Chapter Text
The ceremony was over and Scar was home by himself, waiting.
Scar was emotionally drained and tired and didn't have enough spoons to do much. He wished that they could've kept the bond. It would've been so much better.
Instead he was left without only the taunting sound of his own lonely heart.
Grian was gone for a long time. Scar had no idea what he needed to do, but whatever it was did not happen quickly.
Without hope all that remained was doubt. Scar didn't want to believe that anything was going to happen because his heart could not take the disappointment again.
About six hours after he'd left, Grian let himself in the front door. He was pale but flashed an encouraging smile as he came in.
"Okay. I'm ready now." Grian said, sitting on Scar's bed, cross legged with his wings tucked neatly behind him.
Scar sat up, meeting him at his level, clearing his throat and trying not to look too distraught.
"I need to set the mood." Grian said, taking out his phone and tapping a few times. The sound of waves crashing against the sand filled the room.
"Alright." Scar said, confused, brow pinching together. But Grian looked so giddy.
"Pretend we're on a beach with me. I'm being sentimental."
"Don't hurt yourself." Scar said, hesitant and amused.
Grian grabbed his pillow and threw it at him. Scar held up his hands with a laugh that shattered him and said, "Sorry, sorry."
"Give me your hand." Grian demanded.
Scar gave his hand. Grian took it, closing their combined fingers around something.
It felt soft with a rigid line. And it felt alive, the rapid drum snare thudding against his fingertips.
"G..." Scar said, brow furrowed.
"I promise you the truth." Grian said, and Scar's whole world stuttered to a complete, sudden stop. A well of emotion burst hot and overwhelming.
Scar's fingers were shaking when he unfolded them to see a red feather, with an earring hook threaded through the hollow quill. It was humming with magic.
"I promise you my heart." Grian said, watching Scar's face anxiously, a little quiver in his voice. He carefully took the feather up to Scar's ear. It needed a little push through his over-grown piercing, but the touch was gentle and painless.
The moment it hung in place, Scar blinked rapidly, and realized that the drum beat through the vane was Grian's pounding heart. Something primal seized Scar, breath stolen completely.
He could feel Grian's heart was racing, he was so nervous. But even still, Grian kept his fingertips to the quill, and completed the promise seal.
Grian said, breathless, reverent, "I promise you my life."
Scar felt so very much all at once. There was relief and there was awe and there was deja vu and there was euphoria and above all there was hope.
"G..." Scar said, too overwhelmed to say anything else. He leaned forward, desperate to kiss him, but then stopped.
He was confronted with the truth that this was going to be the first kiss that was real. One hundred percent real, on both sides, no reserves. The tension like a wire, strung tightly between them, slowly yanking them closer even as years of complications kept them just barely apart.
“Scar." Grian said, low. He didn't move, eyelashes flickering up and down.
It was agony. Scar wanted to kiss him. He wanted it to be real. If he closed the distance, it would be real. Nothing between them, not a cult, a council, a cactus. Just them.
Scar was dizzy. His cheeks were flushed. He wasn’t sure. But he really wanted to be. He wanted it more than anything. He wanted to love Grian and not be hurt by him. He wanted to wake up every single day to his partner. He wanted to smile and not have it be fake.
Scar had to kiss him. So he kissed him. And it was real.
The surge, Grian’s sharp inhale through his nose, fingers digging in, clutching Scar close and holding him there to kiss back with ferocity. Mind numbing intent. He climbed directly onto Scar’s lap. The mimic of ocean waves still played in predictable cadence.
Scar skated his hands down to wrap around Grian’s waist, twining together, gasping into the drag of their lips together. All the air floated away. Sweet, drinking in each other in desperately, skin flushing hot. A feather tickling between them.
Aching. Devastating. Tongue running along his, tasting and stretching out the moment like taffy. Grian tugged fingernails through Scar’s stubble, breath quick and shuddering, turning his head to kiss him deeper, more focused, almost to a ridiculous degree. Like Scar was an altar to worship.
Real felt like liquid fire in his veins. Real felt messy, like stepping on Grian’s foot while they danced. Real felt like he had been imprisoned for years and finally released. Real felt like winning the lottery.
Real was smiling on his lips, making Grian break off only far enough to kiss his dimple, over and over as Scar gave a delirious laugh.
Above it all, Scar could hear the fumbling of Grian's heart in his ear. He reached up to press his fingers against the soft vane, beyond crushed with emotion at Grian making him a promise earring, Grian giving him something so personal and vulnerable, Grian giving him such damn meaningful promises. He'd always been undeniably jealous of the promise crystal, something so incredibly important in Vex culture that he didn't have for himself. He knew what it felt like now, the promise earring felt like trust, felt like loyalty, felt like an endless all consuming and distracting and loud and terrible and total love.
