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This is bad.
This is very bad.
Grian didn’t want this. He didn’t want this at all.
Scar coughs, gives him a weak smile. Grian’s hands are pressed to his chest, trying to stem the bleeding. He didn’t mean—not again—
“It’s okay, Joel’s got a health potion, he’s gonna be here soon. Hold on, Scar, hold on—”
Scar shushes him with a hand, pressed to Grian’s lips. “This is pretty familiar, huh?”
“Wha—”
Scar glances around. “You and me. Both Red, at the top of a mountain. All that.”
And me killing you, Grian adds silently. He doesn’t say anything, though, because Scar is going to be fine. Joel will get here, and have the potion, and they’ll give it to Scar and everything will be fine.
“Honestly surprised I … I made it this far, y’know?”
Scar needs to save his breath. He’s losing more blood by the second and it’s looking bad, and where on earth is Joel?
If Joel can’t get here fast enough… .
“Scar, do you have any potion ingredients? Or—or gold, gold and an apple?”
He jumps to his feet, starts digging through Scar’s unorganized chests. Scar makes a small noise behind him. There’s nothing but a glass bottle in the first chest, endless junk in the second. This’ll take ages to sift through, see if there’s the herbs he needs.
“There’s nothing there, Grian.”
Grian keeps pawing through the stuff, tossing aside loose papers and crystals and a pair of pants. He needs netherwart first. Does Scar have a brewing stand?
“Grian,” Scar pleads. “Come on… . Come here.”
He tears his eyes away from the chest. Blood is trickling down the side of Scar’s face, trailing from his mouth. That’s—that’s bad news. Where could Joel be?
Grian dives to his side, pulling a balled-up handkerchief from his pocket. He leans to wipe the blood from Scar’s mouth, but the man grimaces and pulls away.
“Always hated when people do that,” Scar grunts. “It’s so—” he coughs, more blood flies— “demeaning, I guess.”
“Sorry,” Grian mutters, but he’s really not sure if he’s apologizing for that or for something else. Before he can decide, more words are pouring out, faster and faster as he runs out of breath. “Sorry, I’m so sorry, I—I just meant to threaten you! I didn’t want—you know I would never—”
Scar’s too forgiving, Grian knows. He should blame him, because it seems that every time Scar’s in a spot of bad luck, it’s Grian’s fault. From the creeper to the ravine to the battle to stealing his life to raiding him for lives to—this. Scar keeps losing, and it’s all Grian’s fault. But again, Scar’s too forgiving. And even though Grian deserves nothing more than hatred, ridicule, death, Scar only smiles.
“I know,” he says. “I do. A lot of people don’t, bud. But I know you.”
If Scar really knew Grian, he wouldn’t think so highly of him, Grian’s sure. He glances around, looking for anyone—particularly Joel, Joel sort of gets it, anyone else would be suspicious of him trying to heal the friend he just attacked—but Scar’s fingers grasp his sleeve, and he has to look down at him.
“Stop thinking whatever’s in that waffle,” he rasps, tapping Grian’s forehead with lightly curled fingers. “I know you.”
Grian can’t help but smile back, even as his vision begins to blur. “Shut up,” he says, as strong as he can manage. “You’ll be fine, yeah? So stop talking like it’s the end.” He’s as much saying it to himself as he is to Scar.
“Grian, c’mon,” says Scar, raising an eyebrow. His face is slowly draining of color, making the blood ever sharper against it. “This is the end. I do appreciate how … dramatic … it is.”
It’s not dramatic, though. Not to Grian. It’s too fast and too soon and his hands are covered in Scar’s blood, both literally and figuratively. It’s panicky, it’s messy, it’s distressing, but it’s surely not dramatic.
“Please just hold on,” Grian begs, once again pushing his blood-soaked hands into the gash in Scar’s chest. “Someone will come along, I’ve—my communicator’s cracked, where’s yours?”
Scar looks a little sheepish, his eyes slipping to the side. “Uh. I … lost it. To a llama.”
