Xisuma likes to think he’s a good admin. He keeps the firewalls intact, monitors the code of the world, and has several programs running at all times to detect bugs before they can cause problems. He loves his hermits and does everything in his power to keep them safe. So he doesn’t think anything of it when he downloads a new software meant to protect the players’ code from being hacked or altered.
However, they are a bit surprised when the software immediately alerts them that one of their beloved players has apparently been walking around with modified code for void knows how long. They pull up the private messages on their communicator.
Xisuma: Hey, I just discovered some parts of your code are modified. Is that intentional?
Grian: ah shit
Grian: that must be another “gift” from the watchers that i didn’t know about
Grian: can you get rid of it?
Xisuma: Of course, would you like me to investigate it before deleting? I won’t know what it does unless you give me a few hours and permission to poke around in your code
---
Xisuma: Of course, would you like me to investigate it before deleting? I won’t know what it does unless you give me a few hours and permission to poke around in your code
Grian bites his lip. He’d already been struggling with a build that morning and being reminded of the watchers had not improved his mood, and he doesn’t like others looking at his code on a good day, so his answer comes to him pretty easily.
Grian: no, thanks. i just want it gone.
Xisuma: Ok! Give me a few minutes
He huffs and pockets his communicator. A few minutes later he feels a brief rush of dizziness and hears a ping.
Xisuma: Done!
Grian: thanks
Well, now was as good a time as any to go back to brainstorming block palettes.
---
Now was, apparently, not a good time for block palettes. Grian keeps reaching for gray, orange, and cyan concrete even though they’re objectively boring blocks together. But… maybe if he swaps out the orange for acacia, and throws in a few types of stone, that’d work? Yeah, and some stripped warped stem pillars instead of the cyan concrete. And speaking of cyan, cyan terracotta would be great to give the indentations more depth, and…
He gets so invested in the build he fails to notice the sun set until the phantoms strike, but he doesn’t let that stop him, moving indoors to furnish his new restaurant-slash-bar. He doesn’t really need to be making this, but the “shady deals” going down in Decked Out for shards and stew got him thinking about clandestine meetings in seedy bars and restaurants that are fronts for all sorts of nefarious things going on behind the scenes. He wouldn’t dare get on Tango’s bad side by really breaking any explicit rules of Decked Out, but maybe they could do some silly roleplay here or something. And, besides, the essence of being a hermit is doing something big that you don’t have to do just because you want to.
Grian hears Bdubs land outside the restaurant as he’s finishing up arranging the seating. The sun is rising. He waves Bdubs inside. Bdubs enters and looks around the build and nods approvingly at various details inside.
Bdubs beams at him. “I'll allow it!”
“Thanks!” Grian instinctively matches the grin. “I didn't know I needed your approval, but I'm glad to have it.”
“Of course you need my approval! I can’t just let you go stealing Wet Dirt’s patrons-”
“What patrons?”
“-of which there are many. Many patrons at Wet Dirt, I tell you! I'm glad to see this is more of a themed diner though, it fills a different corner of the market.” Bdubs looks around and gestures wildly as he speaks. He finishes with his hands on his hips and another big smile pointed at Grian. “Good job!”
Grian chuckles at the short hermit’s antics. “What do you mean, themed? I was going for a sort of sketchy seedy aesthetic.”
Bdubs looks at him like he’s crazy. “This is a fabulous build, G. Really! But any spooky atmosphere is outweighed by the hotguy theme.”
“The What.” Grian asks flatly.
“You know, the colors?” Bdubs is still looking at him like he’s crazy but now a bit of pity is starting to show as well. “You've even shaped the bar like the triangles on the suit. You can’t tell me that wasn’t intentional.”
Grian shuffles his feet and stares determinedly at the floor. The floor which, now that he thinks about it, matches the exact shade of gray of hotguy’s boots. Void damn it.
Bdubs’s face is full-on pity now. “You know, it’s okay to change your mind about… things. I’m sure Scar would still be-”
“NO!” even Grian is startled by his own volume. “Sorry, Bdubs, but this isn’t whatever you might think it is. Can you go, please? And not tell anyone about this? I have a restaurant to explode.”
“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Bdubs clearly does not believe him. “Just remember if you ever need to talk, I'm here. We all are. Especially s-”
“Bdubs!”
“Right! Going now!”
Grian watches Bdubs rocket away and sighs. As convenient as it would be, there’s got to be another explanation for his subconscious building a hotguy restaurant. He opens his ender chest and carefully places just enough TNT to destroy all the blocks in one blast. As he watches hours worth of work explode he can’t help but remember Scar’s face that day. The day Grian rejected him.
---
It had been a lovely day. Grian woke up early and quickly put together some drinks and cut fruit for the picnic. Scar had promised to bring the main food and dessert. (He usually did, ever since the suspicious stew incident. In Grian's defense, he had had no way of knowing adding multiple flowers to the same stew would have such disastrous results. He still couldn’t look at poppies and azure bluets without wincing.) He had hummed as he cut up golden carrots and watermelon.
The picnic had been perfect. They met up at their usual spot, a nice clearing on a hill a thousand blocks out from any builds. They ate and talked for hours, rehashing old debates and reminiscing about the past. Before they knew it the sun was setting. They settled into a comfortable silence that lasted several long minutes until Scar broke it. To this day Grian wishes he had broken it instead so they could’ve avoided what happened next.
“It's kind of romantic, isn’t it?”
Grian startled and looked at Scar strangely. “I guess. That didn’t really cross my mind.” He hoped that that’d be the end of it. He had a hunch this conversation was about to take a direction he really didn’t want to deal with right now.
Scar frowned for a second but quickly covered it with a smile. “No? You mean this doesn’t seem at all like a date to you?” He waggled his eyebrows jokingly but Grian could sense a bit of vulnerability in the twitch of his smile.
“Nope.” He crossed his fingers that Scar had gotten the hint.
“Grian. G-man. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about-”
No such luck. Screw hints. “Scar, please, don’t.”
Scar’s shoulders dropped but he still seemed hopeful. “Please, just listen-” He paused to grab Grian’s hand when the avian tried to stand up and escape, though he did drop it again as soon as Grian sat down. Small mercies. “I don't want this to be a, a, miscommunication. I know you. I know you care about me.” Scar looked into Grian’s eyes like he was seeing the world. Grian looked into Scar’s eyes hoping to find the same but all he could see were eyes. It felt like there should be something more. “Don’t run from your feelings just because you’re afraid to hurt me.”
Grian winced. Guess they’re doing this. “I do… care about you. Just not…”
“Not the way I care about you?” Scar confirmed, resigned.
“Yeah.”
“Damn.” Scar closed his eyes for a moment and then snapped them open in realization. “Oh! Oh you hated that, didn’t you? I'm so sorry for making you have that conversation, I just hoped… well I hoped some things that obviously aren’t true and I thought you were keeping both of us from being happier.”
