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“Grian, are you crazy?!”
Scar heard Mumbo and Grian before he saw them.
“Mumbo, it’s fine! I can go back home tomorrow, it’s just one more night!”
Scar turned the corner, finding the two of them so engrossed in their row that they didn’t see him slowly approaching.
Grian looked tired. His shoulders were sagging, and he had a look on his face that screamed, Is this seriously happening now?
Mumbo, however, was coiled up tightly. While this was not unusual for the man, the look of exasperation and annoyance on his face was, “Why didn’t you just ask me?”
Grian straightened his shoulders more, punctuating each word with a step towards the director, “Mumbo. It. Is. Fine.”
Scar cleared his throat, causing both of them to whip around and look at him, “Is everything okay…?”
Grian quickly muttered a “yes” while Mumbo barked out a loud “no.”
Scar raised his eyebrows at the two, waiting for an explanation.
“Grian has been sleeping in his office for the past three days!”
Scar didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that, “What?! Why?”
“My apartment complex has been having trouble with the pipes,” Grian was looking down at his shoes, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet.
“Okay, but why didn’t you ask to stay with someone?” Scar had a deep feeling of disbelief. Am I really that uninviting?
“I don’t know!” Grian threw his arms up in exasperation, “Okay? I don’t know. It’s fine. One more night here and I can go back home.”
Mumbo looked at Scar, a silent pleading in his eyes, “I’d offer him my spare room but my parents are in town.”
Scar looked from Mumbo to Grian and back again, speaking before he could change his mind, “Grian you can spend the night at mine if you’d like.”
Grian looked ready to refuse before Scar interrupted him, “It’s really no trouble at all. I had something I wanted to talk to you about anyway.”
Scar felt a little bit douchey for bringing up their earlier conversation, but Grian had promised.
Grian seemed to understand what Scar was referencing and nodded a bit before reluctantly turning around and walking in the direction of his office, “Fine. Thank you. Let me grab my stuff and then we can go.”
Scar watched him walk away for a second before Mumbo laid a hand on his arm and squeezed, “Thank you.”
He had a tired smile on his face. Scar knew Mumbo tended to over-worry about Grian, and he was suddenly glad that he was able to help Mumbo out as well as Grian.
Scar smiled back and placed his hand on top of Mumbo’s. They stood there for a minute before Scar followed after Grian and Mumbo walked away, whispering under his breath about something Scar couldn’t hear.
-
Scar unlocked the door and let Grian through first, following him and locking the door behind them.
Scar loved his apartment. From the layout to the location to the decorations, his apartment was his favorite place in the world.
His relatively small apartment was a ten-minute walk (on a good day) from Minecraft Headquarters, and Scar made sure to love his apartment with everything in him. The walls were covered in posters of his favorite movies and bookshelves full of trinkets from his friends. The floors were clearly well-trodden, and the hot water only worked sometimes, but Scar wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
Of course, his apartment wouldn’t be home without Jellie. As Grian surveyed the living room/kitchen, Scar (painstakingly) bent down to pick her up, cooing at her as he scratched under her chin.
The noise broke through the silence the two shared and Grian whirled around to face Scar again.
“You have a cat?” Grian’s eyebrows raised to his hairline as a smile formed on his face.
“Three actually! Jellie is the only one who lives with me though. Katy Bee and Mr. Finnegan live back home with my parents,” Scar moved closer to Grian and offered Jellie’s head for him to pet, “You can pet her if you want. She’s very sweet. Sorry if you’re allergic to cats, I didn’t even think to-“
Grian interrupted, “I’m not. I had a lot of cats growing up.”
The two were plunged back into silence again as Grian softly petted the cat in Scar’s arms.
Scar let the silence stretch for a few moments longer before interrupting to ask, “Tea? I also have water and pop as well.”
“Tea is fine,” Grian smiled, “thank you, Scar.”
Scar bent down to put Jellie back on the ground, giving her another head pat or two before moving around the island in his kitchen to start boiling water in a kettle. He opened his fridge and grabbed a bottle of water for himself.
Grian was walking around the shared living room/kitchenette/entryway area, examining all of the posters on the wall. Scar leaned against the counter as he watched the other walk around.