Grian can’t help the incredulous laugh that bursts from his lips. “You what? No, that’s—yeah, that tracks. Where did you even—”
Scar laughs too, trailing off slowly. His breathing is too shallow for Grian’s liking, and he immediately puts more pressure on his chest. They need help, and neither of them has a communicator that works, and it’s all Grian’s fault. He’s taken so much from Scar. So many lives.
“I’m sorry,” he says again, his laughter dissolving into tears in seconds, far quicker than he knew it could. “I’m so sorry, Scar I never wanted this, it’s my fault and I’m to blame and I can’t—I don’t—”
“Shh, shh, shh,” mumbles Scar, his eyes scrunching closed for a moment. When he opens them again, they’re teary and red. “I told you, I know. I know you. I don’t blame you.”
“You should, you should, everyone should, I keep hurting you—”
“I’ve been there,” Scar breathes. His hand, still on Grian’s arm, slips to the ground with a thump. “I get it. I know. Stop … stop crying, you’ll be fine.”
“It’s—it’s not me that’s the problem here!” Grian chokes out, moving one dripping hand from Scar’s chest to grab his fingers. “You’re the one dying!”
Scar doesn’t reply to that. His head falls back, more blood dribbling down his chin. His eyes rove slowly as he stares past Grian into the sky—Grian can only imagine he’s watching clouds drift past, or birds wheel by. He can’t look up to see, though, because Scar could die at any moment and everyone knows a watched pot never boils.
“D’you ever miss 3rd Life?” Scar whispers, and Grian nods.
“All the time.” 3rd Life hadn’t had Boogeymen, hadn’t ended alliances with Red names. He wonders, sometimes, why there was ever any fighting in that world. Last Life had to be a bloodbath, it was programmed into the game, it was just the way things worked. 3rd Life didn’t have to be anything. 3rd Life could be anything. There was no impulse to kill so strong that one killed against their own will. Grian would give anything just to have the option to not kill, to stay friends forever again. He thinks maybe he’ll be a pacifist in whatever comes next.
“What do you miss about 3rd Life?”
Grian asks the question like it’s nothing, like they’re discussing the weather. Some stubborn part of him that hasn’t admitted Scar is dead insists that he needs to keep talking. Scar’s eyes shift to the side slightly.
“Pizza,” he mumbles, the name slurring on his tongue. “Um. Stealing BigB’s cookie. Hav–having friends.”
Grian’s heart cracks. Scar had been alone up here, on Magical Mountain, for weeks. He’d lost all of his lives to alliances that fell through. He’d been robbed, attacked, pressured. He hadn’t had a friend since before Joel went Red. He must’ve felt so alone.
“I should’ve been here for you,” Grian finds himself saying. A tear slips from his eye. “You needed me, and I—”
“Grian?”
“Yes?”
Scar breathes in, his lungs rattling. When he speaks, his eyes don’t quite focus on Grian’s face. “Take—take care of Pizza?”
Grian doesn’t say that Pizza doesn’t exist. He doesn’t tell Scar that this is Last Life. He doesn’t take away Scar’s belief that maybe this world has some good in it.
“Of course,” he says, voice breaking. He swallows. “Of course I will. Anything. Anything else?”
Scar doesn’t even shake his head. Grian looks down, realizes that his hands are drenched, as are his jeans, in Scar’s blood. When he looks back up, Scar is staring blankly at the sky.
“No, no no no nonono—”
Grian jostles him, calls his name, even smacks his arm. Scar doesn’t move. His eyes slowly fade from red to a soft brown, their usual spark completely gone.
When Joel hikes up Magical Mountain twenty minutes later, health potion in hand, Grian is still there, head tucked into his knees as he hugs himself. A cloak-covered body is beside him.
“Don’t look at him,” Grian’s muffled voice comes. “I’m—I’m gonna bury him, all right? Just—leave me alone.”
Joel leaves without protest. Grian looks up when he’s gone far enough that he can no longer hear the crunching of gravel and skitters of pebbles. He glances around, around at the sunset, the forest below, the collection of chests—anywhere but the lumpy form before him.
Just as before, Grian is alone on the mountain.