Chapter Text
The week the world ends sticks out in Scar’s memory as an eventful one, all things considered. Fast paced, one hit after another, adrenaline pumping, the whole shebang. And really, it has to be, doesn’t it? No good story has ever started with a dull, rolling recap of the mundane.
Not the kind that Scar likes to chew on, anyway.
No, the week where life as he knows it changes forever is explosive from start to finish.
“Shit,” Cub hisses, the machine in front of him giving a loud, shuddering groan before popping several screws and spewing black smoke from its exhaust fan, ominous and foreboding.
From his position laid out on the couch, Scar whistles long and low, exaggerating a grimace that Cub responds to with an exasperated sigh. Scar snickers at his friend’s misfortune, comforted in the knowledge that Cub would do the same if their situation was reversed. He then stretches his legs, shifting them over and grabbing the cane leaning against the armrest. It takes him a minute, but it’s a relatively low pain day, so he’s able to get onto his feet without a hassle, making his way over to where Cub is fiddling with a now pitifully sparking machine.
He stands close, looming over his friend in a familiar way that comes from years working at his side. Scar peers down at the contraption with curiosity, well within Cub’s personal bubble without invading his working space.
“Whatcha got there, Cubby Cub?”
“It’s the project I told you about.”
“The one with the strict deadline at the end of the month?”
The machine—a table-sized collection of gimbals, rotary belts, and some sort of proprietary hydraulic lift—sputters pathetically, another spurt of smoke escaping it before the whole thing gives one final shake and goes completely dark.
“Yeah,” Cub responds, grim.
“Yikes.”
Scar’s best friend sighs, pushing his glasses up to rub at his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose.
“It’s not that bad, I can fix it. It’s just gonna take more time than I anticipated. See, the gears I had machined down were interfering with the—”
“Don’t explain it to me, Cub,” Scar interrupts, throwing a hand up dismissively, “I’m more than happy thinking of it as magic. All this engineering stuff is hocus pocus to me.”
Cub snorts, fond in that subtle way that Scar knows is reserved only for him. “You’re a weird guy, Scar.”
Scar laughs, grinning broadly and winking. “And don’t you forget it.”
After a moment more of tinkering, Cub sighs and moves away from the project. He side-steps around Scar and takes a seat in front of his desktop setup, the surface strewn with graph paper, nearly illegible schematics, and empty coffee mugs.
Now that he’s up, he doesn’t fancy sitting down again, so instead Scar meanders over to the couch without taking a seat. He picks up the remote lying on the cushion and flicks through the TV channels while Cub begins troubleshooting across his spread of monitors.
“I’ve got a knack for magic, you know,” he says conversationally, talking over his shoulder in Cub’s direction, his voice light and teasing, “Just get me a few crystals and I’ll really make sparks fly.”
“The sparks are the problem, dude,” Cub replies, distracted but playing along good-naturedly.
Scar snickers to himself and turns back to the TV, eyes catching on a shot of drag performers showing off their outfits on a lavish stage. It strikes him that the show might be a good watch for date nights with Grian. Something campy, creative, and flashy that they both could enjoy. He lingers for a bit, filing the information away for later before changing channels again, catching the trailing end of a Halloween horror movie marathon before switching to the news. Almost immediately his stomach drops—a report about a spike of sudden hospitalizations is scrolling through the headlines, and the rows of hospital beds full of sick people on screen twists up his heart. He’s hated hospitals even before he’d been diagnosed, but the sensationalism of these news stories always catches him in a vulnerable place. He zones out, stuck in his own thoughts.
The last time there was a particularly bad strain of flu spreading through the city, his doctor had stopped barely short of ordering him to stay indoors. They meant well—didn’t want to exacerbate the issues with his already fragile immune system—but it had been a miserable time for him. He’d been isolated and alone, feeling unsafe and unable to leave his apartment. Staring at walls and text messages day in and day out.
“Scar?”
He jolts, clicking the remote and changing the channel to something less upsetting, plastering a smile on his face as he turns back to acknowledge Cub.
“Mmm?”
His friend looks him over at him for a moment, calculating, but eventually relents, “I was just asking if you’d heard anything about this, seeing as you’re the resident Disney guy.” Leaning back in his chair Cub gestures at his computer screen, likely at some sort of article that Scar can’t see from his angle. “It says here that they’re closing the parks for a couple days. That’s pretty unprecedented right?”
“I suppose so,” Scar hums. He usually loves rambling about Disney parks, but it’s a little difficult to reorient himself after the depressing dip of his thoughts. “They’ve closed before for hurricanes. Can’t fight natural disasters!”
“Yeah, sure, but it’s not hurricanes that’re doing it this time. They’re only citing ‘circumstances beyond our control’,” Cub counters, tapping his pen against the edge of his computer screen.
“Ohh, that is interesting,” Scar admits, curiosity piqued.
He tosses the remote towards the couch cushion and is starting to make his way over to Cub when his phone begins to ring. Yelping in surprise, Scar takes a second to calm his startled heart before reaching into his coat pocket and fishing out the device. It’s a reminder, scheduled into his calendar. He smiles at the message before muting it and dropping his phone back into his pocket. When he looks up again, Cub is watching him in askance.
“Grian,” Scar explains, “It’s my turn to cook tonight and I’m always forgetting, so he set up a reminder for me! Isn’t that sweet of him?”
The sound Cub makes is non-commital.
“Sure.”
“Aw, c’mon Cub,” Scar admonishes teasingly. “Don’t be that way!”
“I’m not being any kind of way.”
Scar knows he should leave well enough alone—knows it’s not fair to harp on Cub—but there’s a quiet anxiety that settles in his chest whenever he feels like the people he cares for don’t get along with one another. It makes him want to solve it. Like if he simply forces the subject along far enough, they’ll realise they really do like each other, and then everything will be fine.
“You know, you should come over for dinner sometime,” he suggests, keeping his tone cheerful and optimistic. “It’s been a while since you two have had a chance to hang out!”
“Scar, we’ve talked about this,” Cub sighs, leaning further back in his chair and sending a serious look his way. “Grian’s fine, I don’t have a problem with him. I know you like hanging out with him. He’s fun.”
“See? So what’s—”
“I just don’t think he’s good for you. And I don’t think having dinner together would be good for me. That’s it.”
“Cub…”
An awkward mood settles between the two of them, Cub’s lip curling slightly as his brow furrows.
“You’ve been together, what? Two years? And he still won’t let you call him your boyfriend,” he says at last, when it becomes clear Scar isn’t going to speak first.
“He’s just a little shy!” Scar defends, shoulders tensing up.
“That goes beyond shyness, Scar. Anyone else might be living together by now. Or at least have left more stuff in your apartment than a toothbrush and a couple of socks in a drawer.”
Scar can feel his palm sweating where he’s gripping his cane, knuckles tight around it. His stomach churns. He hates arguing with anyone, but especially with Cub. There’s no one who knows him better, except maybe Grian. When they fight it feels wrong.
His heart hurts. The evening had been going so well—he doesn’t want to leave things like this, and he certainly doesn’t want to make it worse. The subject of his relationship with Grian is a conversation he and Cub have been having increasingly often lately, and Scar’s not looking to add another strained night to the tally.
