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Scar has a curse: he knows, has known, will know Grian. Inescapably. Indefinitely. Intimately, in the way that only a man destined to pine for the rest of eternity could know.
Maybe, after everything they have been through together, pining is the wrong word to describe it. It certainly sounds awful to Scar’s ears, even now—he flushes bright red at the thought, slams his cane into the ground a little too forcefully as he hurries through the city.
He’d rather not think of Grian right now. He’d rather not think of Grian at all, to be honest, because if he thinks about Grian, then he’ll think about the details of him, too—like the wine glass shattering in Grian’s grip. Like the rivulets running free down Scar’s starch-white collar. Like the harsh edge to Grian’s tipsy smile as he’d grinned at Scar, his eyes hard with some unnameable emotion—
And yeah. Okay. That train of thought ought to be stopped in its tracks. Scar lets out a rattling breath that fogs the cold November air, eyes darting across the busy street, and debates the merits of walking straight into oncoming traffic. It’d hurt far less than the sharp look in Grian’s gaze and the razor-quick snap of his tongue.
Because this is the truth: loving Grian was red.
Scar’s always loved goldenness best, that’s what he tells himself: sunlight streaming in, curtains rendered useless by rays already crawling their way across the floorboards; the rise in his throat, irrepressible, as dawn stains the rug sprawled across the room. Red to gold. Nothing like it.
They used to dance on that rug. Both of them barefoot as they waltzed a merry waltz, no care for rhythm or tempo or melody, just the two of them swaying then spinning ‘til they were sick.
The flush of Grian’s cheeks in the awful lamplight—red.
Lord, Scar needs a drink. No—he needs to look both ways before running this red, yep, he’s a professional jaywalker—and he’ll be home soon, he needs to stop thinking of Grian and his blush and his wide dark eyes when he reached to turn out the light.
Grian when he said, I need you. That’s not enough? with the shattered glass still clutched limply in his hand.
That’s not love, Scar had whispered. There was wine all down his shirt, soaking through to skin. He was breathing and desperately aware of it, and Grian had taken several steps back, but there was no stain on the precious dance-worn rug, no drop of blood or cabernet.
News to me, Grian said, and it had occurred to Scar when his eyes caught on the twist of Grian’s grimace that his words could wound far more permanently than he’d thought possible.
Scar lives on the second floor up; he takes the stairs. Third apartment to the left, jiggle the key a bit in the lock, give the door a good shove and it’ll creak its way open—
And look. That’s where he stood when he’d said nothing at all, in the very moment when his big mouth had mattered most.
Great time to tell me you never cared, Grian had said into the silence. His voice was deadly smooth. You’re a remarkable liar, Scar. You sure had me fooled.
Go on then, Scar had hissed. If I’m a liar.
If you don’t want me, I will, said Grian. He was smiling a ghastly, stretched-out smile Scar could hardly bear to recall.
I don’t, Scar replied, in a tone that shouted, false but clear as anything, I never did.
What a fabulous pretender you’ve been, then, said Grian. Well done.
Thanks, Scar spat. You as well.
Me? Grian’s hand fluttered to his chest. Why, Scar. It was all real for me.
Scar steps into his apartment, eyes wide but absorbing none of the usual mess. He shuts the door behind him with only half the gentleness of his ex-lover after Grian had turned, his final shot fired, and swept out of Scar’s life. The lock clicks behind him with a sort of fearlessness; he can’t help but remember the sound of the key turning in the door, one last time.
When the door is locked and the lights are turned low and Scar is holding his breath, the apartment is silent—save for the clock on the wall, ticking away with one slow minute after the other. Tick. Tick. Tick. Three o’clock in the morning, and this is all he’s good for: sitting at the kitchen island with a bottle of cabernet and an empty glass, feeling deeply and deathly sorry for himself.
Well. In for a penny and all that. All Scar can think to do, now, is pour himself a generous glass of wine and settle on one of the kitchen stools; when he reaches for the stem and lifts it into the air, his eyes catch on the color.
All he can think about is Grian. He feels ill with the very force of it.
Does Grian know he haunts every one of Scar’s thoughts, waking and sleeping and everything in between? Does he know Scar has thought about him every day, every night, since he stepped out that door?
Scar doesn’t know the answer to any of it. He doesn’t know if he wants to. He’s moving on autopilot tonight—tracking the motion of his index finger on his phone screen, he finds it hovering over the call button before too many moments have passed.
This is a dangerous, dangerous thing to do. Scar—Scar lets his finger fall anyway. The phone rings once, twice, thrice while he stares at it, willing…what? Willing Grian to pick up? Willing the line to go to voicemail immediately? He doesn’t know.
But there’s a click. There’s a click and then there’s a groggy, choked-up voice saying, “Scar? Scar, what’s the matter?” and Scar’s insides just about squeeze themselves to death.
