Chapter Text
The whole thing with Scar being a fairy or fae or whatever it was had started out as a dumb joke for Grian to pass the time with—Scar did something silly or dumb, and Grian would think, now is that something that fae do? It was meant to be a silly, non-serious thing.
It had started out that way. But as of recently, Grian had slowly started to become suspicious that maybe his dumb guesses hadn’t been all that far from the truth.
Not that he actually thought Scar was a fae or something. He was sure magical creatures didn’t exist. (Well. Pretty sure.) But he was suspicious that there was definitely something off about Scar. He behaved strangely, acted in ways no rational person would, and while the similarities to being a fae was very weird, he was also deeply suspicious in general.
Grian honestly didn’t know what to think about Scar. He was sweet, charming, kind, funny, and caring. But he was also weird, strange, and suspicious. Grian didn’t know what to make of it.
Scar was at his house for the first time. Not that Grian was expecting for it to happen more in the future, but they were both up late marking in their offices, and it was definitely much too late to be anywhere but home. But neither of them were going to go to sleep for a few more hours, considering they both had a heap more of marking left to do. And neither was quite ready to leave each other’s company yet, even if that company was silent when they were each wrapped up in their own work.
Grian had suggested that they head to his place to keep marking, considering neither of them were going to sleep yet, and while he immediately regretted it and tried to take it back, much to his surprise Scar had easily agreed, and so they headed to his home.
Apparently, Scar didn’t live too far away from him, and he had off-handedly mentioned the possibility of heading to work together. Grian had tried not to show how giddy the prospect made him.
When they arrived at Grian’s house, he hadn’t thought it was anything special, but apparently Scar had needed extra prompting to come in. He’d waited just outside the door awkwardly and asked, “Can I come in?”
Grian had given him a weird look but told him to go ahead, after which Scar strolled in and wandered around his living room. It was a moment of strangeness, but maybe he was just super polite—even though Grian hadn’t seen him back that explanation up in any way since he’d met him.
…and they require invitation to enter a place of residence (though some see an open window or door as invitation enough).
Whatever. Grian shook off that extra thought, nudging at him and trying to get him to pay attention to the weird similarities, and instead shoved it out of his mind.
He was forced to face-on deal with said similarities and a slowly creeping feeling about Scar not being who he said he was later that night, but that interaction wasn’t the tipping point.
In fact, it was much after, when the two had been sitting quietly in Grian’s living room for maybe an hour or more, the room silent with nothing but the scratch of pen on paper and the clacking typing of a keyboard. The two had taken a break, and Grian was rubbing at his heavy eyelids, trying to force himself to stay awake.
Scar complained quietly when his pen stopped working, and shook it vigorously a few times. He held it to his eye to look at it, then shook it again. The pen exploded, and Scar flinched as he got sprayed in a light layer of ink, most of which got on his paper and his face.
Grian looked up when it happened, and so he saw as Scar blinked slowly at his paper, then lifted a hand up to touch his face, where ink had spilled. Then he sighed, and wearily stood up to get some tissues from the coffee table with his head hung.
Grian giggled a little at the stupidity of it, and Scar glared at him but it was light-hearted. Grian decided to gently poke fun at him, considering he had a habit of doing things that nobody in their right mind would think of and not realise it was strange. He was pretty sure if he gave Scar a gun he’d look right down the barrel to see if it worked while his finger was on the trigger.
“Scar, you always do the dumbest things,” Grian said. Scar gasped dramatically and made a couple stammered sounds of protest, but didn’t actually say anything in his defence.
Grian put his pen down, and rested his chin on one of his hands. “You’re a very silly person. Not that that’s the worst thing, but it’s funny.”
“I’m glad to be of service,” Scar replied, cringing a little as he wiped away the ink from his face, but the tissue didn’t clean it fully. His face looked like it was bleeding from the red ink.
Grian shifted back a little, and continued without much thought, “You know, I got this book the other day. From the library, I was kinda bored. It’s about, like, fairies and stuff. The description kinda reminded me of you.”
Scar froze for a few seconds, the tissue halfway to his face. Then he coughed, and continued wiping the ink off his face. “Really?” he asked, voice with a strange tone to it, almost shaking but not quite. A little more high pitched than normal. “That’s… that’s funny.”
Grian nodded tiredly, carelessly watching Scar. The other was half turned away so Grian couldn’t see his expression, but Grian thought that maybe he could see his hand shaking almost imperceptibly as he dabbed at his face.
