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The night the accident happens is rainy, and so dark you could barely make out the shape of your hand if you'd shake it in front of your face. Or, well, that's what Scar would have loved to say, but the reality was that it was closer to 6 P.M, and the city hadn't seen a single hint of rain for the last two days. It was rainy in spirit, at least, if the scattered people walking morosely along the sidewalk were any indication.
But no matter. Hotguy isn't here to fight gloominess, even if his dazzling smile is sure to be a win, he's patrolling tonight to chase the real deal, criminals and villains alike.
Perched atop a five-story building, letting the last rays of sun wash over his face as he listens to a couple arguing down the street, trying to determine if he needs to intervene, the first thought that comes to his mind is that it's an awful day to get your heart broken.
The argument tampers off, the man furiously stomping away, and Scar moves his gaze to somewhere else. The night is young, but there's bound to be some kind of trouble down the line. His bow rests heavy on his shoulders, and he idly scratches away the last flakes of dried blood still clinging to it since last night - a villain with some kind of metal power had gotten in a lucky shot.
His earpiece flickers to life, static turning into clear words. "You got a robbery three streets over, near the tenth district." The joint in his right knee cracks when he unrolls, the metallic braces hidden under his pants digging into the flesh of his legs.
There's a building right to his left, and with a slightly powered jump, he reaches the edge of it, overlooking the street as the strident alarm of the store makes itself known. Three people emerge from the broken glass, translucid shards brushing the underside of their shoes with a crunch as Scar switches the arrows in his quiver for something less brutal. It looks like a small crime, and Hotguy is not the type of hero to use unneeded brutality. Small fry and all that.
(There are some arrows tucked in the part of his quiver he almost never reaches for. Hotguy is a hero that smiles and saves little kids from the fire. Hotguy is a hero that kills. The dichotomy is hard to gather back into something human-shaped, but Scar tries his best to separate those kinds of missions from the rest - the other, darker costume helps. When the boiling anger inside of him spills and twists, he holds one of those by the metal shaft against the fading light of the moon. Even in the darkness, the head of it glints with something hot and deadly.)
He scans the street for a getaway car and quietly shoots into the two nearest vehicles. Only one of those might be used by the robbers, but Hotguy's arrows are branded, and covered by some kind of insurance. He's not too worried about some worker missing their next shift. They don't notice, too busy smashing the alarm in, and Scar almost thanks them when they finally get it to stop.
Then, an arrow inches away from the soft of his cheek, he lets out the breath curled up in his lungs and waits for the best shot. For that second of stillness that comes with the adrenalin pulsing in his veins, the crystalline certainty of where exactly the mix of metal and tightly coiled rope will go.
In the same breath it takes for him to draw back the string and feel the tension of it fighting against his hand, he releases it and watches the way it bounces right at their feet, the net hidden inside the too-large shaft springing to life and capturing two of them. The first shot is the most important one, a lesson repetitively drilled into his head, and Scar allows himself half a smile before smoothly reaching for another arrow.
The last one goes down with a groan, her dark hair spilled against the floor as she struggles to get out, and the street goes still as the sound of police sirens echoes closer and closer.
Scar almost climbs down and makes himself known to the curious passerbies getting out of their cover to see what the ruckus was all about. But tonight is a quiet night and he chooses to slip away unseen, uncaring of those 'popularity points' his handlers keep trying to make him gain. They don't get it, those stuck-up men in too-tight suits. He's not doing it for the money, the fame, or god forbid those ugly little figurines of him littering every corner store. It comes down to the fact that, a long time ago, he was just here, and nobody else moved. It comes down to the fact that he doesn't know what will be left of him if he quits.
The newspapers call him charming, a delight, the brightest hero in his generation. Scar smiles, and acts like it doesn't sting when vigilantes and grandmothers spit the word 'loyal dog' at him, as if he didn't just save their life.
The thing about being put on a pedestal, is that people never tell you how hard it is to climb down.
It doesn't really matter. A saved life is a saved life, even if the way they look at him burns.
A breath. Familiar uniforms exit their car to cuff the robbers, and Scar allows his attention to be pulled elsewhere. It gets quiet for a while until the sound of a fight breaks the grey monotony of the city. He's quick to get there, and here! A very recognizable pink is thrown against a wall, and for the first time of the night, Scar feels his lips stretch in a smile that's almost real.
He swoops down from his rooftop with a bright grin. "Cuteguy!"
Even in the middle of a fight against what appears to be two villains, the aforementioned man takes the time to roll his eyes. "Do not call me that."
Scar pouts. Just as quickly, he draws his bow and shoots an arrow at the others. Used to his way of fighting, Cuteguy doesn't even bat an eyelash as he turns his head, avoiding the blinding light of Scar's flashbang. "It's a good name! Really suits you." Flirtatious, and the vigilante uses their opponents' distraction to swing a murderous Escrima stick in his direction.
"It's your fault in the first place. You and your stupid mouth are the reason why the media keeps calling me like that." Scar smiles. Could you blame him? A vigilante suddenly popping out in the streets, evading all tentatives of bringing him in with a laugh, fighting in broad daylight. He's tempted to call him the ying to his yang, or whatever they say these days, if only to see the outraged grimace on his half-hidden face.
"What would you rather be called then?" There's a brief second of embarrassment on his face. "Hum." The question clearly took him by surprise, and Cuteguy hesitates. "...Poultry Man?"
Scar snorts, but before he can do him the favor of answering, the man in front of them screams, fire spilling out of him. "Would you two fucking quit it?" A flame shoots straight to Scar's hair, and he hastily dodges. Does this awful man not know how long it takes to have his hair this stylized? Denied of their usual banter, the two of them quickly fall back into the fight.