Scar loved having people at his apartment. It felt like letting them even further into his heart. By showing them where he lived, he was silently inviting them to live there too. He was telling them, I want you here. You are always welcome.
“Don’t tell my landlord,” Scar joked to Grian as he watched the other reach out and touch a picture frame that hung on the wall, “We’re not supposed to put things into the walls, nails or otherwise.”
Grian snorted before moving over to the mismatched chairs and couch in front of the TV. He ran his hands over the orange-teal knit blanket sitting on the back of Scar’s favorite armchair, “Jevin?”
Jevin, the head of the props department at Hermitcraft, loved to knit. For Christmas last year, he knitted nearly the entire cast their own personalized blankets. Scar got his in the colors of his famous character on the show, Hot Guy, and he used it every day.
“Yep,” Scar pushed himself off the counter to turn around and grab a tea bag from the cabinets above the stove, calling the different types out to Grian, “Chamomile, peppermint, or hibiscus?”
“Surprise me!”
Scar grabbed a chamomile tea bag and set it to the side before turning back around again. Grian was sitting on the couch with a purring Jellie sitting in his lap. Scar snuck his phone out and quietly took a picture of them.
“I record every show if you want to watch it,” Scar checked his watch after putting his phone back in his pocket. It was late, but Scar was far from tired, “I know it’s late, but I probably won’t be able to fall asleep for a while”
Grian smiled and nodded, “Yeah, that sounds good.”
Scar walked over to turn on the TV, navigating to the right screen just as the kettle whistled. He ran back to the counter and went about making the tea as he listened to the sounds of Jimmy’s monologue from that night.
When the tea was done, Scar brought it over to the living room and put it on the coffee table right next to where Grian’s feet were resting. He ran back to the kitchen to grab his own water, and then he plopped down on the couch. Jellie got up from Grian’s lap (much to the man’s dismay) and sat down on Scar’s instead, rubbing up against his hands where they were clasped on his lap.
They sat in relative silence, watching the show together and making small comments over especially good jokes or small technical mistakes.
It was halfway through Weekend Update when Scar turned to Grian, “Adding Etho to Update was a really good choice.”
Grian’s head turned to look back at Scar and he hummed, “Yeah? You think so?”
Scar grabbed his water bottle from the coffee table where their feet currently rested before replying, “Yeah, I do”
Grian stayed silent for a minute and looked back at the TV as Scar took a sip of his water.
“I think they’re screwing.”
Scar choked on his water and started coughing. Grian leaned over and patted his back.
“They’re what?” Scar got out as soon as he calmed down.
“Screwing. Y’know. Each other. Maybe. I’m not sure, actually,” Grian looked back at Scar with his cheeks slightly flushed and a sleepy smile stretched across his face, “but that was a really funny reaction.”
“So Bdubs and Etho…” Scar slightly trailed off, “aren’t… involved?”
“No, I totally think they are. I just don’t know for sure,” was Grian’s super comforting response, “just watch how they interact. You’ll see it, even on Update.”
“Oh.”
“Not that I care, or whatever,” Grian had turned back to the TV again, “I’m happy for them if they are.”
Scar took a moment to both watch the co-anchors and recall moments with both of them in recent history. He watched Etho watch Bdubs and oh. They’re totally screwing.
Scar must’ve said that part out loud because Grian let out a snort and a “yep.”
They finished Update and one more sketch before Grian let out a yawn.
Scar studied Grian for a second. The glowing from the TV illuminated his face like a halo. His eyes were half-lidded and his mouth was curved into a small smile as he watched Scar completely trip over his feet during a sketch from earlier that night. He had Scar’s Jevin-made Hot Guy blanket pulled up to his chest and Scar thought he looked rather soft, compared to how he normally saw him.
Grian must’ve sensed eyes on him because he turned to look at Scar with a frown replacing the small smile from moments ago, “Stop making that face at me. I don’t know what it means yet.”
Two things stuck out to Scar about that sentence. Firstly, yet? Grian’s use of the word made it sound like he actually spent time memorizing Scar’s facial expressions, which is a crazy concept that he doesn’t even want to consider. Secondly, “what face?”
