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Grian’s day had not gone overly well. Which, in Grian’s world, meant that he’d had several panic attacks, hallucinated more than he’d been lucid, and crawled back into his flat crying.
The worst part about it was that Grian didn’t know why. Nothing overtly bad had happened, especially nothing Grian wasn’t well equipped to handle. He’d spent the first sixteen years of his life in a hellscape, he could get through a totally normal day at work. Or, at least, he thought he could.
He’d managed to keep the majority of his freak out to himself whilst on the clock, though he could tell from the looks Scott, Martyn, and some of their regulars had given him that he wasn’t as good at hiding his emotions as he had been when he was younger. It was possibly the one silver lining he’d had, no matter the shit dealt to him, his parents could never hurt him for crying about it.
Now though? He cried. Quite a lot actually.
Grian supposed it was a good thing. His brain felt just safe enough to actually let him experience his emotions from the last nineteen years, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
At least now, after his shift had ended, he had the entire weekend to himself to decompress, breathe, and hopefully go back to work the following week feeling much better.
Yeah, right.
He managed to stumble into bed, leaving his work clothes on the floor for the mythical “more stable Grian” to deal with, and push his face into the sheets so hard he was surprised it didn’t leave a permanent imprint. He felt the urge to just stay there, face down, and pass out, though a lingering sense in the back of his brain told him that would be impossible.
He turned around, back hitting the cool sheets, and looked up to see a man’s face hovering over him. It spooked him, and he floundered to punch the face as hard as he could, though his fist went right through. He sighed, surprised at himself that he was still tricked by his own brain this much. The face stayed there, grinning. Fuck this.
Grian got up, somehow more tired of dealing with that face than he was physically. He saw it in every place possible as he dug through his work clothes for his keys and phone. Fuck. This.
The cold air outside didn’t faze him, and he only shuddered at the thought that he was so tired he felt drunk, and he hadn’t been since that night he had to be sobered up by Scar and his stupid caring nature. Though, he supposed, that was exactly what he needed right now. Just a friendly face he knew wouldn’t be corrupted by the one following him.
That was the thing about Scar. In all his perfectness, Grian’s really bad hallucinations practically cowered from him like he was made of holy water.
He was at his friend’s door before he really thought about how he was going to get there, and Scar answered the door quickly despite the late hour.
“Well hello there.” Scar said, making a decisive effort not to look at Grian’s bare chest.
“I’ve had a shitty day.” Grian said simply, and from what he knew about Scar, the man had empath-ed his way to understanding that the day hadn’t been shitty, but Grian’s brain had decided it was, “I’m hallucinating the face of someone I really don’t need to be seeing right now, and I need it to stop.”
Scar wordlessly stepped to the side and Grian waltzed into his apartment and kicked off the shoes he was quite proud of himself for remembering to put on. Or perhaps he’d just never taken them off after work. Both were equally as likely.
“I won’t bother you. I just need someone with a face who is actually here and not just floating in mid-air.” Grian continued, making his way to Scar’s spare room in record time and lying down on it.
“Um.” Scar voiced his many thoughts into the air, “Do you want me to stay in here with you?”
Grian looked at his friend for a moment, “If you want to.”
Scar left the room, and Grian laid down ready to face the night alone with Scar in the other room giving him comfort from afar. Instead the door creaked open, and his friend reappeared, a box of tissues in one hand and a t-shirt in the other.
He handed both over and reminded Grian of the tears streaming down his face, as well as the slight shiver he still had going on, “Thanks.”
He dealt with it whilst Scar got under the blankets, though just as he was about to turn the lamp on his side of the bed off Scar’s hand reached into vision and brushed a stray strand of hair out of his face, weighed down by the tears that had lightly soaked it, “Is the face gone?”
Grian looked around the room and breathed a sigh of relief, and that was all Scar needed before he laid down and went to sleep.
+++
Grian was going to lose it.
Not in the normal way either. Not entirely.
You see, Grian had agreed to Scar’s wishes of staying over for the whole weekend. Just a regular bro helping out his mentally unwell bro. If he was at Scar’s, then he definitely wasn’t somewhere alone, hallucinating that he was about to die 24/7.
Instead, he could hallucinate Scar flirting with him, constantly. Whilst this was much preferred, Grian couldn’t help but feel like it was still some sort of punishment.
It was often just one-off phrases Grian’s mind had stolen from a cheesy rom com, tacked onto the end of whatever Scar had been saying.
“Could you pass me that, beautiful?”
“Hey baby, look at this.”
Or simply replacing Scar calling his name with “sweetheart”, which was just cruel.
On the Sunday, Scar was called into work quite early in the morning, and Grian woke up to him crashing around his room as quietly as possible, though he was failing miserably.
“Sorry, I keep my laptop charger in here.” He said, whispering, “I’ll be back before you know it honey.”
That was when Grian could swear Scar toddled over and kissed him on the top of his head, which was a lot more sensory than his hallucinations were supposed to get.
Usually they stuck to their corner of visual and auditory hallucinations, and although Grian could feel some of them, it was often this fuzzy, lack of feeling. This was not that feeling.
When Scar left, Grian’s thoughts spiralled, filtering through every even slightly romantic experience he’d ever had. There was the girl he’d “gotten married to” at the grand old age of five, then the boy he’d held hands with age twelve, then a slew of faces he managed to get his brain to skip.