The man's power is straightforward, fire gathering at his fingertips, oddly reminiscent of another hero's, if only a bit weaker. It's the woman Scar worries about, because her power stays a mystery, even as the minutes drag. She's waving a lasso, which makes him immediately suspicious, because who in the 21st century still uses that thing? It is also a vibrant purple, with a material that looks odd, as if made of light. Scar is not looking forward to seeing what it does if it ever touches them.
Fighting with Cuteguy feels natural in a way fighting against him never does, and with a strange pinch on his heart Scar wonders about the could have been. Having a crush on the vigilante is no longer the foreign thing it once was, but nowadays Scar lets it wash over him like a cool wave instead of a raging ocean. There are more important things to think about, and so it becomes a light stream of little thoughts in the background of his mind, whenever something reminds him of a pretty little man with words that cut.
One of his arrows finally manages to knock down the walking fire hazard, but not before he throws a flame one last time, headed straight into Cuteguy's path, and it's almost a reflex to grab him by his pink vest and make him avoid becoming a rotisserie chicken.
But the woman uses this moment of distraction to throw her rope, and it ensnares the both of them together, knocking their forehead with a bonk that would be comical if it wasn't Scar's own skull against the seemingly steel-reinforced bones of Cuteguy's. (What is it they say about stubborn people? That they have a hard head?)
With what feels like dread at the back of his throat, Scar watches the purple rope around them disappear, right as the tingling feeling of an unknown power crawls under his skin. The vigilante at his side blinks, before his mouth curls up in a snarl. "What did you do?"
It is exactly when Cuteguy untangles himself from Scar that the problem arises. It starts off with a dizziness, so powerful his head swims. But then, the feeling of being seasick transforms into something sharp, a pure blade of pain sliding under his ribcage. Whatever it is that has been done to them, it hurts, and a blurry look at Cuteguy hissing at his side tells him he's not the only one suffering this fate.
As if set off by a forgotten instinct, his hand shoots out to grab the vigilante's, and the throbbing pain against his ribs eases off. Sharing a horrified look, they turn in unison to the villain, who's been laughing at them the whole time. Scar's not the type to swear excessively, but this situation might deserve a resounding Fuck.
They're stuck.
Cuteguy's eyes narrow, and Scar watches the muscles on his back tense as if getting ready to pounce. "I'm gonna kill you." He calmly announces to the woman, something downright venomous in his gaze. The only thing stopping him from going forward is Scar's hand, still intertwined in his. It's enough to make the villain blanch a little, and Scar can't help the snort. "You don't kill."
Turning his burning eyes to him, Cuteguy seethes. "I do now." The snap of a rope stops them, and soon it becomes clear that the whole situation is about ten times more complicated than they thought. Scar dodges right, in the complete opposite direction of Cuteguy, and they're left alone on their side of the street when the pain takes them over, horribly sharp and twice as strong.
Scar is no stranger to pain: in this job, either you swallow it down into nothing or it swallows you whole. But what runs around in his body is another kind of hurt entirely, the very atoms of his flesh clawing their way out of his skin - burning so hot his lungs are left with nothing but a handful of breaths as Scar wheezes against the wall.
The last of his cognizant thought is spent moving his legs through the agony of it (and that, at least, is a familiar motion) until his fingers firmly grip Cuteguy's arm, and even then they have to slide until they meet the skin for the pain to recede and leave them sighing in relief. But the criminal they fight is not so merciful, and Scar hears more than feels the angry sound of something fast almost hitting him in the leg.
Cuteguy is quick to react, throwing a smoke grenade into the mix before dragging them further down the alley. They don't have time to panic. "How do you wanna play this?"
Scar brings their linked hands up. "You'll have to do the heavy lifting I'm afraid." A wiggle of his fingers for good measure. "Can't draw my bow."
Already, the smoke starts to clear out. "I don't like this." They don't linger, already in the quick motion of a fight they're desperate to finish fast. In the seconds it took them to consult, the woman had already started to run, and it takes them no time to take off after her. It feels a bit silly, running down the street hand-in-hand with a pretty boy, but his life has brought him weirder events. The only thing threatening to break his cool is the possible presence of a lucky journalist, and what a million-dollar picture the two of them would make right now.
They catch her right into the next corner, and she is swift to go down, an Escrima stick right to her throat. She looks out of breath, and it has a shaky quality to it, but she is not terrified yet. Cuteguy looks at him, and Scar tries to discreetly gesture that he'll be the good cop to his bad cop. Judging by his confused face, he doesn't quite get the message. Oh well, he's never been the best at this whole mime games thing.
"How do we undo it." The vigilante's voice is deceptively flat.
She laughs, the secret of her power the last thing she has left to protect herself. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
Scar pipes up with a smile as fake as they come. Time to start fishing around for info. "We would actually! We would love to know."
"Tough luck." The stick digs deeper into her skin, but she doesn't budge.
"Tough luck?" He rubs his chin with his free hand, careful not to sound too dumb. "So it's a question of luck?"
Her face contorts in the exact same grimace as Cuteguy. "What- No?"
"That sounds like a question to me! Do you not know how your power works?" Her fear starts to turn into bafflement. "Are you stupid?"
Cuteguy snorts, the slightest bit of tension falling away. "I ask myself this every day."
