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Life and death. That’s the very foundation that the world is built on. So once those who didn’t abide by those rules were discovered it was but natural to name them as monsters. As dangers. Immortals. An immortal can easily fit in among other humans as they were no different from them, until the moment of truth. The moment they died. While a human's life just ended an immortal gets reborn, unable to age further than their first death and cursed to walk the earth forever, never truly feeling the mercy that death brings.
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“Scott! Scott!” Owen shouted the name through the woods as he was looking for the lord. He never liked not knowing where the other was so when a member of the staff told him that Scott had left on his own seemingly going into the woods, it was obvious he had to follow and find the man.
And after a perilous search, Owen had finally found him. Scott was sitting on the edge of a cliff simply looking over the land below it in thought. His white hair was softly moving in the breeze, and the sun was hitting him in a way that made the red tint of his eyes shine. He looked like a perfect piece of art, like he always did. The prettiest person Owen had ever seen.
All of the tension that was coursing through Owen’s body seemed to simply fade away as calm took its place, just as Owen took his place beside Scott. His rightful place. The only place he ever wanted to take. As he sat next to Scott on the edge, Owen let out a remark, “The view's not too bad from here”
“This is where I first died.” Scott blankly said without facing Owen. So that was what was going through the lord's head. Owen wasn’t sure how to properly respond to that so instead he just hummed to show that he was listening.
“Right there.” Scott continued as he gestured towards the bottom of the cliff. It was definitely quite a fall from up here, at least a few houses tall. And the specific bit Scott was pointing to was a group of very sharp looking rooks. That definitely looked like a painful death. Owen assumed that with what Scott had just said the otter had probably fallen into those rocks from where they were sitting. How exactly it happened though he was unsure of. Maybe he stumbled. Maybe someone pushed him. The options were endless.
“I died because of an illness,” Owen confessed. It just felt right to tell Scott in this situation. Scott had sheard his Owen death it was only fair if Owen did the same. Plus he'd been wanting to tell the noble for a while, every time Scott asked why he covered his arms in bandages. But Owen could never quite bring himself to do so before. And now it just felt natural.
“It’s honestly a wonder I somehow made it to twenty before the illness finally claimed me.” Owen continued with a bittersweet laugh, it was ironic that when he finally wanted to live he would die and lose it all. Lose his first love the first person to make him feel like life was worth living. Then again he also gained so much after his death, he never would have met Scott otherwise. The second person he'd ever loved, and one he wouldn’t fail like he did Louis.
“What kind of illness was it?” Scott now asked as he looked over at Owen.
“No doctor ever really figured that out, just as no treatment ever really helped. All I know is how it made me feel.” Owen confessed as his memories of that time surfaced.
“How-“ Scott started his question before hesitating, unsure if he was overstepping if he asked more.
Owen knew that kind of hesitation well from the man, so he just decided to answer the unspoken question. If Scott wanted to know Owen would tell him, Owen would do anything for him. “Headaches, constant sometimes bad enough that I couldn’t even open my eyes without it becoming unbearable. Then there was this pain that would just appear all over my body making every movement pure agony. Sometimes I had trouble breathing, just wheezing until I felt air return to my body. And then there were the blisters all over my skin, i used to cover them up before going out to town, as others seeing my skin like that only made things worse when I had to get food.”
Once Owen looked back at Scott the other seemed horrified, “Is that why you bandage your arms!?”
“The blisters are gone, but the scars of where they were when I died still remain, and it’s just like my old village said no one wants to see that,” Owen said with a bitter laugh as he remembered the words people would yell at him in the town square, whenever he dared to show his face. The same kind of words he often heard the staff at Scott’s estate whisper about him when they thought he wouldn't hear, probably only saying it in whispers as he had they’re lords favour. And Scott was not someone you wanted to mess with.
“Can I?” Scott asked in a quiet tone as he halted while reaching out for Owen's arm. And even if Owen didn’t exactly understand what Scott was even asking permission for he nodded, after all who was he to deny the other anything?
Scott then reached out and started unwrapping the bandages around Owen’s arm, which he was now holding oh so gently. Almost as if Owen was something precious he didn’t want to break instead of the monster everyone else always saw. Owen felt the old shame rise in him again as Scott looked over his scared skin. The shame quickly fell away though as Scott started to run his hand over the scars, tracing them with his fingers before interlocking their fingers with one hand and raising Owen's arm to his mouth, to leave short tender kisses along it.
Owen felt heat rise to his face, but the doubt quickly crept back, “You don't have to do that, you don’t have to pretend that you like the scars.”
“But I do like them, they are a part of you after all and I like you. I like you a lot, Owen.” Scott gently said, before he moved his free hand over to his other arm's sleeve and pulled it up while saying, “Plus I have some too, even if they are a bit different, we are still kinda matching.”
That was definitely the first time in the about year of knowing Scott that Owen had seen his actual arms because he would definitely remember that. Scott's arms were covered in scars of what used to be bruises and cuts, there shaping telling a very specific story. Which was only made worse by the fact that Owen knew Scott died when he was only 16.
“Scott tell me and I want you to be honest with me, how did you get thous?” Owen wished that his conclusion was wrong, that Scott didn’t actually go through such a thing.
Scott seemed to freeze up for a second before his grip on Owen's hand tightened, as if looking for any sort of comfort. “I- when I was alive I was the second born of the noble house that used to own the castle, the goldsmiths. People don’t usually need a second heir unless the first dies and my older brother was very alive. So when I was seven my parents decided that the best I could do for the family was marry up, so they got me tutoring for that purpose.”
“Wait, hold up just a second. How do you tutor someone for marriage, correct me if I'm wrong but that's not something like book-related?” Owen gently interrupted in clear confusion
“You’re not really wrong it was more like tutoring, so I would learn all of the skills I'd need to be desirable. In other words to get me to be perfect. Perfect posture, perfect speech, perfectly literate in multiple important languages, perfect etiquette, perfect appearance, perfect everything. The older I got the worse the pressure became, and then at some point I couldn’t take it anymore. I just couldn’t take the pressure of not achieving this unreachable standard anymore. I couldn’t take not feeling, anything.” Scott was on the brink of tears, before Owen finally moved to embrace him in a hug. Scott buried himself in Owen’s shoulder and chest as he returned the embrace.
“You’ve always been perfect to me, just you. Not the mask you put on while around the castle, just you.” Owen mumbled into Scott’s hair as it was the only thing he could think to say in this situation.
“Owen, I know that a year ago you said that this would be temporary, that you don't stay in the same place for more than a few years, but could you maybe consider staying here with me, longer? Even if just a little bit?” Scott hesitantly asked in a way that made it almost seem like he was afraid of the answer.
“Forever, I don't ever want to leave you Scott, and if staying in that stuffy castle means staying with you then that's what I’ll be doing,” Owen promised, and he meant it. He never wanted to leave Scott.
“It’s not stuffy it’s elegant,” Scott laughed in mock offence.
“Whatever,” Owen said while affectionately rolling his eyes, before Scott moved his head to place a soft kiss on Owen's cheek. The lord then moved so that he was sitting in Owen’s lap, curled in a way that allowed him to put his head on the lumbar jack's shoulder. And that's how the two stayed even after the sun had left the sky, and Scott had fallen asleep on the other man’s shoulder. Owen then carefully picked the sleeping noble up and placed a soft kiss to his head before carrying him home. The first home either of them had ever known. But there’s nonetheless.