“That,” Grian lazily waved his hand in front of Scar’s face, “one. That face.”
Scar raised his eyebrows and laughed a little, “I’m not making a face. This is just how I look!”
Grian looked intensely at Scar before dropping the subject and yawning again, “Whatever.”
“Are you tired?”
Scar’s question was returned with a look he could hear, What do you think?
Scar laughed a little bit at the look before standing up, “You can sleep in the guest room. I’ll go make it up really quick.”
Grian smiled up at Scar and nodded, “Sounds great, thank you.”
Scar didn’t really have a guest room. There was absolutely no chance that he would even be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Grian, however, did not need to know that.
Scar softly padded to the room at the end of the small hallway, his bedroom, and began tidying up the room. It took very minimal effort, just one pair of jeans on the floor and an empty cup that previously held water. He had just cleaned the entire apartment the day before. It was relaxing.
Scar left his room, walking over to where Grian was lightly dozing on the couch. He looked so comfortable, and Scar hated to make him move, but he refused to let Grian sleep on the couch.
“G, you can go to bed now,” Scar gently pushed at Grian’s shoulder, waking him up enough to be able to walk down the hallway to crash in the bed instead of on the couch.
Scar walked him down the hall, showing him the bathroom on the way, and made sure he was comfortable before walking back into the living room.
He stood next to the couch for a second, breathing deeply, before going to the hall closet and grabbing a pillow and another blanket.
He turned off all of the lights before returning to the living room. Scar turned the TV down as quietly as it could go while still being audible and made himself comfortable on the couch, eventually falling asleep to Jimmy’s voice in a fake commercial for an exotic bird breeder.
-
Scar woke up in the morning with an aching back and a craving for bacon. Two unrelated feelings that he was experiencing just as strongly as each other.
He laid there for a few more minutes, feeling both feelings, along with petting a purring Jellie sleeping on his chest, before getting up to make himself and Grian some bacon.
He stood up, stretching with his hands above his head, and narrowly missed hitting his shins against the coffee table as he limped to grab his cane from where it was resting behind the couch. While his knee (miraculously, considering he slept on his couch) felt better than it did the day before, it still twinged enough for him to want his cane.
Now having his cane, Scar walked to the bathroom, quickly and quietly brushing his teeth, doing his best not to wake Grian.
Returning to the main area, Scar played music quietly through his Bluetooth speaker and set about making breakfast.
Scar loved his kitchen, and if he was being honest, it was probably his favorite room in the apartment. While technically it wasn’t a full room, it took up only a corner in the main area of the apartment that also included the living room, it was definitely the most decorated. The fridge was covered with colorful magnets that held up photos of the people he loved. He had various plants and freshly grown herbs on top of the cabinets, in a cabinet, and on the window sills. He had even replaced one of the windows with a mix of red, yellow, and blue stained panes.
Shortly put, Scar loved his kitchen.
He had finished frying the bacon and was in the middle of pouring scrambled eggs into the pan when he heard footsteps nearing the kitchen.
“I made eggs and bacon. I have bread for toast too, if you want some,” Scar’s back was turned, but he heard a chair pull out at the island, “Orange juice?”
Scar put the bowl down and turned around to face Grian, who was staring at the couch that had obviously been slept on.
“You slept on the couch?” Grian’s hair was sticking up in multiple different directions, and he had a betrayed look on his face. The look was softened, however, by the tricolored morning light filtering over his face through the window in the kitchen.
Scar quickly turned back around to face the stove, pretending to busy himself with the eggs, “Yes. Are you more of an apple juice guy?“ Scar opened the cabinet above his head and pulled out two mismatched mugs.
“Scar.”
“So it is apple juice! I should’ve guess-“
“Scar.”
Scar froze with his hand on the fridge door, turning around to look at Grian with a faux-television smile on his face, “Yes?”
Grian’s face was pulled into an all-too-familiar annoyed expression, albeit, more tired than it normally was, “I thought you gave me your guest room. Did I sleep in your room?”
Scar dropped his smile a little bit and pulled on an air of nonchalance as he put the empty mugs on the island between them, “Yes. I have no regrets.”
