Work Text:
“So, I just—this is for you!”
The scene as it stands: Two men stand in a quiet corridor, on a vessel hurtling through space and nothingness, travelling towards some planet or another for their latest job. At first, they are not looking at each other. One stares at the back of the other, holding out his offering with trembling hands.
The other man is scarred, a long line of white fibrous tissue climbing up his neck from his collarbone, reaching his lower lip. When he turns, lifting his weight from his cane, his wide smile stretches the scarred tissue, taut and vulnerable, in such a way that the other man can see the fibres holding him together.
[A note: The other man can See everything, so it is not a surprise that he can see the way skin stitches together. What is more surprising, is that he notes the vulnerability and feels uncomfortable at the thought.]
“Oh a present for me, what is i—”
He trails off, eyes widening slightly.
The other man, chestnut hair covering his eyes, lets out a noise of confusion as the first falters. He holds the present out closer, his nervous smile turning somewhat more pleading, and waits for his friend's judgement.
“Grian,” the first man says, his voice quiet and vaguely alarmed. “Is that…?”
Again, he trails off. Again, Grian lets out that same confused noise, this time accompanied by a vaguely lost, “Scar?”
“...Uh,” Scar begins. He gestures to the object in Grian’s hands, voice coming in a slow, vaguely horrified tone. “Is that what I think it is?”
Grian blinks once, looking down at the mass in his hands. It’s red—he likes the colour red, wears only red jumpers made from the most comfortable of fabrics—and a little bit wet, but he doesn’t think there’s anything strange about that. They’re all wet. “That depends… on what you think it is?”
Scar looks to Grian’s hands, also red now, droplets pittering onto the metal of the corridor in slow, melodic drips. Then, disbelief freezing his eyebrows in an expression raised impeccably high, he asks, “G, please tell me that isn’t a human heart?”
It should not be a question, but it is. His voice is as high as his eyebrows.
“...But it—”
“Grian, it’s still beating.”
And surely enough, the writing mess in Grian’s hands is still beating. Blood dribbles out of the arteries, the remaining flow from the chamber slowly draining out. And yet, it beats in a very calm, and—some might argue healthy, what from a resected heart and all—melodic rhythm.
Grian scrunches his nose. “...Are they not supposed to do that?”
For a moment, Scar is certain this is a joke. Then, as Grian’s disgruntled pout remains, he comes to the overwhelming realisation that this is actually reality as it stands.
And reality is his best friend holding out a human heart in offering to him, as if their spaceship is some sort of cult.
“...Grian.” Scar says, faintly. “...Wha—how do you…” He opens and closes his mouth several times, trying to process, failing to process. “ Why?”
“I, uh, well,” Grian flushes, his cheeks burning just as red as his hands are stained. “Isn’t it… romantic? I thought—”
Romantic? Scar has plenty of notions about romance and he’s pretty sure the only people who find being given a beating heart romantic are psychopaths or characters from that centuries old show ‘Game of Thorns’ or whatever that old Terran show was called.
“How did you even get a heart?”
He pales slightly. There are several members of their crew and Scar doesn’t want to entertain the thought, but they’ve been off planet for long enough now that he can’t think of any other possibility…
“It’s mine,” Grian says.
Right, because he fucking carved it out of someone, Scar presumes. “Uh, right, but, who did it belong to before you took it?”
Grian scrunches his brows. Confused, he seems to be thinking very intensely over the question. Eventually, he shakes his head. “It’s always been mine.”
“That’s—”
“I don’t understand,” Grian speaks over him, bordering a whine. “I thought romance meant giving your heart to someone, isn’t this what humans do?”
At this, Scar pauses.
“You—wait—”
[Another note: Scar ‘of the good times’, does not know that his friend is not human. Grian, who has never openly been referred to by those onboard the S.S Hermit as human, does not know that Scar does not know this. It is, as is commonly said: Classic miscommunication.]
“Was I wrong?”
“Your heart…” Scar mumbles, and surely enough, if he looks too closely at Grian’s jumper, just below his outstretched hands and the heart beating inside them, there are dark, wet patches in the wool. “...You tore it out of your chest?”
“Well,” Grian says, slowly. “I didn’t tear it out, but... Yes.”
