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love is such a drag - ch. 8

chapter title: either Grian or Scar is the most oblivious person in the world and I'm really not sure which one

sorry about the long wait, please enjoy!

Technically, they aren’t allowed to do wheelchair races with the rental chair that Scar had gotten to try out. On its insurance, he is the only one allowed to operate it.

That doesn’t stop them from marking a section of the sidewalk with chalk and trading off turns with the chair to see who can get the best time.

“Go!” Ren says, and Scar speeds off, already easily the best at using the chair. Scar’s roommate, Cub, turns to Grian.

The speed at which sweat is suddenly rolling down Grian’s back should easily break a record of some sort.

He’s been avoiding Cub the whole time the four of them have been hanging out. After all, Cub is the only one of this group that has met Grian as—well, as Grian. And Ariana. Other than Scar that time or two, but Scar clearly hadn’t recognized him and Grian’s pretty sure Cub will.

Grian’s been on edge the entire afternoon. While they’ve been in a group, Cub hasn’t said a single word to him. All he’s done so far is vaguely stare at Grian. So basically, it’s confirmed that he knows. Even though he’s passing pretty well, if he does say so himself.

He put a bit of effort into this outfit. He’s gone for a full face of natural make-up and a short, butterfly-patterned skirt. That, paired with a pink jacket and his hair extensions framing his face, really just makes him look more like a girl and less like a drag queen.

But Cub has clearly clocked him, and now the two of them are alone together.

“He really likes you,” Cub says, eyes boring deep into Grian’s lying soul. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like someone this much.”

On the one hand, that makes Grian’s heart give a little flutter. He’s special. He isn’t just the next girl in line that Scar likes, he’s different from the others.

The rest of him floods with something akin to mortifying despair. Scar really, really likes him. He isn’t this way with every other person.

And Grian likes Scar a lot.

What is he supposed to do?

Well, right now he can at least tell something of the truth.

“I like him a lot,” admits Grian. “He’s . . . he’s so passionate, and funny, and such a good listener. He’s everything I’ve never really had in a boyfriend, you know?”

Cub raises an eyebrow. “Scar? A good listener? Hm.”

Grian nods. “Yeah,” he says. “He’s—I really like him.” He’s blushing now, so he cuts himself off before he says something embarrassing like how much he likes Scar’s eyes and the smell of his cologne and the feel of his lips.

“You were mumbling, what was that?”

“Nothing!”

It’s clear as day that Cub does not like him, and even clearer that he knows that Grian’s tricking Scar. If it wasn’t in the look in his eyes as he surveys Grian, it was definitely in his tone when he said hm.

“I don’t want him getting hurt,” Cub says. He stuffs his hands in his coat pockets, looking down on Grian like a stern businessman firing his intern. “So you aren’t gonna do that, right?”

Grian quickly shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“Good,” Cub nods. Then, awkwardly, he adds, “and . . . Scar’s a pretty chill guy. If you haven’t told him . . . something, you probably don’t have anything to worry about.”

Grian blinks.

Cub makes a face where his lips disappear into his mouth.

“Dude, that was only thirty-seven seconds! That’s your best score yet!”

Eager for a distraction from whatever is happening, Grian turns toward Ren and Scar, Scar still in the wheelchair, grinning ear-to-ear.

“Ari, your turn!” Scar calls out to him, accepting Ren’s hand as he helps him into the folding chair that they had set up on the sidewalk.

“I don’t even know how,” Grian protests. Ren grabs his hand nonetheless and drags him to the wheelchair.

“Give it a shot, dudette!”

Maybe this wasn’t the best day to wear a short skirt. Grian can only pray that it doesn’t flip up in the wind.

And then, because he can, Grian pulls away from Ren and leans down to Scar, kissing him quickly on the lips before pulling away.

“Kiss for good luck, yeah?” Grian says, hoping with all his might that he isn’t blushing as badly as he thinks he is. If Ren’s look of utter delight means anything, then he probably is.

“Y-yeah,” Scar stutters, looking like he swallowed his quick tongue as he stares dumbfounded at Grian. Grian tries his best to give him a little grin before sitting in the wheelchair, carefully tucking his skirt between his thighs with shaking hands.

“Um, one more?” Scar asks, his fingers tracing over his own lips. “For luck, of course.”

Grian snorts. “You can have one after I win.”

Now why does he go and say things like that?

(He doesn’t win, obviously. He doesn’t even know how to use the wheelchair.)

(He does kiss Scar again, though.)

“We’re in big trouble, guys,” Grian announces at large when he gets home, tossing his keys onto the counter. Mumbo looks up from washing dishes.

“A date?” he asks, the disapproval clear in his voice—which, okay, fair, but Grian really does not need that kind of judgment right now.

