Thinking about 141 who admire Price's abilities to fix things after watching him patch up various leaks and clogs(as well as the heating element of the common room dryer with aluminum foil which they were more than little concerned about). What they don't know is that Price learned everything from you, the cheap fixer he hired back when he was just a grunt and there was a problem with his faucet.
You were so talkative, explained how you identified the problem and walked him through every step. Without fail every time he hired you to fix something you'd basically give him a tutorial on how to do it himself. John thought it was cute but bad for your business. He was also a bit concerned with how open you were when it came to details of your personal life but he found the little stories you told amusing. Your life vastly different than his own.
You were an ex convict that went down a dark path when you were young then managed to turn your life around after spending time in jail. He hung off your every word, learning more of your trade with each visit and growing more and more intrigued.
John watches you fix his water heater with hearts in his eyes as you recount the time you fled a country hidden in a mattress.
Ik this is a bit boring but I hope whoever reads this enjoys it. This isn't proofread so I'm sorry for any mistakes.
'SUNBLEACHED' (1.6k words)
Our collaboration piece for the Flowers in the Desert zine!
writing by me (birrdies)
art by @fishbloc
Sunflowers.
Over the flat, endless plain they stretch as far as Scar can see. Roots and leaves branch like veins and arteries through the soil on the verge of something alive. The sunflowers face the limitless blue above— no beginning or end— the stretch so vast that time itself feels as inconsequential as a marble rolling around in his hand.
Scar doesn’t understand it.
One second his feet had been on the stone where Pearl had fallen, where lightning had struck with finality, and the next he’s up to his waist in sunflowers. Each golden petal stands on edge. As if they know something he doesn’t. He reaches out to touch one of these petals; they tickle the pads of his fingers. Shy, pretty things.
It’s quiet here and Scar isn’t sure if it’s a silence he finds comforting or damning. He thinks he should be afraid, but how can he be? It’s warm here. The earth smells of freshly fallen rain beneath his feet, despite not a single cloud in the sky above. The fresh, dewey scent that soothes him, almost convinces him that this is a good place to be.
“You’re here,” a voice says behind him.
There, enveloped by the countless sunflowers, is Grian. His hair is pale, sunbleached, and his cheeks are pink. Everything about him has been touched by the light in some way, down to the faded red poncho draping his shoulders and the speckling of freckles across his nose bridge.
He’s drowning in it— this light. He’s made of it. And Scar’s eyes fall to find the sunflowers around him withering and decaying quickly. The yellow petals curl and desiccate into gray husks, breaking off their buds and fluttering to the ground. They’re dying. Not by lack of sunlight, Scar realizes, but by an excess of it. Burnt to a crisp.
And like the sun, his skin blisters. The skin of his hands and the redness slathering them have no beginning or end. Gashes and swelling bruises and split knuckles. The blood never clots, a constant red drip falling from the fingers held limp at his sides. A quiet drip, drip, drip the only sound across the windless field. Not even so much as the sound of a breath. Just that blood.
“Grian,” Scar says. “I’m here.”
He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why Grian’s here either. But he’s grateful he is. Their nightmare— or, had it been a dream?— ended long ago, the desert gone and buried several games past. The Grian in front of him now isn’t the Grian he’d fought with moments ago. This Grian was younger. More afraid. More capable of burning.
“Where… where is here, exactly?” Scar asks.
Grian curls those bleeding fingers into the nearest living sunflower. As if he’s unsure whether he wants to caress it or yank it from the ground, roots and all. His face is twisted, it’s always twisted when Scar’s around. But he yearns for the days when that twist had been of wicked delight, the way green-lit eyes exploded into starbursts at the sight of their mutual destruction.
“You won,” Grian says simply, taking a sunflower by the stem and starting to pluck the petals. One by one. “Congratulations.”
Scar falters. A victory. A bolt of lightning striking the earth, the loud thud of a gavel. It’s over Scar, he hears, a constant echo in the back of his mind. You won.