"Hey!" He pouts, not expecting him to join the tray. "I'm plenty clever I'll have you know, mister 'I mock my partner while they're interrogating an important suspect'." Ignoring the weird twist of Cuteguy's face at the word partner, he locks eyes with the villain down on the ground. "I'll figure it out." The brightness of his eyes takes on the white of winter. "Just a question of time." She flinches.
"Ah! I knew it, it's a time-based thing, isn't it?" She says nothing, lips tightened into a straight line. To his side, Cuteguy watches, something almost impressed in his gaze. "Come on, don't stop now, we're in the middle of a conversation here." Time presses on, their hand still connecting the two of them, and yet she says nothing. "No? I guess it's a shame I didn't call the police yet."
She stiffens. Immediately, Cuteguy catches on. "Would be terrible if something happened to you before they come, no?" His smile is beautiful in its violent promise. "Do you know how vigilantes turn their villains in?" The escrima stick climbs up and up until it rests on her throat, and Scar can see her eyes starting to widen as Cuteguy continues, relentless. "We don't."
She looks at Scar, a bit frantic. He makes a show of averting his eyes. "Around 12 hours! It's- It's around 12 hours."
They don't immediately relax, even though Scar's shoulders are begging to be untensed. She has to stew around for a bit, until they're certain she has nothing left to give, and Scar lets the wonderful notion of the unknown do the work a thousand threats can't quite achieve.
But it seems she has truly nothing left to say, chest moving quicker and quicker as panic tightens its hands around her lungs. With a glance at Cuteguy, straight hard lines replacing the usually smooth way his body moves, Scar nods - once.
The thing is: with any other teammates, there would need to be words. Communication, his handlers used to puff out, annoyance coiled tight around them. But Cuteguy and him they click, and the silence of Scar's allowance is only broken by the sharp sound of an escrima stick meeting a skull.
They clicked - a moment of pure high and forgetfulness of who they were, where they began and ended, and why it was such a bad idea to be dancing with each other in the first place - but it lasted half a moment: the ringing tinnitus of a bomb exploding to your face before sound forced its way into your ears again.
This time is no exception. Cuteguy breaks off first, harshly tugging Scar along with him until they're overlooking the villain's limp body safely hidden in the shelter of a rooftop they climbed as gracefully as they could with one less hand. He sees it in his body - jagged breath and clenched teeth, the hand in his twitching with the need to wrench itself away from Scar. Anger.
When Cuteguy composes himself back, it's to make himself sharper, the black of his eyes not quite dull, but not quite alive either. His hand feels dead. "That wasn't very heroic of you."
Hotguy might just lose his title of the best marksman, because the words hit dead-center into the part of his heart he wishes he'd left behind in too cold rooms. Something acid rests on his tongue as a sour smile takes over his face. "I won't tell if you don't."
It doesn't really appease him, but Scar can see the anger smooth away - fading ripples of some unnamed threat deciding the meal wasn't worth the fight. Feeling a bit offended at the thought of being prey, Scar opens his mouth to add to the unsteady piles of sentences he had already said but the discordant crackles of electronic interferences cut him.
Cuteguy is too late to hide the flash of unease in his eyes. In this situation, Scar has to admit he's got less to lose than the vigilante. Despite the muscles coiled around the lithe frame of the body he'd spent far too much time looking at, and the taunts thrown Scar's way during their fights, there was always this hint of incertitude. The truth was that neither of them knew which one would win in an all-out battle. As such, half-restrained fights turned into easy banter, that was occasionally transformed into a conversation or two.
But here, standing together on this rooftop black from smoke, Scar has the advantage - if only by merit of being able to trap a bird in his hand long enough for the cage to follow. He couldn't deny it felt exhilarating, if a little mean.
But curse his damned heart, some birds are too pretty to be tamed and so his smile bleeds into something a little more true. "Will you?" The com in his ear continues to ring, begging for attention, but Scar doesn't have any to spare in the face of Cuteguy's uncomprehending frown. "What?"
Raising his free hand to tap on the blue and orange device he'd painstakingly personalized, Scar reveled in the whiplash Cuteguy seemed to have at his sudden change of tone - it was something of a favorite tactic on his part. "Tell."
It takes a couple of seconds, but no more than that, for the other to understand where Scar was going. The hand in his relaxed by the tiniest amount as Cuteguy relented. "I suppose I won't."
He answers the call short and to the point. "Minor skirmish. I'm compromised with-" His eyes meet Cuteguy's. The vigilante doesn't know how well the word applies to their relationship. "a civilian. Nothing urgent, I just have to be taken off the roster tonight."
When he's done rattling numbers and codes to make sure that yes, everything is fine, Scar shuts off the earpiece with a click, and takes it off his ear in the same movement. With a startled blink, he realizes that Cuteguy's eyes never left his own, leaving them standing a touch too close.
"A civilian?" The tone is mocking, but by now Scar is well-versed in the other's language - the light squeeze of his hand and the fond crease of his eyelids tells him it's as close to thank you as Cuteguy can manage.
"Well of course! What else could I have told them? Do you imagine the distress if I told them I was glued to this dashing pink vigilante roaming our streets?" Scar leans, all faux-confident. "The paperwork!"
It makes Cuteguy snort, the sight of it waving a heavy-tied knot inside Scar's guts. He catches himself orbiting closer and closer to him still, wayward ship losing all power as it's helplessly pulled in by the sun. Black-hole Scar corrects, watching dark eyes settle on his face. All-encompassing and so alluring you'd never find your way out. But it's not right to profit from this situation, touching skin and all.
So he forces his eyes elsewhere, anywhere that doesn't scream at him to make a mistake, and then they find something worrying enough all foolish thoughts jump right out the window. "Oh crap! You're bleeding!"
