scar has a bad habit of acting like nothing hurts him until it’s far too late to do anything about it.
grian used to think it was arrogance. then stupidity. now he thinks it’s something worse -- something gentler.
the kind of softness that survives by making itself easy to carry.
because scar will laugh while bleeding. will smile through exhaustion. will insist he’s fine in that warm, easy voice right up until his hands start shaking around the coffee mug.
and every time, every single time, grian falls for it for at least a second.
long enough to hate himself afterward.
they’re sitting on the fire escape because scar said the apartment felt “too much like being inside a microwave dinner,” which means absolutely nothing and yet somehow made perfect sense at the time.
the city hums below them. neon reflecting in puddles six stories down. someone’s playing music badly through an open window.
scar’s shoulder presses against his.
not enough to mean anything.
enough to ruin him anyway.
“you’re brooding again,” scar says eventually.
grian snorts despite himself. scar smiles like he’s won something.
that’s the problem with him.
he treats every tiny crack in grian’s armor like a gift instead of an accident.
scar tilts his head back against the brick wall, eyes half-lidded. there’s a bruise blooming dark beneath his jaw from earlier, ugly against warm skin.
grian keeps looking at it.
he hates that scar notices.
“it’s not that bad,” scar says.
“the one where you look like you’re about to either kiss me or kill someone.”
scar laughs softly, like he hasn’t noticed what he’s done.
“you should’ve let me help,” grian says after a moment.
scar shrugs one shoulder. “didn’t need it.”
scar glances at him then, really looks at him, amusement fading around the edges.
“you can’t keep acting like it’s your job to save everybody,” he says quietly.
because that’s rich coming from him.
coming from the man who will hold broken things together with bleeding hands and call it practicality.
“someone has to,” grian mutters.
scar’s expression does something small and painful.
“you say that,” he says softly, “like you think you’re not included in everybody.”
the terrible thing about scar.
he says things like that in the gentlest voice imaginable, like he doesn’t realize he’s reaching directly into grian’s ribcage and wrapping a hand around something vital.
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