TW: Manipulation, unhealthy relationships, mentions of Sam. (yes he's a TW)
Ok look I know this chapter doesn't line up perfectly with its name, but here's the IDEA: You're not safe, someone is coming for you.

Grian followed Scar up the mountain nervously. Since they'd become allies, Scar had seemed... different. He was less cheery and looked far more dangerous, and Grian wondered if he'd made a mistake in allying with him.

"Come on, Grian, stop dawdling," Scar called, tuning irritably to wait for him.

Dawdling? Scar never used words like that.

"I'm not-" Grain began.

"Are you arguing with me? Scar asked incredulously.

"Yes? It's not like that's against the rules," Grian replied with a sinking feeling.

"There are no rules," Scar said coldly.

Where was he going with this.

"So let's make some," Scar finished.

"We don't need rules-" Grian started.

"We obviously do, you wouldn't get anything done without them," Scar said, uncaring and un-noticing of Grian's hurt expression.

"Rule one, no arguing," Scar said.

"But-"

"Eh, eh, eh!" Scar cut him off. "Already going and breaking that, are you?"

"I think I'll just leave," Grian decided queitly.

"You're leaving me?" Scar asked sadly. "Why?"

"You're trying to control me!" Grian exclaimed.

"But you would leave me all alone in the desert at night with no allies?" Scar wondered, looking sadly at Grian.

"But you're- no, you're right," Grian agreed. "I can't do that."

"Thank you!" Scar exclaimed, leading Grian up the stairs. Grian never noticed the grin spread across Scar's face.

Several hours later, Ren came to visit.

"Hello, sand people," he called from below the mountain.

"Hello there, Ren!" Scar called back down.

"I come to bear tidings. Dogwarts is seeking allies and we believe would make great ones," Ren told them. "Also, can I come up there?"

"Sure, come up here and we can talk," Scar nodded and tossed Grian a lava bucket. "Use this if he tries anything," he hissed.

"But- What?" Grian burst out, shocked.

"You use that if I tell you to, got it?" Scar asked. "Now shush."

Ren arrived on the mountaintop happy and unsuspecting, unaware of the tense silence between Grian and Scar.

"You wanted to be allies?" Scar asked with a fake upbeat grin.

"Yes, Dogwarts would welcome you," Ren told him, smiling.

Grian waited nervously in the background, biting his lip. He didn't want to obey Scar, but he couldn't just leave now. What had he done?

"And why should we be allies?" Scar asked dramatically.

"We can offer valuable resources, we ask only your friendship," Ren announced. "Also, do you mind if I take some sand?"

"Yes, we do mind," Scar growled. "Grian, use the bucket."

"What?" both Ren and Grian asked, Ren confusedly and Grian fearfully.

"Use it, Grian," Scar demanded.

Grian tipped over the bucket, spilling lava on Ren, biting back tears of fear and regret. Ren would never forgive him. Quickly, he scooped the lava up.

"That's a taste of what will happen if you try to steal from us," Scar informed Ren.

Ren's gaze hardened. "Very well. You've made yourself a dangerous enemy."

"Oh, I doubt it," Scar said loftily. "Be off."

Ren scrambled down the mountain and away into the forest and Scar turned, towering over Grian. He wasn't that much taller, but his confidence and anger dwarfed the terrified and trembling builder.

"I was going to impose a new rule, but you can't even follow the one we do have," Scar told him, growling. "What kind of friend are you, you can't do one simple thing for me?"

Grian shook his head. This wasn't what friends did! But Scar was his friend and he was doing it- did that make Scar not his friend? No, he was still Grian's friend, right? And Grian had sworn to protect him, Scar hadn't made him-

"I'm sorry, Scar," he ended up saying.

"It's okay," Scar said, drawing the smaller man into a hug. See, he couldn't be that bad, right? He forgave Grian, even when Grian had made a mistake-

Just like Sam had, a voice in the back of his mind reminded him.

No, no, no, Scar wasn't like Sam, not at all. Scar was his friend.

Grian looked up at Scar hopefully; hopeful for what he didn't know. Some spark of the man he was on Hermitcraft?

Scar didn't give him any such signs, just stared coldly at Grian.

"I forgive you, but you still didn't follow the rule," Scar told him. "So there has to be consequences."

Grian nodded in agreement. Surely that was fair, right?

"How about you go strip mine for a few hours?" Scar told him.