Only this man , Grian thought, Could apologize for being rejected. “It's fine. Can we just… forget about this?”
Scar easily agreed, and they packed up their picnic and parted ways without more conversation than a few simple goodbyes and empty promises that they should have another picnic soon.
---
Afterwards, Grian told Mumbo and Scar told Cub and within a few days the whole server knew. Grian hated feeling like a bad guy but his friends assured him it would’ve been worse to lie.
---
Footsteps echo all throughout the halls inside the main rock of Dwayne. Grian really ought to add some wool in here, the acoustics are terrible. On the bright side it means he always knows when someone’s coming. It is hard to tell where they’re coming from though. Maybe a small amount of wool would do the trick?
“Griannnnnn!” Scar calls out. He's walking in from the bridge entrance but he hasn’t noticed Grian yet.
He sees an opportunity to mess with Scar and ducks behind a pillar. “Scaaaaar!”
Grian giggles as Scar whips his head around dramatically to look for Grian. As quietly as he can Grian glides through a few adjacent rooms until he’s on the opposite side of Scar that he started from.
“Scar! Over here!”
He pauses to listen just long enough to ensure Scar is walking towards him again, then ducks into another hallway and drops into a trapdoor in the floor. He scurries through the tunnel and comes to a secret bookshelf door he knows is right next to where Scar is now.
He slips through silently. “Scar! Hello there.”
“Gah!” Scar spins around and puts a hand to his chest in fright. “What in the world!”
Grian smiles innocently. “Just finishing up dusting my books. What can I do for ya?”
Scar looks dubiously at the books behind Grian which are, admittedly, incredibly dusty. Grian will not apologize though because dusting is stupid and just spreads the dust around and then he has to dust all over again. Not worth it. Scar, being the wonderful man that he is, politely does not comment on the dust. “Two things. I was wondering if you ever made that restaurant we talked about? You know, the one you said I could try to sell contraband suspicious stew in?”
Ah. Right. He forgot he’d talked to Scar about that, maybe that’s why the build had turned out hotguy themed? Even though he talks to Scar about lots of builds and this is the first time that happened. Hmm... first time for everything or whatever it is people say. “Of course, that restaurant. I tried to build it but it happened to blow up. Through no fault of my own. Surely you understand.”
Grian’s answer is suspicious at best and an obvious lie at worst but once more Scar’s ability to ‘yes, and’ any situation comes through. “I see, always a shame when builds spontaneously combust.” He walks up to Grian and casually starts poking at the bookshelf. He's obviously trying to figure out how to open the secret bookshelf door. Grian doesn’t make any move to stop him because he knows Scar will never find the trigger: you have to pull out a book titled Storage System Ideas Volume One: A Self-Help Book For Chest Monster Makers. Scar won’t go anywhere near it.
“Mhmm. Such a shame. So what’s the other thing that brings you by on this fine day?”
“Oh, nothing much, nothing much. Impulse just wanted me to make sure everyone knows about the party in a few weeks.” Scar starts dropping random items in front of the bookshelf, maybe thinking it’s got a hopper passcode. It wouldn’t be a bad theory if they were in the base of anyone remotely redstone-competent but as it is they’re in Grian’s base and there are zero hoppers in the floor. Well, none that Grian put there at least. He can never be too sure with Mumbo as a neighbor.
“Ah yeah, I think I saw someone mention that in chat a while ago. What’s it for?”
Scar gives up on unlocking the bookshelf door. “Oh, you know, things.”
Grian raises an eyebrow. Unlike Scar he has no problem calling out suspicious behavior.
“...and stuff.”
Grian raises his other eyebrow.
“It’s a surprise?”
“Scar.” He crosses his arms. “What's the party for?”
Scar bites his lip and fidgets for another second before finally letting out a big breath. “I don't know!” he shouts. “I don't know and Impulse asked me to remind everyone about it and everyone I've told has asked me what the party is for and I haven't been able to tell them! I've been saying it’s a surprise but I think Pearl knew I was lying.”
Grian chuckles. “Why can’t you just… ask Impulse?”
“I can't do that !” Scar whines. “Then I'd have to admit I've gone this long without knowing.”
“That's rough, buddy.”
Scar pouts. Normally this wouldn’t affect Grian very much, especially because the frown is obviously being exaggerated for comedic effect, but for some reason right now the only thought on his mind is that he has to make Scar smile again.
“Hey, wanna know a secret?”
Scar, as expected, immediately perks up. “Always!”
With a flourish Grian reaches past Scar and pulls out the correct book to unlock the bookshelf door. Scar squeals in excitement and they spend the rest of the afternoon together, Grian showing Scar all the secret passages throughout his base.
And even though he gave up some of the secrets of Dwayne (no one, not even him, will ever be able to know all Dwayne's secrets) he can’t help but feel like he gained something.
---
It's just past noon which means it’s time for Grian to wake up. He slowly rolls out of bed and trudges to the bathroom. While he’s brushing his teeth he examines his bedhead and finds his mind wandering to what Scar’s normally well-kept hair might look like when he wakes up. It's a passing thought though and he doesn’t let himself dwell on it. Much to do today after all.
---
Grian is making himself a sandwich. This is pretty normal as sandwiches are the one thing he knows how to make without screwing up. What isn’t normal is the second sandwich he starts making on autopilot. He frowns at the sandwich, hoping it will provide answers, but alas it remains silent. That's probably for the best.
He zones back out and finishes making the second sandwich (some of his best builds come from letting his body work on autopilot, and he’s not one to disrupt that process) and zones back in just in time to watch himself put the sandwich in a paper bag with a cookie and write “Scar” on the bag. That does make sense actually, Scar has a big day of work planned testing redstone in Scarland today and Grian knows he’s prone to forgetting meals when he gets focused on something.
Well, he already has the bag. He might as well drop it off. Waste of good food, otherwise. And if he hides on the roof of a building afterwards to make sure Scar actually eats, well, he’s just being a good friend.
---
"Psst! X!"
Xisuma sets down the pickaxe they had been enchanting and glances around until their eyes settle on Grian's head poking over the edge of a beam in the ceiling. Upon being noticed, he drops down from the ceiling and lands on the floor with all the grace of a drunk frog landing on a lilypad. He was trying to do a cool flip midair but it didn’t work out so he does the next best thing and gets to his feet quickly to take a dramatic bow as though he meant to do that. Xisuma raises an eyebrow at him. His talents are truly unappreciated.
"Can you take away whatever you added to my code? It was funny for a minute but it's getting in the way of my builds."
"Pardon?"
Grian fidgets with the sleeves of his iconic red sweater. "You know, the prank thing? Don't try to convince me that wasn’t you, it has not been subtle."
Xisuma carefully unpries Grian's clenched hands from his sweater and guides him to sit on a nearby bookshelf. Once Grian seems slightly less agitated, Xisuma speaks. "You know I wouldn't add anything to your code, especially considering the reason I was in there in the first place was to remove modifications. Now, what's going on?"
