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sherlockggrian · 2 years ago

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tried my hand at writing a little secret life. I've had this scene in my head for a few days, and I just wanted to establish how I see Grian and Scott's characters this season. A heart is just a heart. (heavy on the desert duo). Enjoy.

This was stupid. Grian winced against the stinging pain in his shoulder from where the arrow had whizzed past. Barely a scratch, and still he cringed at the fact that it wouldn’t heal until the next time he visited the secret keeper. And it was right under where the leather strap crossed his shoulder, and he was stupid for leaving the safety of his lit-up hill at all. He gathered his breath, keeping the shield close up against him as he panted behind the tree. He felt the thunk of another arrow hitting the trunk, and took a deep breath before whirling around, squinting in the darkness. He managed to dart forward and cut down the skeleton, which withered on the ground beneath him. Grian grunted, kicking the bones amongst the rocks. He rubbed the scratch on his shoulder, feeling where the fabric was ripped and he was bleeding slightly. It was fine. He’d just have to watch it for infection. Bandages were a damn commodity, he thought, feeling slightly dizzy at the prospect of having to visit Scar’s stupid trading hut for supplies. Because of course he got everything from the Secret Keepers.

Grian readjusted his shield, shivering slightly in the cool night air, before turning back toward the distant glow of his base. As he was about to step forward, something shook in the bushes behind him, and Grian whirled around, instantly brandishing his sword. Metal clanged in the air as he crashed into something, and whatever it was stumbled back, shaken.

“Jesus Christ, Grian”, rasped Scott, whose startled face was now illuminated by Grian’s lantern.

Grian lowered his sword, sighing. “Don’t jump me like that, Scott,” he grumbled.

“Relax, nobody’s red yet,” said Scott lowly. He was wrapped in thick dark blue cloth, his wavy hair falling in parts around his elf ears. His unnatural green eyes blinked slowly in the darkness.

Grian shoved his sword back into its sheath. “What are you doing all the way out here at night? You know it’s dangerous. I thought you were across the river, with Gem and Impulse.” Grian motioned vaguely into the copse of forest, where mountains rose in the distance.

“I could ask you the same question”.

“My base is just up the hill,” muttered Grian.

Scott sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I’m doing. But I don’t mean to interrupt your nightly walk, either. I’ll be on my way.”

Grian glanced down at Scott. Upon further observation, he was clutching his left arm tightly, and Grian could see dark blood soaking through the cloth. “You’d better bandage that,” he remarked.

“It was stupid. Spider jumped me from above, I wasn’t even thinking, I can’t believe I-”

“Come on,” Grian muttered, motioning for Scott to follow him up the hill. He picked his way up the red rocks, feeling the dry, seeding grass brush against his legs as he climbed. “There’s no point in wandering around like that.”

Mist shrouded the dark valley below them, with the glow of Scar’s hut and the distant village cutting through the darkness. Grian was sort of glad he could see Scar so easily from the hill. That was partly what had made him choose this place. That and the rocky, red hills behind him provided a little shelter from the cold nights that were beginning to descend on the world.

Scott shivered, and Grian dumped down the bundle of firewood he’d been collecting. “It’s too fucking cold at night,” he muttered, and Scott hummed in agreement, already tenderly unwrapping the cut on his arm.

Grian ducked into the small lean-to he’d built against the trees on the hill, and pulled out a roll of bandages. He tossed it to Scott, then bent down the arrange the fire. It was the least he could do, he supposed. They were all still green, after all, except for Martyn, though Grian hadn’t seen much of Martyn recently. Which was usually for the better.

“You’re on your own this time.” Scott cut into the silence after a while.

“So,” said Grian. “It’s better off that way. This always ends in chaos, anyway.”

Scott grinned “Only cause you’re here.”

Grian cringed a little, unsure if it was supposed to be a joke. “Yeah, whatever,” he said. “I’m better at picking apples than pretending to be loyal to somebody”.

Scott sighed. “That’s a little harsh, don’t you think.”

It wasn’t a question. Grian went silent for a bit, scanning the edges of the darkness around them. A prickle of unease had crept up on him, like the feeling he got when he knew there was a creeper behind him, but couldn’t react in time. Scott was studying him with that look he always had, like he could read everyone like a book. Then again Scott had always been able to see through exactly what Grian was.