“Scar!” Grian leaned back to track Scar’s movements as he walked to turn up the music on the speaker by the TV, “Your knee-“
Scar raised his voice to talk over the music that was now significantly louder than before, “is fine! It’s fine now.”
Scar smiled again, a real one this time, as he turned towards Grian, “It’s too early to be angry!”
Scar walked over to where Grian was sitting, over-exaggeratedly singing the lyrics of the song currently playing over Grian’s protests, “Dance with me, Grian!”
“Scar!” Grian yelped as Scar grabbed his hand and spun him around, nearly tripping over his feet as the pre-chorus started.
“C’mon, G, I love this song!” Scar excitedly led Grian around in a dance to the tune of the chorus as Grian’s half-hearted complaints were barely heard over the song.
“This isn’t even a dancing song, Scar!”
“I don’t care!”
Despite his complaining, Grian had a smile on his face that had replaced the earlier annoyed look.
Scar sang along to the entire song, especially the lyric, “At the end of it all, I just hope that your scars heal.”
Grian laughed at the lyric and Scar’s over-the-top presentation of it, finally giving into the weird, slightly off-beat dance Scar was leading them in.
The song ended, giving way to a calmer song, and Scar kept them standing for a while longer, guiding the two of them in an off-kilter waltz.
Scar slowly leaned forward to press their foreheads together. He closed his eyes, and the two stood there swaying, simply breathing for a minute.
Grian took in a shaky exhale before beginning to speak, “This can’t… I can’t…”
Grian tumbled over his words for a second before Scar moved again and put his hands on either side of Grian’s face.
Scar slowly started moving their faces closer together. Their lips were only inches apart before Scar felt something wet touch his thumb.
“Don’t,” Grian sniffled, and Scar heard it as much as he felt it, “Please.”
Grian pulled slightly out of the embrace. He was still much closer than necessary, but Scar could no longer feel the rising and falling of his chest.
“If you do, I won’t,” Grian paused to clear his throat, “I won’t be able to stop.”
Scar sucked in a breath and held it for a second before trembling out, “Would that be so horrible?”
Grian took another few steps back from Scar, now fully escaping the embrace, with an incredulous look on his face.
Scar took in the look on the other’s face and mentally braced himself. Oops.
“Yes, Scar, it would be! It has the potential to ruin both of our careers,” Grian threw his arms out in pointed emphasis, “it could destroy your career. I couldn’t do that to you.”
Grian’s face was wrecked and racked with obvious guilt and underlying desperation.
“Don’t you see how badly I want this? How horribly I wish that this,” Grian motioned back and forth between the two of them, “we could work?“
Scar stayed silent, holding his breath, grasping for any way to answer as Grian worked himself up further
”I wish you could see how bright you are to me, Scar,” Grian took quick steps forward into Scar’s space again and cupped the taller’s face with his hands, a sad smile pulling onto his tear-streaked face, “You shine so brilliantly. It makes it so hard…”
Grian slowly trailed off. Scar’s eyes remained intently trained on Grian’s, trying to ignore the weight of the hands on his face as the producer worked up the courage to finish his thought.
“It makes it so fucking hard not to love you.” Scar punched out the breath he had been holding, “you’re a goddamn supernova, Scar.”
(Scar had the look on his face again, and Grian realized he finally had a name for it: love)
Scar’s brain short-circuited.
“You’re so bright and so brilliant and so brightly, brilliantly talented that I could never take that away from you,” Grian’s smile waned as he continued to talk, “I’m a black hole, but I won’t let you get too close. I’ll watch from a safe distance. You’re going to do great things, Scar, and I’ll watch. Because anything else is unthinkable and unfair.”
Scar, not exactly having found the right words he wanted to say, but tired of staying quiet, cleared his throat, “Unfair to who?”
Grian startled a bit at the noise and furrowed his eyebrows at Scar’s words, “You..? Scar, you could lose your job. I know how much it means to-”
“What about you?” Scar interrupted Grian again.
Grian’s face just turned even more confused, his still-frowning mouth quirking to the side.
“It’s unfair to you too, G. Don’t you see that?” Scar wrapped his fingers around Grian’s wrists from where they still rested next to his face, “You can’t keep pushing me away just because you’re scared!”