Grian frowns. "The thing with Scar. I shouldn't have to tell you what it is, you did it."
Xisuma sighs. "Could you tell me anyways?"
Grian mumbles something unintelligible.
"What was that?"
"You did something to make it so I can't stop thinking about him!" Grian shouts. "Every morning, my brain asks me 'what would Scar look like waking up?' When I eat, ‘I hope Scar is eating enough.' I even accidentally built a hotguy themed restaurant! What gives, X? I don't get it!" He stands there panting for a second after the outburst.
Xisuma stares at him and watches in real time as Grian's face goes through an assortment of expressions before settling on dread.
"Oh no."
"Grian, have you-
"No, no, no!"
"-considered that you-
"Shut up! No!"
"-might be in love with-"
Grian takes to the sky before Xisuma can finish their sentence.
---
It's safe to say Grian is officially panicking. So he does what he always does when he panics: build, avoid the problem, build, start a war, and build a bit more. Or, well, he tries to.
Building doesn't go very well. He's trying to retexture a bit of Dwayne but it's impossible to keep his eyes from wandering towards Scarland every few minutes, and then he starts thinking about Scar, and then he keeps thinking about Scar, which is the whole source of the panic.
It's pretty hard to avoid the problem when the problem is in your head, but he does his best to keep all thoughts of Scar at bay. He has no success whatsoever but at least he's still got good old fashioned denial on his side.
He tries turning down his render distance but that always gives him vertigo and there's only so many times one can fall off a giant floating rock before admitting defeat.
What's next? Right, attempting to start a war...
"Mumbo! Mumbolio!"
Grian watches with delight as Mumbo jumps a full block into the air in surprise and somehow manages to activate the redstone he was working on, which seems to do nothing for a few ticks until several shriekers are activated and Mumbo startles all over again.
"Whatcha working on?" Grian can keep the grin off his face but he cannot keep it out of his voice.
Mumbo glares good-naturedly. "If you must know, Tango asked me to put together an informational packet on shriekers for the hermits since everyone seems to misunderstand how they're set off in Decked Out. I agreed, which may or may not have earned me a shard, and right now I'm conducting research to ensure my information is accurate."
"That's cool. Do you wanna start a war against Doc?"
Mumbo peers at Grian, clearly suspicious. "Are you avoiding problems again?" he asks timidly.
"Who, me? Why I'd never!" Grian gives his best 'aghast' face. "I just want to spend some quality pranking time with you! My buttercup!"
"You disbanded the buttercups, remember?" Mumbo's shoulders slump.
Grian grabs at the opening without hesitation. "Well, Mr Jumbo, would you like to bring the buttercups back to declare war on Doc?"
Mumbo brightens immediately. "I'm still not so sure a war is a good idea right now, but I do miss the buttercups, so I suppose I'm in."
"Great! I knew I could count on you. Let's go scout the perimeter and brainstorm plans."
"Alright, shall I go grab Scar and-"
Mumbo keeps talking but Grian can't hear him. Void damn it, he's done it again. Why does everything in Grian's life come back to Scar?
"Grian?" Mumbo is peering at him the way one might peer at a wild animal, or perhaps a friend who has not responded in conversation for a few minutes despite their name being called.
Grian racks his brain for any reasonable sentence to explain that actually they shouldn't do a war and it has nothing to do with Scar. what comes out is, "No Scar. No war. Gotta go, bye!"
Grian takes off and the woosh of his wings is not quite loud enough to drown out Mumbo's "I will never understand what goes on in that man’s brain."
A likely true statement considering Grian himself doesn't know either.
---
Decked Out! the perfect place to hide from his troubles. Who has time for feelings- er, confusing thoughts when they're running from ravagers? Certainly not Grian.
The run has been going well, too. He's made it to level two, gotten the artifact and enough coins for two crowns, and another hazard block just got pulled. He's feeling good and decides to head back before he pushes his luck too far.
He’s heading up the stairs to level one when his communicator pings. Technically the hermits aren’t supposed to use their communicators in the dungeon unless something goes wrong and they need help from Tango, something about no refunds for texting and gaming, but he’s safe on the stairs and he knows Tango isn’t watching so he doesn’t see any harm.
Scar fell from a high place
Oh, what an idiot. Grian wants to wrap him in twenty blankets and keep him locked indoors so he never gets hurt. That's a normal thing to think about your friends, right? It's just standard platonic protectiveness.
As Grian is pondering how he could slip more totems of undying into Scar's shulker monster in such a way that Scar finds them but doesn’t question their presence he fails to notice the ravager waiting around the corner at the top of the stairs back to level one.
---
Grian is relieved he remembered to set his spawn so he doesn’t have to use the pick of shame after his defeat. The respawn room is a good place to calm down and take some deep breaths.
A minute later he leaves and as soon as he steps out Doc is right there staring intently at him. Grian watches warily as his expression morphs from “looking at a redstone puzzle I have not yet solved” to “I have just solved a redstone puzzle and I am going to brag about it.” He has a sneaking suspicion the puzzle in question is him.
“It is a pity your run was cut short. I hope you have better luck next time.”
“Thanks! I've got four shards left.”
Doc’s eyes remain locked on Grian’s. It would be slightly unnerving if he wasn’t used to it. “Hmm. Have you heard of Romeo and Juliet?”
“What? I mean, yeah?”
Doc’s lip twitches up into a smile for a moment. “So then you know how the lovers killed themselves in grief after seeing that the other was dead?”
Grian’s eyes narrow. “Are you implying I died on purpose because Scar did?”
“Not at all. I was simply discussing a story with you.” Doc lets the smirk take over his face. “It is interesting, though, that you would immediately assign Scar to the role of your lover.”
Memories play through Grian’s head.
I'm sure Scar would still be…
have you considered you might be in love with…
…you would assign Scar to the role of your lover
“What, um,” Grian gulps. “What do you…” Suddenly the room seems to be a little bit smaller and he swears he can hear the dungeon’s heart beating at max clank even though he knows it isn’t running right now. “...What?”
Thank void for Doc’s mechanical diagnostic enhancements. A little invasive, sure, but certainly helpful when it lets him stop another hermit from having a panic attack before it can start. Doc decides to switch tracks. “It is weird you brought up Scar even though you shouldn’t have seen his death. Has our local pesky bird been texting and dungeon crawling?”
Grian picks up on the teasing tone and lets himself fall into the familiar rhythm of a dumb bit. “Why I never! How dare you accuse me of such a thing, mister Doc Em Seventy Seven!”
Doc chuckles. “Perhaps I was mistaken. An upstanding citizen such as yourself would never break one of Tango’s rules.” They both know Grian was voted least upstanding citizen at the latest hermit superlative vote.
“Damn straight.”
