Chapter Text
Ah. I failed.
He thought that with a numb acceptance, drifting in the inky black nothingness. The void, space, what have you. No difference, really.
The thought that came after was: I’m going to die here.
Maybe he should have felt frustrated. Bitter. He’d failed, after all. He should at least have felt afraid. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he died, with the way things were currently. But the fear seemed to exist somewhere far away, as distant as the blue expanse of the world laid out beneath him. Or above.
A beep sounded in his ear, muffled, as if he were hearing it underwater. A notification on his oxygen gauge–six more hours of air left.
Tango doubted he would last that long.
He coughed, the noise coming from somewhere deep inside his chest, and the taste of bitter copper filled his mouth. It should hurt, he thought, but the pain was a distant thing too.
Tango had been around enough explosions in his lifetime to know that even if he hadn’t been blown to bits by the TNT blast, he was already as good as dead. Organs all turned to mush by the overpressure. He coughed up another mouthful of blood, droplets left to float around inside his helmet, bouncing off the glass. It was getting hard to breathe, even though he still had ample oxygen. It wouldn’t be much longer now.
What would happen, when he died? He hadn’t given it much thought when he’d set off on this journey. He’d known from the beginning that it was more than likely a one way trip, but that didn’t change anything. If the moon crash turned out not to be a big deal and everyone respawned safe and sound, then he’d have an interesting story to tell if nothing else. If it was, and everyone’s lives were truly at risk, he still would have done this. For the small chance that he might save everyone.
He liked to think that, anyway.
It didn’t matter now, he supposed. He’d failed. The TNT had gone off prematurely, nowhere near enough to alter its course. It was still slowly descending towards the world below. Well, probably it was descending very, very fast, being up here really messed with the scale of things.
He wondered if he’d live to see it make contact. He wasn’t sure if it mattered either way. Nothing could be done now. He could only wait to die.
It was hard to process his own level of consciousness in the darkness of space, but he could still feel it when he began to fade away. Distance stars blurred into nothing and his helmet light dimmed.
I hope everyone made it out. He thought again, one last time. One last wish, before he thought nothing at all.
Scar was flying, or at least he was trying to. Invisible wings beat uselessly against his back, failing to catch any air, and he found himself falling face-first into the sand. It was a hard landing, one that left grit digging into the sides of his face and filling his nose. He tried to push himself back up, but his hand sank into the sand as if it were water. He tilted his face up, struggling to see through the sand caked in his eyelashes. His vision was blurry, but he could still make out the blotch of a red in the distance, like a bloodstain against the night sky.
He reached out a quivering hand. Useless. He was too far away.
He needed to…needed to…
“Gri…an…”
The world slipped away from him.
He awoke some time later, in a place much quieter than his dreams. Consciousness slowly trickled in from somewhere out of reach. He could hear noises, voices perhaps, but they were fuzzy. Distant. So too was the pressure against his back, the soft weight on his cheek.
The first tangible thing he became aware of was the pain. It was a familiar sort of pain. That deep ache throughout his body, dull but still so heavy, that turned to hot knives if he dared to move. It was the pain that came when he pushed himself too hard, although it hadn’t been this bad since the big dig of Season 5.
But Scar was used to pain, was used to its constant, nagging presence. He took a slow, steady breath, unconsciously reaching for his magic to help his lung expand and coming up empty. He was too tired, of course. He needed his oxygen concentrator, sooner rather than later, but his body felt far too heavy to move, much less go rifling through his inventory.
He took another shallow breath and pushed the pain into the recesses of his mind, to focus on pushing his way through the thick fog of reality.
Clarity came in the form of pale green eyes and a fuzzy face that he would recognize anywhere. Jellie looked down at him for a moment, before butting her head against the side of his face with a purr. She looked a bit grumpy, as if demanding to know why Scar had been sleeping instead of playing with her. He felt a tiny smile twitch onto his face. Seeing her always made him feel like everything was going to be okay.
“Scar?” A voice said, quiet and hesitant.
“Jellie? You can talk? Why do you sound like Grian?” Scar said. Or tried to say, but all that came out was a wheeze.
“Scar, are you…”
Okay, it definitely wasn’t Jellie. He looked away from her, eyes moving slowly around the room. It looked like someone’s base, he thought, which was reassuring. The only unfamiliar places he found himself waking up in at times were hub world hospitals, and he much preferred the planks and stripped wood to stark white concrete walls, or worse, those pale blue terracotta walls, a facade of homeliness and comfort.