Taking a deep breath, he forces his muscles to untense, meeting Cub’s gaze with his own pleading one. “Things are good between us, Cub. I promise. And… if they weren’t, I’d come to you about it.”
“Would you, though?” Cub asks, testing.
Scar’s shoulders sag. “Cub, come on.”
There’s a flash of guilt on his friend’s face, the moment where he breaks clearly written in the twist of his features. “Sorry,” Cub apologises, and Scar can tell he means it. “I know you would. I just… get worried sometimes. I don’t want him taking you for granted.”
Feeling the tension drain from the air, Scar smiles and crosses the short distance to him, wrapping Cub up in a hug where he sits. “Oh, you big ol’ teddy bear! I’ll be fine, don’t you worry your precious head!”
Cub laughs, a little strained, holding onto Scar’s arms briefly before tapping at them to let Scar know to let go. “Yeah, yeah. I gotcha.”
It’s not the ideal way for them to part, but Scar knows not to push when it comes to things Cub feels this strongly about. He knows that one of these days going to have a proper sit-down conversation with his best friend about Grian. Cub’s concerns aren’t unfounded, Scar knows that—he’s had several of them himself. But what do the little things matter when he comes home to Grian smiling at him, and falls asleep with him in his arms? That’s got to count for something. The material things are what’s real.
Crossing the room again, Scar picks up his phone, taking a moment to check his messages. There’s nothing from Grian, but at times like these he’s learned that it’s better to act like there is.
“I’m gonna head out now—Grian says he’s hungry. But hey, keep me updated on how much worse your project gets, alright?”
Cub raises a brow at him from where he’s already immersed himself back in his bank of monitors, running numbers and testing new models. “Bold of you to assume I’ll answer any messages before I’ve got this handled,” he quips. “I’m going into fixation mode, dude. You won’t hear from me until this is done or I’m dead.”
“You get good reception from beyond the grave?”
“You tell me,” Cub grins, “You’re the one with the magic.”
The retort makes Scar laugh, genuine and heartfelt, and that’s how he knows things are okay between them. With his wallet, keys, cane, and phone, Scar gives Cub’s shoulder a parting squeeze before he heads for the door. He promises to drop by later in the week and waves as he lets himself out, leaving Cub’s apartment for the very last time.
Grian is late for dinner.
Then again, Grian prides himself on being the last to show up to anything, so Scar never really expected him to arrive on time. His stubborn lateness is just one of his many quirks, and Scar loves him for it.
His first text comes an hour after he was supposed to arrive.
‘Running late. Sorry :( See you soon.’
Scar smiles and doesn’t let it bother him.
Forty minutes later, he gets another text.
‘Terrible traffic. Be there in an hour.’
The excuse settles funny in Scar’s mind. Traffic? He slides his thumb along the screen of his phone, pulling up their messages from that morning, the ones where Grian had said he was working from home that day.
Most days, Grian walks to Scar’s place, insisting the fresh air is good for him. Traffic’s never been an issue before.
‘Aren’t you working from home?’
Scar doesn’t have time to put his phone down before it lights up with three quick messages.
‘Yes.’
‘I am.’
‘See you in an hour.’
Grian’s never been particularly warm in text. When Scar thinks back on this moment, weeks later, he’ll understand that this should’ve been when a warning bell went off in his head. Instead, he pulls out his cast iron pan and begins preheating the oven.
Two hours pass before Scar caves and texts Grian again. Grian had chastised him once for messaging him too often and Scar had since done his best to practise patience, but the low rumble in his stomach forces his hand.
‘Traffic still bad?’
It takes ten minutes for Grian to reply.
‘I don’t think I can make it tonight. Work’s awful.’
He waits for a sorry, he waits for a love you.
He gets silence.
‘No worries,’ Scar replies. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
Dinner sits untouched in the oven, and Scar is ravenous. It’s past 8 PM, getting closer to 9. A cool fall evening, with the sky still caught in the deep indigo blues of dusk. The perfect kind of night for taking pictures of the stars. Outside his open windows, Scar can hear people talking as they come and go, the rumbled sounds of traffic from the side-street, a distant dog barking. It’s only a short walk to Grian’s place, but his legs already ache, and they’ll ache worse tomorrow if he pushes it now.
Still.
He packs a portion of their dinner onto a plate and covers it in tinfoil. In a cloth napkin he wraps up two, large, chocolate chip cookies he baked the day before.
Grian’s working late, and Scar already went through all the trouble of cooking for him. It’s a short walk, but an even shorter drive.
In hindsight, he should’ve seen it coming.
Grian lives in a townhouse on a nice street lined with big trees, the neighbours’ decorations still out from Halloween two nights ago. It’s a lovely place, with more than enough room for two. Scar knows it. Everyone knows it. Scar’s stayed overnight countless times, but the longest he’s been welcome to linger in their two years of dating has been the occasional long weekend.
Grian has a covered carport and a short driveway.
Scar almost doesn’t think about it when he finds another car parked there.
He pulls up to the curb, blocking a fire hydrant. It’s illegal, but he knows he’ll only be there for a minute—unless, of course, Grian invites him in. But then, rules are made to be broken, and nothing is currently on fire. The hydrant will be fine, and so will he.
He has a key to Grian’s front door. Of course he does. You don’t date someone for two years and not get the key to their place. So what if Scar had to finagle a copy out of Grian like he was some sort of hostage negotiator? So what if Grian made him swear up and down that he would only ever use it for emergencies? Scar has a key to his not-boyfriend’s place, that’s all that matters.
He still knocks first, though. Still leans on his cane as he stands on the front step, the bottom of the plate warm in his hand, the cookies balanced carefully on top of the tinfoil. He has a moment to think about how he wishes he’d tucked a note in between the cookies, a pen doodle of a smiley face and a big goofy heart.
He has several moments, actually.
Maybe Grian’s not home after all.
He’s not going to leave a plate of food on the ground—there’s a raccoon problem and he doesn’t believe in feeding wildlife—so he fishes out his key and lets himself in.
“Ready or not, here I cooome.” He intends to sound silly; it is silly, speaking out loud to an empty house. Instead, he nearly trips on a pair of shoes just inside the door. It’s odd, because when he looks down he notices they’re bigger than Grian’s small feet. Nearly as large as his own, actually. Except he’s never left a pair of shoes at Grian’s place.
The navy blue jacket thrown over the bannister is new as well.
There’s a sound he can’t place. Something thumping softly against a wall upstairs. It goes on for a moment as he steps over the unusual front-door clutter, then it stops.
In hindsight, he should’ve turned around.
In hindsight, he should never have let himself in.
Scar is in the kitchen, giving a sideways glance to two unfinished glasses of wine on the counter as he opens the fridge to stash away Grian’s meal, when he hears hasty feet on the stairs. He thinks, again, to the car. To the shoes. To the jacket, and to the noises.
Grian’s flushed when Scar finally sees him, frozen in the kitchen doorway, and for some reason Scar can’t make his body move to shut the fridge as they both stand there and stare.
Grian’s cheeks are bright pink, distressed and embarrassed and something else incriminating and so much worse. His hair is mussed up, pushed out of place by fingers that aren’t his own. His clothes look haphazard on him, as though they’ve been donned quickly.