"How?" Scar finally thought to ask, because it was undeniably Vex magic that Grian didn't have humming against him.
"Cub helped me." Grian said.
"He did?" Scar said. "How the heck did you convince him to do that?"
Grian looked a little pale. He chewed on his lip.
"That couldn't have been easy." Scar said, tremulous. He turned the feather inward to his own lips to kiss. Then he gave Grian a sweet smile. "Thank you."
That gave Grian a dizzy look, heart going a little faster in Scar's ear. He said, "I'd go through hell for you, Scar."
Scar didn't doubt with what he had asked of Cub, he would've had to. At least he knew with this feather as proof that his brother had, somehow at the end, giving his blessing.
His heart felt enormous. He reached for Grian, tugging him into a crushing hug, flopping them dazedly to the side on top of the blankets.
Grian hugged back with force, pressing his nose into Scar's throat, and inhaled with a shudder. He said, in a sad little voice, "God, you smell like home."
Scar felt like he was full of helium. He devotedly kissed the top of Grian's head and whispered, "Welcome home, then."
"Oh." Grian hiccuped with a sob. "You can't do that to me, Scar."
"If you cry, I'll cry." Scar threatened, because he was already on the edge and the idea that Grian might cry over this was too much.
Grian hugged himself impossibly closer, tangling their legs together, yanking on Scar's shirt.
It was quiet for a moment. And then Grian said, tears in his voice, "I missed you so fucking much."
A wave of misplaced grief washed over him like the synthetic tide still playing in the background. Scar shut his eyes, burning with emotion, remembering how terrible and awful it was to be without his safe person. His G.
"Me too." Scar whispered, the words wavering with his own upset. And then he was gifted the thing that he had wanted every single time he'd cried over Grian in the last two years -- the chance to hold each other through it. Enduring the tide of pain together, practically fused.
Scar raised a hand to brush the hair that was sticking to Grian's damp face behind his ear with a gentle touch. Grian took that hand and kissed his knuckles, on each tendon one by one, then his palm. He at least wasn't crying anymore, though his eyes were very red.
They both composed slowly, wet sniffs and nervous laughter. Then Scar caught himself stuck playing with Grian's hair, fascinated to touch again, gifted back something he thought he'd never get returned. He admired his partner, gaze gooey on the pretty things in his hands.
Grian responded with tender kisses to Scar's collarbone, the eruption of goosebumps, trailing up his neck. Scar caught his lips with his own, nibbling just right to make Grian moan and shiver. The release of tension made it messy, their clothes getting tugged and rumpled, flushed cheeks and red ears, something consuming and almost love-drunk on each other.
The universe narrowed down to a single point, and they did not take their hands off each other for a long time.
On Sunday morning, Scar took the first opportunity he could to visit his brother. It was early, and received tired pings when he stepped in Cub's radius.
Scar let himself inside, Cub's magic letting him in without question. His brother wasn't really awake, rubbing his eye sleepily and saying, "Stop feeling so much this early, you're gonna make me throw up."
"Shut up and let me hug you." Scar said, and bowled his brother over with the force of it.
Cub oofed and pat his back, digging his chin into Scar's shoulder. He was still in a bathrobe and wasn't wearing his glasses. "Too early for you to suffocate me."
"Shut up." Scar repeated, voice tight. "Thank you so much."
Cub sighed, and gave a fierce squeeze back. He didn't reply but pinged many things, one after another, reluctance fear protection care love hope.
Scar pinged back a mess of gratitude and love that was already a swarm of nauseating love from when he first walked in the door.
"Please tell me you didn't steal any of Grian's body parts." Scar said, after a minute of absorbing the genuine love from his brother.
Cub snorted, and pinched Scar. "Would I do that?"
"Yes."
Cub made a show of rolling his eyes, waving a dismissive hand as he pulled away and went to fetch his glasses. "What good would that do me? No, he is as whole as when he walked in here yesterday."
"What did you make him do? I know he's not gonna tell me." Scar could only imagine what Cub would've done, faced with the man who made Scar miserable for years, heart unbound and vulnerable, asking for Cub to help him win Scar back.
"He won't, if he knows what's good for him."
"Cub."
"That's between me and Grian." Cub smiled, patting Scar on the arm. "I'm happy for you. I'm glad it's working out. I want you to be happy and I know he makes you happy."