“More so hanging out,” he waves off. He toes off his sneakers without undoing the laces and leaves them right in the entryway, sure to annoy Pearl whenever she comes in and accidentally wedges one under the door. “It was fun, but that isn’t the issue. The issue is that I think his roommate knows.”

Mumbo’s mouth twists, his mustache bristling in ways that shouldn’t muscularly be possible. “How is that a problem?”

Unbelievable. Grian stops in his tracks, his coat still half off, and stares at Mumbo as incredulously as he can muster.

“Because he knows,” he says slowly. “He absolutely knows. And we talk about everything, so they probably also talk about everything, so Cub will immediately tell Scar.”

Mumbo stops washing the dishes, setting one last dripping plate into the dish drainer and turning off the water. One last bubble floats over to Grian, but pops before he can reach out to it.

Mumbo doesn’t stop there. He dries his hands with the towel hanging over the oven handle, taking his time to get every particle of water out from in between the cracks of his fingers and palms. He carefully arranges the towel back in its place, laid out as flat as possible, then spends a moment fixing his hair in the faucet’s reflection.

When he’s finally done micromanaging every little thing, Mumbo sighs deeply and rests his arms on the counter separating him and Grian, fixing him with an oddly tired look. “Okay? Then you don’t have to tell him. That’s kind of your whole deal, right? You don’t want to be the one to break the news?”

Grian shrugs his coat off the rest of the way, tossing it onto the couch. “That’s not true at all,” he says. Honestly, that’s so gross of an oversimplification that it’s barely the same issue. “Whether it’s me telling him or someone else, I’m still the one breaking his heart,” he explains. “If I can tell him, I control the narrative. It would be so easy for this Cub character to make me out to be a bad guy, and Scar would totally believe it!”

Another long Mumbo stare. If looks could kill, Mumbo’s wouldn’t. It would probably vaguely hurt, like the sun on a high UV day prickling against one’s skin or a shock from one of those trick handshake buzzers. Do they even make those anymore? Grian hasn’t seen one since he was a kid, and only ever on TV.

“Grian,” Mumbo starts after he’s had his fill of staring, “pardon me for saying this—do you honestly think you’re the good guy?”

That brings Grian up short, fully distracting him from his thoughts of old toy infomercials.

The good guy?

“Well, I—I’m not the bad guy,” he sputters. He isn’t! He’s just doing the best he can to make a bad situation sort of bearable. Is that a bad guy thing? Do bad guys kiss the man they have a crush on? Do bad guys go on dates with him just because they like him? Would bad guys risk everything to find where he lives to make sure he’s okay?

No. No, they wouldn’t do any of that. He isn’t a bad guy—he’s as much of a victim as Scar, if not more! Grian really, really likes Scar, so much that it’s put him in the worst position in the world as he tries to figure out what to do next. Scar just has to sit there for the ride, Grian has to figure out how to drive this thing.

However, with the way Mumbo keeps glaring at him with his vaguely-painful look, Grian has a feeling that he doesn’t agree with that assessment.

“You decided to lead him on from the beginning,” Mumbo accuses, jabbing a finger at him in all but the motion. “You kept it going for free food, date after date after date. You’ve had so many chances to tell him the truth and you didn’t take any of them. You—mate, you kissed him! You went to a Valentine’s Day dance with him and kissed him!”

“Well, I—” Grian has to defend himself from this traitorous turn of events, but he doesn’t even know what to say! It’s like every word has flown out of his body, replaced by the sound of static between his ears. “I—you told me to ghost him! That would’ve been worse!”

“It would’ve been better to abandon him than keep dragging on the kill for weeks!”

Grian scoffs. “Okay, that’s a little dramatic.”

“Is it?” Mumbo laughs a little, almost hysterically. “Is it? Dude, you’re literally like some sort of Sahara desert animal, a—a lion, wounding your prey one leg at a time until it can’t escape you!”

Mumbo pauses. “Well, that’s a bit insensitive of a metaphor,” he says, having the decency to look at least a little ashamed. “I wasn’t talking about—what I mean is that you could have ended this at any time and you’ve chosen not to. Have you even thought about how Scar might feel?”

“That’s the whole problem!” Grian says, voice rising as hot anger rises in his throat. “Of course I’ve thought about how Scar feels, that’s all I’ve thought about!”

That’s why he can’t tell him! He can’t break his heart like that, not after Scar’s so deeply enamored with him—with Ariana. He can’t hurt him.

Mumbo snorts. “Right. Because you definitely aren’t thinking about your own feelings or anything.”

No! He isn’t!

All Grian wants to do is grab a dish from the drainer and chuck it at—at the wall, or at Mumbo, or something. How dare—how dare he? Mumbo’s supposed to be on his side, he’s supposed to help Grian pick out clothes for his dates and commiserate about how hard this whole ordeal is, because last Grian knew he wasn’t the bad guy!