Grian’s anger burns. A second petal falls.
“You’re upset.” Scar will do anything to make it stop, to untie the knot tied between Grian’s eyebrows, to take those cracked, bleeding hands in his own and mend them until the skin is whole again. To take away the pain, the regret, the guilt.
Grian never left the desert, no matter how much he wanted to. And Scar could never go back. No matter how often he wished he could.
“This is your dream, Scar.” Grian turns his face away. “It’s been a long time coming— a victory.”
“I don’t feel like I’ve won anything,” Scar says honestly. A victory implies the heavy yet welcome weight of a crown, the fleeting yet intoxicating rush of excitement. But all Scar feels is the emptiness in his chest, the air around his crownless head. Blood on his hands that he can’t see, but knows is there all the same. The same way it stains Grian’s.
Grian plucks a third petal. He barks a cruel laugh, but it sounds more like he’s about to cry. “How do you think I felt?”
Scar frowns. “It’s still about the desert? After all this time?”
Grian plucks another petal. Four. It flutters to the ground to join the others, yellow petals torn and crumpled, slowly turning gray. The edge of his mouth tugs into a knife-like smile.
“I’m sorry,” he says. It’s all he can manage, though he doesn’t mean it. Nothing can make him regret that day, knelt in a cool pond with the weight of a diamond blade against the junction of his neck. The hand he used to hold onto it, digging it into his own skin— asking for it. “You deserved to win.”
“I deserved this? To be alone?” Grian throws his arms out to the sides, to the endless curvature of sunflowers drowning the both of them. Nothing to shield them from the unrelenting sun above. “Because that’s what winning means. You’re alone, Scar.”
Scar’s heart plummets into his stomach. “You’re here.”
“Am I?” A fifth petal. “Or do you just want me to be?”
Scar stares at Grian, uncaring if the scalding brightness gives him sunspots, or if the pain of looking at the spoils of his own choices burns him up from the inside. You won, Scar, his voice echoes again and again in Scar’s mind, a scratched record. His fists curl up at his sides, into the black cloak sewn with lilacs and poppies along the hem.
Is that what this is? A cruel illusion to make him realize what it truly means to be the man at the edge of the world, to be the last man standing? If this is victory— Scar grits his teeth and twists his fists into his cloak— then he doesn’t want it. He’s never wanted it. It was never about winning, it was about—
“About what, exactly?” Grian snaps, plucking the through straight from his mind just as he does with a sixth petal. “Is it about this? Sunflowers? You can’t hide behind them forever. Not here. Not from me. Not from yourself.”
“Stop it.”
Grian’s in front of him now, bloodied hands shoving him by his shoulders. Scar stumbles back and barely keeps himself upright. This isn’t right. This isn’t Grian— not the one he knows, not the one he needs.
“Why aren’t you angry, Scar?” Another push. “After everything that’s happened to you. All the people that have betrayed you. All the times I left you behind.”
Scar grapples for self control, to reign in the flash of anger burning the back of his throat. “What are you trying to prove?”
“Stop lying. For once in your life, look me in the eye and tell me you’re angry.” Grian yanks a sunflower from the ground and shoves it, decaying leaves and all, against Scar’s chest. “Tell me these are just a sham.”
It’s on the tip of his tongue: the truth. A terrifying, bitter thing that burns crawling up the back of his throat. Because it betrays everything he’s worked so hard to build, the masks he’s sported like second skins, the confidence which he flaunts like a shield. Without it, what does he have left? He’s stripped clean, Grier’s hands against his chest burning like sweltering charcoal. Sunflower petals slip between his fingers.
He opens his mouth to let it up, to tell the truth, and then—
The sky above him changes. Only slightly. If he had blinked he would’ve missed it. But clear as day he sees them overhead: clouds. Slowly rolling across a blue sky.