"Have you been replaced with aliens?" Scar said. "There's no way you're happy I'm getting back together with Grian. You want to kill him."
"I never said that."
"You've said that multiple times, actually. And I can still feel the homicidal intent."
"That counts as an emotion?" Cub seemed disappointed. "Our bond should have a more scientific criteria for what it projects."
"Cub." Scar repeated, impatient.
Cub allowed, "He put the effort into convincing me. He's aware of the consequences of his actions."
"Cub!" Scar threw his hands up. "You know I don't want you to hurt him."
"I know what you want." Cub agreed, neutrally.
"Tell me you didn't make him agree that you can kill him if he hurts me again."
A long, damning pause. Cub pinged lie and said, "I didn't do that."
Scar took his brother by the shoulders and shook him. Then he laughed, a writhing thing in his throat, and a little amazed that despite what would've been Cub at his most terrifying, Grian still left the interaction with the promise earring at the end.
He hugged Cub a second time.
"Stop." Cub complained, as he hugged him back just as hard.
"You will not kill him." Scar said, firm. He pulled him to arms length.
"He's lucky I didn't kill him yesterday." Cub said.
"You think I want my brother to go to jail for murder?"
"I'm insulted you think I'd be caught."
"No murder."
"No murder." Cub said, and pinged lie again.
"Cub!" Scar whined, and gave up, well aware he wasn't going to win this battle ever. Instead he went to raid Cub's kitchen and make him waffles, because Cub was the best brother on the planet, and because of him Scar could hear the reassuring beat of Grian's heart in his ear.
His partner had gone to visit Mumbo and Pearl. Apparently they'd been rather invested in the drama on their side, and Grian had to go give them an update. He said something about how it was going to save him from Pearl.
Around lunch time Grian texted him to come over to his and Mumbo's apartment. Scar went, a little nervous, and when he knocked on the door he was greeted with two confetti poppers.
"Oh!" Scar said, hand on heart, stepping back, but laughing. He was covered in confetti.
"I told you not to startle the man with a heart condition!" Grian yelled from somewhere inside.
"He's fine!" Pearl said, dismissively, dragging Scar inside by the arm. "Tell him you're fine."
"I'm fine!" Scar parroted obediently.
"See?" Pearl reached up to pick some confetti off his hair and Scar obligingly bent his knees so she could reach.
"What's the confetti for?" Scar asked, smile a bit more nervous than he wanted.
"To welcome you to the family, of course." Pearl said, smiling wide enough Scar could see her molars. "I've always wanted a brother."
"Dude." Grian said.
Mumbo laughed and awkwardly pat Scar's arm. "Sorry, it's been a bit of a long time coming for Pearl and I. We're a little more enthusiastic than we probably should be."
"It's okay." Scar said, casting the figure of Grian on the other side of the apartment an anxious look.
"Stop making it sound like I've been pining relentlessly for years." Grian complained, bringing what he was working on over to the group. It was a small houseplant in a pot, which he handed to Scar.
"You have." Pearl said, offended.
"Like a pine tree." Mumbo added, cheerful.
"I'm sorry." Grian said, to Scar. "Ignore them."
"Don't ignore us, we've been suffering for years and we finally have an outlet." Pearl tried to give Grian a noogie but he swept her leg out from under her and they both ended up on the floor.
"Stop trying to embarass me!" Grian shrieked, pulling her hair.
"Trying? You embarrass yourself!" Pearl kicked him repeatedly. "Thanks for finally being useful and giving me an actual brother."
"We're not married." Grian whacked her face full of feathers. "And what do you mean, an actual brother? You literally told me like yesterday that you loved me more than anything!"
"I've never said anything of the sort." Pearl spat the feathers out and flicked his necklace so it bonked him in the nose. Grian's heart began to race in the fluttering feather humming in Scar's ear.
"Ohhh -- you!" Grian elbowed her hard. "Mumbo! You were there, she was sappy and gross and said how much she loved me!"
Mumbo inspected his nails. "I can't recall."
Pearl cackled. Grian shoved her face full of feathers again.
Scar couldn't help but smile, cheeks hurting, holding a houseplant and watching. They hit the couch and swore at each other.
Mumbo nudged his arm and said, "Sorry. They don't know how to properly show affection. They're a little strung up right now because Grian told us last night about... you know. Everything."
Scar's heart couldn't help but sink. "Everything?"
"Yeah." Mumbo gave an encouraging smile. "We already knew most of it. But some parts... yeah."
"Yeah." Scar echoed. "Um."