“I think you meant damn gay.”
“What?”
“What?”
“You just said-” Grian trails off. Maybe it’s better to stop while he’s ahead. Or, at least, while Doc hasn’t yet determined the (alleged!!!) cause of Grian’s current inner turmoil. If he doesn’t already know, that is. “I have to go.”
Doc silently steps aside to let him pass.
---
After that harrowing interaction with Doc Grian isn’t eager to face just about anyone at the moment. Mumbo’s fine because he’s the only hermit who is timid enough to not push Grian to have emotional conversations that he doesn’t want to have, but he’s also asleep. Most hermits are asleep, actually. That's because it is now nighttime.
Grian is not asleep.
He's been trying to go to sleep for a few hours. Normally this is the point when he'd sneak into Scar’s base and make himself a cup of tea and fall asleep on the sofa, but he may or may not be avoiding Scar. Years ago he had admitted to Scar that sometimes a change of scenery helps him sleep and Scar had instantly made Grian promise to come to Scar’s place whenever he needs it. He tells himself it isn’t really breaking a promise because the point of that was to have an easier time sleeping but right now he is quite certain being near Scar would have the opposite effect.
He tosses and turns for another hour before deciding to go play more Decked Out. The other time he was playing it was quite effective at taking his mind off of Scar, at least up until Scar’s death message distracted him.
Grian was slain by One Eyed Willie
Xisuma: why are you awake
Grian: the decked out grind never stops
Grian: u?
Xisuma: admin duties never stop
Grian was slain by Vex
Grian was slain by nothing. They survived Decked Out!
Grian was slain by One Eyed Willie
Xisuma: please go to sleep
Grian: no
Grian: oh fuck im out of shards. oops.
---
Grian flies into the Decked Out scoreboard room at top speeds, startling Tango who had been checking something on his communicator. The game is closed for the afternoon for repairs which explains Tango’s surprise.
"Please can I have another shard?" Grian blurts out before Tango can ask why he’s there.
Tango raises an eyebrow. "Not even gonna give a reason this time? Just begging now?"
"Um." Grian’s eyes absently flit to Scar's head and pile of snow indicating his many victory tomes. "Yeah?"
Tango follows his gaze. "Ah, worried about the rankings? Don't worry so much man, there's only gonna be one winner after all."
Grian thinks quickly. “I do have a reason actually, it’s just- I kind of used all my shards the night before last but I forgot Willie is stronger at night and it didn’t go well for me. I don't wanna fall behind.”
“Ah.” Tango winces. “Sorry man, there’s a warning about that in the rulebook. It wouldn’t be fair to refund any of those shards.”
Grian’s shoulders slump. “Oh, ok. Thanks anyway.” He turns to go.
“Hey, hang on a second.”
Grian pauses.
“Why were you playing Decked Out at night anyway? I thought you mentioned a while ago that you and Scar-” Grian barely manages to hide his flinch at Scar’s name. He specifically came here to avoid thinking about Scar. “-found a way to fight your insomnia. That not working anymore?”
“...You could say that.”
“Hmm. Come with me.” Tango leads him up to the waiting room. The familiar bright colors calm him. “Ok buddy, lay it on me. You can trust your friend Tango. What's troubling you?”
“I’m fine, no troub-”
“Come on, man. If you don’t want to open up to me that’s fine but don’t keep pretending you’re fine.”
Grian opens his mouth to spout more lies but something in Tango’s tone makes him pause. Tango wouldn’t be his first choice of hermit to confide in but he’s also certainly not the last, and the moment feels right. Besides, a closed Decked Out is one of the few places on hermitcraft you can expect to have real privacy.
“Well, it started when X messaged me about some weirdness in my code, turns out the watchers…” Grian explains how he impulsively told Xisuma to put his code back to normal, how he didn’t realize anything had changed at first but now he can’t stop thinking about a particular hermit, “…and X seemed to think that I’ve had feelings for this particular hermit the whole time but the watchers suppressed it. Can you believe it? Me? Feelings? ”
Tango thinks silently for a solid ten seconds after Grian finishes explaining. He tilts his head, counts his fingers for a moment, and then nods to himself, seemingly having decided something. “I can give you eight… we’ll call them training shards , so you can play more, but! You have to promise me you’ll dump all your embers, coins, and crowns without buying anything, so it stays fair to the others.”
“Deal!” Grian agrees easily. He doesn’t care about winning right now, he just wants that sweet sweet escapism.
“Excellent, excellent. If anyone asks why you’ve got extra shards, tell them you’re not collecting winnings from those runs and you’re testing out a super duper top secret experimental feature for me.”
“Thank you, this is perfect.”
Tango laughs. “Don’t mention it, dude. I know I would've given anything for a distraction when I was trying to figure out how to talk to Impulse about my feelings for Zed. It turned out fine in the end though, and I have no doubt you and Scar will be the same, especially considering he- ah. You probably don’t want to be reminded of that. Well, good luck.”
“Thanks for- hey, I never said it was Scar.”
Tango raises an eyebrow at him. “You didn’t have to.”
For not-the-first time this week Grian makes a hasty exit to avoid talking about his feelings.
---
Tango’s training shards give him a much needed break from his problems but he burns through them pretty quick and then he’s back at square one, though with a notably clearer head this time. It's amazing the positive effects being in a dungeon designed to kill all who dare enter can have on one’s mental health.
Avoiding all his friends has turned out to be both easier and harder than Grian thought it would be. Easier, because he’s an expert in reverse stalking and no one can keep up with his flight speed, and harder because he misses them. And he misses Scar in particular. Yeah, Scar is the whole reason for his self imposed exile, but before all this he was also Grian’s favorite person for a reason.
It’s approximately four days after his talk with Tango and three and a half days after he finished using the training shards (listen, you’d use them all up in half a day too if you were going through a crisis) when Scar finds him. He knew it was a mistake to show Scar the secret rooms in Dwayne.
“Grian! Oh I am so glad I found you, Pearl says she hasn’t heard from you in days.” Scar enters Grian’s secret book nook and makes himself at home on a beanbag next to the armchair Grian’s curled up in.
Grian folds the corner of the page he’s on and sets down the book he was reading. They're his books and he can doggy-ear them if he wants to. “What’s up?”
“‘ What’s up ’? No one has seen you in four days! We’re worried.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Grian pulls a blanket up to just under his reading glasses to hide what definitely isn’t slight blushing.
“Forgiven! Now can I ask why you’re hiding away like a hermit? No pun intended.”
Grian pauses to think about how to answer but Scar seems to misinterpret the thinking as doubt.
“Ok fiiiine, maybe a little pun intended.”
Grian snorts. “Yeah, duh. As for the reason I've been gone, I'm sort of dealing with something?”
“Dealing with something?” Scar frowns. “Will you tell me about it?”
