Chapter Text
It was nobody’s fault but his own that he’d been caught in the middle of what the forecasters had described as the worst storm that the village had received in centuries.
As the force of the storm’s strong winds battled with the violent ocean’s waves, battering his boat from side to side, Grian only started to consider the very real possibility that he was probably going to die there. Out at sea with nothing but an empty fishing net and his very useless lifebuoy that would do nothing in the face of even the smallest of tidal waves.
Somehow, it was all he could do to think back to his time with Scar. His hand pressed firmly against his breast pocket where he knew a neatly folded letter containing the messiest script to ever exist lay. It wasn’t even a few days ago that he had received that very letter, addressed to him.
He hadn’t heard from Scar in years, and when he’d received that letter he couldn’t even find it in himself to be as cold and nonchalant as he’d hoped he’d be. Grian had honestly thought that he was over the man, over with the pain that love had brought him, but seeing Scar’s handwriting spread messily around the page had brought back so many memories.
Maybe that was why he’d gone out today, on his weak little fisherman’s boat in the face of a terrifying thunderstorm. It’s not like he hadn’t known the storm had been brewing; it had been forecasted weeks prior to being the worst one yet, but even so, Grian had been feeling reckless and restless ever since he’d received that damn letter.
Great. Now he was spending his final moments thinking about Scar. How stupid.
A sudden cold splash of water threw itself at Grian, snapping him back to his dooming reality. He didn’t even have time to get a bearing of his surroundings before he was thrown to the side, a hard tidal wave slamming him against the fragile metal railings of his boat. Grian could feel the water seeping into his socks through his boots, but that wasn’t the worst of his problems at the moment.
The boat was tipping.
The lifebuoy was just out of his reach, even as he strained his arms to grab it, the tips of his fingers barely brushed the rubbery material.
There was a bright flash as lightning struck mere miles away from Grian’s boat, closely accompanied by a loud clap of thunder. The boat rocked dangerously in the crashing waves, the smell of ozone humming around Grian as he turned, just in time to watch as a wave almost as big as his boat threw itself at him.
The instant shock of the cold entirely colliding with Grian threw him overboard. The world spun around him as he was plunged head first into the water, an icy shock immersing the fisherman deep into the darkness of the ocean.
And there he was. With his wavy dark brown hair and irritatingly handsome green eyes, smiling like he always had, like he always would, just out of reach.
His hand slotted perfectly in Grian’s as they laughed about everything and nothing, catching each other’s eyes as the other pretended not to be looking. Grian had spent all his waking hours unconsciously thinking about Scar in everything he came across during the day.
His eyes stung, whether it was saltwater or tears, Grian didn’t know. Desperate bubbles tried to escape his lips as he briefly resurfaced, almost immediately being hit by a strong tidal wave which slapped him back down into the darkness, his arms flailing uselessly as he tried to grab the water around him.
Grian could remember when Scar had first pulled him in, their smiles pressing against one another as he wondered if this was what it was to truly love someone.
But the fantasy would inevitably come crashing in as their arguing resonated around their home, the light pattering of their cats’ feet were lost in the sound of their fracturing love. Grian could remember how he couldn’t bite back the silent tears that streamed down his face as he curled up in their bed, on the nights that Scar would leave him, busy with other things. It would become a regular occurrence, sometimes it felt like he was just a sidepiece that Scar would come home to, another pet to look after.
Desperation was replaced by numb indifference as the waves above Grian blocked his only access to air. It was fitting, really, that he should die whilst out at sea, with nothing but his memories to keep him company.
It hurt, really. The amount of time Scar spent with him had reduced by the day, and the time that they did spend together had been filled with so much arguing that at some point Grian just couldn’t take it any longer. He’d ended up begging his heart to stop wanting Scar, wishing that he’d never even fallen in love.
What pained him the most wasn’t the screaming of his lungs as they begged for air, but the way that Scar hadn’t even seemed all that bothered when Grian had asked to take a break in their relationship.
At some point, Grian couldn’t really feel the cold any longer, nor could he feel the aching in his lungs, begging for oxygen. It was almost as if his entire body was numb to his surroundings, just as his mind had become.
The gentle pull of gravity weighed heavily over him, pushing him further into the depths of the ocean as weightlessness grappled his senses. He found himself looking up at the churning waves above- pure chaos throwing itself against the shield of water keeping the violent storm from disrupting what peace was kept deep in the sea.
It was like Grian had been thrust into a whole other world, one where the storm’s howling was nothing but a glimmer above him, the sudden silence that filled his ears was deafening. The lull of water pressing in on him was welcoming, even as the pressure pulled him further from the surface. It was slowly getting darker as he sank lower and lower.
Soon he’d be lost to the ocean. Soon all the pain in the world would disappear.
As another flash of lightning shots across the sky overhead something caught in the light. A small prick of silver, out of place in the vast darkness of the water around him. Curiosity got the best of him as he extended his arm, reaching towards the tiny marble of sparkling light.