On one side of his bed was a table, topped with a pile of what looked like handmade cards. He couldn’t really move his head to look closer, but he thought he spotted a crudely drawn picture of Jellie on one of them. Another had “Hurry Up and Get Better” written on the front in Cleo’s handwriting. He felt himself smile again. He’d have to look through them all later, when he could move.
On the other side of the bed Scar found his friend, sticking out from the vivid red of his sweater. He was clenching the fabric tightly in his hands, as if he were nervous. His eyes were rimmed with red and black, dark circles of exhaustion underlining them. He almost looked as if he were pleading with someone, Scar thought, from that desperate look in his eyes.
“Grian?” he tried to say, but once again the words didn’t come out. His throat felt dry and rough, reminiscent of that long trek through the desert. It was hard to figure out how he’d gotten from there to here. Wherever here was.
Grian seemed to understand what he wanted in spite of his lack of words. He was good at that, at knowing what people needed. Something Scar had always respected him for.
“Water? Do you want water? Hold on just a second.” He vanished from Scar’s field of view in a blur of red.
Oh, water sounded so nice right now. Sweet, sweet water, even if it did have a slight taste of hat.
Grian reappeared a second later, his movement so silent that Scar didn’t realize he’d gone anywhere. If Scar weren’t so weary, he might have jumped at the sudden appearance of his friend. Grian always seemed to have light footsteps. He was part bird after all. It just meant he could prank Scar more easily. Or spook him by accident
Scar couldn’t move his arm to take the water himself, so Grian helped to prop him up and pour water into his mouth. It didn’t even taste like hat this time.
“Oh Scar,” Grian said in a shaky voice. “You came back. You came back to us.”
Scar swallowed a gulp of water, trying very hard not to choke on it. He wasn’t entirely sure what Grian was talking about, or why he seemed so distraught. It’s okay Grian, he thought. He’d have liked to give Grian a pat on the shoulder or something, if he were in better condition. As it was, this was a bad day. Best not to push himself further.
The memories were beginning to return. The long trek through the desert. The husk attack. Grian’s death. His decision to use his powers, in spite of what it might cost. And nothing after that.
But it seemed to Scar that things must have worked out in the end. After all, he had found himself in a bed inside a cool room, far from the intense, open heat of the desert. He hoped that he’d managed to help at least in some way.
Scar cleared his throat and finally managed to speak in a somewhat clear voice.
“Y’know…think I don’t like sand. ‘t’s coarse…and stuff...”
Grian stared at him, blank-faced, for a long moment, before he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Really? You’ve been awake for five minutes and you’re already referencing Star Wars. Clearly I shouldn’t have worried…”
Huh, that was… “You…worried ‘bout me?” Scar asked, feeling a pang of something in his chest.
“Was I–Scar, you’ve been in a coma for two months!” Grian said, loud enough to make Scar cringe. “Of course I was worried! Everyone was! Nobody knew if or when you’d wake up. We didn’t want to lose you t–to lose you.”
Scar stared into Grian’s eyes, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. It wasn’t difficult, there was a raw desperation on Grian’s face that he never would have dared to fake. But two months? Two whole months? Scar blinked, struggling to wrap his mind around that. It didn’t feel like it had been that long since he’d collapsed in the desert. It felt closer to a day, maybe, or something like that.
Two months. Two whole months. Scar winced internally at that. There was no way he hadn’t done some very permanent damage to himself this time. He’d really pushed too hard, hadn’t he.
Grian took a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s just…it’s been hard…”
Scar took a closer look at Grian, at the bags under his eyes, his messy hair and slumped shoulders. What had happened, he wondered, while he was asleep?
“I’m just…” Grian said, voice cracking as if he were trying not to cry. “I’m just glad you came back to us.”
It wasn’t long before word got around, and the area was flooded with excited, eager hermits. Familiar faces that Scar felt like he hadn’t seen in so long. They gathered at his bedside, eyes bright and hopeful, words all overlapping in an unintelligible stream.
“Okay, okay,” Grian said. “Back up, give him a bit of space.”
The hermits obliged, although the room was too small for them to spread out much. Scar didn’t really mind. Seeing everyone all at once was a bit overwhelming, but more than that, he was just glad to see everyone again. As much as he loved the Boatem group, he’d still missed the others through all in those days trekking across the desert.
