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whilmsy · 1 year

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hello miners and crafters it’s me silly guy back with another scar post <3 this is heavily inspired by and written for the beloved @stiffyck and their double life art of green scar meeting himself as a red life! i am very normal about him <3

In a dream-like world, Scar awakens. It’s nothing dramatic: a soft huff of the exhale that leaves his lips, feeling distant and there all the same. There is no fear, no dread; what there is, is a forest.

Trees wind and loom above him, adding to the unsettling feeling that sits heavy in his chest as the night stretches far and wide in the sky above. The moon is small. It’s obvious that something or someone had passed through earlier, because there are tracks that mark the ground, both horse and human. Quietly, with a frown on his face and a furrow of eyebrows, Scar glances at the world around him. It doesn’t take him any time at all to know that he’s never seen this place before.

A cold dread crawls down his spine, he feels watched.

Maybe it’s a prank? The thought comes suddenly as soon as he realises his heart starts beating a little faster, as if trying to keep himself from panicking makes him panic more. It has to be a prank, it has to be; but Scar looks down, and he doesn’t remember ever wearing something like this.

The outfit he wears is… well, it seems like something he would wear - he guesses so, anyway. It’s a cream coloured shirt that’s buttoned up and a green bandana tied up on his right arm, dark cargo pants and a satchel that crosses over from his left shoulder and rests against his hip.

Weird, he muses, but not the worst thing that’s happened to him.

Then, Scar looks back up again, and someone else stands in front of him, leaning against a tree.

They look eerily familiar, too familiar.

Green eyes meet red eyes, and Scar realises this:

They look familiar because it’s him.

He doesn’t know if seeing himself from another perspective is better or worse.

It couldn’t be easier to know it was him, he’s seen his reflection enough times to know that it is. But as the figure takes slow steps forward, something akin to dread grabs his heart and squeezes it. For a moment as he watches, Scar thinks his heart stops in his chest. This version of himself has vibrant red eyes that gleam with a familiar sense of losing control and giving in to the blood-shed, and that makes him feel cautious; he’s never seen himself as red, but Scar knows what his mind is like when he is red.

This version of himself grins in a way that makes Scar feel a prickle of danger and he finally understands what other players of these games mean when they talk about him being unhinged as soon as he hits red. This red eyed image of himself is paler, wearing a black shirt that stays unbuttoned (Scar is not, at all, surprised by this) with a red heart embroidered on the front (a warning and foolishly brave: a warning of red and bloodshed, foolish in a cry of I can die at any given moment), and darker pants. The boots they both wear are the same, although his red state has boots that are stained with ash, dirt and blood.

And as they move closer, Scar feels that cold dread turn into an icy fear when he notices more about the person walking towards him.

His red life is covered in old cuts and bandages that look useless with the way they wrap too tightly around his arms, hands and neck, and he prays silently that he doesn’t know what they’re for. (Scar can see the faint bite marks on his red self’s neck as they cock their head to the side. His attempt at remaining calm ends with him feeling grief, and he knows that anguish is soon to flood his every thought.) There are new explosion scars, he notices silently, and he dreads it. His four ears are torn and cut at the edges, he dreads that too; they’re something he’s prideful of, he thinks he wants to cry just seeing it on this version of himself.

This version of himself looks dead, and Scar didn’t realise he could ever feel more scared of himself than he is in this moment. Sure, he’s had those red thoughts that stick around when the games are over, and it’s a little scary, but actually seeing himself as the thing he’s so numb to when it actually happens is… he thinks he’s allowed to be scared, in a way.

Scar has never seen what he’s like as a red, he’s lived it; there’s a difference. The difference is that you lose yourself, you lose who you are and you feel numb and the only time you remember really, truly, feeling absolute heart soaring joy is when there is blood on your hands and you are the one spilling it.

“Yeah,” the red life says - bringing him back from his thoughts - as if Scar’s panic is something they were waiting for, “you’ll get used to it eventually.” It sounds exhausted in a way, that sense of having given up long ago.

Scar doesn’t like it.

“No, I don’t-”

“Don’t what?” They bite back, emotionless. “Nothing you think to do will change this. It’ll happen either way.” The figure laughs hauntingly, unhinged. “You’ll still die, and Grian will still scream at you like that’ll do something to help.”

They both know the red life said the wrong thing with the way they grimace, with the way the tension drains and yet grows back stronger.

“…Grian’s with us?..” There is a shocked tone to the question, hopeful, and the man with the green bandana wrapped around his arm watches in real time as his red life’s expression grows from apathetic and into something more angry.

