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“The blessing— Are you sure you want me to..?”
The wind blows hot over Scott’s cheeks, and he scrunches up his face.
“Right, right, I know that, but I’m a lover, not a fighter,” he mutters, pacing from one side of the altar to the other.
Scott shakes his head when a breeze brushes through his curls, almost as if to ruffle them.
“That's not— It won’t do anything. Abolish isn’t…” he trails off. Well… Abolish isn’t exactly simple-minded, for one, so that won’t work, even if Scott thinks it could be fun if it did.
When the wind replies by tousling the loose fabric of his clothes, Scott pauses mid-stride and gives the dark sky a dubious look in return. Right, yeah, sure.
“I’ve known him for a few weeks now, I think I have at least some grasp on what he’s like—”
Scott purses his lips when a gust interrupts him.
“Well yeah, I mean, he did just win against the god of time’s champion, that’s not the issue. I’m talking about everything else,” he stresses.
There’s a soft sigh in his ear, and Scott hums in agreement.
“I don’t think so, yeah, and that’s fine, I’ll figure something out.” Like with many things on stage, such as dancing and singing, and much more, Scott was also simply amazing at improv. Behaving in a way others will find entertaining is not exactly a problem to him, acting was his job, his passion, the thing he excelled at.
It’s just another role, one of his own making.
“What,” Scott hears a voice behind him start to say, “are you doing?”
When he turns away from the view, he finds Abolish standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Oh, hi Abolish,” Scott greets with a smile, only slightly surprised. The altar is right by his house and forge after all, and Scott had been waiting for Abolish, even if he’d gotten slightly distracted by the wind in his ears. “How much of that did you hear?”
“A bit. Who were you talking to?” Abolish asks, a curious lilt to his voice.
Frankly, Scott thinks Abolish probably knows already. He does that sometimes, asking trick questions and all that. “Oh, just Aeolus,” he replies with a shrug.
“Right. He talks to you,” he states, then continues when Scott nods without a word, “and y’all were talking about me.”
Scott snorts softly, skipping down the stairs two at a time until he’s right in front of Abolish. “Yeahhh, he wanted me to seduce you, can you believe that?”
Abolish shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and in the light of the fire, Scott can see that there’s a genuinely perplexed look on his face. “Right…” Sharp eyes scrutinise him again, something Scott has gotten quite accustomed to whenever he says the right things. “I’m surprised you told him no.”
“I’m his favourite chosen, he’s not going to be upset with me— well, he’s not gonna stay upset with me,” Scott replies with a chuckle.
He rolls his eyes. “You know that’s not the part I’m surprised about, Scott.”
“What?” Scott asks with an amused smile, twirling a lock of white hair around his finger as he sends him a teasing wink. “Do you want me to say that I wouldn’t sleep with you? ‘Cause I would have.”
Funnily enough, this somehow seems to be so confounding, Abolish isn’t even smug about it. “You would have,” Abolish says slowly, like the concept is foreign to him. “And yet you told Aeolus no?”
“Yep,” Scott replies simply.
A short pause. “But why?” he questions quizzically.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Abolish shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re not making much sense, Scott.”
He lets out a soft laugh, pressing his fingers over his mouth to half-cover up his smile. “No, no, it’s not me you should be thinking about here.”
The way Abolish’s eyebrows furrow together is kinda cute. His confusion highlights the differences between them, that while Scott is a lover and not a fighter, Abolish is a fighter, but definitely not a lover. It’s entertaining how they are similar in some ways, but with this, they are quite the opposite.
While Abolish tries to figure out what’s being implied, Scott takes the opportunity to observe him. He looks… fine, admittedly, healthy and unharmed. Not that Scott expected anything less from Abolish, not when he knows what he’s capable of, but to see him fight in the arena is different from hearing about it.
There is something tired about his eyes though, a thing Scott can definitely relate to. He doesn’t think Abolish has slept much since they got here, but he’s not sure if it’s because he’s plagued by dreams like Scott is, or if there’s another reason. Whenever Scott shows up, Abolish is always busy with something; first he was building up the forge and his house, and now he’s perfecting the design for the hammer.
There’s always something to keep him busy, it seems.
“Ah,” Abolish finally utters, voice flat, but the yellow of his eyes brightens with realisation.
“Ah indeed!” Scott chuckles again, patting Abolish’s shoulder once before turning away, skipping over to the stone bench in front of the firepit. He sits down, basking in the warm glow of the burning embers. “I’m not blind, Abolish,” he continues, leaning back on his hands to look up at the stars in the night sky. “I see the way you look at me, and it’s not at all like any lover I’ve had— really, you look at me like you don’t care.”
There’s another brief silence before Abolish concludes, “Right. So it was a waste of time to try.”
Scott shrugs. Maybe, maybe not. He’ll never know now. “I like the way things are right now— and I didn’t exactly wanna ruin it either.”
“You… didn’t want to ruin it?” Abolish walks closer to the fire and into his light of sight, but even without looking his way, Scott can feel Abolish’s piercing gaze remain focused on him.
“Nope,” Scott replies, then chokes his head to glance over at Abolish with a smile. He finds Abolish looking straight at him, arms crossed, no longer confused, but there’s something else in his intense gaze that makes Scott wonder what he’s thinking. “Like you said, you’re not here to make friends— but I’m not you, I care even if you don’t.”
The feeling might be fleeting, as quick as a gust of wind, there and then gone just like the people around him, but even if it doesn’t last long, it’s still there. What does it matter if it fades? In that way, Abolish does feel familiar, and that makes it easier to talk to him sometimes— makes it feel like he’s talking to someone who’s wearing a mask just like him.
To someone who understands.