He sighs. Better just get it over with before someone else tries to tell Scar their versions of why Grian might be acting weird. “It's, well, X found something weird in my code and put it back to normal but we didn’t realize it would be such an adjustment.”
Scar looks… relieved? “Oh thank void, I thought you were having a mental health spiral. If Xisuma knows it can’t be that bad. But… promise me you’ll tell someone if things do become that bad?”
Grian remembers something crucial that he forgot: just because Scar’s existence is causing Grian so much distress doesn’t mean that he’s an enemy. Scar has always been and always will be on his side.
“I promise.”
Scar beams at him. “Thank you! Now, what were you reading?”
Grian grins and holds up his copy of Evil Storage System Ideas Volume One: How to Make Your Chest Monsters Bigger and Better Than Ever.
Scar’s jaw drops. “I thought that book was banned after it circulated on a public server and led to major organizational problems! How did you get ahold of it?”
“I have my ways.” Grian smirks and gets up to drag another beanbag over so he can sit closer to Scar. “Wanna read it together?”
“Yes please.” Scar gives him that look like he’s Scar’s whole world and Grian quickly averts his eyes to focus on the book before he can get distracted.
They spend a few hours reading the book and discussing storage system concepts that would surely make Pearl weep. At the end Scar makes Grian promise to get outside a bit more and, high on the joy of hanging out with his favorite person, Grian easily agrees.
---
Grian is hiding in one of the windows of Scarland watching Scar putter around. If Impulse or anyone else notices him (Scar won't. He has many talents but situational awareness isn’t one of them) he’ll say it’s planning for a music disc prank, figuring out where Scar spends the most time.
The truth is he isn’t really paying attention to Scar’s movement patterns. He just needs a place to think and for some unknown reason he felt drawn here.
That's a lie. He knows the reason, he just doesn’t want to face it.
He breathes in. Breathes out. Opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and then sighs in exasperation.
“This is stupid,” he mutters to himself. “Just say it. Don’t even say it, just mouth the words.”
He takes another deep breath and opens his mouth again. This time he forces himself to whisper, practically inaudibly, “I like Scar.” He pauses, tilts his head, and assesses himself. His heart rate is a bit elevated but nowhere near the level of Decked Out with max clank. His stomach has that oh-so-familiar anxiety pain but if he tells himself it’s adrenaline instead of anxiety suddenly it’s not so painful. In fact, it’s kind of… nice. A bit like the exhilaration of flying above max build height where the air gets thinner and colder.
And when he watches Scar coo at a Jellie statue he thinks to himself that maybe this whole feelings thing isn’t so bad.
He sneaks out of Scarland and decides to fly around aimlessly for a bit, just because he can. Without realizing he ends up at the clearing he and Scar used to go to for picnics all the time up until Scar confessed. They haven’t been back since.
He lands in a tree at the edge of the clearing and looks down at the place full of so much happiness and pain. They had great times here, but now all he can see is the raw hurt on Scar's face that day. He can’t ever let that happen again. He won’t though, because he’ll never reject Scar again.
Oh no.
What if he rejects Scar again? What if these feelings are the fake ones and what he felt before was real? Another way for the watchers to mess with him? A little voice in his head that sounds an awful lot like Xisuma reminds him that all this was caused by removing a bit of code from the watchers and he knows that in all honestly the little voice is right but what if it isn’t? He can’t take that risk. He can’t do that to Scar.
He ponders his options for another few minutes but ultimately there is only one solution to keep everyone happy. He can never breathe a word of these new feelings to Scar, not without proof they won’t disappear as easily as they showed up. The tiny responsible voice in his head reminds him that feelings this strong take time to build and obviously were growing the whole time they were suppressed. He mentally waves the voice away. This is the only option, and it’s not even that bad. He gets to keep the sparkly giddy rushes that his feelings cause and he never has to see Scar hurt again.
He just has to not tell Scar. Piece of cake.
---
Grian’s feeling okay again. Okay enough that he’s actually doing some storage organization, believe it or not. The pit of anxiety is still making a home in his stomach but he no longer feels like the world would end if someone else brings up his crush- and there’s no denying it’s a crush at this point- on Scar.
“Griiiiiian!”
That doesn’t mean he’s looking forward to discussing it either. There's no hiding from a determined Pearl though so he puts away the blocks he’s been sorting and waits for her to land.
Pearl glides to a stop outside Grian’s storage caves. “A little bird told me something very interesting about you.” Her mouth is neutral but her eyes are smiling.
“And what might that be?”
She takes in a big breath of air and Grian realizes what’s happening a second too late. “ GRIAN AND SCAR, SITTING IN A TREE, ”
He lunges to cover her mouth but she dances out of the way.
“ K-I-S-S-I-N-G! ”
He switches tactics and starts trying to thwack her with his shovel, but she takes to the air to avoid him.
“ FIRST COMES LOVE THEN HE’S PART OF YOUR FLOCK, ” Pearl suddenly dives back down and lands next to Grian. She grabs the shovel out of his hands before he can get a hit in. “ AND THEN PRETTY SOON YOU’LL BE EATING HIS- ”
“PEARL!” Grian squawks.
“- STOCK! ” Pearl grins. “Like chicken stock! You know, because he’ll be taking care of you when you’re sick and making you soup.”
Grian scowls at her. “Sure that’s what you meant. Was that really necessary?”
“Absolutely. There is a shortage of good gossip here because most of us are too good at healthy communication, and those of us that aren’t,” she looks directly into his eyes. “historically haven’t been involved in much relationship drama anyways. Now, have you decided how to tell him yet?”
He decides to ignore the slight to his communication skills, she is right after all. “Tell who what?” Just because he might be willing to have this talk doesn’t mean he has to make it easy. For either of them.
Pearl bops him with the shovel she’s still holding. “Scar, and that you love him. Or, if you don’t love him yet, you will eventually.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turns his back on Pearl and tries to look incredibly busy sorting his spruce chest.
She snorts. “Yeah, sure. What’s the problem anyways? It’s not like he’s gonna turn you down.”
“Shouldn’t he, though?” The words are out before Grian can process them.
Pearl freezes for a second before resuming her casual stance. “What, um, what do you mean by that? buddy?”
He closes the spruce chest and sits down on it with a sigh. “No, before you ask, this isn’t a self-deprecation thing. Not really, at least. I just….” can’t bear to see that look of pain on Scar’s face when I reject him again “Don’t want things to end badly.” Close enough.
“And who says they’ll end badly? Luckily you picked a guy who’s emotionally intelligent enough to pick up your slack.”
He throws a stack of leaves at her. “ I say they’ll end badly. You literally just pointed out that I’m not great at people things-”
“And that Scar is so you’ll be fine.”
“-so it would only be a matter of time until I screw it up.”
Pearl drops the leaves in a nearby chest, a wool chest if he’s not mistaken. That'll be a pain to sort later. “I don't think you’ll screw it up.”