Cuteguy jumps, and in the face of red lazily soaking the black fabric of the vigilante's arm, Scar forgets. Both his hands go to rummage through his emergency kit, and for a moment there's a pure shot of confusion as to why he is the one feeling an ever-increasing pain, before Cuteguy's hands cling to his biceps - tight enough they feel like claws.
"Don't do that" He seethes. The startled blink of his eyes tells Scar the electric shock of pain was a surprise for the both of them. "Sorry." He soothes, putting his hand right above the fingers leaving red crescents of hurt on his skin. "Do you want some help?" The key here was to avoid the dreadful word need, because in all their conversations and fights, Cuteguy had always given him the feeling of someone using every threat available in their arsenal to escape being cornered - and Scar intended to respect that. Mostly out of consideration for the other, and partially because he knew that being treated as something vulnerable didn't mean you wouldn't bite.
"I..." Cuteguy trailed off, understanding that the situation required one more hand that he had currently free. "Can you touch me elsewhere?" Usually the one making accidental (or not) innuendos, Scar swallowed back his smile in the face of the situation - the reddening tips of Cuteguy's ears told him enough.
Scanning the vigilante for a place where they could share skin without something as tentatively suggestive as taking off clothes or touching his face, Scar falters. There's a second of hesitation, possibilities flying through his head, and he succumbs to the smallest temptation of settling his hand on the tight fabric of Cuteguy's shirt, ever so slowly reaching underneath to touch the smooth skin of his hip. He doesn't dare move any further, opting to let his hand rest there in a silence that almost turned too thick to cut.
His skin is warm. Scar cannot see the creamy color of it, but he can feel the edges of Cuteguy's well-trained muscles, shivering under his touch. Clearing his throat and trying his best for a professional tone, the kind that said yes, a very normal day for a hero like me - Scar asks. "Is that okay?" It doesn't sound super assured, but it's at least calm enough to not let the storm inside of him show.
Cuteguy snaps back to life, tensing under his fingers, and quickly grabs the bandage rolls Scar had spilled earlier with an embarrassed mumble he is too distracted to hear. Tearing the gauze with his teeth - and doesn't that make Scar's thoughts spin - Cuteguy wraps the white bandage around his arm while all he can think about is how he can feel the vigilante's pulse at his fingertips.
Brutal stop to his reverie, Cuteguy nudges the rest of the med kit back into his free hand. "I'm done." He doesn't move away, and neither does Scar.
Something burns inside of him. It might be hope, or might be the exhilarating thought of making a mistake, but Scar burns - and with it, his inhibitions. Splaying his hand flatter, espousing the shape of Cuteguy's waist, he leans closer and closer still.
Cuteguy watches him, dark eyes appearing almost black under the sunset sky, and right when he stops - so close he can see each individual lashes under the glasses - hesitating in the last second of the race, it's his lips that meet Scar's, soft and everything he'd imagined them to be.
But as soon as their mouths clash together - soon enough that the realization hasn't set in yet - Cuteguy wrenches himself away, a horrified expression on his face. "I'm sorry." He whispers, words hollow and quiet. "There's already..." A drawn-out silence in which Scar feels each jagged, punched-out second. "I like someone."
Someone that is not you, is all he hears before his soul feels so wrung a fake emergency smile snaps back into place. "Oh." Words run out of his mind, so fast he can't bite his teeth around them, and the sharp edges of his heart falling into pieces is enough to leave him silent - the taste of iron on his tongue.
But here, on this rooftop, dressed in too much clothes and not enough armor, it's not Scar that stands. Hotguy had survived worse, has done worse himself, and it's this thought that gives him the strength to cling to the smiling facade he used to think was his face before They made him kill. "It's alright. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, right? Two amazing heroes alone on a rooftop..." He goes to take off his hand, before he remembers their situation (stuck stuck stuck with each other and this huge ugly thing swelling inside his chest) and instead goes back to holding his hand.
Back to the beginning, except it feels like he's falling into lava, not the cartoonish one, all molten and bones, but the real, scientific kind where the density of it is too much and you burn into flames before even reaching the glowing red of its hunger.
For once, Cuteguy seems to lose all his bite, as if he too was punched in his teeth so hard he got disoriented. "I- Yes."
They're interrupted by the police finally arriving on the scene, and the two of them watch the officers shake awake the villain who pretty much ruined Scar's day.
When she awakes, no doubt having a bad day on her own, her confused gaze settles on their rooftop, where they were quick to scramble into a threatening position. After all this, she better not talk. She seems to get the message, paling even further as the police drag her into their car. At least one thing he did right today.
Suddenly exhausted from the quick succession of events, Scar falls back, and in his fall brings down Cuteguy with him. The concrete is hard under his back, clearly not made to cozy up under the stars, but it'll make do in the face of the increasingly heavy burden he seems to wear. To his side, Cuteguy seems quieter, more subdued. Perhaps falling into a spiral of thoughts about the could-have-been, horror at breaking some faraway lover's trust. Hotguy, homewrecker. What a new low.
"So." He cuts through the silence, letting the masochistic and self-punishing part of him win. "Cuteguy? Lovesick underneath this tough pink ass-kicking persona, who would have thought?"
It works in both ways: twisting the knife deeper into his heart, and bringing some life back to the vigilante. Cuteguy sighs. "I'm not in love," He says, with that sort of face telling he might not be opposed to it. "He doesn't even know."
Sending his eyes to the sky, watching the gently glowing moon, Scar can almost pretend this conversation doesn't mean anything. "Must be some kind of guy, then, if he's able to make you swoon like that."