“It would’ve been better if he wasn’t. He barely sticks around anyway.” The red life sounds bitter and so incredibly sad and it all gets balled up into one emotion: anger. Their hands - bitten and scratched and covered in bandages - curl up into fists. “It would’ve been so much better if he didn’t just drag us along with him.”

Scar seems to shrink in on himself for a moment before remembering, again, that this is him. Softer, gentler, he says, “Maybe he was just scared,” because he knows that’s probably true. He knows that people react differently in different situations, has teamed up with Grian before; he knows Grian.

There is a huff of frustration from in front of him, and in a sudden sense of panic, Scar takes a step back; he has no idea where he is, and yet he wants to run from this blood thirsty version of himself very, very suddenly.

A hand grasping his left arm tightly dismisses that idea very, very quickly.

“Grian doesn’t care.” The red life version of himself hisses spitefully, says every word slowly - makes sure to drive home the idea of that sentence. There is an underlying sense of pain in their tone. Scar slowly feels the blood flow to his hand lessening. “I bet you that right now he’s off frolicking with that secret soulmate of his.” It doesn’t make any sense to him. His mirror image grimaces, eyes shining dangerously; Scar doesn’t know if it’s bloodlust or tears. “Grian doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t care about us.” Quieter, as if like a flame that is put out but keeps the remains still painfully warm, the red name says, “Grian only stays when it’s an obligation. They all do.”

Despite the fact that it rings true in his mind, Scar still knows it isn’t entirely true, isn’t numbed by an apathetic, blood-lusting red, but it still feels bitterly like denial. He says, “No-”

“You really think so?” The other version of himself asks, gripping Scar’s arm tighter when he tries pulling it away. “What about the first game?” desert sand and a home built from sandstone, trying and failing to avoid heatstroke, “The second one?” snow-capped mountains that echoed lonely lonely lonely, an enchanter and his lives being his best bet for someone to show up. “In one, Grian stayed because he killed you on accident. In the other, he couldn’t care less. He said it himself: The past doesn’t matter. He won’t bother to stick around if he doesn’t owe you something. Don’t get your hopes up for something that never lasts. It won’t be your gifts that he cherishes, but I think we both know that.”

Scar thinks of lilacs and poppies and he thinks yes he would, he would cherish them, he does- he did, he did he did he did he did. But then he thinks of that second game, of how Grian couldn't wait to take his life and flee with it. He doesn't like this.

There is something so painfully understanding in his reflection’s reaction, something that Scar both craves and hates, because it’s pity; as much as Scar wants to be understood and cared for, it hurts that it’s himself that’s being the person to do it. In a softer, pain-filled tone, as they move their head closer to his ear - still gripping his arm, although he’d already given up on trying to free himself from the red - they ask, “You see it now, don't you?”

Scar doesn’t give a verbal or physical response, frozen.

A moment of respite, the seconds of silence feel like everything and nothing; too much and yet too little. It feels weirdly like dissociating: his head empty of any thought or emotion he knows he should be feeling, despite knowing he feels weirdly numb and not all there. Maybe he is, just for a moment. He doesn’t yet realise that the hand gripping his arm tightly in place let's go, the blood flowing properly again and his hand looking more like his.

Those are his excuses for being the reason why he asks, “Do we have friends this time?” He hopes that neither of them can hear the longing in his tone, hopes that they both ignore how naive the question is.

“…We have some allies.” There is an obvious lie in the answer, they’re lying about something; what exactly, Scar isn’t sure of. It’s not a proper answer, not even a yes, and that makes the gaping void in his chest called loneliness grow larger, agonisingly slowly.

Scar laughs bitterly. “Better than last time.” Better than nothing stays unsaid. The red life in front of him echoes that same laughter, nodding in agreement. They seem to want to say something.

“You could put it that way, but… we did have someone. I think we did. I hope so, otherwise we really need to learn how allies and friends work.” They move back slightly, not taking a large step, but they move back enough that Scar doesn’t feel like he’s cornered anymore.

He doesn’t say anything in response, and so they keep talking, it’s the furthest away from that red apathy that they’ve seemed the entire time, and slowly that fear of his red self lessens. “It’s Pearl,” they say simply, soft in a way Scar knows he is when he’s red; when it’s a gentle care about llama’s and bee’s - about the little things that are so absolutely useless in the world where you fight for your life, but so important to him because it gives him that sense of comfort. “She…she’s a good friend.”

There isn’t much information to go off, but he guesses that it makes sense in the bigger picture - probably not the best to know how everything goes before it starts, it might just cause more problems than what has, probably, already been set in stone. Vaguely, Scar tries to argue with his own thoughts; surely this can’t be real, right? This is some sort of sick dream that his mind has made up just for him. Surely this is a sad, sad hell of his own creation.