Grian raises an eyebrow at her.
“Don’t give me that look! You put in the work when something’s important to you and it’s obvious Scar falls into that category.”
Grian harrumphs. He hates it when Pearl uses logic.
Pearl picks a stray leaf out of her hair and sticks it in her pocket. “At least promise me you’ll think about telling him?”
“Okay, okay! I will.”
Pearl smiles at him. “Good. I think he’ll be really good for you if you let him be.” She glances around. “Although I hate to think what kind of chest monsters I'll have to clean up if you two spend even more time together,” she jokes.
Grian rolls his eyes and does not tell her about their impromptu Evil Storage System Ideas Volume One: How to Make Your Chest Monsters Bigger and Better Than Ever reading session. She would cry and he doesn’t have tissues on hand. “Yeah right, you’d love that. With how much we’d have to pay you you’d probably steal Mumbo’s title of richest hermit.”
“Do you really think he has very many diamonds? Because I was talking to Etho and he claimed Mumbo’s button gave him stained glass instead of diamonds, so I was just wondering…”
Grian nodded along in all the right places as Pearl continued her story, but his mind was wandering to other places.
Maybe…
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to confess to Scar.
---
Hermits have a bit of an unspoken motto of “go big or go bigger.” Big projects, big pranks, and, of course, big parties.
The day of the party Scar told him about has finally come and Grian… still isn’t actually sure what they’re celebrating. There might not even be a reason for this party. There's a railroad track running in a wobbly circle around the whole party area. It's got about five minecarts with TNT and one with a skeleton that someone gave a flame bow to, and several hermits seem to be trying to bait the skeleton into setting off the minecarts. Grian walks past Doc and pretends not to notice the diagrams he’s working on to triangulate the best place to stand to get the skeleton to hit a minecart. Mumbo is hiding in a berry bush. Cleo and Keralis seem to be fighting over a bottle of vodka and Xisuma is trying and failing to convince them both to drink some water. All in all a pretty standard party.
Grian grabs a glass of champagne from a nearby table and downs it. While he’s at the drinks table he sees a list titled “bets for the party reason” with several bets listed for various anniversaries and made-up holidays, all in Pearl’s handwriting. Seems like no one else knows what the party is for either.
He approaches the bush Mumbo’s hiding in. “Find any berries?”
Mumbo startles but quickly relaxes when he sees Grian. “Ah, no. Mostly just thorns.” He looks quite distraught at his failure to find berries.
“Pity. Wanna tunnel underground and hide some shriekers?”
Mumbo doesn’t meet Grian’s eyes. “I'm quite comfortable here, actually.”
“Mumbo.”
He continues to avoid Grian’s gaze.
'Did you get stuck in the berry bush?’
“...Maybe.”
“How?”
“..........Dropped my communicator. Whilst trying to take a picture of a cool beetle.”
Grian rolls his eyes. What a spoon. “Did you at least get a picture of the beetle?”
His silence speaks volumes.
“Why haven’t you just broken your way out?”
“I…” He hesitates before continuing in a whisper. “ I didn't want to tear my suit. ”
Grian can’t help cracking up at his friend’s predicament. “You didn’t want to-” He cuts himself off with a wheeze. Mumbo pouts.
Scar, always eager to get in on a joke, approaches. “What's so funny, G?” Grian points at the berry bush. “Oh, nice bush Mumbo. Is it comfortable?”
Mumbo sighs. “Not really.” He sounds absolutely miserable.
Grian finally catches his breath. “How long have you been in there? No, how long would you have stayed there?”
“It's a new suit! And I've got enough food in my inventory to stay here tonight. I figured I would just... wait a while.”
“Scar, this absolute spoon was planning to sleep in this bush tonight to avoid ripping his suit-”
“Doesn’t he have 32 identical suits?” Scar asks.
“-of which he has 32 identical copies. Yes. And he’s only there in the first place because he was trying to take a picture of a cool beetle, which he failed to do.”
“I see.” Scar giggles. “Should we leave him here?”
“No! Grian don’t listen to him!”
Grian had been planning to help Mumbo pick his way out of the bush to preserve his suit but he’s never one to pass up a chance to mess with his friends. “You know, I think we should.”
Mumbo looks utterly betrayed. The effect is slightly dampened by the leaves in his hair.
“Wanna go see how many brownie bites I can fit in my mouth at once?” Grian asks.
“Why, Grian! I thought you’d never ask.” Scar smiles and gracefully offers his arm to Grian in that old fashioned chivalrous-looking way. Grian, of course, accepts.
As they walk towards the snack table Grian taps Impulse on the shoulder and quickly asks him to go help Mumbo out of the bush. Impulse glances at their connected arms, smiles knowingly, and agrees.
Grian sheepishly turns to Scar, who seems to glow under the soft light of the string lights illuminating the party. “Sorry for ruining the bit, but we both know he really would spend all night in that bush.”
Scar smiles softly at him. “Don’t apologize. He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
Grian meets his gaze and opens his mouth to reply with something witty that he hasn’t actually thought of yet but his breath catches before he can speak. Scar looks even brighter, and he can hardly breathe, and something about the light sets off alarm bells in the back of his mind but he doesn’t pay them any attention. Scar is beautiful . He isn’t quite sure how it took him this long to notice, for the knowledge to really sink into his mind, but it’s unavoidable now. Grian has to tell him that he is beautiful and ethereal and brilliant and-
“Scar-”
-and he’s being caught in the blast of a TNT minecart.
---
“-rian? You with us yet?”
Impulse is crouched above him and Mumbo is nervously peering at him from behind Impulse. The rest of the hermits are gathered around checking on a few others that were injured in the blast. Scar is nowhere to be seen and a few others seem to be missing. A glance at his communicator reveals Scar, Cleo, and Etho were caught in the blast. Doc is cackling and looking incredibly happy with himself despite the soot covering his torso. He doesn’t see Scar.
“Where?”
Impulse frowns. “You don’t know where we are? That’s concerning.” He looks away from Grian. “Doc! Can you come check on G? I think he has a concussion.”
Soon Doc is crouching on Grian’s other side and shining a light in his eyes and turning his head this way and that, bionic eye making little whirring noises. Grian puts up with the poking and prodding for another minute before repeating his earlier question.
“Where's Scar?”
Doc pauses. “Impulse, what made you think he has a concussion?”
“He asked “where” like he didn’t know where we are. Obviously we’re at the party celebrating the one year anniversary of Zedaph possibly seeing Mothman, everyone here knows that.”
“Literally no one knew that!” Pearl shouts from somewhere behind them.
“I win!”
“Tango, you obviously already knew you were right when you made your bet, no one else’s was that specific. I'm in charge of the bet and I say it doesn’t count.”
“I'll split the diamonds with you if you say it counts, Pearl.”
“...Deal.”
Impulse resolutely ignores the obvious betting fraud going on behind him. “So, what’s the diagnosis? Is he okay?”