Scar has a second to take him in as his mind plays catch up, filling in all the blanks. A second that stretches entirely too long as he fully commits to memory the sight of his boyfriend, caught in the act.
“Grian,” he says, the word forced into something cheerful despite the immensity of his discomfort, the sounds incredibly heavy in his mouth as he forces them out.
“Scar.”
If he didn’t think Grian was guilty before, the dread in the way he speaks confirms it. There’s an inky, black sorrow—betrayal—rising in Scar’s chest and overflowing up into his throat in a way that threatens to choke him.
He swallows it back.
“I brought you dinner,” Scar says, and closes the fridge door forcefully enough that some of the magnets are jostled off and skitter away across the floor.
Grian winces as they clatter, and Scar feels nothing.
“Because you’re working so late.”
“Scar,” Grian repeats, and it doesn’t sound better a second time.
“I only brought enough for one. There’s two cookies, though.”
Scar moves and Grian shrinks out of his way like water displaced by oil. Scar is back in the hall, passing the navy jacket, the shoes.
He’s leaving.
“Scar,” Grian tries it a third time, and there’s an edge to his tone now, like he’s angry, like he has something to be angry about.
Scar doesn’t hear him.
He doesn’t hear him, because there’s a man. There’s a man standing on the staircase. He’s got his clothes on, but it’s clear that, much like Grian’s, they were pulled on in haste. His sweater looks soft. If they were standing in line together at the grocery store, Scar would ask him where he got it.
He has the same deep fluster on his face that Grian has. Like two peas screwing each other in a pod, Scar thinks.
The man’s thoughts behind his expression are unreadable—but then, Scar doesn’t exactly give himself time to properly study him.
He’s thinking about traffic that never existed. He’s thinking about the bottom of the plate, warm against his palm. He’s thinking about the rhythmic sound of Grian’s bed frame hitting the wall.
He’s thinking about Cub.
He’s thinking about how Cub warned him.
“I want you to come get your stuff.” Scar doesn’t recognise his voice when he speaks. It sounds like he’s hearing himself on a television set that’s playing in another room, his role played by an actor who has his words right, but his intonation all wrong.
“Scar...” Grian tries for a fourth time, and has the nerve to sound hurt when he says it.
“Tomorrow. First thing. It’s gone or it’s on the lawn.”
He’s shaking as he tries to open the door, fumbling his cane into his other hand as he tries to get a proper grip on the doorknob. In his periphery he can see Grian moving forward automatically to help him, and a part of Scar feels like he’s going to catch on fire and self-immolate if Grian gets within an arm’s length of him. He shudders, feeling sick, and then the door is open. The man on the stairs starts to say something, but Scar doesn’t hear him—can’t hear him. Scar’s on the front step, down, cutting across the lawn. He’s stepping on some flowers, but it doesn’t matter. He’s always hated the look of a lawn with flowers.
He’s parked in front of a fire hydrant. He was only going to be here a minute.
He feels sick.
Grian isn’t chasing after him.
He remembers a morning, months ago, where he woke up from a dream to find Grian sitting up in bed, back resting against the headboard—the one he just heard traitorously thumping against the wall—reading a book that Scar had thought sounded boring.
“I had a dream you cheated on me,” Scar had mumbled, voice rough with sleep as he’d moved his arm and slung it across Grian’s lap.
“Is that so?” Grian had asked, still reading his book, fingertips moving to idly pet the hair on Scar’s forearm. “Did I trade up?”
“He had a moustache,” Scar had offered, words muffled into Grian’s hip. “And a son.”
At least this one didn’t have a moustache, Scar thinks, before realising he’s in his car. He doesn’t remember getting in it. The key’s in the ignition, though. In his rearview mirror he can see Grian standing on his front step. He’s too far away for Scar to make out his expression, but distantly Scar thinks that he doesn’t look as sad as he should.
He releases his parking brake and pulls away from the curb more aggressively than he’s ever driven before in his life. Then he jams his fist against the centre of his steering wheel and doesn’t let off the horn until he’s several blocks away.
Once the sight of Grian’s street has disappeared in his rearview mirror, he tries to turn the radio on, but every station is playing a news update. He can’t stomach inane chatter about sports and the weather right now so, just as quickly, Scar turns it off.
Funny, he thinks as he drives home, ears ringing with silence while his heart races in his chest. The roads are incredibly clear.
He’s in no state to be driving, but he has no alternative. His mind is racing, connecting dots he intentionally ignored and things he overlooked—every time Grian cancelled plans, his cagey responses about work, sudden friends coming in from out of town that Scar had never heard of before that he was meeting late for drinks—there’s been months of this. A string of red flags going back further than he wants to admit.
He parks his car in a haze, slamming the driver’s door with trembling hands and feeling weaker than ever as he grips his cane tight and pushes himself back towards his apartment.
It had taken a lot of smooth talking to get himself a place on the ground floor, but right now it makes no difference to him at all. Scar feels winded, breathing hard like he’s been climbing a mountainside. His blood rushes in his ears, heart tight in his chest and body clammy with sweat and nerves. Distantly, it occurs to him that he might be panicking. Something he hasn’t done quite like this since he was a child.
He doesn’t know how he gets his door open, but he manages, discarding his coat and keys on the coffee table before collapsing onto his couch. Breathing still feels difficult and his stomach is in knots. He feels sick to his core, blood churning and the sting of bile sharp in his throat. His vision is watery.
He needs to call Cub.
Scar wipes at his eyes and struggles through a breath. He’d dropped his cane carelessly when he’d come in the door, so instead of getting off the couch, he merely pushes himself until he’s sitting upright, feeling exhausted beyond words by the simple movement.
He promised he’d call Cub if anything ever happened.
It’s just that he never, ever thought anything would.
An awful, mournful noise works its way out of his throat, and even all alone in the dark of his cold, empty apartment, Scar feels humiliated by it. Grian always said he was too emotional, and right now, beat down under the weight of his feelings piled in a crush against his chest, Scar agrees. No matter how much he spins the procession of events around in his head, he can’t make sense of it at all.
How long had Grian been cheating on him? Does this go back half a year? Ten months? More? When Scar had thrown him a surprise party for his birthday a while back, and Grian had flushed bright pink, all flattered and enthused—had he spent that following weekend in someone else’s arms instead of busy at work like he’d said? Had he been spending days with his lover and nights with Scar? Was he splitting time evenly, or had Scar always been his lowest priority?
Surely there had to have been a time when he was Scar’s and only Scar’s. Surely.
Another anguished, half-choked noise escapes him, and Scar curses himself for not being strong enough to swallow it back. What exactly had he done so wrong that Grian felt the need to hurt him like this? If they weren’t working out, why hadn’t Grian simply broken up with him?
Or was he truly so indifferent to Scar that he hadn’t even considered his feelings in the first place?
On the coffee table, Scar’s phone comes to life with a shrill ring, its black screen lighting up. He lurches towards it like a man possessed, clutching it tight in his grip and staring down at the display like it will somehow magically smooth away the pain of his heartbreak. For a second, for just a moment, he hopes against hope—only to fall apart further when it’s not Grian’s name on the caller ID.