He doesn’t throw anything, though. He turns and storms into the living room, making aborted little punches at his side instead of hitting the wall. “You’re supposed to be my best mate,” he says, and to his unfortunate not-surprise, there’s suddenly tears burning under his eyes. So what, he angry-cries. That just makes him more tender-hearted. At least Mumbo can’t see his eyes, turned away as he is.

“Sometimes your best mate has to set you straight.”

“Yeah, well, neither of us are straight, so that doesn’t really work.”

Behind him, Mumbo lets out a frustrated sigh. Grian keeps looking at the living room wall, the glass sliding doors that lead out to their tiny balcony with the single dead plant sitting in a frozen pot on the railing.

The kitchen tiles creak. Grian doesn’t move, doesn’t let his teeth unclench. If this is Mumbo’s version of support, it’s working worse than a stretched-out bra with the underwire pulled out.

“I’m going to go study,” Mumbo declares haughtily. Finally, Grian turns, sees him standing by the front door, his backpack in his hands. “I’ll see you later.”

Grian doesn’t say anything. He watches as Mumbo sets down his backpack to take his coat from the hanger and swing it on, then pick his backpack back up and open the door.

At the last moment, he turns around, catches Grian’s eye. He’s angry too, Grian notices, his lips pulled in a tight line.

“Cub’s a good chap, by the way,” he says, almost begrudgingly. “But he’ll call it as he sees it.”

Then the door slams closed, and Grian is left alone with his anger and—and other, indiscernible feelings, all roiling together in one big pot.

And he still has to change out of drag.

Perhaps too aggressively, Grian tugs his extensions out of his hair, barely bothering to unclip them before yanking. How was it Mumbo’s business what he did about the Scar situation? Honestly, Mumbo should be glad he was asked for an opinion at all.

Not to mention, Mumbo’s been encouraging him! He helped him pick a Valentine’s outfit, and set up the plan with the study group, and helped him figure out Scar’s address. How on earth can he choose to get all high and mighty now?

“It just came out of nowhere,” Grian reasons aloud, shaking his head.

“Not really.”

Grian probably jumps two feet in the air, his arms going up to instinctively cover his face as a scream tears from his throat. He was alone in the apartment and now he isn’t—

Pearl is standing behind him, an empty glass in her hand. She raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

Grian just tries to get his heartrate down to something resembling normal. “Pearl! I—I didn’t know you were home!”

“You didn’t check.”

Hey, wait a second. “What did you say? About—about the thing with Mumbo?”

Pearl moves away toward the kitchen sink to fill her glass. “I mean, really, Grian. Mumbo’s kind of been against this the whole time. I think he was just building up the courage to tell you.”

Grian can’t pretend that doesn’t hurt. He flops down on the couch, doing his best not to hyperventilate from the heart attack he just had.

It isn’t so much the fact that Mumbo doesn’t agree that hurts, but more that Mumbo was afraid to talk to him about it. Did he expect Grian to blow up in his face? He wouldn’t do that!

Mumbo first was afraid of him, and then betrayed him. Or, rather, both at the same time. And man, it hurts.

“I don’t care,” he tries. Pearl almost chokes on her water.

“I do!”

Grian almost jumps again, his heartrate shooting right back up, as another head pokes out of Pearl’s room. A girl with curly red hair and freckles grins brightly at him.

“Who are you?” Grian demands. The girl giggles.

“I’m Gem,” she says, stepping into the living room and offering him her hand. “I like your breasts.”

“Thanks, I bought them myself,” Grian says reflexively, shaking her hand. Her grip is stronger than he’d expected, squeezing his hand like those people who grip food unreasonably hard and post pictures of it. “Why are you here?”

“We’re studying,” Pearl says. Gem nods.

“I’m totally invested in this whole thing now,” Gem whispers. “I have to give you my Snap, I need to stay updated on this. Please add me to your private story.”

Grian stares at her.

Honestly, maybe Mumbo wouldn’t yell at him if he sent him all his updates through Snapchat.

Maybe someone would finally give him useful advice.

“Hey, Scar? Can we talk?”

The good guy that he is, Scar is washing the dishes, the way he always does (even when it isn’t his turn!). He’s just gotten started after zero cajoling from Cub, but if he forgets while having this talk that’ll be on Cub’s head, not his own.

Scar shuts off the water and shakes the droplets off his hands. They used to have a towel hanging around here somewhere, but Scar used it two days ago to try and catch a stray cat and he doesn’t think anyone has replaced it.