“Hmm.” Doc looks at Grian consideringly. “I think our little Juliet will be fine as soon as he sees for himself that Romeo is alive.”
Grian sits up, intentionally-unintentionally nudging Doc away. “What Doc here means is I'm fine. See? Not a scratch on me.” He gives his best reassuring smile. A firework rocket goes off nearby.
Mumbo makes an alarmed squeak. Grian idly notes the leaves are gone from his hair, Impulse must’ve wiped them off. Impulse and Doc remain silent but look no less concerned for Grian’s mental stability.
“What?”
Impulse puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. “A bit of debris hit your cheek, I'd say it’s quite a big scratch. Better get a potion soon if you don’t want it to scar.”
“Why wouldn’t I want Scar?”
A very familiar cough rings out. Everyone in their little bubble freezes. The party, at this point mostly recovered from the excitement of an explosion, continues around them.
“Scar!” Mumbo exclaims. “How are, er, quite the explosion eh?”
Impulse and Doc exchange a look and drag Mumbo away before Scar can respond, not that he was going to anyway. He is looking right at Grian and Grian’s looking right at him and now all Grian can think about is his epiphany from before the explosion. He’s trying to figure out how to explain to Scar how beautiful he is but the champagne from earlier slows his thought process just enough that Scar speaks first.
“That was exciting! Not a real party until someone blows up. Now,” He holds out a hand to help Grian up. “How about we go revisit the snack table? Lucky us it was outside the blast radius.”
Grian accepts the hand. “I don't think it was luck at all, actually. I saw Doc plotting the best place to bait the skelly into setting off the minecart. He'd never destroy a snack table.”
Scar nods in understanding and silently passes Grian a health potion from his inventory which Grian drinks. The cut on his face knits closed. Scar leans in to make sure it’s fully healed.
For the second or possibly the third time that night Grian is utterly captivated by Scar’s beauty but this time it’s his eyes. Suddenly he remembers something.
Scar looked into Grian’s eyes like he was seeing the world. Grian looked into Scar’s eyes hoping to find the same but all he could see were eyes. It felt like there should be something more.
Finally, he gets it. He understands what Scar saw that day because now he can see it too. He's still terrified this is another big prank from the watchers but somehow his fears seem a bit less Scary when he’s looking at Scar. Scar, who looks incredibly good right now.
“Yup, looks good.” Scar confirms.
Did he say that out loud? “Uh. What?” Grian’s having a hard time focusing with Scar still leaned in close to his face.
“The cut on your face. The potion fixed you up.” Scar smiles with his whole face. It's actually really cute, like he’s giving 100% of his enthusiasm just because Grian doesn’t have a cut on his face.
Grian swallows. “Oh.”
“Mhm.” Scar waits with his face still far too close to Grian’s for another moment before he leans back and grabs Grian’s hand.
Grian, who might be having a minor case of gay panic, lets Scar lead him in a bit of a daze until they reach their destination and convenient distraction, the snack table.
Grian gets five brownie bites in his mouth and is considering going for a sixth. Scar has found an empty platter and is using a mix of mini quiches, crackers, cheese cubes, and a piece of cake to create a portrait of Jellie, although it currently looks like a mouse and he can’t figure out how to fix it. (It’s the ears, they’re too round.) (Grian won’t tell him that though because the way Scar’s tongue is poking out of his mouth is far too captivating.)
And suddenly it’s all too much. He swallows the brownie bites with considerable effort and steps closer to Scar.
“Scar, you’re beautithereal.” No, that’s not right. “Etheriful?” Not that either. “Exploded.” Damn it, that glass of champagne is really getting to him. Maybe it was spiked with stronger alcohol. In fact, considering what some other hermits’ alcohol tolerances are like, it probably was.
Scar sets down his platter and looks at Grian with an intentionally neutral expression. “Pardon?”
Oh, great, now he’s looking at him with those eyes again. Now how is he supposed to articulate his words? Then again, Grian has never been one for words when he doesn’t need them. He takes another step closer, putting them chest to chest.
Scar stares at him wide eyed and frozen.
He takes another half step closer so he can just feel Scar’s breath on his face. He thinks he hears Pearl shout “Fucking finall-” and then a slap but both he and Scar ignore it.
“Hi there,” Scar whispers.
Grian smiles sweetly and lets his gaze fall down to Scar’s mouth. “Hey.”
The moment stretches for another second, both of them leaning in till Grian’s sure if he spoke Scar would be able to feel the movement, and then Grian leans the final bit forward.
They’re kissing.
He’s kissing Scar, it’s finally happened, they’re-
Not kissing anymore?
“Why aren’t we kissing anymore?” Grian asks.
Scar looks all across Grian’s face, between his eyes and down to his lips. “You’re drunk,” he says bluntly.
Grian pouts at him.
“Ok, fine, tipsy. And even if you weren’t, it’s late. And,” Scar ducks into his shoulders a bit. “Everyone's watching us.”
“No one’s…” Grian trails off to see that all the hermits are either staring openly at them (Bdubs, Pearl, and Cleo) politely pretending not to be looking (Xisuma, Doc, and most of the other hermits) or failing at pretending not to be looking (Mumbo). “Oh.”
“Yup.”
Grian looks back at Scar who is blushing furiously and shifting from foot to foot a bit anxiously. “Hey, Scar, wanna leave this party?”
Scar nods and shoots him a grateful smile before scooping Grian up bridal style and marching out of the party. Everyone is too shocked at the display of strength to stop them. A few hundred blocks later Scar seems to remember himself and sets Grian down so they can fly the rest of the way to Dwayne.
They arrive and walk to the living room and sit on the couch with a solid half-foot of space between them. They have privacy to have the conversation they need to have now but neither of them seems to know where to start.
“So, I found out what the party was for.”
“Really?” Scar immediately latches onto the topic.
“Yeah.” Grian scoots a bit closer. “Turns out we were celebrating that a year ago today Zed may or may not have seen Mothman.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah.”
They fall back into silence.
“Do you-”
“Can we-”
They both start giggling. Once they calm down Grian motions for Scar to talk first.
“I wanted to ask if we could talk about. Y’know. Us.”
“Us,” Grian repeats. Some deep part of his brain is incredibly pleased with the word. “I like us. We should be an us.”
Scar smiles and scoots the final bit closer so their thighs are touching. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Like… boyfriends?” Scar asks hesitantly.
Grian nods enthusiastically. “Definitely. That. Boyfriends.” Upon saying ‘boyfriends’ he is overcome with embarrassment and shoves his face into Scar’s shoulder.
Scar wraps an arm around Grian and the exhaustion of the past few weeks finally catches up with him. He falls asleep like that, tucked into Scar. At some point he half wakes up because he’s no longer being held by Scar. He whines until a pillow is shoved in his arms and, satisfied, he falls back asleep.
