#i did start writing white hair fic part 3 though so 👀 look out for that in a few days maybe

[happy-hermit]

OKay um. I kind of wrote this on accident and it is literally nothing that i had planned on writing but. Hope you enjoy it anyway KASJD scar hurt/comfort the beloved <3

( @stiffyck i hope you don't mind the tag just every time i write scar angst i think of you)

Summary: Grian sees Scar's vex wings for the first time.

“Cub said you have wings,” Grian says, apropos of nothing, and Scar almost drops the blocks he’s holding. 

His mouth is suddenly extremely dry, and he has to clear his throat before responding, forcing himself to continue placing leaves along the ground. “Cub is— Cub is a crazy man. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

Grian is sitting on a chest a few feet away, and he shrugs. “I dunno. He seemed pretty sure.” He’s trying to appear casual about it, but Scar can hear the burning curiosity lurking behind his words. Nerves start to writhe in his stomach. 

Cub wouldn’t have said anything on purpose, is the thing. Scar can’t even be mad at him. It had probably just slipped out. Cub wears his own wings a lot more casually than Scar does. Which is to say that Scar doesn’t. Ever. 

It takes Grian talking again to make him realize that he’s frozen in place, no longer building. 

“Look, if it’s— You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” Grian says, and when Scar looks at him there’s a hint of worry in the lines of his face, a hint of awkwardness. “You can tell me to buzz off and I’ll drop it.”

“Like it’s hot?” Scar says, just to see the way Grian’s nose wrinkles in irritation. 

Scar laughs softly, and a bittersweet resignation keeps his mouth turned upwards at the corners, afterwards. He puts his leaves back into his inventory and sits down on the shulker in front of Grian with a little sigh. Scar wrings his hands together and avoids eye contact, instead watching a rabbit dig in a nearby field. 

“Cub… might be onto something,” Scar says eventually. “This time.”

“It’s true?” Grian sits up straight with wide eyes, his own wings fluffing out behind him. “But— I’ve never seen them before.”

“I do have some subtlety, I’ll have you know,” Scar says, scoffing playfully. Grian raises an eyebrow. “I do!”

“How do you hide them then?” 

Scar huffs quietly, glancing at Grian and then away again. He doesn’t mean any harm, Scar knows. His eyes hold nothing but curious concern. Maybe it’s time Scar stopped hiding, anyway. 

“It’s okay if you—“

“No, it’s fine,” Scar interrupts, and sends him a little grin. “I guess I could tell you. Now that I’ve proved I can keep secrets.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Grian waves a dismissive hand in the air, but he’s smiling. “I’m very proud.”

“Why thank you,” Scar says, and then he bites the inside of his cheek for a second before continuing. “I use magic to hide them. You know, illusion magic.”

Grian’s eyebrows furrow, and he tilts his head. “That doesn’t… I don’t know, it doesn’t wear you out?”

“Not much.” Scar shrugs. “It’s just habit at this point.”

Grian’s mouth twitches just slightly downward, eyebrows still drawn together, and when he speaks next it’s just a little bit softer. “Why?”

A familiar melancholy tugs harshly at his heart, and Scar lets his eyes drift over Grian’s shoulders to where his wings are shifting behind him, pristine and colorful. “They don’t look like yours,” he says. 

“Well, yeah. You’re vex,” Grian says, and he puts his hand on Scar’s knee. “You know— you know no one here cares about that, right? No one thinks of you or Cub differently.”

Scar laughs softly and avoids Grian’s gaze. “Of course. I don’t— I don’t hide them because of you guys. Promise.”

“Can I see?” Grian asks, carefully, and by the tone of his voice Scar can tell he’s realized how serious it is. How fragile it’s making him feel. Scar twists his hands into the fabric of his pants, swallows, and nods.

“Are you sure?” Grian asks, soft and quiet. He ducks down to look Scar in the eye, nothing but gentle acceptance and slight worry on his face. It makes tears prick at his eyes, and he blinks rapidly. 

“I’m sure,” Scar says, matching his tone. “It’s just— Well, they’re…”

“They’re what?” Grian prompts, and Scar lets out a short laugh that sounds more like a sob.

“They’re ugly,” Scar admits, and his voice breaks, and he feels silly, and he feels small, and he looks away from Grian and laughs at himself; sad and pitiful. “I’m vain, I know.”

“Oh, Scar,” Grian says, like his own heart is breaking.

Scar feels a light touch on his shoulder, and he looks over at Grian, at this person who has made him laugh on countless bad days, at his friend, and he finds it in himself to trust him. To let down his guard for the first time in— Well. For the first time. 