Grian’s face dropped the confused look, but the face he was making now wasn’t any more pleasant than the previous one.
“Can’t you see how scared I am?” Scar gently pulled Grian’s hands off of his face and cupped both of them in his own, “I go on live television every Saturday night scared out of my mind. Sometimes I wake up in the morning barely being able to move my leg, and it’s terrifying.”
Scar forced a smile onto his face as he squeezed Grian’s hands, “I get that you think that there’s something so horrible inside of you that no one else can see, but I don’t believe you. Sorry, not sorry!”
There were tears forming in Grian’s eyes again, but Scar continued to push on, “I’m not scared of us being together, Grian. I could lose my career, and I could get over it eventually. What I am scared of,” Scar pulled Grian’s hands closer to his face so that he was practically talking into them, “is that one day, you’re gonna push me so far away, that you’ll be unreachable. That, I don’t think I could get over.”
Grian had tears actively flowing down his face as Scar softly pressed a kiss to his knuckles before continuing, “I’m not more important than you. I hate that you seem to keep thinking that way,” Scar morphed his smile into something more similar to his television smile, “While it is flattering, it also makes me sad. You’re incredible, Grian.”
Scar leaned forward again and continued to press small kisses into Grian’s hands.
Grian sucked in a long breath, “I’ll hurt you.”
Scar was lightning-quick with his response: “No, you won’t.”
Grian looked up at the ceiling, still trying to compose himself, “Yes, I will.”
Scar looked up and into Grian’s eyes, face pulled into a concentrated look, analyzing the other for a second.
(Scar was silent for so long that Grian had thought he had finally convinced him for a second. Then that stupid look and annoyingly attractive television smile showed up on his face once again.)
“Okay.”
Grian barked out a watery laugh, “Don’t say that.”
Scar let Grian’s hands drop back to his side as he moved their faces closer together once again, “Okay.”
Grian lightly shook his head in exasperation as Scar whispered, “Okay,” over and over again like a mantra.
He whispered it like it was a secret shared only between the two of them. He said it like it was a word that held the weight of many years of silent love and avid watching. The word, the simple, monosyllabic word, was spoken like that because it did hold that weight.
Grian looked directly at Scar, unflinching. He looked at his eyes (silently pleading), his mouth (still pulled into that ridiculous smile), and his eyebrows (raised slightly, but still relaxed) and thought for a second before whispering back, “Okay.”
“Okay,” Scar said it one more time before finally closing the space between them.
The first thing Scar noticed was that Grian kissed like he was running out of time. He kissed like he had a clock sounding off the minutes in his head. Grian kissed like he’d never get to again.
The second thing Scar noticed was how fucking incredible it was. Scar thought that the moment in his kitchen, with the smell of bacon still in the air, that the rushed kisses between the two made up for every moment wasted in the past. Scar thought that the moment they shared, with multi-colored lights cascading across the counters and their faces, made all of the silent pining worth it.
Grian’s hands were tangled in the hair resting against Scar’s neck. His fingers were gripping tight as if Scar would be taken from him if he didn’t.
Scar let out a quiet noise of contentment and Grian pulled back quickly, a terrified look on his face, as if realizing just then what had happened.
Scar took in the look and, against his better judgment, let out a giggle. The single giggle soon turned into a cacophony of more of them when Grian’s scared face turned confused.
Scar bent forward and pressed his forehead into Grian’s shoulder, muffling his laughter. Grian’s hands were now resting on Scar’s shoulders lightly, ready to pull them away at a moment’s notice.
“What?” Grian’s voice was high-pitched as if he was trying to restrain his own giggles, “Do I have something on my face?”
Scar straightened back up, and looked at Grian, “The world didn’t end,” Scar moved his hands to Grian’s sides, “did it?”
“I hate you,” Grian tangled his hands in Scar’s hair again and yanked him back down into a quick kiss before pulling away slightly again and whispering into Scar’s mouth, “Also, you definitely burned the eggs.”
Scar cursed as he left the embrace to remove the pan from the stove, and he felt something in his chest, something that had been aching and raw since the day he accepted that offer to work at Hermitcraft, right itself as he listened to Grian’s laugh bounce off the walls of his kitchen.