---
Grian wakes up slowly. First becoming aware of the softness of his mattress, and then the warmth of being under the blankets, and then the sunlight trying to push its way through his closed eyelids. It's another few minutes before he rouses himself enough to sit up and blink away the brightness.
"Good morning!" Scar calls from the doorway.
Grian grumbles intelligibly at him and flops back down. He pulls the blanket over his head too for good measure. Scar, to his dismay, seems to become if anything even more cheerful at this.
"Get up, sleepyhead. I made you soup for breakfast."
Grian pulls the blanket down to his nose and peers at Scar curiously. "soup?"
Scar nods much faster than necessary. "Mhm! Last night Pearl messaged me something about you wanting me to make you soup? She had a whole riddle, something about flocks and stocks, but when I asked her to explain she just said I should make you soup."
"Did she now? How... nice of her." Grian makes a mental note to fill every single one of Pearl's chests with gray stained glass.
Scar smiles and gestures for Grian to follow him to Grian's kitchen.
---
The soup is actually delicious. Grian amends his mental note to fill only half of Pearl’s chests with gray stained glass.
---
"So, what was it that made you finally fall for me? My charm? My dashing good looks?" The soup has been eaten and they’re cuddling on Grian’s couch again. He's pretty sure Scar slept here last night, and while he wouldn’t have minded sharing the bed he appreciates the respect of undiscussed boundaries.
Grian chuckles anxiously. "No, nothing like that."
Scar raises an eyebrow. "So what was it?"
"It was, ah, well. Funny story. It turns out I actually probably have had feelings for you. Um. Always."
Scar's eyes widen in shock but he does not say anything. He does pull Grian a bit closer though.
Grian continues. "I don't know if you remember I mentioned to you there was that thing with my code, well X found a bit of modified code from the watchers and I told them to delete it and then..."
"And then?"
"Then I... couldn't stop thinking about you. At all. It was bad. You know how I've been playing more Decked Out than I ought to have shards for? Tango gave me gay crisis pity shards so I could use Decked Out to escape my feelings." Grian looks up to see tears on Scar's face. "Oh no, why are you crying? I didn't mean- I mean, what did I say wrong?"
Scar giggles and wipes at his tears. "No, ah, you didn’t say anything wrong, I'm just. Having a lot of emotions."
"What kind of emotions?"
"The good kind." Scar pulls Grian closer until he’s halfway on Scar’s lap. "I never thought I'd have this."
"Me either." Grian pauses. "Well, I didn't actually know it was something I wanted until X fixed my code, and by the time I realized you had already confessed so us getting together didn’t seem too crazy, but before all that. I never thought I'd have. Y'know." He tucks his face into Scar's neck and squeezes his eyes shut. "Someone I care about this much." He doesn't say love. He still isn’t ready. Soon, though.
"G! you can't say that! Now I really am gonna cry." Scar giggles and then sniffles, proving his point.
Grian rolls his eyes and leans up to pepper kisses all over Scar’s face until all the sniffles have turned into giggles. Deep conversations are important but Grian's emotional intimacy quota for this morning is beyond full and he's looking forward to spending the rest of the day lounging around with his new boyfriend.
---
Over the next few weeks Scar and Grian spend a lot of time together. Or, they try to. They get through the day after the party and half of the next day just enjoying being together and hashing out the details of their relationship before several hermits show up demanding to drag them around the server for various pranks, interrogations for gossip, and shovel talks. Grian’s favorite is when Mumbo tries to give both Grian and Scar a shovel talk at the same time and accidentally says “If either of you hurt each other I'll kill you both.”
They love their friends but they still want to spend time together just the two of them so it doesn’t take long for them to return to their old picnic spot and it becomes a bit of a haven for them, a place that’s just theirs.
As time passes it gets colder out and they start tossing around ideas for a cottage they could build on the edge of the clearing, enough to the side that there’s still plenty of grass for picnics but still far enough from the treeline that mobs won’t see them through the windows.
And then they get to work.
---
It's finally done. The beauty of the untouched picnic clearing had been nice but this, a build Scar and Grian made together with their own hands while laughing and exchanging kisses, is far better. They're laying on blankets on the flat roof of their new cottage looking at the stars and Grian can't help but glance at Scar every few minutes, a question burning on the tip of his tongue.
"Do you... think the moon is gonna get big again?"
Grian's looking at the stars at the moment but he can practically hear the confusion on Scar’s face. "Huh?"
"Like." Grian swallows and reaches over to grab Scar's hand. "Like if the moon got big again, that would be bad, right? So aren't you worried it's gonna happen again?"
"...Not really."
"But, but what if it did? And then it would crash and we would all have to escape again. It could happen."
Scar rolls onto his side to face Grian. "Do you have reason to believe that'll happen?"
Grian mirrors Scar’s position. "Well no, but-"
"Grian." Scar interrupts. "What's going on? Are you actually worried about the moon?"
Damn Scar and his stupid social intelligence. Grian shrugs, which is harder to do while lying on your side than you might think.
"Well, whatever it is, I'll listen when you're ready." Scar rolls back onto his back but Grian remains staring at his profile.
"I don't want to hurt you," Grian whispers. Any other time it might've been too quiet to hear but the night is still and Scar is listening.
"Wh- um, thank you. I don't want to hurt you either. Is there a reason that's on your mind?" Scar asks tentatively.
Grian shuffles over and Scar silently lifts his arm so Grian can tuck himself into Scar's hold. Scitties make excellent pillows. He takes a deep breath and tries to explain as fast as possible like ripping off a bandaid. "It's the whole feelings-suppression code thing. I'm worried somehow my brain will switch back and I won't love you-” Scar’s arm around him tenses but Grian is too caught up in his fears to think about why. “-anymore." There, it's out now.
"You don’t need to worry about that. Your concern is valid but unfounded. You told me yourself that this happened because Xisuma removed a piece of your code that had been modified. So that means the only way for your feelings to disappear like that is if the code is put back, which can't happen because X deleted it and the watchers can't touch hermitcraft, correct?"
"Yes, but what if they break the firewall? What if they left another piece of warped code in me?"
"Take a deep breath for me." Grian feels Scar’s chest rise and fall in demonstration where his head is resting on it. "Good. listen, if any of those things happen we probably have bigger problems on our hands than your feelings about me. But even if those things happen, and I really really don't think they will, we'll be okay, because you got something wrong earlier."
"Huh?"
"You said if your brain switched back you wouldn't love me anymore, but that's not true. You loved me before all this just in a different way. Sure, I'd be sad for a while, but if you somehow go back to how you were before we can still be friends. Oh, and I love you too, in case that wasn’t clear." Grian hadn’t even realized he had said he loves Scar but now that the words have been said they feel right.
"Promise we’d still be friends?"
"I promise."
Grian falls asleep like that, cuddling with Scar under the night sky, kept warm with shared body heat and promises.
