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The solid thwack of an arrow hitting a tree sounded through the field. It was a peaceful day, warm with a light breeze, sending the tall grass tickling at ankles.
Scott whistled at Abolish, squinting through the sun.
“Wow, Abolish! Nice job!” He complimented, following with his own shot, which he missed. Abolish couldn’t help but laugh as Scott ran into the trees to retrieve his arrow. When the pale-haired man returned, he was slightly out of breath. After gulping down air, he stood upright, grinning at Abolish. He looked really nice in this moment; jet-black hair blowing in the wind, facial features defined in the sun. Scott could admire him all day, carve him out of stone, paint him a portrait using the finest oils and acrylics.
“Scott? You okay?” Abolish called out, raising an eyebrow, “You seemed out of it for a second there.”
Scott shook himself back to reality, and shrugged. “Nah, I’m fine. C’mon, it’s your shot.”
Abolish nodded and raised his bow, narrowing his eyes and sticking his tongue out the corner of his mouth. With a swift movement, he let the string go. Scott watched in awe as the arrow speared through the air, striking the tree with a loud crack that sent birds flocking out of nearby trees.
“Damn, you’re really good,” Scott noted.
Abolish nodded, though not appearing as proud as a normal person would be for hitting multiple bullseyes in a row.
“Eh, I’m good at combat,” Abolish shrugged, resting his bow against a nearby stump, “I was practically born with a dagger in my hand. I was told I was born to kill, when I was younger.” Scott felt a strange sense of wrong in this sentence.
“Wait, what? You mean grown adults were saying you were a murder machine at the age of five?”
Abolish nodded, a confused look on his face as if this was a universal experience.
“Abolish, that’s…” Scott trailed off, setting his bow down and walking to Abolish. The latter seemed to clock what Scott was saying a moment later, his eyes loosing all previous light.
“…Not normal. Ah,” Abolish murmured, lowering his head.
“I did always sort of question it,” he continued, sitting down on the dewy grass. Scott followed, intently looking at Abolish with his eyebrows furrowed.
“When I saw other kids playing sports or tag or whatnot, and instead I was stuck inside practicing throwing daggers at a training dummy…” he hesitated, then whispered, “or a real person.”
Scott’s heart stopped. He reached for Abolish’s hand, rubbing the top of it tentatively.
“Hang on, what? You were…killing…as a kid?” Scott’s pupils shrunk in worry, his red eyes sheening over with concern.
Abolish slowly nodded, looking away.
“I…yeah. People my parents didn’t fancy, ‘Abolish, dear, you know what to do,’ ‘Abolish, where’s your good knives?’ ‘It’s ok, Abolish, you’ll hit the throat next time. Just a bit more practice, that’s all,’” Abolish continued, his tone growing more angry with each heartbreaking sentence. Tears pricked the corners of both men’s eyes.
“They were right, weren’t they? That’s all I’m good for, isn’t it, just killing? I never had a childhood, and now I’ll never have an adulthood, I’ll just spend it finishing off my enemies. No partner, no family, I wasn’t meant for that. I was born solely to kill,” Abolish’s voice rose at the end, cracking into a million pieces as he crumpled into Scott’s arms, sobbing violently. He felt pathetic, smearing snot and tears onto Scott, this perfect, beautiful, amazing man. He was trauma dumping onto his favorite—or most tolerable—person, and now Scott was gonna leave him, just like everyone else, wasn’t he?
But he didn’t. Scott, kind, wonderful, amazing Scott, began to stroke Abolish’s dark hair, threading the strands delicately through his fingers as he whispered into Abolish’s ear, “Hey, hey, shhh…it’s okay, you’re okay…you’re not a killing machine, Abolish, you’re a wonderful, stunning person who deserves all the love, because you’re just that amazing. And I love you, and I don’t care if you’ve killed people or not, because you were just a kid, and what your parents put you through, that is absolutely shitty parenting, and you 100% did not deserve that. So I don’t care if you think you deserve love or not, because I’m going to love you no matter what.”
Abolish sniffed and looked up. He blinked. Scott was saying this?
“You…you love me?” He whimpered, a bit embarrassed at his tone, “You mean it?”
Scott laughed, but not at Abolish. “Of course. I love you, always, because you deserve that.”
Abolish pondered this, then nodded with a sad smile.
“…Alright. Well…I love you, too,” he murmured, nuzzling his face into Scott’s chest. Scott smiled and hugged Abolish into his figure.
Abolish soon fell asleep in Scott’s arms, and Scott eventually followed. The two of them fell asleep in the warm spring air, embracing each other’s warmth and breath.