“Of course, Cubby,” he says, turning around on his stool to face both Cub and Ren. They’ve been conspiring together on the couch since Scar used the restroom earlier, muttering secret plans in low voices and casting wary glances toward him whenever he looked at them. Now both of them look slightly uncomfortable, like this isn’t a conversation they think they want to have.

They’re probably going to ask him how he treats Ariana, aren’t they? Well, no worries there! He hasn’t done a single ungentlemanly thing toward her since they met. They have nothing to be concerned about in those regards.

Cub exchanges a secret look with Ren, before apparently deciding to take the lead. “Scar, how do you feel about . . . trans people?”

“Well, Cub, that depends on what you mean,” Scar responds, frowning. “Transmitter people? Translators? Transcribers? I think transmitter people sounds kind of like aliens, so I’m going to have to say I don’t feel great about them.”

Cub sighs. “Transgender people.”

Well, this is a little awkward, because Scar doesn’t exactly know what that is. He can gather that it has something to do with gender, but the prefix of trans isn’t clearing anything up. People who send their gender to other people? Can you send a gender?

“Now, I know exactly what you’re talking about,” Scar says. “But for the sake of Ren, could you explain what transgender means real quick?”

Cub blinks. Looks at Ren. Ren shrugs. Cub turns back to Scar. “You know, people whose gender doesn’t align with their bodies? Like, when someone who’s born a guy transitions to be a girl?”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Scar nods. He’s heard of that! Scott mentioned it once or something, and he can remember seeing stuff in the news about it. Really, Scar doesn’t know what the whole fuss is. Let people be themselves, and all that.

“So . . . how do you feel about trans people?” Cub prods. Again, Scar frowns.

“Well, once I meet a trans person, I’ll let you know!” he says graciously. He doesn’t quite get how trans people are different from normal people, but maybe they have an extra bellybutton or something. That would certainly be a detail he would have to consider in his decision.

Ren’s jaw drops. “Scar, I’m a trans person,” he says incredulously.

Wait.

What?

“But—” Scar glances between him and Cub, both of whom appear quite taken aback. “But you aren’t a girl!”

Ren barks out a surprised laugh. “Kinda the point, dude,” he says.

“You knew about Ren,” Cub insists. “You definitely knew.”

“I most certainly did not!” Scar retorts, his chest puffing up. “Wait, so—Ren, are you going to become a girl?”

“No, I used to be a girl,” Ren corrects. “You knew that!”

Scar shakes his head insistently. “But you’re so . . . Ren!” he says, trying to imagine Ren as a girl. He can’t make it work. “You’re a guy!”

“Tell that to my insurance,” Ren snorts. “But I appreciate the gender euphoria, my dude!”

“You knew that,” Cub repeats, still looking dumbfounded. “You brought Ren soup after his top surgery last spring break.”

Scar has no clue what top surgery is, but he does remember Ren getting a big chest surgery over spring break. He helped him out the whole time, seeing as Ren’s roommates had all gone home for the break. Scar practically lived in that apartment the entire week. “Wait, did you get your—uh, your things removed?” he asks, gesturing to his chest. “You had those?”

Ren is no longer laughing, back to matching Cub’s surprise. “Uh, yeah? Scar, my man, you gave me a sponge bath. You saw my bits!”

“I’m not the kind of man to pay attention to what another man has in his pants,” Scar tells him, turning his nose up.

“You literally knew me as a girl,” Ren continues. “Freshman year? I lived next door?”

And—

Hey, now that Ren mentions it, Scar does remember that one girl with the brown hair and the loud voice next door, False’s then-roommate. They had been pretty good friends until she stopped showing up and False started rooming with Ren instead.

Wait a minute.

“I thought she moved!” Scar says, just as astonished as the two of them. “You were her?”

A beat passes before Ren bursts into howling laughter, clutching at his sides. Cub still hasn’t stopped staring at him.

With a sudden intake of breath, Cub pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses. He does that sometimes when Scar starts telling him about Disney. “Cool,” Cub says after he breathes out in a hiss of air. “Anyways—dude, stop laughing.”

“I can’t! Scar—he actually—”

“Anyways, the point is we wanted to talk about Ariana,” Cub starts, and Scar can’t help the way he immediately blushes just at the mention of his love’s name.

Nope, there’s no way he can convince them of his chivalry. He’ll start stammering and something inappropriate will slip out.

To save himself any embarrassment, Scar stands up, grabbing the walker set beside him (though he’d really prefer his cane). “Sorry, gentlemen,” he says, nodding to both Cub and the now-rolling Ren. “Speaking of Ari, I have to go call her.”

He doesn’t plan to do anything of the sort. He just needs to get away before anything untoward is said.

“Scar, wait—”

Scar strides away toward the bedroom as quickly as his legs will allow him and shuts the door, leaving Cub and Ren alone in the kitchen.

He really has no idea why they brought up trans people. How strange.

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