It’s Cub.
Anxiety overwhelms him at once. Logically, there’s no way Cub can possibly know what just happened. Scar understands that, he does.
And yet, as much as he’d yearned to speak to Cub mere moments before, it’s impossible to pick up the phone now. He can’t bear the thought of hearing Cub’s voice on the line and having to confirm that his friend had been right about Grian all along. He’s ashamed of himself—for not seeing the signs sooner, for not listening to Cub’s advice, for not heeding his many, many warnings.
Mortified, Scar realises he doesn’t want Cub to see him like this.
He holds the phone in his hand until the ringing stops, shoulders only relaxing when the room goes silent again, but he has only a moment of reprieve before the ringing starts anew, Cub’s name flashing up once more across the screen. Gritting his teeth, Scar switches his phone to vibrate and lets it clatter down onto the coffee table once more. The insistent drone of its vibration rattles against the wood of his table, but he turns his head away from it. When a call comes through for a third time, Scar grabs the couch cushions and stuffs his head between them.
He’ll talk to Cub, he will—he just… needs a minute.
When sleep comes, Scar isn’t ready for it. He hardly feels like he’s sleeping at all, forced instead to relive the drive to Grian’s house in his dreams, the trip both too long and too short, nightmarish in the way his footsteps echo across the kitchen floor as he turns to see Grian’s face. In the dream he’s smiling. He hadn’t been in real life—had he? Scar can’t remember clearly, not in this circular hell where he runs out the front door and ends up right back in his car driving to Grian’s place, the ground beneath his wheels shaking like it’s seconds from cracking open and swallowing him whole.
Waking up feels like falling, disorienting on all accounts, and Scar grips tight to either side of the sofa as his foot slips from the armrest where it had been dangling.
His phone is still vibrating.
He stares at it, blinking slowly. It takes him a second to place where he is, and a second more to gauge how much time has passed. From the way the light has completely faded from the sky, it’s been a few hours at least—so surely it’s not still Cub calling.
Scar steels himself and picks up his phone, answering it in the same instant.
He can’t avoid this forever.
“Hello?” he croaks out, voice both pained and dull.
“Scar!” Comes a bright, accented voice, excitable and entirely discordant with his current state. “Did you see the news?”
It takes Scar a moment to place who it is, having been so sure he’d be speaking to Cub.
“Pearl?”
“Of course! Who else would it be?”
His stomach twists terribly. “Nobody. Sorry… what did you call for?”
On the other end of the line Pearl laughs, bright and delighted.
“The world’s ending!”
There’s a feral kind of glee in her voice, and she laughs again with an almost manic enthusiasm that, despite everything, still manages to light up a deep, earnest feeling of fondness in Scar’s chest. Pearl’s always been like this—on the wild side of weird. Always with something new: a conspiracy, a cover-up, a close-encounter. Usually he delights in it.
Today he’s simply too tired.
“That’s great, Pearl.”
His voice is flat as he says it, and he knows he’s incapable of hiding anything about his current state.
There’s a pause on the line and Scar can almost picture the way Pearl must now be frowning.
“Is everything alright?” She ventures, her voice cautious. “You sound a little low…”
“I’m fine.”
It’s a lie, and she hears it as blatantly as he does.
“Oh, so we’re telling fibs now?” She asks, and he hears the sound of her beginning to grin through the line. “C’mon Scar. You can confess your crimes to me. What did you break this time? Tell ol’ Saint Pearl what’s the trouble.”
The words stick in Scar’s throat, thick and tarry. As much as he tries, he simply can’t get them out.
“Scar…?” There’s a genuine note of concern in her voice, now. He doesn’t want to worry her—hates that he can’t seem to stop it from happening.
“Grian—” Scar’s throat closes up and he can barely get the name out. He doesn’t want to cry like this. Doesn’t want to put the burden of his broken heart on Pearl’s shoulders.
“What’s happened to Grian? Is he hurt?” There’s a sudden edge to Pearl’s tone, tight with concern.
“No.” Scar spits the word out like it’s something rotten.
A moment passes. Then another.
“Oh, Scar…”
He can hear the pity now, rolling in like a wave. It sounds kinder than if he’d told Cub. None of the flat ‘I told you so’ judgement that Cub—even with the best of intentions—would try and fail to conceal. Just the deep sympathy of a person who’s had her fair share of relationships turn sour. Two lonely people seeing each other clearly.
All at once the isolation is crushing. Scar can’t stand another second of being by himself.
“Can you—”
“I’m on my way,” Pearl says, finishing his thought before he has a chance to properly complete it. “Just let me get Tilly in from the yard. You sit tight, alright? Ten minutes and I’m out the door, tops.”
Ten minutes is more like twenty, but that gives Scar a chance to sit up so that he’s not curled in a ball on the couch when Pearl lets herself in.
She’s carrying a six pack of beers hooked on her middle finger and two pints of ice cream in a plastic shopping bag dangling from her wrist. It’s not that Pearl’s especially good in a crisis, but she puts the effort in when it counts. A more than meagre part of Scar has always adored Pearl, and that fondness flares up especially strong now as she shucks off her jacket and deposits her food offerings on the kitchen counter before crossing the room to join him on the couch.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she says, getting the words in before he can say anything, having clearly rehearsed them on the short drive over. “I just want you to know that he’s crazy and an idiot and a fool, and that no matter what, you didn’t deserve it.”
“I told him to get his stuff first thing in the morning,” Scar says, numb and practical as he states the facts.
“You’re kinder than me,” Pearl says, blowing out a breath and slouching down onto the couch next to him. Her shoulder is warm and solid leaning into his side. It’s a welcome touch, not as overtly pitying as a hug, but sympathetic and supportive all the same. “When I broke up with my ex, I threw all his stuff right out into the snow.”
“He broke up with you,” Scar clarifies, sullen but still a stickler for detail.
“It’s always hard to remember the specifics,” Pearl replies dismissively. She leans forward, reaching for the remote and turning Scar’s TV on, an easy way to break any morose silence that might seep in between them.
“No news channels. I don’t want to hear about the world ending,” Scar groans, pressing his forehead into the heels of his palms.
“I’ll put on a movie, no worries.” She sounds too casual, and her not joining him in what he’d hoped was a bit catches Scar off guard.
“Is the world really ending…?” he can’t help but ask, peeking at her profile from between his fingers.
“Yeah,” she cackles like a witch, her attention focused on the TV screen as she flips through channels. “Fire and brimstone, the whole nine yards. It’s what we all deserve.” It’s clear that she’s enjoying whatever disaster may or may not be unfolding in the headlines. Any other day they’d be delighting in it together, gleeful about whatever scrap of chaos she’s uncovered, but right now Scar simply can’t muster the energy. Can’t even pretend to be on the same page.
Pearl finally catches his eye as Scar continues to look at her. Her grin turns mollifying as she explains, “Just some folk getting twisted out of shape and catastrophizing about some cold that’s going around. Nothing to worry about, Scar. We’re fine.”
He knows he could press it further, get the truth about whatever’s going on for his own peace of mind, but the fact is, he doesn’t really want to. They could all succumb to a plague, or the seas could rise, or the floor could drop out from beneath them, and at this point he’d welcome it gladly. The world ending would be better than having to sit a single second longer with the awful rot currently hollowing out his chest.