“The tasks are easy now,” muttered Grian, fiddling with the flint and steel in his hands, “but wait until we turn red. They feed off of negativity. They’ll have us at each other’s throats eventually. It always ends that way”. He made a point of pronouncing the they, avoiding the inevitable we that he refused to speak into existence.

Scott grimaced. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t have to. I was thinking, what if it’s different this time. What if-”

“It’ll never be different, Scott, you and I both know that.” Grian turned to look at Scott, who was standing in a hunched position, still wary of his surroundings.

They were silent for a few moments, green eyes looking into green, perched within a tense energy that cut through the cold. Grian felt a little guilty, but then again, he felt that most of the time these days.

Scott broke his gaze, turning to look over the valley. His eyes landed on Scar’s small glowing shack. “You’re still watching him.”

Grian sparked the flint and steel a little more aggressively than he meant to. “So? It’s better than teaming with him. We both know what happens. What’s happened. We’re just gonna end up killing each other. I’d rather not get attached this time.”

Scott laughed, which both annoyed and comforted Grian slightly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “But it still feels…pointless, like, what are we fighting for?”

Grian lowered his gaze. “You know you can’t beat them.” Scott’s voice went darker. “You’d say that, wouldn’t you.”

Grian tensed, sensing Scott’s hand slide over the handle of his sword. He realized that Scott remembered more than the others - being a previous winner, he had clearer memories of the past games that the other players could only allude to. And there had always been something up with Scott anyways. Something Grian couldn’t describe.

“I would have teamed with you, you know,” Scott went on. “I thought we’d agreed, that we would find a way to stop this. But you’ve just given in. You give them everything they want. You’re not even supposed to be here. We could do something, this time could be different, we could stay together, we could-”

“Don’t act like you know what you’re talking about,” hissed Grian, staring into the fire that was starting to crackle and pop in his face.

“I’m just wondering why you’re even here.” A few rocks tumbled down the hill behind Scott. “You have the power to stop them and yet you-”

Grian flew to his feet, and in a few seconds he had his knife pressed against Scott’s neck, breathing hard into the elf’s look of surprise. “You really fucking think I want to be here? You think I want to see my friends keep dying, over and over? You think I can just snap my fucking fingers and they’ll listen to me?”

Scott let out a careful, steady breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

Grian lowered the knife a little, still tense. “They hate me just as much as they hate you, Scott.”

Scott didn’t seem to know what to say. He paused for a moment, glancing at the cold, dark desert behind them, and the warmth of the fire. “We’re on green, Grian. It’s alright. I don’t want to kill you.”

Grian sighed. “I know,” he muttered, and the knife clattered as it landed on the rocks at his feet. He turned back, looking at the moon that glittered coldy above the distance mountain that seemed to hum on the edges of the world, and some darker part in Grian fluttered. He choked it back. He had been hearing their voices in his head a little more recently. “I just want to protect my friends,” he admitted. “And I can’t, not really, but I can try. You and I both know the only way out of this world is to die. If I wanted out I would have killed myself the moment this started. But I don’t want them to do this alone.”

Scott released his grip on his sword, and ran his hand over the wound on his arm. “I…I know.”

A puff of smoke rose from Scar’s chimney. Grian wondered if he was awake.

“You broke the rules for him, though. You always do it for him. Even though you pretend not to.”

Grian winced, knowing the words were true. “I just…I don’t want to know what would happen if they saw him,” he admitted. He knew Scott knew what they were talking about. He knew Scott knew the word watcher, knew Scott had come looking for him last time, had told him of Martyn’s dreams and threats, had screamed at him for answers, had looked into Pearl’s eyes as he’d blown himself up, had faced the watchers himself, at the end, when he’d won, all those years ago. Scott and his endless optimism, his sense of righteousness, his refusal to follow the watcher’s rules that made him such a target of them, that made them torture him, over and over. If it was anything, Grian saw himself in Scott, himself before the watchers had given him the ultimate punishment.

“What happens if you fail a task?” asked Scott.

“I don’t know,” sighed Grian. “Nothing good.” He remembered the look in Jimmy’s eyes as the Secret Keeper's face had flashed red for a moment, locked in a world only he could see. And the change in his temperament afterwards. “I just don’t want them to find him. I don’t want them to find out how much he-” means to me.