The slick surface of the ball slipped through his fingers, just out of reach. He was so close, just a little further and he could catch it in the palm of his hand. Grian strained all his energy, a strange primitive desperation crawling through him, almost as if the prick of silver was calling to him.
It slid pleasantly into his hand, immediately being brought in front of his eyes for inspection.
It was a pearl. A pale porcelain colour, as far as Grian could tell with what little light the depths of the ocean provided. A pearl this size would have sold for a lot back at the market on the mainland, yet Grian didn’t have the energy to do so much as clasp the pearl in his hand.
A soft glow flitted through his fingers. Confusion burned through Grian’s brain as he opened his hand, staring at the pearl that had begun to emit a low light of its own.
He couldn’t find it in himself to be shocked as bubbles unwillingly escaped his lips, the feeling of his lungs squeezing desperately against his ribs vaguely connecting in his mind. His thoughts were getting sloppy, half dazed by the lack of oxygen.
Grian would always have liked to say that if faced with a situation like this, he would fight to live until the life was slowly inevitably drained from him, yet as he found himself floating further away from the surface, he realised he didn’t really have much to live for anyway. Everything he loved was out of his reach, so what was there worth fighting for?
The gentle glow from the pearl in the palm of his hand was warm and somewhat comforting in the vast darkness of the ocean that surrounded him. There was nothing he could do but hold it tight to his chest as he felt himself fading.
The empty sea around him seemed to wave wistfully at him as he slipped into unconsciousness.
-
A flash of light from somewhere off in the distance flooded the room. Scar had always counted the seconds between lightning and thunder, yet he never really remembered what the number of seconds meant in relation to the storm around him.
Four, five, six-
The rumble of thunder echoed around the bedroom, working to scare his already jittery cats. The little furballs skittered up onto his bed, two cuddling under each of his hands as the last one curled into itself on his stomach.
“Hey now,” Scar hummed, smiling down at the three cats, “There’s nothing to be scared about, everything’s going to be okay.”
The light of his bedside candle flickered violently before getting extinguished, leaving the room in a cold grey light from the dark hues of the storm raging outside. The two heads of the cats under his hands peaked up at him in question, and Scar was hit with an intense feeling of nostalgia.
Not even a few years ago had those two cats, Maui and Pearl, looked up at him in the same way when Scar had first been introduced to them. It was a miracle that the timid little cats had taken a liking to him. Even though they’d scratched him a few times in nervousness at first, it was all worth it when he’d gotten to see the grin plastered on Grian’s face when he had turned around.
Oh, Grian.
It had been ages since Scar had last seen the man, let alone spoken to him, but the burning heat that warmed him every time he thought of him still refused to dissipate no matter how many times Scar told himself that Grian didn’t want him anymore.
Maui pressed his face onto the palm of Scar’s hand, purring gently as Scar stroked his tiny head with his thumb.
“It’s all going to be okay,” Scar repeated, looking out of the window, where droplets of rain raced one another to the edge of the pane, “As long as I’m here, I’ll never let anything bad ever happen to either of you.”
Obviously, the cats couldn’t understand him, so neither reacted to such a bold statement. Either way, Scar slumped his head back onto the headboard of the bed, humming what he hoped to be a soothing lullaby to lessen the anxiety his cats were feeling.
It was raining heavily now, the onslaught of rain creating its own mini crashes of thunder as it hit the window that looked out to the harbour. The dark ocean waves were beating violently against the shore, stormclouds growing in anger as the storm raged on.
Pearl purred gently as Scar’s mindless stroking came to a halt.
The sea. Grian had loved the sea. Endless hours of watching the man sit around on his boat, waiting for something to tug gently at his fishing rod. And because Grian loved the sea, so did Scar. The immeasurable expanse of azure stillness under the warmth of a sunset.
But now the ocean howled in pain as the winds thrashed with the tide. If Grian’s little boat wasn’t securely tied to its pole in the harbour, it would surely get torn to pieces in the storm. The image of the perfect fisherman’s boat being wrecked in such a way left Scar with an unsavoury mental image of Grian in the middle of such a storm, with a recklessness that the Grian he knew would definitely possess.
He briefly wondered if Grian had received his letter, not that the man would very well respond after so much time had passed. But no matter what he did, Scar couldn’t stop the ache in his heart every time he so much as thought of Grian.
The window lit up the room with another flash of light. Scar started his attempt at counting the seconds that passed once again, eyes trying their hardest not to droop as sleep weighed down on him.
One, two, three-
Grian was smiling at him, dark brown eyes sparkling with excitement and what Scar hoped to be adoration.
Four, five- If Scar tried hard enough, he’d be able to count the endless constellations of freckles dotted across the other’s nose and cheeks.
Scar didn’t even hear the thunder rumble in the distance as he was consumed by the warmth of sleep, Grian’s smile following him beyond the storm and into the comfort of his dreams.