"I'm not swooning!" Cuteguy hisses, and Scar watches as his face does a whole lot of acrobatics, probably trying to see if the need to defend the man he likes outweighs his deadly allergy to sharing information about himself. "He is... kind" Is what he settles on, his hand tensing. "Insufferable sometimes, but funny."
"And he doesn't see you? Must be an idiot." It makes Cuteguy snorts. It seems the dark and awkward leftovers of the earlier emotions make his lips loose, because he doesn't stop himself. "Kind of. He makes the goofiest mistakes..." And then, under his breath, as if he doesn't even realize the words are slipping out of his mouth, "Reminds me of you a bit."
It might have been the final nail in his coffin. Scar has to relent, because the way Cuteguy speaks, the light in his eyes... He can feel a romantic story in the making, thank you very much. It's alright, he thinks -with as much calm as he can muster when all words feel like broken glass against his tongue- I will make this part of me that hurts so small I will forget it even exists. He does not think of destroying it. Doesn't believe it possible, as his torturous brain stores the image of Cuteguy smiling against the stars.
As if on cue, it starts to rain.
-
"Well." Scar says, unhelpfully, words almost drowned out by the rain. They've retreated to the emergency stairs, one level down so the metal skeleton of it would cover their heads, but it is far from a permanent solution.
Cuteguy, closed off again - looking as though he would like to be anywhere else than holding hands under the pouring rain - speaks. "Do you know anywhere we might spend the night?"
There goes their problem number one. Twelve hours is a long time, and neither of them are too keen on sleeping out in the open. Move aside heartbreak, Scar thinks cynically, I've got bigger worries than you. He shakes his head. "I would love to bring you back to my flat, but I fear it's a bit too much watched for your tastes." The admission hurts but it's true, and Scar is not the type of person to lead Cuteguy into a trap.
The vigilante doesn't blink, his face unsurprised. "Right." The nonchalance of it is a relief, and a confirmation to some of the suspicions Scar had been having. "I won't bring you to mine." A few beats. "Sorry."
His smile fades a little. "It's a-okay. I get it." But the bigger the silence grows, the shorter their list of options becomes.
The rain is cold, not good at all on his joints, and there's this tiny edge of dread he cannot erase out of the little sigh he gives. "How about a deal?"
Cuteguy's eyes are on him. "A deal?"
A pause, during which Scar tries to put the words into something that does not scream I'm an idiot that trusts you despite everything. "A mutually beneficial deal. We can't go to my flat, and you don't want me in yours because you're scared I'll turn you over to the cops."
The other slowly nods, even though his face turns into something disgruntled at the word scared. Scar continues. "So what if I give you something to betray me with, in case I betray you?"
Smile, show all your teeth and don't let him see the anxiety underneath it all. "You let me in your flat, eyes closed on the way pinkie promise I won't snoop around, and in exchange, you'll get to know what's hiding underneath that sexy hero costume!" He winks, all to his performance, before realizing the implications of what he's just said. "I meant my identity of course." He backtracks fast enough to bite his tongue.
Scar curses their current situation, because there's no way Cuteguy doesn't feel the slight tremble of his hand. His secret identity is his everything sometimes, the life buoy in his chaotic life - smiling, funny Scar, who's trying for college a bit later than the others. Whose primary worry is finishing his papers on time, instead of bleeding out to death in some dark alley - and giving it up to the guy who just broke his heart (okay, that one is more or less Scar's fault) feels like the kind of mistake you don't recover from.
In front of him: Cuteguy, wide-eyed, shock written in the lines of his face. "You can't be serious."
Him, the fool. "Knowing where you live is a huge thing, and I've said it, it's a mutually beneficial deal." It feels a bit pitiful. The rain drenching his hair makes it even more so. Cuteguy looks uneasy, but his opportunistic side must win, because he nods despite his frown.
"Great! That's-" His usually fluid cadence stutters. "Cool." He finishes lamely. Tonight hasn't been great for his charismatic persona.
At least Cuteguy does him the favor of pretending he doesn't hear the nervousness of his tone. "I'm not covering your eyes. Void knows you'd find a way to kill us both that way. Just... look at your feet I guess. And forget about this once this is done."
Right. To him, this whole thing must seem like an annoyance, something you'd put behind after its end. Not the world-ending-ice-cream-heartbreak kind of day then. Scar trails after him, feeling like a stray puppy.
They take the long way, mostly because the usual rooftop shortcuts are out of the question with their current predicament - which also forces them to use the less populated roads. Not that there are many people milling around at night under the rain, but they can never be too careful.
Slowly, they transition into the poorest part of the city, where the cracks fester and the many flashing billboards are replaced with obscure posters featuring strange advice. Need an eye? the half-torn sheet asks, purple swirls all over the words. Call this- the rest is lost to the unknown. Scar is no stranger to this sea of sickly gray, tries his best to patrol it on the days when he's not too busy. But he's not really welcome here, territory eaten by the vigilantes scorning the system and there's the tiniest bit of rediscovery walking slowly through the place the higher-ups like to forget even exist.
It feels humane. Cuteguy walks like he knows each of the crevices populating the streets, and it's probably not wrong to assume so. But Scar. Scar watches with fascination the rusty playgrounds still taken care of, the wild dandelions allowed to grow in the cracks of concrete, all the little signs of life he'd never looked at before - taking it all in, tripping into a puddle, eyes wet from the rain and from some emotion he can't name - and he feels his chest echoes with pangs of pain, and hunger.