Scott nodded.

“I’ve kept him safe this long,” Grian went on, fear tugging at the bottom of his stomach. “I learned, after the first time, it’s better to do that from a ways away. You know I- last time, when he was- he had 10 seconds left, and I couldn’t let him run out of time, I knew if he ran out, that he’d see them, so I-” Grian gulped, remembering the way his sword had run through Scar’s chest, the way his eyes had slowly faded from red to hazel before his body fell to the ground and lightning crashed overhead, and a handful of sand had slowly appeared in Grian’s hourglass. The panic in his mind at the thought of Scar’s hourglass running out on his own, and Scar being forced to come face to face with the watchers. The only way out of this world is to die.

Scott took a seat beside the fire. He stared at the flickering flames, pulling Grian out of his unpleasant memory. “I’m worried about Gem,” he admitted. “I don’t even know how she got here. But I wanted to keep her safe,” he went on. “And I- I’m worried about Jimmy.”

Grian let out a long breath.

“You never bothered protecting him, did you?”

Silence. Grian wanted to eat glass. He cringed, flashes of Jimmy on the end of his sword flickering in the back of his mind. “Jimmy and I couldn’t be more different.”

“He’s your brother.”

“That was a long time ago.”

The fire popped and sparks fluttered up into the night air.

Grian changed the topic, turning over a log. “You know you came to me last time,” he breathed. “You wanted to do the same thing. To fight them. But it didn’t work. It never works. You believed in Martyn, and they still took him, just like Pearl, just like Jimmy. He promised you he’d fight them with you, together, and he lied. The red takes everybody. It’s better to die with your allies than to make it to the end, and have to watch what’s bound to happen. To have to face them. In fact it’s better not to have allies at all.”

Something unreadable passed over Scott’s face, and deep down, Grian wondered if what he’d just said was really true.

He remembered what it had felt like when Scar had given him the heart, earlier that week. A gentle flutter in his chest, a warm feeling, something completely opposite to the cold, tumbling darkness that settled in his stomach. It was like a breath of sun on a cloudy day, a shred of warmth in the autumn cold. Scar was all of those things. Scar was laughter, the gold that still lingered in the trees and shrubs, the pounding heat of the desert and the quiet grip of nightfall. Scar would bicker with him, and Grian would play along, and they would reach some sort of agreement eventually, which would usually end with Scar selling him something. Still, Grian knew how the story went. He would probably end up with a knife in Scar’s chest, only because Scar would never kill Grian, he could never - Grian would never let him.

“Good luck, Grian,” whispered Scott, after a long pause of staring into the fire. “You’ll need it.”

Grian wrenched his eyes away from the smoke in the distance and glanced at Scott, who was wrapping himself back up in the thick cloak. He tossed him a chunk of bread that he’d been gnawing on. “I’ll see you around.”

Scott’s green eyes flickered for a moment, but he only nodded, turning away from the fire. “You were always good at keeping secrets.”

Grian watched him go, wondering absentmindedly what task the watchers had set him on, to have him wandering the world alone, at night. Or maybe Scott was breaking his own rules, too, off to find Jimmy, wherever he was.

The smoke from Scar’s hut had all but dissipated, and all that remained was the dark hum of the secret keeper, the statue that rose into the night. Grian tore his eyes away from it, but the image remained, and he winced in sudden pain as the familiar words echoed in his mind.

YOU WERE ONLY MEANT TO WATCH.

He replaced it with thoughts of Scar, remembering how they’d trained for this, far far away in a world that perched on the edges of Grian’s conscious memory. He felt Scar’s heart beating inside his chest, and the distant taste of a kiss, and what it felt like to fly.

The fire flickered on into the sky, and the edges of the desert frosted over, and the world turned. Stars glimmered above, and Scott’s shadow vanished into the darkness. The scratch on Grian’s shoulder still stung.

A heart was just a heart, after all. He was bound to lose it soon enough.

#me?? writing something that isn't fucking warrior cats??? wow #secret life #slsmp #last life #grian #smajor #smajor1995 #scott smajor #desert duo #scarian #scarian fanfic #secret life fanfic #flower husbands #i guess?#trafficblr #spark writes

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