He didn’t really have the strength to talk back to anyone, but he offered them smiles and nods for all their words of concern.
Things settled down after a time. Scar was still too tired to interact much with the large crowd of hermits who had gathered, and the numbers eventually thinned to the Boatem crew and Cub, who sat around the hospital room in quiet relief. He’d been asleep for a long while, and a lot had changed in that time. He could see it in the faces of his fellow hermits, the weariness that they had brought with them. There was Grian, of course, but he wasn’t the only one. Impulse sat in a corner, expression distant. His normally short hair and beard had grown out, making him look more Vintagebeef. Mumbo hovered at Grian’s side, looking even more jittery than normal. Pearl stood silently on the opposite side, a troubled expression on her face. Cub, too, looked worn and tired, leaning back in a chair with a crutch propped up on the side.
Scar himself was no exception. He could see the changes in himself too, reflected in the window across from his bed. He’d grown paler and thinner, lost his normal tan that he’d gained from hours of terraforming work. His hair had grown out down his back. It didn’t look half bad, he thought. Would probably look better if he looked less like a walking corpse. Or…a lying corpse, he supposed.
There had been a lot for the other hermits to fill him in on over the last couple months. He learned the details of the situation, the recreated world that had sent them directly into a broken Season 9 and all the turmoil that had come with it. He’d seen a bit of that from the communicator death messages, the fates that had befallen Wels and Ren and XB and many of the others. He was relieved to know they’d made it out in the end. The worry for the safety of his close friends had lingered in his mind even as they fought their way through the desert.
Cub did most of the talking, seemingly the one who knew the most about the situation. He explained the setup at spawn, something with ender pearls that was way out of Scar’s wheelhouse, and how all the others had found their way back.
It was when he got to himself and Gem that he stumbled.
“Well, I supposed everyone already knows,” he’d said.
Gem had made a deal with the Vex. It was the thing that had allowed her to find Cub, and to in turn find the rest of Boatem through Scar. Cub’s voice was calm and collected as he spoke about it, but Scar had known him long enough to see the turmoil in his eyes. The pain. A raw wound that had been reopened.
It hurt like a punch to the chest. Scar had hoped his friends were safe, now that the Vex had left Cub alone. He’d hoped it was only him still attached to the Vex. As beneficial as the Vex had been for him, they were far from that way for most. Cub was proof of that.
So why now, why after all this…
It wasn’t fair, Scar thought. Not just to Gem. But to all of them.
Cub reached the end, when everyone was reunited, hurt but slowly starting to rebuild. It was there that he faltered again.
“Well, it’s like Beef said, I guess. There are some things you just gotta say. Rip the bandaid off and all that.”
The pain and weariness in his eyes was no longer concealed now. Out of the corner of Scar’s eye, Grian winced and Mumbo’s eyes dropped to the floor.
Cub turned to Impulse. “You don’t have to stay for this, you know.”
Impulse shook his head slightly. There was something dark and distant in his expression. Scar had never seen such a thing on the face of any of the hermits. Impulse looked as though a part of him had died, the corpse left lingering behind his eyes.
Perhaps that was the truth. A part of Impulse had died, lost with one of his closest friends. Cub told him the truth. About what had happened to them. To Bdubs and Tango.
It felt impossible to believe, the kind of thing that could only be beyond belief. But he knew it was true, because this wasn’t something the other hermits would ever lie about. And because he could see it in Impulse’s expression, in everyone’s expressions, the hole where something had once been.
Scar was too tired. His body felt heavy, painful, something not his own, and his mind was weighed down just as much by the cruel reality of circumstance. He had almost died to save his friends. But he hadn’t. He’d survived, barely hanging on by the barest thread.
Tango had tried to save them too. But he hadn’t been as lucky as Scar had. And Bdubs too had faced that same reality. Maybe he’d given up, no longer left with the strength to fight fate. Scar could understand that, to an extent. He’d always been determined to go on fighting. But there were always times when that felt impossible.
Bdubs and Tango. They were his friends. They were everyone’s friends. It left behind a hole in all of them. A heavy weight settled in Scar’s chest and lingered there, even after Grian had helped him set up his oxygen concentrator and take his medicine. Like a slab of concrete had hardened there.