"We're glad you're here." Mumbo assured him, placidly ignoring the siblings bickering on the floor. "Grian's my best friend and I love him to actual death but he's not great at... cutting himself some slack. We've been telling him for years to be honest with you -- while admittedly we might not have known the details of why he was punishing himself so hard and they were some pretty rough reasons -- we're both just so relieved that... you're willing."
"I'm willing." Scar agreed, mouth dry.
"Good. Because he's stupid over you."
"Hey!" Grian said, trying to free himself from the wing-grab Pearl had on him.
They rough-housed like puppies. It actually made Scar pretty happy to see, because there was a time when no one was allowed to so much as brush by his wings. Obviously he was comfortable with Pearl, and it was a piece of his life Scar seen the first time around.
They disengaged grumpily and fluffed out their wings. Mumbo was laughing at them and said to Scar, "I didn't realize when I got a roommate that I was signing up for two chaos beings in my house."
"Three, now." Grian twined his arm through Scar's, throwing up a winning smile. "Scar can be just as bad as me when he puts his mind to it."
"Oh, darling." Scar winked. "I can be worse."
Grian laughed, loud and musical, reaching up to cradle Scar's jaw.
Pearl grabbed Mumbo's arm and pretended to bash her head on his shoulder. "Oh, gross."
"You wanted this." Grian pointed out, and couldn't stop grinning long enough to give Scar a proper kiss, just pressing smiling lips to his.
The potted plants were a thing. After that, Grian continued to bring him them. Almost every time he showed up at Scar's door he was holding a houseplant, adding it to the growing collection under his living room window.
Scar hadn't really decided on his next step and ended up going between things -- getting a part-time contract at Cub's lab to aid with the plant magic, showing up on an as-needed basis at Mumbo and Grian's jobsite to help with their landscaping, and volunteering at his old greenhouse in anticipation of when they'd have a paid position open again.
The houseplant thing was cute, though after a couple weeks Grian brought him a little potted cactus.
"Did you really think this one through?" Scar asked, holding the small cactus up to the light.
Grian paled rapidly and snatched it back. "Never mind, I think I'll give that one to Mumbo."
Scar gave a strained laugh.
And at the end of the day it came down to:
It was 2am. Scar was having a panic attack.
Admittedly, it had been a while.
Without the council there was less crushing, all consuming pressure, but he still had a mind capable of overthinking like a racehorse. He didn't want to doubt Grian. He didn't want to read into a fucking cactus of all things. He wanted to trust his partner.
The world was stuttered around him, panic shadowed, coming up with a hundred worse case scenarios. He was breathing so fast his fingertips were swimming with dizziness. The only thing he could hear was --
Grian's heart, beating sleep-slow in his ear.
Scar pressed his palms into his eyes and gave a ragged breath. The warm figure beside him stirred, heart waking up.
The feather tickled Scar's bare shoulder. It sung with promises, strong and unbroken. The truth, Grian promised him the truth. His heart, thudding faithfully. And his life, as phantoms screeched --
Warm hands slid up Scar's bare chest and a cold nose pressed into Scar's ribs. Grian mumbled, "Take a deep breath, handsome."
A wash over him, a wave of safety.
"I've got you." Grian said, sleepy, fingers seeking out his and pressing into his tendons slow. "I've got you. I'm right here."
Scar shuddered and tears dripped down his nose. He didn't really know what he was panicking about. A cactus? The heart beat steady in his ear? Echoed promises? The tiny, nurtured flame of hope? Maybe none of it. Maybe all of it.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" Grian asked, low, keeping his cadence across his knuckles faithfully.
"I'm scared." Scar said, because that admittance was the singular way to sum up his existence. No words came to his tongue further than that, because it was never clear cut and it was never easy and it would always be in the back of his mind.
Grian hummed, mouth on Scar's bare ribs and sending vibrations he could feel in his spine. He didn't push.
Scar was scared but Grian was there. An ache in his sternum, heart pressing hard against it, trying to pound out his chest and reach his soulmate. He sniffed and cleaned his face irritably.
"Whatever you're afraid of can't get you because I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere." Grian said eventually, shifting up to press his lips to Scar's shoulder.
Scar turned and swallowed his partner in his arms. The feather told him that Grian's heart beat true and slow. His own heart began to match it, calming, squeezing. He felt so incredibly safe.
"Promise?" Scar whispered, calf crossed over knee, clinging to Grian's back, warm flop of wings taking up more than their fair share, the faint blue light of a crystal between their chests.
"I promise." Grian said.
It felt like the truth. Scar believed it.