Distrustful, marked by the previous game like a shattered glass-stained window, Scar asks, “She doesn’t betray us?” Because it is so, so hard to believe it’s true. Above them, the night is slowly beginning to fade into dawn.

“You believe me anyway,” the red life answers knowingly, and the expression on their face says it all; the glint in their red eyes has faded to a softer, calmer glimmer. They continue speaking. “We both know how bad we want it, and it’s hard to believe it, but….even when Grian doesn’t want us around, Pearl does, even if she’s a bit unpredictable - so are we.” Scar knows that tone, knows the way his heart aches when he’s left behind, knows the way his heart soared when they left that world behind; he knows the tone that they speak in, and it’s something in between those two emotions.

Of being left behind, but not being entirely alone.

The smile on his red self’s face seems to fade entirely again, leaving a more.. calmer expression; sad, but at peace with it. Guilty, almost. “I’m sorry you have to find out this way,” they say smoothly as the sun continues rising through the trees, and the way they say have instead of had settles wrongly on his skin. Because Scar doesn’t want to learn this. He wants to wake up from this dream-like world. Wants to wake up from this nightmare and start his day shakily and work so hard on building that he doesn’t have to remember this dream. “But,” they continue, and Scar hopes they don’t realise how trapped in his own thoughts he is, “the only time Grian cares is when it keeps him alive.”

There is a second of silence, there are hands pulling him closer and for the first time since he’s been here, Scar doesn’t flinch when the red version of himself pulls him close and-

And hugs him. They pull him in, arms cradling him close as if to hold him together - a way Scar likes to be hugged, because it’s grounding, a pressure. They hug him, and the sun shines brightly in his eyes, and they say, “I’m sorry that you’ll see it soon enough.”

And-

And the world changes.

There is a pressure holding him close, and then there is nothingness. The trees of the forest he was in, in that dream world, are gone, and Scar hates to admit that his breath is shaky and stuttering at the sudden change when he opens his eyes.

He misses that warmth, even if that version was deader than him, he misses that hug. Which is… embarrassing to think of, because that was a version of himself that hugged him and it’s this whole thing then, and-

And there’s a green bandana on his arm, and a satchel by his waist and-

“Scar?”

And there is a mark on his forearm, where he was grabbed and it still tingles, similar to pins and needles-

“Scar? Hello? Anyone in there?”

His gaze finally breaks from staring at the handprint left of his arm, forcing himself to stop analysing the faint red mark left behind and forcing his gaze up and-

It’s Pearl.

Of course it would be Pearl.

Something makes him feel sick to his stomach, something foreboding and knowing.

“Well, hello there!” Scar says cheerily, a forced smile on his face and his eyes tightly shut in an attempt to really pull off the act. He looks at Pearl, and he realises that it’s not just the two of them.

There are more people, an even number of people that have been in previous games. He looks at Grian, Grian looks at him, and Scar hopes he doesn’t break eye contact too quickly.

The excited conversations fade to silence as Pearl asks him something again, but he can’t hear what she’s saying when he’s too caught up in the idea that everyone is looking at him, and he doesn't like the familiar sense of being watched.

His heart beats hurriedly, thumping much too fast for him, and he pretends that he’s still listening to whatever Pearl is saying.

“Hm? Oh! I’m fine.” Scar replies to a question he doesn’t properly hear, showing too much teeth in a too strained grin. Fake, Fake, Fake. There is a ghost of a hand that tightens around his arm, he pushes through. “Excited to see where this game goes!” He’s so quick to fall into that familiar act, that scheme, that teasing, that unpredictability. “Jimmy, it will be nice knowing you.” He says mournfully, teasing.

“Excuse me?!” Jimmy shouts, falling right into Scar’s easily planned trap; Scar laughs loudly, and everyone else joins in as he attempts to argue back. It’s easy to fall into that, something they all know, something to change what they’re focusing on.

He knows Pearl’s still looking at him, knows that Grian is still looking at him; but as long as the mask stays on, no one needs to know.

And soon enough, when a Warden shrieks and his last shared life shatters as his ears ring dangerously loudly, Scar drops from his horse, and he’s too exhausted to cry when he realises the forest he’s in where his last life fades from him is painfully familiar. It’s funny that he wasn’t the reason that they lost their last life, that he didn’t die from heartbreak.

#gtws fanfic #goodtimeswithscar #ficification #my absolute beloved #double life scar #double life #gtws #gtws tcd #tcd mentions #because i’m normal #pearlescentmoon #because she is there smile #double life grian #double life pearl #jimmy solidarity #jimmy solidarity double life #i adore him he’s so dramatic #idk what else to put in the tags #i’m probably missing tags o7

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