Scar closes his eyes, and he lets the magic slide through his fingers like sand in a sifter. He lets his wings go free. He lets just a bit of his hair turn white. He lets go. Grian inhales sharply, and Scar opens his eyes.

The avian is frozen in place, a hand still floating aimlessly near Scar’s shoulder, and his eyes are fixed firmly on something behind him, wide and horrified. Scar glances over his own shoulder to check on things, and finds pretty much what he’d expected. His wings are floating gently behind him, torn and scarred and ragged. Just barely glowing a soft grey-blue color. They aren’t pretty. Scar knows they aren’t pretty. His chest aches sharply at the sight, and he huffs and turns away. 

Only to meet Grian’s eyes, brimming with fury and fire. His large wings are flared out behind him defensively, talons gripping at the earth below and scraping grass out of the ground. Scar is confronted with the sudden and clear reminder that Grian is not entirely human, either. And he’s mad. Scar blinks in muted surprise.

“Who did this?” Grian asks, voice low and flat and almost deceptively calm. Scar just stares, and Grian looks at him sharply, seething. “Scar. Tell me who.”

At first, Scar thinks to lie. It is an instinct that is quick and fleeting. There is a matching scar on each of his wings, he knows, that are too uniform and precise to have been an accident. He tells the truth. The short version, anyway.

“We met in a woodland mansion. Cub and I, when we were little,” Scar says, heart beating painfully in his chest. “They had us in separate cells, and I would— At night, I would phase through the wall to see him. He didn’t have that kind of magic, but I did, and I was just, lonely, and—” He cuts himself off with a shaky breath, closing his eyes briefly to collect his thoughts.

“That magic comes from our wings,” Scar continues hoarsely, glancing back at his wings and shifting them carefully to get a better look. “When they found— found out what I was doing, they… I guess they kind of cut the source.”

He knows now, that they’d set him up to do it on purpose. He hadn’t been able to phase through any of the other walls, hadn’t been able to escape; he’d only been able to slip through to Cub. The Illagers had just wanted to test if they had the ability. So that they could nullify it as soon as possible. He’d been young, so young, and he’d fallen for it.

Scar cuts a glance at Grian and cracks the smallest of smiles through his watery eyes. “They’re long gone by now,” he says. “I don’t even remember what world we came from. You can’t find them.”

For just a moment, Grian looks like he’s going to try anyway, jaw set and face stony with cold anger, wings poised to take flight. Then he closes his eyes and take a long, slow breath. When he opens them again, he just looks sad.

“What about the rest?”

(A desolate world. The groans of the undead around every corner. Fighting for every moment of continued existence. Sharp pain shooting up his legs.  Clawed, rotting hands grabbing at his wings as he ran. Ripping, tearing—)

“That’s a story for another time, I’m afraid,” Scar says quietly. “Cub and I world-hopped without experience and got separated. My next world wasn’t… Well. It wasn’t great.”

Understatement of the century, but Grian doesn’t have to know that just yet. Though by the look on his face, maybe he already does.

“Do they hurt?” Grian asks eventually, gaze falling gently on his wings, something akin to grief in his eyes. Avians took wings very seriously, Scar knew.

“Sometimes.” Scar shrugs. “Mostly when it’s cold, for some reason.”

Grian starts reaching out, almost like he doesn’t know he’s doing it, and then he jerks his hand to a stop. It takes Scar a few seconds to realize he had flinched.

“Sorry,” Grian says, sounding embarrassed, and he retracts his hand back to his lap. Scar feels a spark of disappointment that surprises him.

“It’s okay,” he says, and then, as casual as he can manage, “You can touch them, if you want. They might feel funny, though.”

“You sure?” Grian tilts his head, and it’s so birdlike that Scar can’t help but crack a small smile. 

“Go for it.”

Grian reaches out again, slowly, watching him carefully, and Scar employs all conscious thought towards keeping his wings still. He can hear his heartbeat rushing in his ears. He’s holding his breath in anticipation. 

The touch is featherlight and soft, just barely grazing the top of his left wing, and it twitches on instinct before settling beneath the touch. It’s strange. It’s foreign. It is terrifying and comforting in equal measures. His chest is alight with a feeling he can’t quite place, and it’s crawling up his throat, choking his voice. 

Grian makes a small inquisitive sound, almost like a chirp, as he carefully runs his hand down to the edge of his wings, gently tracing a scar that he doesn’t know a zombie left. He brushes off a few bits of dirt and smoothes out the thinner parts that are wrinkling under the strain of being hidden for so long, and it’s almost as if Grian is trying to preen him, like he’s trying to find a way, and he’s being so gentle that it almost hurts. 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until Grian goes still and makes a wounded noise, coming back around to look him in the eyes.