Scar lets himself lapse into silence as Pearl finds an action movie from the 80s that’s already midway through its run-time. Dimly, Scar recalls watching it once with Grian, the two of them out together on a warm summer night, parked at a drive-in theatre, soft with the blush of the tender new emotions they were nurturing for each other. The part of him that wants to beg Pearl to turn it off finds itself overwhelmed by his own inertia, however, so instead they sit in silence and watch, neither really processing what’s on the screen.
During one of the commercial breaks, Pearl gets up and retrieves the beer and ice cream from the kitchen counter.
Scar accepts the offering gladly.
He’s almost done his pint of chocolate-swirled vanilla when he says, quiet, “I walked in on him. Caught him red-handed with some other guy upstairs.”
“He’s an asshole,” Pearl says cooly, using the side of her spoon to pry a chunk of brownie out of her ice cream. If she’s surprised by the development, she hides it well. It makes Scar wonder if she, like Cub, had misgivings about his relationship as well, and had simply bitten her tongue in the face of Scar’s blissful ignorance.
He supposes it doesn’t matter now, not when his pain doesn’t feel any less all-encompassing, even with Pearl’s frank appraisal of Grian. For a moment Scar sits, the question heavy on his tongue, before he finally steels himself and asks, “Am I a bad boyfriend?”
Pearl stares at him, eyes wide. Suddenly shy, Scar opens his mouth to retract the question when suddenly Pearl’s hands are on his, her grip dewy and cold from having held the ice cream container that she’s hurriedly set aside. Dimly, Scar tries to remember the last time anyone held his hand and he finds himself pulling up a blank. Grian was never a fan of public displays of affection, always pulling away from Scar’s brief touches.
Scar grips her hands tightly, struggling to distract himself from wondering if all Grian’s cagey distance was because he preferred the feel of another man’s hand in his instead.
“Scar,” Pearl says, firm and broaching no argument. “If you look up the definition of Good Boyfriend, your picture is right there. You’re an amazing partner, and anyone would be lucky to have you.”
The sting of tears bite at the corners of his eyes and he lets go of Pearl’s hand, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyelids to stem them, which only makes them well up more.
“I hate this,” he says, honest, “Why did he—” he can’t get the word out, still can’t make himself face the reality that he’s been cheated on. “Why…?” he whispers listlessly instead, defeated.
Pearl shifts her weight, tucking her knee up on the sofa. She tugs on Scar’s hand, pulling his body forward so that he’s forced to lean into her as her arms lift up and encircle his shoulders. For a moment Scar hangs, indecisive in the midst of the gesture. Then the weight of the world crashes down on him, and Scar finds himself sagging into her embrace, burying his face against her neck as he lets out a shuddering sob.
The movie continues to play in the background as Scar cries into the collar of Pearl’s shirt. Eventually the story concludes and the credits roll and the programming turns to infomercials, but neither of them pay them any attention. Pearl holds him and doesn’t say a word, and after some time, her hand finds his hair, soothingly combing through the short strands. It lulls him, comforting and calming, and Scar doesn’t even realise he’s fallen asleep until he abruptly wakes up.
“Hey.”
Pearl’s awake—maybe she never fell asleep, he thinks. She’s smiling softly at him, and the part of Scar that’s mortified he dozed off on her finds only the barest comfort that at least he doesn’t have to worry about his boyfriend flipping out about it.
Not that said boyfriend—ex-boyfriend… never a boyfriend at all, from Grian’s side of things—seemed to have any problems about falling asleep on others himself.
“I passed out,” Scar croaks, groggy and not yet fully conscious.
“Yeah, you were really gone for a while there.” Pearl’s smile hasn’t faded—if anything it grows wider and more fond as she watches Scar struggle to wake up. “Don’t beat yourself up about it,” she adds, like she’s reading his mind and predicting where his nerves are about to take him. “You needed the rest.”
“How long was I out for?”
Pearl’s eyes slide towards the window, and slowly Scar realises the darkness of late night has been replaced by the early blue-grey that comes before dawn.
“Shit,” he mutters, sitting up quickly from where he’d dozed off slumped against her.
Grian.
He told Grian to come get his stuff first thing.
It’s not that he has to explain himself—not after the state he found Grian in earlier. Not when they’ve already broken up. It’s just that he doesn’t know if he can handle the inevitable argument if Grian were to come over and find Pearl already here.
“Do you want me to clear out?” Pearl asks, reading his tension clear as day as Scar anxiously combs his hand back through his hair. His jaw aches from clenching it, and his leg hurts, a throbbing pain spiking all the way up into his hip. Everything hurts, actually. His heart continues to ache, feeling carved away from the inside, like an open wound in his chest.
“Maybe that’d be for the best,” he hears himself say, his own voice sounding unfamiliar and distant.
“Will you call me when he’s gone?” Pearl prompts, resting her hand on his knee. “I’ll bring Tilly over. We can trash old photos and order a mess of food, and you can watch me get drunk and text my ex.”
“I thought you said the world was ending,” Scar replies morosely, unable to lift his gaze to meet hers, choosing instead to focus on the hand she’s left resting on his knee.
“We can still talk trash and get wasted at the end of the world,” Pearl teases, giving his leg a pat. Then she’s standing up, gathering the warm, un-drunk beers and the melted remnants of their ice cream. She crosses the floor to his tiny kitchen, depositing it all unceremoniously in his sink before checking her pockets for her keys and phone.
She’s amazing, Scar thinks. Dropping everything to come over and let him cry himself to sleep on her like he was some sort of infant, and then letting him carry on with all his dignity intact.
“Sounds like a plan,” he says.
Her smile is bright and genuine in response. “Alright. I’ll get out of your hair then.”
She pauses just inside his door, lower lip snagging between her teeth for a moment before she adds, carefully, “Maybe I can loop Cub in. Send him over while you deal with Grian.” She’s cautious as she suggests it, not wanting to overstep. “Y’know, strength in numbers and all that.”
Scar knows she’s worried about potentially breaking the news about Grian before he has a chance to tell Cub himself. Unfounded, because, in reality, he finds the suggestion comes as an immediate and overwhelming relief. It means he won’t have to deal with Cub’s inevitable sour reaction, and leaves it to Pearl to talk Cub into not flying off any handles.
“I’d appreciate that,” Scar says, gratitude in his tone. “Cub doesn’t know. He—he’s not gonna take it well.” There’s a pause, reluctant and grim before Scar explains, “Cub told me to call him if something like this ever happened, but I just…”
“I’ll handle it,” Pearl insists, clearly galvanized now that she has something concrete to do. “Leave it to me.”
She quickly moves back across the floor, squeezing Scar’s shoulder in a brief hug before she kisses the top of his head. The next thing Scar knows, she’s opening his apartment door, and then she’s gone.
With Pearl’s departure, his place seems immediately gloomier. The thoughts that had shadowed the corners of Scar’s mind while she was there to distract him become abruptly apparent again, growing darker as they prowl around his empty walls and lonely rooms.