“Hi,” he says, lamely. It’s soft. It’s short. It’s something he wishes he could take back immediately, because Grian remains silent and Scar feels rather like an idiot for saying anything at all. “You, uh. You picked up.”
“It’s three in the morning,” Grian says, rather than answering the unspoken question—because God forbid Grian answer Scar’s questions ever—that hangs between them in midair. “What are you doing?”
Scar eyes the bottle of cabernet and his phone. Grian’s on speaker—his voice resounds through the kitchen. It makes Scar feel instantly homesick for something that doesn’t even exist anymore. “Calling you,” he says, and it makes no sense but it’s the truth.
What are you doing?
Calling you.
I need you.
That’s not enough.
What a fabulous pretender you’ve been, then.
Grian sounds as though he’s trying not to scoff. “Are you drunk?”
“What? No!” Scar eyes the contents of his glass again: blood-red wine that he swirls around, again and again, to watch the legs remain. He’s—unfortunately—telling the truth; he’s barely taken two sips of it. “I’m not drunk.”
Grian hesitates. “Then why are you calling me, Scar?”
And Scar wishes he had an answer for that. By God, he does. There was a time when he was—yes, Grian—a damn good liar, but it’s dark outside and he’s weak-willed and still in love with something that he himself ruined.
Some one that he himself ruined, if he’s being honest. He’s been trying to be honest.
So he says, “I was thinking about you,” and the words come out blurry and strange. “When you left.”
“Right,” Grian says faintly. Scar must have caught him off-guard, but he can’t quite summon any of his usual triumph.
“I do it a lot,” Scar goes on. He’s dreamed this conversation too many times, and now he can’t quite remember whether this Grian is real or just another phantom, another figment of his sleeping mind. “This is where you turned around. It was the last time.”
Grian’s voice, when it comes, is oddly wobbly. “You never said.”
“I love you,” Scar whispers. “I’ve been pretending.”
Grian makes a sound halfway between a gasp and a sob. It’s so unlike him Scar nearly can’t bear to hear it, but it ricochets through the still air of his little kitchen all the same.
“Why would you tell me now?” Grian demands through the clear quiver in his voice. “After all this time?”
Leaving his wine glass on the counter, Scar walks over to the window; the curtains are still wide open despite the time of night. He looks up.
The sky is a shade of dark, dark red. Maroon. As if it’s just remembered that the sunrise should be soon.
His throat squeezes tight. The goddamn sunrise, Grian, he could say. Would Grian even understand? We can still—
“I thought it would stop,” says Scar. “But it didn’t—I couldn’t—”
Grian cuts him off. “Stop. I’m coming over there.”
“You’re—what?” Scar gasps out. “Grian—”
His heart begins to gallop with a force he can scarcely contain. Thank goodness he hadn’t been holding the glass of wine; his hands have started shaking something awful.
“I never just needed you,” Grian says, in that matter-of-fact way he has. Scar hears the smile, the true prevailing smile, in his voice, and can’t suppress a grin of his own.
Click.
The sounds of the city rush back in the wake of the call, as if he and Grian had briefly existed in a vacuum, rebuilding something Scar had long ago left for dead.
A siren arcs through the night. He pours the rest of his wine down the sink. All that’s left to do is wait, and Scar has always hated waiting. He’s far too antsy to sit quietly with his hands in his lap, as he should—his thoughts run wild instead, in vivid technicolor, painting every what-if in exquisite detail.
A knock sounds on the door, and he practically flinches out of his skin. It’s like every movement after that knock was fated, years ago—he rises to his feet slowly, as if moving through molasses, and forces himself to glide towards the door. His hand reaches out, oh so slowly, to brush the doorknob.
Tick. Tick. Tick. That’s time, ticking away between them. Scar steels himself for the very worst and pulls the door open.
He doesn’t know what he expected to see, but it wasn’t this: Grian on his doorstep, hands twisting together over and over again, looking like he stepped out of a dream. A memory, maybe—and aren’t they one and the same?
“Grian,” he says. The word—the name—escapes his lips against his will. Scar feels starstruck in the most literal sense: there’s a supernova within him. There must be. What else could hurt so terribly and burn so beautifully at once? “Grian.”
And Grian’s head snaps up to meet his gaze. He looks at a loss for words. “Scar,” he echoes, finally.
Here’s a new memory to picture every time he sees the damn doorway, every time he relives the day Grian walked out of his life.
This isn’t starting over. This isn’t something new. This is putting words to what already was—what still could be.
Grian is here. Scar called, and he came.
He feels the blood rush into his cheeks, flush with the future they’ve yet to explore. He studies Grian’s slow smile, glowing with wonder.
And he says, “Come in.”