Grian let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. That wasn't a bad punishment. Nowhere near as bad as-

No, of course it wasn't, because Scar wasn't Sam, he was a friend, he wouldn't hurt Grian.

"Okay," he agreed, and obediently went back inside to gather resources.

Several hours later, Grian emerged from the ground several times richer in iron, gold, lapis, and diamonds than he'd gone in.

Scar was waiting for him, laying stretched out on the sand. Grian put away what he'd collected and went over to him.

"Back?" Scar asked calmly.

"Yeah," Grian replied. See? Everything was fine. Scar was being nice, surely he'd just been in a bad mood. Right?

"We have a new rule," Scar told him.

"Oh," Grian blinked. Hadn't Scar said he wasn't going to-

"Don't let anybody take any sand," Scar told him. "And if they try to, you burn them with the bucket."

"Okay." He could do that.

"Good," Scar grinned. There it was again; the slight hint of something worse, something cruel, something evil. Maybe it was just Grian's imagination, but Scar seemed different. So different. Almost like- no! Why was he thinking of him again? Scar was nothing like him!

"We're enemies with Dogwarts now, thanks to you-" Scar growled and Grian flinched- "so we might as well embrace it."

Grian waited silently for him to continue.

"I'm not good with traps, but you..." Scar looked him up and down, like he was a tool or servant that Scar was assessing, determining its usefulness.

"I can't kill people!" Grian protested.

"Rule one, Grian," Scar reminded him with a snarl.

Grian shrank in on himself and nodded fearfully. "O-okay, what am I doing?"

"Good, that's the right question," Scar said approvingly. So there was a wrong question? Grian almost didn't want to know. "I want you to trap Dogwarts."

"How?" Grian asked, forcing the word out through his anxiety and confusion.

"Hmm... you decide," Scar told him. "But you will do it."

It wasn't a question.

Grian agreed with yet another small nod and backed away, then turned and scurried down the mountainside. Scar didn't call him back, so he must be doing what Scar wanted. Or so he hoped.

He wondered what Scar would do if he didn't come back. Hunt him down, probably. No, he couldn't leave! He'd promised Scar, he would be a bad friend to leave. But Scar was being so snappy. Maybe he was scared. Grian had always had friends like Scar, hadn't he? Of course this was normal, right?

Unsure but satisfied with that explanation, he arrived at the fortress of Dogwarts.

Grian waited until nightfall, then under cover of darkness, snuck up to the main gate. He dug down quickly and set up a simple TNT minecart trap below the gates, then hijacked a bit of the gate's redstone and redirected it to the trap. He covered up the hole and left as if he'd never been there.
(Let's pretend there's a gate that has redstone, okay? Thanks)

He scurried back undercover and waited for the inevitable.

He didn't have to wait long. Ren and Skizzleman were running towards the gate, pursued by a horde of zombies. Martyn lagged behind them slightly, tossing blows at the beasts.

Ren and Skizz hit the gate lever and the world shook.

TNT flew into the air and exploded with great booms. Some of it shot further away and cratered the landscape with new pits. Ren and Skizz were nowhere to be seen in the mass of smoke, fire, and ash that engulfed the wall where the gate had been. Martyn was far enough away that all he could do was yell in horror at the destruction. When the dust settled, there was silence.

Grian checked his watch, and sure enough, there they were.

Renthedog blew up.
Skizzleman blew up.

He saw messages of concern and sympathy from the other 3rd-Lifers. Guilt coursed through him, but he shook it off. Scar had told him to, right? And they'd respawn, safe and sound. Plus, no one would know it was him!

Grian made his way quickly back to the desert, where Scar was waiting. He had a pleased smile on his face. "Good job."

"Thank you," Grian told him. "I blew up their gate."

"Good! Good work," Scar said. "I think that deserves a reward! You like building, how about you build us a tower up here?"

"A- tower?" Grian asked.

"Sure, like a sand castle, but bigger and cooler!" Scar exclaimed, a hint of excitement and joy creeping into his voice, a hint of Hermitcraft Scar overtaking the mean 3rd-Life Scar for just a moment. That innocence, that warmth, that life, was the reason Grian agreed.

Because maybe if the idea could prompt Scar's relapse, then the real thing could push him backwards, out of the mask he was wearing, and reveal the sweet, caring, innocent Scar Grian knew was still there.