger when I joined!, you know how cats are.” He laughed at this, raising his hand to adjust his hat, which pulled on Grian’s hand. Thank Coders Scar had the observation skills of a bat.

They went there separate ways not soon after. Which is how Grian came across Scott and Cleo. They were clearly settled into a domestic life, which puzzled him. Their red strings did not lead to one another, but they were tied in a bow, as if connecting them.

Weird. . . what could be so bad about their soulmates? Still, they seemed happy, so he went on his way.

Grian began working on a base, occasionally tuning in to the connection between him and Scar, even without the string it seemed they were inevitably tied together. Scar was thankfully staying out of harms way, something Grian appreciated immensely.

He was also surprised they were not the first pair on the server to die. In fact things were going rather well for them! Aside from the occiasional pinch of a zombie hit coming down the line, or the time he accidentally sent an arrow through the arm to Scar, everything seemed okay.

Grian was actually thinking about telling him, when the cold over took. He froze in his spot, not of his own will. Shaking slightly, he could feel the cold creep up on him, like the feeling of turning red or when he had fallen into powder snow. It panged across the line, like a snowball with a rock inside, or the betrayal of a friend turning his sword on you.

In his mind he sought something warm, something safe. He Grabbed onto a memory, and was dropped into the silent heat of a desert. A ring of fire surrounds him and he stands, facing his soulmate. No. . . not here. They are not soubound here.

There is no armor here, no red string or connection. Just two men, eye to eye in an inescapable ring. But this time, it would not be Grian who survived.

As quick as it overcame him, the numbness disappeared. He was no longer cold, his hearts hadn’t even dropped below half. Still he was shaken by the experience.

Throughout the hours he put into the base, that was not the only time Scar did it. And Grian was beginning to suspect it was intentional. In fact, Grian was on his way to find and stop the idiot when he found the man himself standing in a block of powdered snow.

“Grian! Grian! C’mere, come stand in this snow with me and torture your soulmate! Just scare them a little!” he wondered if Scar had the same flashbacks as him, standing in the snow.

He wondered if he could feel the heat of the ring of fire, if he could smell the blood that had soiled their base. He wondered if he could feel the desperation, the taste of fear. He wondered if anyone else could feel the way his wings singed or the smell of burnt feathers. He wondered if Scar could look into the icy depths of the block of snow and see the destruction they had wrought in persuit of victory. The pits no desecrating the desert. He wondered if the wall of cactus and lava, which now crumbled like their friendship could rise from the ashes and form into a red, red ribbon, forever tying them together.

He stepepd into the snow, and by stepping in he’s pulling away and by getting closer he breaks what should have been safe. And for the briefest, briefest moment, he is victorious and celebrating. And then Scar is yelping and stepping from the snow and staring in fear as he continues to freeze in the place he had abandonded.

Shimmering in the sand. . . the snow. Is a ribbon the color of fresh blood, pristine in a way his hands could never be. And he slips back on the ring meant only for his finger and he stares as the line tightens, tying him to the parrot he had swore to keep safe.

Grian steps out of the snow.

And a single block becomes an everstretching void. And eyes meet eyes and anger flares in a violent burst that flies between the line. Anger. Fear. Hatred. Anger. Disgust. Fear. Pain. Pain. Pain. Scar pushes Grian from the snow, a final stab, an attempt to threaten him.

They stare at each other until their eyes water. Grian pulls away. Looking at their line. He thinks of Scott and Cleo. He thinks of every single server mate he’d be happier with. How could he choose the man he had killed?

How could the universe declare such a pair. Who had fought so soundly before, fought for friends. Fought against each other, taking precious things from each other. The life Grian stole burns into his back, in the spot where his many lives brand his skin. In the spot where the color of his name etches into his skin. The spot where they are joined.

Scar is the first to break the stare, he turns in another direction and forces a laugh. “How long have you known?”

“Since the river and the bridge.” Grian can’t even manage to lie.

There is a silence, an unbreakable moment that cements Grian’s traitorous activity. And there is another as they each contemplate the snow. And what it means.

There is no hope for them.

They will go down together, of that the gods are sure. They are tied by blood and by magic, they are tied by the one thing they could never escape. Fate.

Grian stares at the ribbon. Scar had come back home with him, had brought back pandas, but he supposed it was okay. He built the walls while Scar explored and fell and behaved like the idiot he always was. Grian wondered and built and thought a little bit. Finally, he grabbed his comms from his pocket.

<Grian> Scott, how did you and Cleo do it

Scott looked at the whisper from Grian for a long moment, before sending him the answer. He dind’t know what he wanted with it, but what could you do?

The instructions were disturbingly easy, but could he do it? Another flash of pain came across the line, and he knew he could.

Finding Scar wasn’t hard, he just followed the string, finding him back in the grove with more pandas, probably planning to lead more home. Grian set up the device, something oddly poetic about it all. No fire this time. No destruction. Just a clean break.

“Scar c’mere. Come stand under this for me.”

It almost hurts how much Scar trusts him, prancing over with a smile to stand under the stalagmite. He looks up at it, then at Grian, warmth in his eyes. Like he’s going to crack a joke.

“What is it?”

“Just stay still, stay still okay?”

He breaks the block with the hanging pike, and with it goes the string.

Grian doesn’t even have the time to be victorious, The pain rips into him, he shudders and collapses, his wings spread wide like he is in flight, they feel like they’re on fire. He feels like he’s burning, everything hurts. A few feet from him he sees Scar. Scar is on the ground mirroring him, his eyes glow with crimson. He glows in spidery cracks, every single one of his veins glowing in a way that is oddly beautiful. Every beat of his heart sends another pulse of magic.

Why does Grian feel like he’s burning. Scar looks up, there is no anger in his eyes, only hurt. No betrayal, only understanding.

“I hope you die.” He hisses, pulling on their now severed cord. “I hope we both die.”

The pain fades, the shame does not. When Grian regains his feet, he notices an odd lightness, he thinks perhaps it is the lack of cord, the lack of soulmate. But a sickening realization sets in as he spreads his wings to fly.

Scar stares at him in horror, and fumbles for a looking glass, which he holds up.

Grian’s wings are nothing but blackened bones, he turns this way and that, finally catching sight of the cracked and golden heart set between them. The heart that was once gold, the heart that once connected them. It is not yellow, not like Ren or Tango. It is gold, and cracked. And he knows without a doubt that he is alone. And that his wings are not coming back.

#desert duo #angst #hurt/no comfort #grian #goodtimeswithscar #double life smp #third life smp #last life smp #soulmate au #soulmate au gone wrong #red string of fate #taking fate into your own hands #named after a mountain goats song #No Children by the Mountain Goats #it's always described them I don't know what to tell you #fixated on this even though I don't think many people are going to like it #idk man #just them i guess

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