“...Okay.” Scar says, and drops his cane from shock. He would have thought that the shock would’ve hit him prior to this, would have left his fingers lax, his jaw hanging open, but it is only now that it settles in with the force of a shiver. “Well, uh… can you put it… back in?”
For some reason, Grian’s brows scrunch together at this, and he looks, for a moment, genuinely hurt. “You don’t want my heart?”
“No, I’m sure it’s a perfectly… good… human—or, er, not so human, ha—heart and all that,” Scar scrambles, hands waving in awkward circles around him as he tries to focus. “I just… don’t have anywhere to store it and you’re… pretty good at storing it, you’ve got er—ribs and all that, I’m pretty sure, that can keep it safe…”
“So you do want it?” Grian’s brows burrow even deeper into his frown. “...But you don’t have anywhere to store it?”
“I think—” Scar says, high pitched and a lot louder than intended. He clears his throat, settling the near-shout back to a more reasonable sound. “—I think that you got the meanings a little muddled but that I can…”
He takes another look at the muscle spasming in Grian’s hands and tries his best not to wince.
“... appreciate the sentiment that you were going for? I think.”
“You think?”
“This was a confession, right?” Scar asks. He kneels, reaching for his cane and stares at the few droplets of arterial blood that splatter across the handle. Grimacing, he pulls it closer to him from the bottom, wiping the blood away with his sleeve. “I’m pretty sure that was meant to be a love confession, right?”
“ Supposed to be?” This, if anything, is haughty. Grian tilts his chin up, and if his hands weren’t full, Scar’s certain that he’d have crossed his arms tightly, or moved his hands to his hips, the way he always does when trying to emphasise his displeasure. “It was a love confession. Humans have a thing about gifting hearts! I did what your species is so obsessed with! I don’t get why you’re being so weird about it.”
Scar mourns five minutes ago. He feels like he was a lot less traumatised and confused five minutes ago.
“...’s a metaphor,” Scar mumbles.
“What was that?”
“It’s a metaphor,” Scar repeats, louder now. “I mean, humans die if they actually remove their hearts, G, this is… it’s just a… phrase.”
For a moment, Grian stands in silence.
Then, his cheeks burn with such a ferocity that the rest of his face catches too, the flames of his flush reaching down his neck. Even his eyes appear vaguely red—no, purple, Scar thinks—from all of it.
“Oh,” he says, and turns. He peels his jumper back with an intensity, shoving the muscle back inside with a slick thud of muscle against blood. “...I just thought—”
“—I get it, I’m sure it’s confusing to non-humans—”
“—I thought it was a weird romance thing, but you humans have all sorts of weird pleasures and kinks so I didn’t think too hard about it—”
“—Like I said, I really appreciate the sentiment!”
They both stare at one another, their eyes wide, flustered and alarmed. Grian’s been gesturing with bloody hands, which makes everything worse somehow. And it’s the worse that leaves a lick of humour rising in Scar’s own chest. Despite himself, he can’t keep from laughing. Vaguely hysterical, sure, but laughing nonetheless.
“I— Scar.” Grian whines, mortified.
“I’m sorry, I just, it’s kinda funny, don’t you think?” When Grian doesn’t join him in his laughter, simply stares horrified and embarrassed, Scar can’t help himself: His laughter repeats.
“...I hate you,” Grian says, arms raised to hide his face from sight, seeing as his hands are too… stained, to be trusted to do the task without making him look like a prop from a horror movie.
“No you don’t,” Scar says, gleefully. He settles into a quiet silence, considering. “...G…?”
There is no reply, but when Scar looks over to him, Grian’s staring at him from the gap between his arms.
“...I’d accept chocolate, or flowers, if you wanted to try again.”
For a moment, he simply continues to stare. Then, Grian lets out a flustered and exasperated sigh and throws his hands into the air.
“Can’t win, can I?” He mutters under his breath, stalking away. “Give the human my literal heart and it’s not enough. He wants sugar and fauna .”
“Uh… G?”
“ What?”
“Where are you going…?”
“Chocolate flowers!” Grian enunciates, not quite snapping, but not exactly calm either. “I guess I’m finding you some chocolate flowers. Humans, ridiculous, I swear.”