He’s got an hour at most until Grian is due to arrive, and despite the ache in his legs, Scar finds himself getting up to pace with restless energy, unable to sit still. He’s both dreading Grian’s arrival with every fibre of his being, and also incredibly anxious for him to appear so that he can get it over with. Nothing is appealing, no matter how Scar attempts to distract himself. No TV, no games on his phone, no mindless scrolling through the internet.
Instead, he busies himself collecting the meagre few belongings Grian had left at his place after all their time together. It seems so obvious in hindsight now. Of course, of course, Grian hadn’t been faithful to him. The signs were strewn throughout their relationship. Like Cub said, anyone else would’ve been living together after this long. Or at the very least had a dedicated drawer of their own in his bedroom—a corner on his bathroom counter, a shelf in the tiny pantry of his kitchen. Grian had never once made any effort to integrate himself into Scar’s life. He’d never even called Scar his boyfriend out loud, and here Scar had been chasing after him like he hung the moon.
Humourlessly, Scar laughs to himself. Bitter.
He should have known it was only a matter of time before the moon came crashing down to Earth.
Working methodically, Scar assembles a pile of Grian’s belongings. Not in any sort of neat, organised manner—he knows better than that now. He’s not gathering things with any regard for Grian’s convenience or ease, but because he figures it’ll work best if he dumps Grian’s possessions near the front entrance. That way, he can minimise the amount of time he and Grian have to see one another. Like this, it’ll take two, maybe three trips for Grian to carry his things to his car. If Scar helped it would probably only take one, but he believes he’s earned the right to watch Grian struggle through this on his own.
It’s as Scar’s tossing the last of Grian’s things onto the floor and the grandfather clock in his hall shows a quarter till nine, that the stray thought sneaks up on him.
What if Grian’s not planning on coming at all?
Scar glances towards his partially open blinds. Daylight is now properly making its way into his home, spilling into the room with its bright, mid-morning glow. And yet there’s still no sign of Grian.
Did he not take Scar seriously? Did it not matter to him at all? Did he watch Scar drive off, laugh, and return to bed, falling back into the arms of the man on the stairs, rolling his eyes and giggling at what a nuisance Scar was?
A hot prickle of shame and embarrassment burns through Scar, heating his cheeks and stinging at his eyes.
He hates this. He hates feeling like this. Like a bother and a chore.
Unwanted.
No one’s ever made him feel this way before.
Small and insignificant.
His hands begin to shake as he makes his way back to Grian’s belongings, swallowing past the lump that’s formed in his throat.
It’s fine if that’s how things stand, he reasons. It’ll work out for him either way. Having all of Grian’s possessions piled up here just makes them that much easier to throw out.
Burying his aching heart behind his anger, Scar reaches for a stack of notebooks Grian had left from a project at work. He debates on the catharsis in tearing each page of carefully articulated writing to shreds.
It’s as he props open the front cover of the first notebook that his doorbell rings.
In an instant, his bravado falters. His heart stutters in his chest, his body growing cold. Scar feels stiff—nearly robotic—as he moves on automatic, putting the notebooks back down and moving towards his door.
Peering through the peephole, he can see him standing there.
Grian.
A numbness settles over him, all his earlier feelings of heartache and pain driven from him. Gone is the agony, the embarrassment, the agonizing hurt. All that remains is a cool indifference that he’s not even present enough to hope Grian will be threatened by.
Scar opens his front door to find Grian looking small on his welcome mat, shoulders held rigid and nerves evident as he cautiously looks up in order to make a brief second of eye contact.
“Hi,” he says.
Scar steps to the side, wordless, leaving room for Grian to enter if he squeezes past. Grian’s awkward half-smile slips a little at the cold reception, and he breathes out a deliberate sigh in a way that reignites a spark of anger in Scar’s deadened haze. How dare Grian act as if this is bothersome for him after what he just put Scar through? What he’s been putting him through for who knows how long? The audacity of it makes Scar want to yell—if only a single word came to mind.
Carefully stepping in past him, making sure to keep his distance, Grian moves to the side and bends to take off his shoes like he’s done countless times in the past. It makes Scar’s heart wrench in an awful, ugly way. He speaks before he’s even fully thought through what he’s going to say.
“Keep them on—you won’t be here long.”
It’s a wonder how steady he sounds, considering all he wants is to fall to pieces. His voice is firm and unwavering, icy and precise. A perfect mask for the way he wants to drop to his knees and ask Grian why—why? Did he really hate Scar so much that he had to hurt him like this? Has it always been this way? Is Scar as stupid as he is blind?
Grian flinches in response, embarrassment flushing his cheeks, and a distant part of Scar is gratified to see it.
“Right. Yeah.” He straightens up and clears his throat mindlessly, rubbing the knuckles of one hand into the palm of his other as he gathers his bearings. Scar can see when he spots the untidy pile of his things because his eyes widen minutely in recognition. “Oh, you’ve already gathered everything up for me.”
“Not for you,” Scar corrects, still clinging to the stone-faced demeanour he’s created for himself. “You were late, so I was getting set to throw it out.”
It’s a lie, but Scar’s always been a good liar when he needs to be.
And it turns out Grian is too, he thinks, sardonic.
Grian’s blush grows deeper, a familiar set appearing in his expression that Scar knows means he’s about to dig in, rather than simply letting go. He used to love that about Grian—his tenacity; pedantic past ever really needing to be—but right now he wishes he would simply let it go.
“It’s still morning, Scar. I just—I lost track of time.”
Against his will, Scar thinks of the unfamiliar car in Grian’s driveway, the shoes by his door, and the thump-thump-thump of his headboard knocking against the wall. His lip curls, the grip he has on his door knob tightening enough to make it creak in his hand.
“Yeah, I’ll bet. You’ve had a lot to keep you occupied, after all.”
In response, Grian visibly winces. Scar wishes he could delight in the reaction instead of feeling a persistent hollowness deep in his chest where every good memory of the two of them used to reside.
“Scar…” Grian starts, pleading, but Scar’s not interested in entertaining any more of his excuses, and certainly none of his platitudes.
“You better hurry up with that stuff,” he drawls, backing away from the door. He plucks a dining chair from the little nook next to his kitchen, and drags it the short way back to the front entrance. Without any formal ceremony, he takes a seat, intending to enjoy observing Grian’s miserable little trek to and fro as he removes his things. “Cub will be here soon, and it’s probably for the best that you’re gone before then.”
“Cub?” Grian bristles, rising up an inch like an electric shock has been put through him. “Why is he… Did you tell him?”
Scar shrugs. “Him and Pearl,” he answers dismissively. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s close enough that he feels at peace with it.
“Pearl too?” Grian is frustrated now, his brows furrowing, annoyance clear on his face. “You couldn’t have given me at least a day to get my shit together?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you want us to announce it together?” Scar mocks in a singsong, his tone biting. “This isn’t an engagement, Grian. I think I get to tell who I want when I want, when my partner of two years sneaks around and sleeps with somebody else behind my back.”
Grian tenses every muscle in his body, cheeks alight with a guilty blush but agitation writ in every line of his posture. “Well if you’d just listened to me and stayed home when I told you—but no, you had to come over!” He starts, grasping at straws they both know he should leave well enough alone. “You know, when you coerced that key out of me, I told you it was only for emergencies! And you just—God, that’s the problem with you Scar, you never fucking listen!”