It's a short walk, and true to his promise, Scar does his best to forget each turn and street's name, but the vivid details of it stay stuck under his eyelids, burned with such a force it leaves an afterimage every time he blinks.
When they arrive in front of what he assumes is Cuteguy's flat - the building looks nice, old wood and flickering lights - the vigilante turns to him, and he can see his own nervosity reflected in his gaze. "Close your eyes for a minute." Complying, he soon hears a tack tack tack puzzling him for a second as he's moved into the room before he realizes that's the sound of framed pictures being turned to the ground.
Finally, he's allowed to open his eyes. The sight that greets him is... not really what he expected, but it's not unexpected either - some sort of in-between state - the plain word for it would be homely. Small, and not a mess. He probably wouldn't be able to pick this as Cuteguy's home amid dozens of others but he can still picture the vigilante going about his daily life here. Scar can't help but think back on his own flat, all cold and sterilized. Half the rooms not even furnished. Not that he spends much time there - the eyes on his back tingle unpleasantly after a while.
There's a hundred things he could say. Nice place, a joke, some teasing, a lot of things really. But looking at Cuteguy's pinched face, at this place that is definitely not a safe house or a throwaway flat, Scar feels the only words he could have said pass through his lips, oddly shaped and true. "Thank you."
Cuteguy shrugs. They're still standing in the living room, two scarecrows out of place. The anxious churning in his stomach settles like a chemical reaction out of reagents, acidic aftertaste brought to its peak. It's like a bandage, right? Better rip it out quick and nice. He brings his hand to his glasses, ready to take the first piece of his costume off, but Cuteguy interrupts him almost immediately. "Do you want to dry off?"
It catches him off guard, freezing in his movements, and Cuteguy's face doesn't give him any hint against his puzzled look. For a moment, it seems like Cuteguy doesn't want him to reveal his identity. But that would be- Unlikely. Right?
Under the pressure, Cuteguy's eyes evade him. "You're not obligated to do it."
Piqued by curiosity and the insatiable want he had to
understand every little thing about the vigilante - Sleeping beauty, in that brief moment before the slumber - Scar presses on. "Why?"
Silence answers him. Such a peculiar sentence. Silence as an answer, but to what benefit? Words get stuck underneath a tongue like a half-dissolved bitter pill, questions spiral out of control.
In the end, it doesn't matter. Scar has yet to break a deal he's made, and this one will not be the one to ruin that streak. A big breath. "It's alright. I made a deal didn't I?" Feeling vulnerable, he adds on, tiny little string of words. "I don't think you're the type of man to use that information badly."
It seems to strike something inside Cuteguy's heart, because his face twists as if the other wasn't quite sure about the truth of this statement, but Scar trusts in his judgment, if nothing else. "Don't say things about me you can't prove." Cuteguy snaps, all thorns.
Scar rolls his eyes, just a little. "I'm about to prove it don't I?" At least, he really really hopes so.
And so the story of Hotguy and Cuteguy ends here, when Scar strips of all the things that made him into a hero, down to the straight all-teeth smile that was never his own. He's still in costume, because well he wasn't about to get naked in front of the vigilante, but he is as bare as he can be in this twenty-square-foot room that smells too much of rain.
But then, everything goes off the rail. Scar didn't know what to expect, most likely a confused face asking about his name, because Scar as himself is the furthest thing away from famous. He doesn't even have that kind of familiar face you could recognize from an ad about toothpaste or the like. He's just him, a bit too out of place, a plant that saw too little sun to fully sprout.
Instead, from his forced proximity, Scar gets to watch as all the blood drains out of Cuteguy's face, leaving him so pale he looks like a ghost. The hand in his is taken by tremors, distant thunder making it seem like electricity, and for a moment he is worried the other is going to faint right here and there. Escaping from his lips, so low even a whisper would have to listen carefully, a quiet and disbelieving name. "Scar?"
It's his turn to startle, because the name is said with a familiarity that doesn't lie. "You know me?" His brain screams at him, throwing a long thread of yarn through the labyrinth of memories carved in his gray matter, follow it begs, pleads, and orders in the same breath, remember.
It all falls away in a second. His lungs fail first, burning oxygen turning his exhales into fire. His heart soon follows, and then all of his body, crumbling into ruins, into white-bone à vif, thoughts slipping away in favor of inescapable pain. I'm dying. The false realization is all he can think about before it corrects into the right set of thoughts. He left me. Both his hands are holding him up against the wall.
This power is insidious, so terribly ordinary you forget it's there in the first place. The chain of thought comes to him chopped up, in little pieces as he blindingly walks to the bathroom, where Cuteguy is curled up on the floor.
The door is almost entirely closed, the lights off, but Cuteguy has left a sliver of space in the form of an ajar door. An opening for him.
Holding his hand into the dark, shaking with the effort of raising it through the pain, Scar waits, gritting his teeth so hard they creak.
Tentatively, fingers lace through his own, holding him tight. Twin sighs of relief, his nerves are singing, begging never again. His head thuds against the wall as he settles on the ground, his arm bound at an awkward angle through the door. "Am I that ugly?" He tries to joke but it falls flat, tongue unwilling and his breaths something closer to a rasp.
Cuteguy doesn't move from his position, hiding in the dark of the bathroom, and Scar can only see the sharp line of his chin outlined by the light creeping through. "I'm an idiot." He finally croaks out, the fingers around Scar's hand so tense they look like bones.
It's weaker than anything Cuteguy has ever allowed himself to be. Maybe, Scar thinks, the vigilante is shedding some part of his costume too. Softly, he brings his thumb into a gentle back and forth over the pale skin of Cuteguy's hand. A way of saying I'm here, even though he still didn't know what the root of the problem was.