“Sorry,” Scar chokes out, laughing a little and wiping fruitlessly at his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Scar. Don’t be sorry.” Grian softly grabs his hands and pulls them away from his face, eyes focused and kind. “Do you want me to stop?”

Scar shakes his head almost frantically, overwhelmed. “No, please— I’m fine, don’t go, don’t go—”

Through his own tears, Scar can just barely make out Grian’s own eyes welling up, and then his hands are being yanked forward and he’s falling into a hug. Grian’s wings immediately rise to wrap around them protectively, brushing gently against his own, and Scar lets out a shaky breath, closing his eyes and burying his head into Grian’s shoulder. He’s tired.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Grian says, as firm as it is kind, as if it’s just a simple fact of the universe. As if it is ever that easy. Scar is wounded, and he’s a bit broken, and he’s heard that promise before. He believes it anyway. Grian says it, and he believes it. 

“Okay,” Scar says, muffled against the fabric of Grian’s sweater. “Okay.”

He knocks his wings gently into Grian’s, something warm settling in his chest. 

It almost feels like flying.

[misseffect]

1, 3, 23 for the ask meme? 👀

thank you for the ask!! 💕

1. favourite fic you wrote this year

It's gotta be Flux; the one that started it all back up again after a 2-ish year break from writing.

I'm really chuffed with how it works as a standalone fic and the way it slots into the wider Normandy Detective Agency series, and I feel like I got the ✨vibe✨ right for the setting.

Basically it's the post-Sidonis angst I think we deserve, with more cigarettes and slow-dancing 😙👌

23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t

the next instalment of tNDA rip

@shepgarrus and I are currently pooling our collective braincells into a shakarian formula 1 probably human AU which I'd love to make into something publishable but. c'est la vie.

Key points for your consideration:

- baby Shep and Garrus growing up racing on the karting circuit together

- a friendship based on both a fierce, long-established rivalry and a genuine respect for the other persons' ability

- TV interview banter, publicity photos where they always manage to stand next to each other somehow, and internet speculation about whether they're fucking on the sly

- the inherent potential for angst in a very dangerous sport

- kick-ass afterparties

- sweaty post-race Shepard in a half-undone race suit 👀👀

- sweaty post-race Garrus with messy helmet hair 👀👀👀

3. favourite line/scene you wrote this year

oooooh tricky! I got this one twice so I'll pick one published and one unpublished.

Unpublished: introducing tNDA-verse Castis.

The part of AU - particularly human AU - that I love the most is picking apart the characters. What changes? What's essential about them? How does what we know about them already - their motivation, their backstory, the way they dress - translate into a new setting?

I put Castis through the human AU wringer and he came out an expensively-dressed defence lawyer from New York, who has a somewhat contentious relationship with his bull-headed son and he's also a DILF thank you for coming to my ted talk

Under the cut because it's Long (also part of a longer scene with Garrus which I’ve written but haven’t included)

Ask me more questions about fic!

"Garrus, your car's outside I know you're in there."

Nobody walks anywhere in LA. Shepard pounds the door with her fist again, and at last a key turns and the door opens.

"Christ - finally, I was - "

Shepard registers the cane first. Then the moustache.

"Uh - "

"Good morning," says the man who isn't Garrus.

He's in his mid-fifties, Shepard would guess, in brown suit pants, a white shirt and suspenders; all well-tailored and immaculately pressed. The cane is a subtle, glossy dark-wood thing with silver at the handle, glinting in his fist.

"Morning - sir," she adds hastily, because he seems like someone who's used to it. "I'm looking for - "

"Garrus? He went to get a paper."

"Oh," she says. Trust him to walk to the damn store. "Right."

They must be related. They've got the same nose, the same scratchy voice, the same lean build, though Garrus is a few inches taller.

"I can - uh - come back later," Shepard offers into the stretching silence.

"You seem in something of a hurry."

"It can wait."

If she's quick, she could catch Garrus his way home.

"You always knock with such vivacity, do you?"

The man has a benign, amicable sort of expression which Shepard knows better than to take at face value. His eyes are keen behind the pleasantries and she gets the feeling he's not going to let her get off easy.

So Shepard settles on a personable smile.

"I suppose so."

He returns the smile and it feels like she's passed some kind of test.

"Garrus won't be long. Come in - please - Miss - ?"

"Shepard. Jane Shepard - really, it's not - " But he's already standing aside and waving her in.

"Castis Vakarian. Coffee?"

Shepard resigns herself to not having the morning she expected. "That'd be great. Thanks."

So this is the infamous Vakarian patriarch. Shepard knows the name from the digging she did when they hired Garrus. Castis has the same East Coast lilt as his son, though much more pronounced, and there's an old-money look about him. He wouldn't seem out of place in a grand old colonial house out in the country.