“And what would listening to you have gotten me, huh?” Scar shoots back, refusing to bend in the face of Grian’s misplaced anger over his own guilty actions. “A few more weeks of not knowing you were cheating on me? A few more months?” Despite himself, his voice grows hoarse, wavering as he speaks. “Tell me, Grian—how long? How long were you screwing around and lying to me about it? Was he the only one? Are there others?”
The sudden silence between them is damning. As is the way Grian refuses to make eye contact.
Softly, stubbornly, Grian says, “We’re never going to see eye-to-eye on this. So maybe I’ll just start taking my stuff and go.”
Scar doesn’t bother to grace that with any sort of answer, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest. After a moment’s pause, Grian stoops down and begins to gather up his belongings. Scar watches him impassively when he heads out the door.
In any other situation, it would be more than a little funny watching Grian struggle to carry his things out by the armful. Overladen, he knocks into the front door and accidentally closes it over and over, cursing under his breath every time. But then, in any other situation, Scar would’ve offered to help him. The two of them, aligning as a team. Instead, Scar sits firmly in his dining room chair, watching Grian as though he’s a stranger.
He looks terrible, Scar realises, having not really looked at him since that awful moment the night before. He’s still wearing the same clothing he was in when he met Scar in the kitchen, and it’s abundantly clear that he hasn’t slept at all. There are dark shadows under his eyes, and a yellowy look to his usually bright complexion. Whatever happened after Scar left hadn’t been easy for Grian, clearly.
An ugly part of Scar delights in that, the feeling of schadenfreude settling warm across his chest.
He’s not proud of it, but somehow he thinks it’s easier to be bitter and vindictive than it is to openly mourn as his life falls apart in front of him.
“I think this is the last of it,” Grian grunts at last, picking up the few remaining items, and accidentally knocking the door shut yet again in the tight space when he turns.
The frustrated sound he makes is music to Scar’s ears.
He ought to get up and open the door for him, a vindictively magnanimous gesture, if only so Grian can get out and leave for good. But instead, Scar finds himself watching as Grian tries to shuffle all the things he’s carrying to one arm in an attempt to open the door with his free hand. It’s a sight that Scar probably would have watched indefinitely, if it weren’t for the sudden, loud, thump of a knock at the door.
“That must be Cub,” Scar hums, enjoying the way Grian blanches at the name.
He gets up from his seat, stretching out his legs to work the slight ache out of them before he steps forward. He avoids Grian, doing his best to appear calm and collected, even if the truth is that he’s just as terrified of seeing Cub as Grian is.
What will his best friend say when he sees the two of them, when he’d been the one warning Scar about a scenario like this right from the start?
Scar steels himself for the worst of it, twisting the door knob and pulling the door open wide.
The man standing pressed against the frame is on him in an instant.
To say Scar is surprised would be an understatement. He doesn’t even register that he’s been jumped until he’s on the ground with the wind knocked out of him, the man on top of him snarling as he attempts to dig his nails into Scar’s biceps. He’s disoriented, relying on instinct as he shields himself from the stranger’s attack, blindly grabbing for the man’s shoulders and shoving him as far back as he can as he struggles to recover from the shock of the initial lunge.
Distantly, Scar thinks he hears Grian shout something, but there’s no time to focus on that when the man above him snaps his teeth, angling his head forward like he means to take a bite out of Scar’s throat. Scar tilts his head away as best he can without losing sight of his attacker, adrenaline and instinct fueling him while everything else in his brain continues to pinwheel in confusion.
“Shit,” he wheezes, winded as the stranger digs a knee into his gut. His eyes water from the pain, his mind racing with questions.
What’s going on? Who is this man? And what’s Scar done that’s got him angry enough to try and take a chunk of flesh out of him with his teeth? Scar lives in a quiet area—a homey suburb where he gets along with all his neighbours. He’s never once in his life been randomly attacked.
The man screeches and makes another desperate lunge towards Scar’s face, teeth snapping and spittle flying from his saliva-wet mouth. From this angle, crammed beneath his assailant, Scar can see that the man’s eyes are cloudy and bloodshot in a way he’s never seen before. The man kicks, his hard-toed boots sending a sharp pain up Scar’s shins that only compound the pain that’s already weakening him.
All at once, he knows with grave certainty that he’s going to lose this fight, and that it’s going to be the last defeat he’ll ever suffer.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he catches a flash as Grian runs up and swings down with all his strength, striking something heavy against the man’s head. Scar can hear the crack of skull in a way he’ll never forget for as long as he lives, blood and something thick splattering against his face and slopping down onto his shirt.
Standing above him, Grian’s face pales, his grip on the makeshift-weapon—a tire iron Scar had borrowed from Cub a week ago—slackening, his voice pitching as he gasps, “I killed him…? Oh my god. Scar, I think I killed—”
The stranger’s head snaps back up, despite his gushing head wound. There’s no change—no weakening—in his strength as he snaps his jaw at Scar again, somehow completely unaffected by the way a part of his skull has caved in on itself. Scar shouts for Grian, who’s watching in stunned silence, mouth hanging partially open. His fearful scream launches Grian into action once more. Scar winces, attempting to shield himself as Grian brings the tire iron down on the man’s head again, and again, and again, until no normal person, no human, would’ve still been alive.
It takes time for the man—the creature— to go still. And it’s only when he collapses fully that Grian throws the weapon aside and moves to drag Scar away from the carcass pooling blood on the floor.
“Holy shit,” Grian pants, chest heaving and voice frantic. “Holy shit, Scar. Are you okay?”
Instead of attempting to formulate a response, Scar stares at the body by his feet, shock keeping him from total hyperventilation. “Is he… is it dead?”
The body on the floor twitches, neither in confirmation nor denial.
“Fuck,” Grian curses, putting his arms under Scar’s and shouldering his weight, helping him stagger back to his feet. The second Scar orients himself and isn’t in immediate danger of falling over, Grian lets him go and races back to pick his weapon up off the floor.
The thing on the ground groans, body undulating unnaturally.
“Grian,” Scar gasps, fear locking his limbs.
“Can you run?” Grian barks at him, taking a defensive stance that Scar does not like one bit.
“Grian—”
“Can you run, Scar?”
Scar swallows, mouth dry. “Not very far. Not today.”
Grian’s eyes look impossibly wide, panic racing through him as he considers their options.
“Can you make it to my car?”
Scar thinks of the spot Grian nearly always chooses to park at. The one he complains about. Not enough guest spaces, why is it always street parking, not enough shade, the potholes that are bad for his tires, on and on and on. It used to make Scar laugh, endearingly fond of Grian’s constant griping.
He doesn’t know if he can make it that far.
He knows he has no choice but to try.
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Grian says, the weapon raised over his head as the body on the ground lethargically struggles to pick itself up off the floor, groaning in a way that sounds hauntingly inhuman. “That’s all we’ll need. The second this thing gets up, I’m gonna smash it. That should be enough of a distraction for you to get around it. Get to the car—the doors aren’t locked—and I’ll meet you there.”
Hysteria lodges in Scar’s throat, nervous laughter bubbling its way out of him. “But—”
“Scar, for once in your life, listen to me! We don’t have time. Are you with me or not?”