“Yeah,” he continued, voice casual. He wasn’t paying full attention to the conversation, because it was taking effort to stay awake. “Just little things and stuff. You act pretty silly, and you have an iron allergy, which is apparently like fairies, and you like chaos and stuff—which isn’t a bad thing, ‘cause I do too. But yeah. It’s just kinda funny, imagining you as a fairy or something.”
Scar chuckled nervously, and he put the tissue down to fidget with his hands. “Oh… yep!” he said jokingly, voice light and easy but with a twinge of something stressful deep underneath. “Haha, you got me! Yeah, I’m totally some kind of secret fairy or whatever, you found me out.”
Grian laughed at the joke, and muttered something under his breath he couldn’t even hear. Scar finished cleaning himself up, and shuffled over to throw the tissues in the bin. Grian was fighting to stay awake at this point, and he hadn’t even noticed he’d closed his eyes until Scar was gently nudging him.
“Grian?” the other asked quietly. Grian blinked sluggishly, surprised when his vision came into focus and lovely emeralds were close to his face. He was disoriented, unsure if a few seconds or several minutes had passed. His head was fuzzy with exhaustion.
“Wha?” he asked, voice croaky. “Wass… huh?”
“I think it’s time for me to go,” Scar replied. “You’re falling asleep, and I don’t want to leave you passed out on the couch like this.”
Grian struggled to sit up, and rubbed at his eyes. The lights were much too bright. “Yeah, okay,” he replied, still mostly out of it. “I’ll… yeah. Bed.”
He weakly went to pack up his marking, hands mostly hitting the paper uselessly rather than actually picking anything up. Until large, scarred hands gently grabbed his and moved them to his lap. Then the new pair of hands reached back over to his marking and picked it all up for him, putting it into a neat pile and gathering all his pens back into his pencil case.
Grian watched the hands in mild half-asleep fascination. They moved so easily compared to his sluggish limbs, and he liked the glint of the gold rings on them. There was a familiar shine of silver, too, with an identical bracelet on each wrist. The details were blurred with his half-closed eyes, but they were nice and shiny.
Once everything was put away, Scar helped Grian stand up, and they both fumbled for a moment as Grian tried to remember how to use his legs and Scar grappled for his cane. Then once they were steady as they could be, Scar walked Grian over towards the door, gently asking where his bedroom was.
Grian pointed vaguely, and he forced himself to be awake enough to stand by himself at the doorway and look at Scar without actually opening the door to let him see inside. He had enough self awareness to not just blindly let Scar in, at least.
“G’night, Scar,” he said, blinking back sleep with every passing second. His limbs were heavier than they were supposed to be, and it was a struggle to keep his eyes open—though it was always easy to look at Scar.
The other smiled softly, and replied, “Goodnight, Grian. Thanks for having me over. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“No probl’m,” Grian muttered. He gestured vaguely behind Scar, and said, “Door’s over there.”
“I remember,” Scar said quietly. “Goodnight, Grian.”
“Night,” Grian said, and waited until Scar walked to the front door. The taller one hesitated with a hand on the doorknob, and turned to Grian with green eyes shining. He opened his mouth like he was about to speak—
Then he shook his head. He lifted one hand in a wave, and he was gone with a click of the door closing.
Grian blinked, then tiredly grasped for the handle to his own door, and yanked it open when he found it. He wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed, but he fumbled for the light switch before he did so, the habit ingrained in him enough even in his deliriously tired state. He flicked the lights on, and then off again after a second, then stumbled to his bed once he was satisfied. Not like he’d be able to see anything in his state, anyway, but the lingering presence of Scar made him feel safer, and maybe not needing to check as thoroughly as usual.
He flopped onto his bed without any other fanfare, too tired to do anything else and just glad he wasn’t wearing shoes. Something itched at the back of his mind, like a memory he had forgotten yearning to be remembered. He was too tired, though, and it floated at the back of his consciousness until the very moment until he slipped into sleep.
It was in those last couple of seconds between sleeping and waking, that he remembered Scar assuring him, weeks ago, that he never lied. And something from that evening entered his mind, Scar’s voice slightly pitchy with nerves but mostly normal enough.
Yeah, I’m totally some kind of secret fairy or whatever, you found me out.
Grian had thought it was a joke, and it was difficult to think much in his tired state, but he remembered Scar had said though he didn’t always tell the truth, he never lied.
So if he never lied, what did that mean when he said he was a fairy?
Grian was too tired to think of much else. He buried his face in his pillow and let himself drift off into unconsciousness, thoughts swirling into a mist with fairies and gold and shining emerald eyes.