He was too worn to do anything other than lie in bed, too worn to continue conversing with the others for long, and yet he couldn’t sleep. Even when night fell, he lay awake staring at the ceiling, feeling that inescapable weight on him.
It was on reflex that he reached towards the Vex and the power they granted him, a habit built on years and years of practice. He knew it was probably a bad idea trying to use Vex magic in his state, but as the day came to an end and Scar grew more and more tired in spite of the fact that he’d done little more than lay in bed, he had absentmindedly tried to give his arm a nudge, just enough to reach over to Jellie and lay a hand on her head.
He’d noticed it before, of course. But he’d chalked it up to exhaustion, to his poor state, to being in a coma for two months. It had seemed a pretty reasonable explanation for why he couldn’t use his powers. He’d stopped trying before he could tell that anything was amiss.
This time, he noticed it right away. The feeling that came over him when he tried to draw on that power and found nothing. It was jarring, like thinking there was one last stair on a staircase when you were already on solid ground, a shocking absence of something that should be there but wasn’t.
It was gone. The Vex magic. He tried to grab for it, tried to send it rushing through his veins, tried to feel the invisible wings at his back, and found nothing.
“Hello?” He said aloud, brow furrowed in confusion. He received no answer.
Grian, asleep in a chair next to Scar’s bed, didn’t stir. The sun had barely begun to set, but he was already deep asleep. Maybe he’d been just as tired as Scar, from however long he’d been keeping vigil at Scar’s bedside.
Cub, who had also stuck around, sat in the corner reading a book, possibly his own journal of plans or redstone designs. He lowered the book slightly to peer over the top at Scar, expression questioning.
Cub. Cub would understand. He was someone Scar could talk to about this.
“They’re gone,” he said. It was all he needed to say. He could see the recognition in Cub’s eyes immediately.
Cub pulled himself up from his chair, tucking his crutch under one arm as he limped over to Scar’s bedside. He took a seat next to Scar on the bed, stretching out his injured leg with a wince.
“Did they say anything to you about it?” Cub asked.
Scar shook his head. “No. No, they’re just…gone.”
“Hmmm,” Cub said, thoughtful. “They might still come back, though. Like they did with me. They might just be trying to spook you.”
“Oh, I guess that’s true.” But Scar didn’t really think that was the case. The Vex didn’t really mess with him like that. Or at least they hadn’t in the past. The pair of them had come to some sort of mutual agreement, to rely on each other lest they each end up hurting themselves.
Then, maybe, they’d seen his condition and decided it wasn’t worth sticking around until he’d recovered, and gone off to find some other unsuspecting victim on another world.
Scar wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He’d hated the Vex, hated what they’d done to his friends, but had figured better him than someone else. At least he knew how to keep them in check. And they were undeniably useful to him. But, in the back of his mind, he’d always wondered. Was it really a good idea, using them this way? Was he really in control?
Now, unless they decided to come crawling back, he simply didn’t have that choice anymore. That bothered him the most, he thought. Not having a choice.
A thought crossed his mind, then, one he barely wanted to consider.
“Oh. Oh gosh, you don’t think–they didn’t decide to replace me with Gem, did they?”
“Don’t think so, don’t think so,” Cub said, confident enough that Scar’s worries were instantly alleviated. He would have been able to tell if Cub was just trying to reassure him. “Gem met the Vex in a mansion. They were going after her from the beginning, I think. Didn’t have anything to do with you.”
Scar was thankful, at least, for that. He didn’t want to be the cause of Gem’s situation, however indirectly. But he supposed it didn’t really change things. She was still indebted to the Vex.
“We should have told them. The new hermits, I mean,” Cub said. “Just because it was over for us didn’t mean they’d never approach any of our friends.”
Scar nodded in agreement. He thought he might have mentioned something about it to either Gem or Pearl, but if he had, it was just in passing. No serious warning to dissuade them from making a mistake. Gem had been in the same position Cub and Scar had, with no solid information to make an informed decision. No, it must have been even more difficult for her, faced with the situation at hand. She had just wanted to help everyone. The way Scar had.
So many awful things had happened so quickly. Oh, how Scar hated it. Surely they were due a break now, weren’t they. After everything?
Maybe this was their break? Maybe all the bad stuff was over?
But between the loss of Bdubs and Tango, Gem’s situation, and everyone else’s struggles, Scar wasn’t so sure it was.