And he’s on his back, blinking spots from his eyes as breath rushes into his lungs. The air tastes fresh, crisp, like seawater. Eyes fluttering, he tries to remember what he’d just been about to say.
“Scar?”
Eclipsing the sun beating down on him overhead, a head peers down at him. Dark, wide eyes, a slanted mouth. A sporting of freckles across dusty cheeks.
Something knotted unravels in Scar’s chest. “Grian.”
Grian’s lips wobble into an uneasy smile. He wipes sweat from his brow, and Scar catches a glimpse of his hands: dirty, packed with mud, but bloodless. “Whatcha doing down there, pal?”
Scar’s arms lie limp at his sides. He’s not sure he could move even if he tried. If he wanted to. Something about this peace is fragile, uncertain. As if simply breathing the wrong way will make the world shatter in two and send him back to that place. One wrong move and he’ll be alone again.
“Dunno,” Scar says breathlessly. Stalks of wheat tickle his arms as the wind kicks up, ghosting over his body. A sunflower stands over him, waving in the breeze. “Appreciating the view. Clouds. They’re nice.”
“Come on.” A hand reaches out to him. “Stop trampling my wheat.” Scar has to stare at it to remember that it’s not covered in blood. That it’s just dirt from a long day tending to wheat and sunflowers. That the Grian smiling down at him is the real one. Not the one made to torment him.
Scar reaches for that hand, allowing their palms to slot together. Grian’s skin is callused and warm. He’s there. He’s real. Scar isn’t alone.
some art for a boat boys au im working on… its hard to describe what exactly it is, but its based on the show ‘WAYNE’ if any of you have seen it.
Joel lost count of the days once they passed D.C. He should’ve kept a book or something—hell, he could’ve found a sharpie and scrawled some tallies on his palm— but it was hard track of time when all you really wanted was to outrun it. But as the sun set, slivers of a dreary dusk streaming in the windows, Joel was trapped in it. But this time, he didn’t mind so much.
Etho’s head was a dead weight on his shoulder. The rumble of the car engine kept lulling the both of them to sleep, but Joel fought. Just in case. Just to count the breaths against his collarbone. Those, he could count. Passing days didn’t matter anymore— this did. Here and now, the road ahead of them, did.
Guess who needs surgery :’)) Thanks to medical bills galore, I’m opening writing commissions to anyone who might be interested. Please read full post before sending me a message!
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you know i gotta hit you with the ❛ you look good like this. ❜ quote for desertduo (but if another pair comes to mind for this one then follow your heart i'm not your dad)
In all fairness, this wasn't exactly Grian's idea.
Far from it, really. If it were up to Grian, the plan would be that of the doomsday variety. You know, burning buildings, time-bomb countdowns, cool one-liners, maybe a slow-motion shot or two— the works. It's easier that way, when he can break down each step into a cliche scene, a trope he can boil it down to to make it all that much easier to swallow. They are lines he's meant to read and nothing else. He's acting. It's all pretend.
Scar, however, is a difficult person to pretend around.
Grian wonders at times if it's an affliction— a terminal aversion to falsehood in the presence of a man Grian's never witnessed exude more veracity and dodginess at one time. In all honesty it's dizzying, the constant back and forth. Grian's constantly caught biting his laughter like his tongue between his teeth, unsure if what Scar's just said was a joke or something earnest not meant to be poked fun at.
It makes the spotlights all the more difficult to bear. They're budget, at best, but the heat lingers. The brightness persists, like someone's holding his entire body up to a flashlight and he can't help but glow red, hot and embarrassed and sweating to death in his three layers of costume. He feels like a middle school science fair frog splayed out, pinned to a tray and reeking of formaldehyde, waiting for the final plunge of a scalpel to tear him in two.
Graphic? Maybe. But there's no better way to describe the feeling of Grian's chest tearing in two when Scar comes from backstage, crossing stage left to meet Grian at center stage. The lights are hot and Grian can't exactly breathe. He's repeating the same next three lines in his head, over and over, because somehow he's worried he hasn't remembered them yet. Because somehow, somewhere, they're long gone by the time Scar makes it to center stage. By the time Scar grabs his hand the same way he did it last night and the night before.