Slowly, Cuteguy's head turns to the side, looking at him through the slit of the door. The darkness, jealous mistress, hides him from Scar, leaving him an abstract painting made of shapes. "A librarian." Cuteguy said with an air of fatality.
"What?"
"My day job. I'm a librarian." The words don't connect at first, but when they do it's an avalanche of realizations. "You- Grian?!" The light is just enough to discern the edges of his smile.
"Didn't take you for the stopping-a-bank-robbery kind of guy but here we are."
Scar doesn't reply, mostly because he's too busy realigning all his views on two people he thought he knew. Now that he knows, he can't unsee it. Grian's smile pasted onto Cuteguy's face, an uncanny ability to twist for a civilian, all the strange excuses and blank he'd let go of because they were useful to cover his own tracks.
"Oh Void," He breathes. "it makes so much sense!" Now that the pieces of the puzzle fall, another brick hits him. In all their conversations, Grian had never mentioned another man he could have a crush on. And Scar could accept that Cuteguy's mysterious lover would remain, well mysterious - the x in the formula that they had to dance around in the future - but as Scar, not knowing one of his only friends crush? Even if it hurts twice as much, he has to ask.
"But then, the one you said you liked...?"
Grian groans, shoving his face back into his knees. "Gnrh." He grumbles unintelligibly against the fabric of his costume. Seemingly gaining some courage, squeezing Scar's hand so hard he might break something, he says again, this time more clearly. "It's you, you dumb oblivious man." And then again, quiet and soft against the darkness. "It's you."
His heart beats so hard he can almost feel it in his throat. "Me?" The world disappears in favor of this quiet admission, his ears nothing but the words. Out of everyone, Grian's heart had chosen him, him - not even Hotguy, all muscles and dashing smiles, him - the Scar that didn't save lives, with the awkward jokes and clumsy finger guns, with a cane and a sadness staining his eyes he could not quite erase out of costume.
"Is that so hard to believe?" Grian has pushed the door slightly open now, and Scar is graced with the sight of his raised eyebrow. The vigilante costume was still on, but the posture is so unbelievingly Grian that he really doesn't know what kept him so blind. But Scar understands Cuteguy, Grian, whatever name the man next to him took, and the other doesn't hide the slight pain in his smile well enough.
Inside his chest too, despite the overwhelming relief, there's this ugly thing slowly unraveling that, in its death, trashes and claws at his inside, leaving him raw. "That's it." He decides as he talks, rising up and tugging Grian with him. "Hug time!"
"What?" The other protests, but his struggle is weak at best.
"Too much sadness in this room, come on." Careful to let his hand rest against the skin of Grian's neck, Scar brings him against his chest in one of their rare hugs. Even though he said it in a joking tone, the truth is that they both needed it.
Eventually, Grian loosens, tucking his head into the crook of his neck. It's... far from ideal, their clothes heavy from rain, sticky and probably dying to go into the washing machine, but Grian is warm against him and fits perfectly inside the hollow of his arms. Perfect in its imperfection in some kind of way.
"We're stupid." The other mumbles against his collarbone. Scar can't disagree. Slowly, he brings his free hand flat against Grian's back. Burying his face into coarse sandy-brown hair, he admits. "You totally broke my heart on that rooftop."
It might be too heavy for him, or maybe Grian doesn't how to say sorry for it, because he falls back into teasing. "What happened to the 'spur of the moment thing'?"
He pouts as Grian shakes off the hug. "Can't a man have some dignity?"
A roll of eyes. "You lost all dignity the moment I knew you for more than 3 minutes, Scar."
"That's unfair! At least give me an hour."
"I'll give you nothing if you don't help me get out of those horribly wet clothes." Here, free from the weight of secrets and names that are not quite your own, Scar allows himself a laugh.
Grian leads him to the bedroom, and he revels in each sign of life he can find in every corner - here, a book open in its middle, there, a mug that looks manmade with the strong scent of coffee. There's a carpet, old but soft, and he digs his socks into it with a sigh.
It starts off easy enough, Scar keeps his hand on his collarbone while Grian battles with his pants, clinging to him with the ferocity of a fabric that has known water and what Scar imagines as the perfect softness of Grian's skin. Things get harder when it comes to his shirt, in part because once Scar settles his hand on the other's bare knee and Grian begins to take off the layers, it becomes impossible not to be distracted. Silently, Scar follows the slender lines of his body as Grian bends. This is not the first time he's seen someone naked (or, well, about halfway there) but it's the first time he can't do anything but watch, enraptured by the grace of their movement.
Eyes to his face, eyes to his arms, eyes to the beauty mark right under his ribcage, everywhere is a feast for his heart that has never stopped hungering.
Outside, the rain rages on.
The dream ends, Grian puts on a too-big shirt with a smile telling he knows the rough draft of Scar's wandering. "I don't have clothes your size." Something sparkles in his eyes.
"Not a problem." Grian understands too late what he means.
"No- Scar! Put your shirt back on!"
"I thought you didn't have any clothes for me?" Grian sputters. "I didn't mean for you to strip in front of me!"
"It's fine, it's fine," The ankle he'd tapped against Grian's leg wobbles in their dispute, and he swiftly grabs one of Grian's hands to avoid an unpleasant reminder of their situation. "Help me for a bit? I need to have both hands for this."
Lucky catch, curiosity winning over decency, the other lets his hand be guided against the rough skin of Scar's back, head popping over his shoulders to watch him unroll his pants. The metal underneath creaks, no doubt angry about being wet, and Scar suppresses a wince.