Even the absolute failure of a kiss that was his first meeting with Mumbo flashed through his brain. Mumbo, of all people.
Grian thought for a second. Mumbo, of all people.
And with that, Grian reached for his phone on the bedside table, managing to just grasp it with the very tips of his fingers. He soon found his contacts list and pressed the second one down.
“Mumbo, you’ve kissed me before, is it all that bad?” Grian asked, before Mumbo could get out any pleasantries.
“…” Grian could hear the crackle of movement from the other end of the line as he assumed Mumbo moved to sit from where he’d just woken up, “What?”
Grian took a deep breath, “I might have a tiny crush on someone and I’m currently spiralling over whether or not them kissing me will ruin their life.”
Mumbo took a while to respond, and Grian had to check to see whether he’d already hung up before he finally spoke, “I mean, I enjoyed it.”
“Good.” Grian asserted, only now realising he would’ve been quite offended if Mumbo had actually hated it.
“Is this about Scar?” Mumbo asked.
“How did you know that?” Grian gawked before immediately facepalming at the admission.
“You realise that I was trying to get with you when we first met, right?” Grian nodded, even if Mumbo couldn’t see him, “And that I backed off because I thought Scar was already your boyfriend, right?”
“What.” Grian said, mouth still hanging open.
“Yeah, exactly. Just ask him out, he will say yes.” Mumbo assured.
“You are meant to be my sane friend that I don’t have a crush on Mumbo, but right now you are acting crazier than me.” Grian said, falling backwards on his bed with the hand not holding his phone firmly holding his head.
“Boo hoo.” If they’d been in the same room, Grian was sure he would’ve smacked Mumbo’s faux pout off of his face.
Before he could decide how to respond, Grian heard the front door open, as well as the jingle of Scar’s keys as the man came back into the apartment. He listened as Scar came down the hallway and quickly shoved his phone underneath the pillow next to him.
“Sorry, sorry. I wanted to let you sleep, but I forgot my laptop.” Scar entered the room, quickly making his way to the dresser to pick it up from where it laid just centimetres away from falling to the floor, “I guess I was so distracted from seeing such a handsome face so early in the morning.”
Scar smiled, and Grian’s heart almost exploded inside his chest from the dual attack. For a moment, he couldn’t care less if it was all in his imagination when Scar was looking at him like that. Suddenly, his brain decided to start working again, and the hidden phone beneath his pillow felt like an unintentional stroke of genius.
Scar didn’t hang around long, already late, and as soon as he was out of the door once again Grian reached for his phone.
“Yes, he said you have a handsome face, Grian.” Mumbo said immediately.
Grian practically squealed, imploding in on himself as he rolled about the bed, giddy.
“I mean it’s not exactly a sonnet, but at least you know other people can hear him.” Mumbo mumbled somewhere distantly.
“Exactly, Mumbo.” Grian giggled, “You’re my favourite friend I don’t have a crush on, you know that, right?”
“Yeah?” Mumbo laughed, “Then go and make me your favourite friend, overall, and get yourself a boyfriend in the process.”
Grian hung up, only half recognising his penchant for leaving Mumbo midway through conversations before his mind moved on to more pressing matters. He quickly stood and made the bed behind him as well as he could with his hands still shaking. He was delighted in how the reason for their unwillingness to stay still was so different from usual, and he was distracted by their majesty for a short while.
Still, he pressed on.
+++
A few hours later, just before Scar was meant to return, Grian had transformed the apartment. Or at least, he had moved a lot of blankets and small lights into the living room to give it the closest thing he could get to an ambiance.
Scar loved setting up movie nights for them, so Grian was going to return the favour. Unfortunately, he didn’t know many movies, and the ones he did know, Scar had introduced him to them.
He asked his friends for help once more, refusing to tell them why, and as such getting pretty unserious answers. Eventually he gave up trying to get anything out of Martyn other than Fifty Shades of Grey, which Scott told him in confidence was “not the move, no matter what situation this is”, and he instead looked up “Romantic movies” and picked the first one Scar hadn’t already shown him. He knew someday Scar would see the search history, but all going well he thought the man would find it sweet.
Not long after, Scar’s keys jingled in the door once again, and he entered looking pretty tired but with that happy disposition he usually held.
Grian had to stifle a laugh at Scar’s face as he took in the state of his apartment, instead dragging him to the sofa and sitting as close to him as he could without literally sitting on top of him.
“Scar.” Grian said, unsure where the sudden burst of confidence had been hiding inside of him, “I don’t want to be friends anymore.”
Scar stared back at him, eyes wide and mouth open, for quite a long time before Grian heard himself.
“No!” He yelped out, “I do want to be friends with you. I meant I want to be more than that.”
Scar nodded, eyes still just as wide, “Best friends?”
Grian smacked him on the arm, though he laughed anyway, “No!”
Scar smiled, and that was when Grian knew he’d probably understood him from his first outburst, “Oh, so you want to be paramours? Flames? Lovers?”
Grian couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up in his throat at that one, especially not in the face of Scar’s smirk and dancing eyebrows, “I think boyfriends is the term the kids use nowadays.”
“Boyfriends, ey?” Scar said, smirk still very much intact, “I could get used to that.”
And then he kissed him.
And Grian’s mind gave up trying to describe that pretty quickly.