This wasn't Grian's plan. He's no actor. He doesn't belong on a stage. But Scar's looking at him and even when the seats are empty, tonight's performance hours away, Grian can't help but feel the weight of a thousand stares. A packed house. That's the effect those two green eyes have on him, and it makes him sick to my stomach.
They're staring at him. Expectatntly.
Shit. The line. What the hell is the line?
"Um." Grian licks his lips, wondering if he can pass off punching Scar as a bold character choice. "It's... I—"
"Forgot?"
Grian's scowl twitches. "Don't sound so biggity."
"You look good like this," Scar says, ever the disarmer. And it makes Grian want to punch him all the more.
"You mean sweating under a pound of stage makeup?" Grian raises his eyebrows at him.
Sorry to give you 80 options but you know me haha 🤩🤩🤩🤩
Scar rehearsed it twelve times.
Once for each step it takes to cross the rotunda. He can’t tell if it’s the building that’s not so wide or if it’s his own desperate steps that make it seem like such an inconsequential distance. Either way it’s stuffed to the brim with people and their wandering hands, fingers loosely grabbing at his biceps and drunken congratulations on strangers lips like a baited fish hook nudging his cheek.
It’s an inauguration after all— a hard-earned, highly anticipated one at that— so Scar can hardly blame them for their excitability. Any other time, he might bite that hook, just to see what comes of it, eager to taste something fresh. But tonight is not any other night.
Tonight, his sights are set elsewhere. A clear target— albeit one that’s spent most of the night on the opposite side of the rotunda, as if keeping a thirty foot radius from Scar at all times is necessary to his survival.
Grian.
He’s standing there, tucked against a marble column with one foot propped up behind him and donning a deep maroon suit that couldn’t have fit him better. He isn’t drowning in it, nor does it dwarf him either. The tightly-tailored jacket hugs a set of broad shoulders, muscles Scar never knew existed beneath the loose button-ups and sweater vests Grian drowns himself in when he’s at the office, too busy with his nose buried in blueprints to notice Scar’s wandering eyes.
Only now his nose is tucked in a flute of champagne that makes his lip curl when he gets a taste. His hair, frizzy with the summer’s heat, curls around his face and cheeks. The bridge of his nose is covered by a black matte mask studded with feathers around the edges, like some kind of showman corvid. But even with the mask, even six paces away, Scar can’t miss the coy tilt of Grian’s head. An avoidant gesture that’s betrayed by the way he keeps his chin high, his nose upward. He must feel Scar coming from a mile away.
So, when Scar gets within ear-shot— closer than you might think, given the crowd only growing rowdier as more and more empty flutes are collected on trays and replaced with full ones— he says it. Just as he practices, the words as smooth as honey but still somehow drowned out beneath the noise.
Thirteenth try is the charm.
“May I have this dance?”
Grian doesn’t turn to him right away, but he does flinch. Like he’s trying to decide if he can get away with pretending he hadn’t heard Scar.
Luckily, he comes to his senses quick enough to jerk his head Scar’s direction. Even with most of his face covered he can feel the dubious raise of Grian’s brow— his skepticism a palpable thing.
“Why?”
Scar tilts his head. “Why else would you come?”
“I don’t want to get fired,” Grian says, grimacing after another sip of champagne from the flute he’s barely made a dent in it.
“You think so little of me?” Scar gasps, clutching his chest in a flare of dramatics that has Grian’s lip traitorously curling— this time with amusement. “I’m wounded, Grian!”
“I dunno,” he says. “the message you left on my answering machine saying that if I didn’t come you’d fire me was pretty damning. Gonna fire me if I don’t dance with you too?”
“No, but I’ll pout about it loudly, Scar says, and with the way Grian groans, tossing his head back, you’d think it was a worse threat than unemployment.
