#thinking so much about this like tcd scar had such a miserable life

[stiffyck]

I keep thinking about my scar design and how big the difference between him and tcd scar is.

Tcd scar is a scrawny kid who's clothes are way too big for him and who barely has anything to eat and who's covered in old bandages

Vs current scar who has well fitting clothes and has enough food and isn't malnourished and who's not just surviving but living his life and doing what he wanted

#thinking so much about this like tcd scar had such a miserable life #he was just surviving. he barely had food and water and he broke his legs so many times and he got hurt so much #and hed always have to treat his own wounds and get through the pain because he had no other choice #vs now when he gets hurt he can just. ask for help #he can ask somrone for food or water or anything else and they'll be there to help and offer whatever they have #and its fucking me up so much like tcd was so fucking lonely and empty. and now hermitcraft is so full of life and people and friends #WAHHH #stiff talk #gtws #gtws angst #tcd scar

[chemdisaster]

a fanfic about post-tcd scar, how he deals with the life series and how he heals

ao3

.

Scar eventually gets used to the zombies. Sure, at first it's awful, with him having panic attacks every time he so much as thinks of a zombie and murdering them violently every time he comes across them. But by around Season 6 of Hermitcraft, he's mostly fine with them, only occasionally flinching or feeling the familiar seize of panic when he's had a bad day or if he sees them in certain lighting.

The loneliness, though...that stays. The horrible isolation, the constantly being alone with nothing but the sound of groans and gunfire and your own thoughts. It made him go mad to the point of suicide when he was back there and it made him touch starved and petrified of being alone after he escaped. No zombie bite or broken leg can ever compare to the absolute agony of being truly alone, of silence.

He's afraid of being alone so he makes sure to surround himself with people. He's afraid of silence so he turns his first diamonds into jukeboxes and talks to himself whenever there's no one around to fill the air with noise. It takes him months to be comfortable sleeping alone and years before he can base somewhere where there isn't someone else's build within viewing distance. He makes a habit of leaving something small to make noise wherever he sleeps, be it a dripping tap or a ticking clock or the barely noticeable buzz of redstone. It gets easier when he finds Jellie in season 6 but he still feels the tendrils of loneliness begin to squeeze and cut his heart whenever he goes more than a day without seeing anyone. 

So when Last Life happens...it's like being back there again. And he tries his best to combat it like he always does in Hermitcraft, but it never works and they always leave him to suffer on his mountain. Alone. In silence. And he cannot handle it. And it makes him go mad just like it did the first time, makes him suicidal which shows as he becomes more and more reckless with his lives, eventually outright threatening to kill himself if they don't give his enchanter, the only thing that will push the loneliness away, back. Because he'd rather die than be alone. But here in this treacherous world, even death isn't enough.

He never quite recovers after Last Life, but meeting his friends again without the haze of bloodlust, hearing them apologise for the way things ended up there...it helps, somewhat. He learns to push away the loneliness lest it consume him during the day and he learns to hide the nightmares and panic attacks and helpless crying at night. It gets easier eventually and he thinks he might be healing.

Then Double Life rolls around and, well. He never thought it was possible to be surrounded by people in the closest way, yet still feel as miserable and alone as he was back there. He never thought being unwanted would hurt as much as never having anyone to want him in the first place. When he and Grian are running to the edge of the world and desperately gripping each other's hands, the only ones wholly untainted by the bloodlust, the only green names, it almost feels like being hunted again, like being the only human in a world inhabited by the undead. 

He falls into the zombie pit and screams as they claw at his body and tear it apart bit by bit and thinks oh no why didn't I bring my rifle why didn't I stock up on morphine why is this happening why why why and screams as he wakes up in Pearl's base. He has his worst panic attack in years there and pretends the Divorce Quartet didn't hear him screaming when he emerges and pretends that his body isn't shaking and his face isn't streaked with tears when he reaches his site of death. He doesn't look in the pit until all the zombies have been eradicated and feels a vindictive pleasure when Grian smashes the spawner into a million tiny pieces. 

It's almost a relief when he gets blown up not long after. Because if he's feeling the phantom pain of being burnt and torn apart limb from limb in seconds then he can't feel slimy skin and claws, and if his ears are ringing from explosives then they can't hear growls and gurgles and his own screaming. It's less of a relief when he dies again, because he dies alone and in complete silence, a silence that he can still hear when he respawns in his tree, his tree that hasn't been lived in in weeks, that now bears the echoes of grunts and screams in its roots.

Scar loses it after that. He doesn't get out of bed for nearly two weeks, shivering under his blankets as his mind tortures him by replaying every awful moment on repeat. He has nightmares and wakes up and still sees the nightmare on the back of his eyelids every time he closes his eyes. He's alone and the lowest he's ever been and he needs to do something, needs to talk to someone, to hear and see, but he can't get out of bed because he's terrified of what will happen to him outside of it if this is what is happening right now.

Cub comes over within a few days of Scar being back and tries to help, but despite knowing Scar's history, he understands that whatever set him back happened in the death games, and that he can't truly help him if he doesn't know what broke him. So he calls Grian. And Grian, despite dealing with his own guilt over their death and having treated Scar the way he did the entire game, despite thinking that Scar doesn't want to talk to him after he didn't respond to any of Grian's messages, still comes running as soon as Cub tells him that something's wrong with Scar. 

He finds Scar curled up in bed and rubs his upper arm and feels the way Scar's entire body stiffens under his touch. He calls Scar's name and Scar presses Grian's hand against his cheek and breaks. And Grian asks what's wrong, but Scar just pulls him down to the bed and wraps his entire body around him and sobs into his ear, "Just speak. Please. Don't leave me alone." 

And Grian speaks, about everything and nothing, about his base plans and his own past and how fucking guilty he feels for everything he's done to Scar in every one of these games. 

And Scar tells him, in between shaky inhales and broken weeping, what happened to him all those years ago and how he never recovered and how he's most afraid of being left alone and please Grian never leave me alone. And Grian squeezes Scar until he's touching almost every part of his body and whispers into his ear, "I'm never leaving you alone, Scar. Never again." 

And Scar remembers how Cub held him the same way when he found out, how he uttered those same words, how he swore on the vex that they were true.

And Scar starts to believe them.

.

@stiffyck

#gtws #gtwscar #goodtimeswithscar #the crafting dead scar #tw suicide #worddisaster #trafficfic