Work Text:
"...but after careful consideration, we have decided not to move forward with your application at this time."
Scar slams his laptop closed. He does not need to read any further; he thinks he could recite a rejection email from memory, with the amount of them he's gotten.
It makes sense, of course. Not many places are willing to hire a man with a decade-old degree and no experience—especially one whose face is, even after all these months, still plastered all over the Internet.
(He tries not to think of the imminent day that the money saved from his previous occupation runs dry and he has to figure something else out.)
Sighing, Scar slips off the sofa, steadfastly avoids the bow in the corner of his living room and goes to his room to change into his pyjamas.
As the darkness settles, he finds himself in a familiar position—sat down on the bed, with the moonlight dashing his cheeks, unfolding a photograph stained by old tears, only to inevitably litter it with new ones.
Who knew it was possible to miss something so desperately while needing it to be gone?
It's not that being Hotguy was in any way good. Scar remembers quite clearly waking up every day wanting to make the world a better place, and ultimately feeling worse about himself as a result. He remembers wishing, too, that he knew what good even was, or that he could ever possibly measure up.
As it turned out, working a job wherein his moral worth tied itself to how well he could do it had the direct consequence of tying everything else to his value in society as Hotguy, too.
Being Hotguy, for all its drawbacks, meant he could always be sure of two things—he was important, and he was worthless.
There was a strange comfort in that. And now that he has done his best to avoid any trace of the past that no longer exists, has hidden his face and strewn the Hotguy corner of his closet all around his flat—
Scar has been chasing freedom for as long as he's known himself. For a while, freedom was in the wind following an arrow hitting its mark, and then it was in throwing his visor on the ground and screaming that he was done to anyone who would listen.
And now—well, perhaps the greatest freedom of all is in being unknown. Hotguy is all but history; a tragedy, existing solely within the annals of time and in the eyes of all those who believe he got what he deserved. Scar got what he wanted, and so did they.
And as for what's left?
Hotguy was his life, and his undoing. Hotguy was everything to him—or rather, Scar was nothing without him and fought desperately to stay afloat, to remain the last one standing when Hotguy's unforgiving grip dragged him back down to the surface and reminded him of what it was to matter to everyone but himself.
And now that Hotguy is dead, he has done everything in his power to kill the memory of him, as well.
So perhaps Scar doesn't miss being Hotguy. Perhaps he misses being someone, anyone at all.
The photograph crinkles in his grip. Biting his lip, he looks over at his bedside table—at the single photograph he has of himself at a normal archery range, back when Hotguy was no more than a stray thought.
Making a decision, he stuffs the photograph in his hands into the drawer and buries himself in his blankets before he can wet it with more pointless tears.
.
.
.
.
.
The next day, one of his many job applications finally pays off. His new partner's name is Grian, and they go out for coffee the day after he gets hired.
He has a nice smile, Scar thinks.