Grian watches, unblinking, as he carefully pops the mechanism open. "Does it hurt?" He asks, three very small words in the shell of his ear. It's a complicated question, one that Scar asks himself every day. "No more than usual." Is what he settles on.
Now completely sagged against him - shapeless warmth melded to his back - Grian huffs, unsatisfied, but stays quiet. The long claws-like stems of steel click together when he rounds them up, but instead of folding them as his habits dictate him to do, he bends to lay them against the wall to dry - laughing a little when Grian's boneless form almost follows him to the floor with a surprised oof. "Don't fall asleep on me." He warns, still picking the honey of his words out of his teeth.
"I'm not." As if to prove it, he rises up like a cat just to send him a glare. Unfortunately for him, it transforms into a yawn. "Shut up." Dragging his eyes away from that adorably cute disgruntled face (mostly in fear of being murdered to death with a pillow), an obvious absence jumps to his attention. "Wait, where are your wings?"
"Flew away on their own this morning." Grian deadpans. Without giving Scar time to answer, he closes his eyes, and the world seems to shift, for a lack of better word. One second, nothingness, and the other a bright explosion of red, green, and yellow blooms from the two slits in Grian's shirt he hadn't noticed. "Oh." He breathes, succumbing instantly to the 'shiny!' part of his brain.
Grian bats his hand away. "Just because I like you a little more doesn't mean I'll let you touch them." Disappointed, he pouts - the other pays him no mind and starts combing through the feathers with a frown.
"Does it hurt?" He accidentally echoes Grian's earlier question, realizing too late the hypocrisy of it. And like the echo, unforgiving and far away, the other answers. "No more than usual."
Fair enough.
Finally done, they're left staring, the space in between each other feeling like an intruder - a foreign limb you don't know how to operate. Clearing his throat, Scar throws his heart into the fire, daring to think himself strong enough to endure the burn of the first step. "So, I've been thinking..."
"A dangerous thing." Grian teases, but his eyes - dark and ravenous - do not leave his face. Maybe it's this moment that feels true, secrets falling away like dead leaves in the wake of spring, but Scar sees a mirror image of himself in Grian: wanting wanting wanting.
"If you like me," He raises their hands in the air so Grian has no choice but to follow, close, laying his hand on Scar's shoulder to stabilize. "And I like you."
"Hm hm?" Grian urges him to continue, lips parted in anticipation and looking oh-so kissable.
"We should definitely kiss about it." Scar whispers, like it's a secret left for the two of them to keep.
This time, when Grian kisses him, it lasts - enough time for him to close his eyes, to think yes, this is real, enough but not enough because Scar is a dying man discovering his starvation - and then, again and again as Grian carefully settles on his thighs.
Grian is on his lap, hands messily tangled in his hair, and Scar thinks of telling him that in the end, taking off his shirt was a great idea, see? But his mouth is full of teeth and heat, and the thought capsizes before he can speak it into existence.
There's no feeling to compare to this consumption - bones, sinew, and blood fusing together under the quick pace of their heart. Bam Bam against his skin, the shortness of their breath. We click, Scar had thought in the night when they were stumbling around each other, but he was miles away then, a long stretched road of incomprehension: they rise so high the sun is their Icarus, dripping of stardust and hydrogen as it watches them glow.
Eventually the heat settles back into warmth, tiredness weighing their limbs too heavily for it to burn, and they're left lazily kissing each other just for the taste of their lips.
"You're lucky I bought a king-size bed when I moved in." Grian mumbles against the corner of his eyes as Scar kisses the underside of his jaw. "We'd be sleeping on the floor."
"You're so very right," He mouthes against the thin skin of his throat with a smile. "Let me show you how grateful I am." Grian's laugh quickly turns into a moan, and then nothing at all.
-
Later, when the black of the night has greedily swallowed the details of their face, Grian turns to face him - the sheets wrinkle as he moves, and perhaps the lack of sight is what gives him enough courage to ask. "Why do you stay?"
Facing a ceiling he can barely see, Scar doesn't bother to pretend the subject of the conversation escapes him. "I didn't know what else to do."
A quiet sigh. Squeezing Grian's hand, Scar continues. "But I've been thinking of retiring anyway."
Grian's head snaps up. "What?"
"Not the whole hero thing of course, but working with the Commission has gotten... tiring."
He snorts. "You think they'll let you go?"
And that's the question, isn't it? Meeting Grian's eyes in the darkness, Scar speaks his accusation softly, but surely. "You got any tips for me?"
Grian freezes, for the barest of seconds, before he moves again, turning his head away from Scar. "I don't know what you mean." Brushing Grian's hair away from his face, Scar lets this particular secret fall to the floor and roll underneath the bed, tucked away for another time.
-
In the morning, Scar wakes up first. It might be because he slept in an unfamiliar place, or maybe it's the fault of a certain person's heavy wings knocking the breath out of him when they shifted away from the morning light. The world will never know.
By some miracle, they'd manage to avoid the pain of separating, always linked in a way that almost deserved admiration.
Grian sleeps on, unaware of all the thoughts inside his head, and Scar melts back into the sheets, letting his eyelids close once more. This moment here - safe, sweet candy-like aftertaste on his tongue - it stays, burned in his brain, fire born from affection and this tiny bit of love that tended to make everything look better. A quick look at the alarm clock tells him it's way past the time for the power forcing them together to die and leave them untethered.
Looking at their limbs tangled together, Grian's face so close Scar feels his slow peaceful breaths on his skin, he figures it won't hurt to let it rest a few more minutes.