Scar snaps his mouth shut, shelving the argument and a dozen similar ones just like it for now.
“I’m with you,” he says, steeling his resolve and looking at the open door, just past the grotesque human-shaped creature that’s slowly getting to its knees.
“Alright then. Ready—set—” Grian’s voice sounds strangely light, hysteria creeping its way into him as well. The shambling thing, skull caved and shoulder dislocated, but still, somehow, very much alive, gets its bearings at last, standing still for just a fraction of a second before it locates them with what remains of its eye and screams.
“Go!” Grian shouts as the monster charges, putting his whole force into the blow as he swings the tire iron down.
Scar watches as Grian attacks the thing over and over again. Until blood and gore and viscera mark the walls and floor like a Pollock painting.
“What are you waiting for?!” Grian yells when he finally notices that Scar is still standing and hasn’t moved. He grips the weapon tight and attacks a final time, slamming the creature down, good and dead. He’s panting as he stands over top of it, looking drained but victorious. “Run already!”
As he says it, Grian is already rushing from the scene himself, calling back for Scar over his shoulder. And in a way that’s as familiar to him as breathing by now, Scar chases after him.
Outside, Grian’s car isn’t far—half a block away at most.
It feels like miles.
Scar’s entire body hurts, and running is agony. His joints and muscles, everything aches, but the adrenaline keeps him moving—down the front steps, across the yard, to the sidewalk. Grian is at his side, barely half a stride ahead, but even with his shorter legs he’s outpacing Scar, glancing at him and stressing—insisting—that he go faster.
“Scar, we have to move!”
It’s adrenaline. It’s desperation. Scar can see Grian’s car parked on the other side of the street. The back seat is piled with the things he’d been moving out of Scar’s apartment, shoved in haphazardly, disorganised and ashamed. The sky overhead is bright and sunny, a clear blue for a temperate, pleasant November day.
Grian opens the driver’s side door as Scar rounds to the other side of the car. He’s fumbling for his keys, cursing under his breath, trying to get them into the ignition as Scar hastily buckles himself in.
That’s why Scar sees them first.
People—no, not people, not anymore—standing in the middle of the street about a block and a half down.
“Grian.”
Grian isn’t paying attention. He’s finally gotten the key in the ignition, he’s buckling himself in, he’s checking his rearview mirror as if that’s what he has to worry about most right now.
“Grian.”
The bodies—corpses; zombies—are standing in the middle of the street. There’s four of them, and they look, for lack of a better word, lost. Swaying back and forth as if undecided on where to go. Even from a distance Scar can see that they’re stained with blood and viscera, their clothes smeared, red caked on their hands and faces. He feels sick just looking at them, glad that they’re not close enough for him to identify. He doesn’t want to recognize them as a neighbour. He doesn’t want to spot a former friend.
A fifth zombie lurches out onto the street as Grian finally pulls away from the curb, slow, like he has all the time in the world. At their movement, five bodies twist to face them in unison and begin their approach. They’re not fast, but the fear they instill in him doesn’t seem to care.
Scar can’t take it any longer.
“Grian, for goodness’ sake they’re on the road!”
Grian’s never been great when things don’t go according to his plans. When he gets stressed, he gets anxious, and he panics.
He’s panicking now.
“I don’t know what to do.” His fingers are white-knuckled where they grip the steering wheel. The zombies are advancing, two of them faster than the others. Scar recognizes one, he thinks. His stomach twists.
“Grian!” Scar yells, his voice loud, to the point that Grian startles on reflex. “The gas! We can’t just sit here!”
The front-runner is metres away, arms outstretched and making swiping motions. If they don’t move they’re going to die.
“Grian, now!”
Grian’s leg jerks on reflex, hammering down the gas pedal. For a moment their world is nothing but the squeal of tires on asphalt and the force of the car’s acceleration pushing them back into their seats. Grian veers left roughly, swerving around the nearest zombie. There’s a moment, sickening and terrible, where Scar locks eyes with the milky, dead sockets of the creature as their side mirror clips its hip. It crumples to the ground in a spurt of gore and a screaming, too-human wailing that Scar will never forget.
Then it’s over and they’re past it, and the zombies are rapidly shrinking in the rearview mirror.
Somehow, it doesn’t feel any safer.
“Where are we going?” Grian’s voice is high and quivery around the edges. He’s pale and looks like he’s about to be sick. The last thing Scar wants to be right now is his emotional support.
He becomes it anyway.
“We have to get out of the city.”
“I don’t know where to go,” Grian babbles. There’s a frantic edge to his tone, a hair’s breadth away from an anxiety attack. “What even were those things? Where did they come from? Why did they—oh god, Scar, you almost died.”
Scar thinks back to all the times he listened to Pearl prattle on about hypothetical emergency scenarios, listing the best places to go in a crisis and what areas to avoid. It had seemed so amusing at the time—her silly fascination with the abnormal. The Scarlet Witch, he’d teased her, always planning for the end of the world.
He wishes she were here now.
“We’ll take alleys and side roads,” Scar says, more calm than he has any right to be. “We’ll get out. Pearl always said, you… you get out, you get clear, and then you re-evaluate. We need a safe distance to—”
“To what, Scar?” Grian’s voice is biting, and Scar hates how it makes him bristle. “What are we going to do?”
Service roads. They just need to get to service roads. Once they’re outside the city they can. They can…
“We’ll go to the police,” Grian announces, coming to his own conclusion amidst his panic. “That’ll—”
“Grian.” Scar’s tone is firm. He’s gripping his hands into fists so tight that his arms ache. “I think we can agree, you owe me at least one thing. So if you could listen, I’d appreciate it.”
The air in the car grows tense and guilty. Grian stares grimly at the road ahead as he drives and says nothing.
“We need to get out of the city. If something’s happening, if there’s some sort of invasion or—or uprising, we can’t be here. Be smart about this, Grian. Think.”
Grian is silent. Up ahead there are brake lights, multiple cars backing up at an intersection. Instead of stopping, Grian turns left into an alley. He continues driving, taking side-streets, heading in the direction Scar knows leads to the outskirts of town. He’s listening, and there’s no need to fight about it, but Scar refuses to feel grateful.
On autopilot, he reaches out and thumbs on the radio, scrolling through the stations.
There’s static at first, then music, predictable and casual, as if nothing is going wrong. Every station is playing the same—radio ads, the weekend top 40, oldies, rock, classical. Scar scans the channels, one after the other, looking for a news report, listening for something to confirm that things aren’t alright.
Finally, one station breaks from the rest.
It’s an emergency broadcast, automated and on alert. The same words repeating over and over: out of an abundance of caution, with no cause for alarm, stay off the roads, stay at home, stay inside.
Grian still says nothing.
They’re speeding, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The side-streets are empty. Emptier than Scar thought they’d be in a crisis. It feels like the world has already ended. Like they’re lingering in a post-credits scene that no one was meant to see.
“It’ll be fine,” Scar hears himself say. In the side view mirror, messy and streaked with gore, he can see a column of smoke rising in the distance. A building on fire; maybe more than one. “I’m sure of it,” he insists.
Next to him, Grian remains silent.
Together, they drive.