He huffs, a small, frustrated sound he makes so often Scar’s not convinced he’s even aware he does it. But Scar savors it, the grin stretching his face almost painfully as he holds out a hand and waits for Grian to take it.
It doesn’t take Grian long to. He abandons his glass on the ledge at the base of the column and pushes himself off of it, straightening the slightly rumpled collar of his suit jacket and tossing a hand through his hair. Only when he’s rightfully fluffed, like a bird preening its feathers, does he take Scar’s hand.
Scar leads Grian to the center of the rotunda by the hand, the curious crowd splitting to make way for the mayor and his special guest. Grian shrinks under their gaze, head ducked and hand tightening around Scar’s, a reaction Scar doesn’t fully understand because he’s never wanted to show anything off more.
Grian, squeezing Scar’s hand. No one else’s.
For a moment, when he holds Grian’s waist with one hand and folds their palms together with the other, he can almost pretend like it’s everything he’s ever wanted.
“You’re gonna have to lead,” Grian mumbles after a moment of awkward buffering, his fingers relentlessly twitching in Scar’s hold. He then adjusts the hand resting on his waist, forcing it up higher a few inches. “And don’t get any funny ideas.”
Scar chuckles and takes the first step forward, bringing Grian along with him. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Grian hums skeptically. “Yeah. Sure.”
Scar's ideas are anything but funny, but he knows Grian well enough to keep his mouth shut and not push his luck. Not now anyway, when he can feel Grian's nervous pulse all the way through his palm. Sure, Grian's always been relatively allergic to parties and sequins and general fun most days, but he seems especially squirrely now. Even as they dance, Scar leading him through the shifting tides of the crowd, it's like his mind is elsewhere. Hands jittering, eyes skirting, feet shuffling and nearly tripping on Scar's shoe every other step. It's hard to get swept up in the music when Grian keeps him so relentlessly tethered. Corporeal.
"You alright?" Scar asks after the first song, making no move to let Grian go. "Y'know, having fun is kinda a prerequisite for dancing with Mayor GoodTimes."
"I'm fine," Grian says with a small scoff, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth when he pauses his hypervigilant gaze-sweeping to glance back at Scar. "You look like a turkey."
"Peacock," Scar corrects, lifting his hand from Grian's waist to brush the multicolored feathers layered over his own fine piece of velvet. Bdubs really is a genius, coming up with this whole masquerade idea. He's always been better with a mask to hide behind. Even if he's not the other guy right now, he can pretend he is. He can borrow his strength, his confidence, his charm.
"Of course. Plumage," Grian says with an thin, airy laugh. He lets Scar pull him back in as the next song sweeps them up. A slower tune that has Scar pulling Grian closer to him.
This close, beneath the glitter of the crystalloid-diamond chandelier, Scar can't help but stare back. His usual fanning of freckles are hidden beneath that black, feathery masquerade mask.
"You know," Scar says with little thought. "You kinda remind me of someone."
Grian's paranoid eyes dart everywhere but Scar's face when he asks, absently, "Hm? Who?"
The resemblance truly is uncanny. Those dark, paranoid eyes framed by dark black fabric, making every dark or nervous thought crossing them twenty times heavier. But it's not possible, no matter how bad Scar wishes it to be. His extra-curricular coworker wouldn't come ten feet within Scar willingly, let alone let one hand hold him at the waist and let himself be lead with the other. But a man can dream. Scar can fantasize about a time or place he can reconcile the two people inside him-- the mayor and the vigilante-- and have the two objects of his affection:
Grian and CuteGuy.
Scar parts his lips to respond before he thinks better of it.
He's here tonight as the mayor. Grian is here as his coworker, a part of his campaign. Nothing more.
Though these days, the lines are getting far blurrier.
"Aw, nevermind," Scar dismisses with a soft smile as he pulls Grian closer. "Must just be a trick of the light."
