#not pictured here: scar inviting grian to a political assassination on the second date and grian deciding this is the man for him

[raichett]

For the ask game, mumscarian and coffee shop + flower shop + tattoo shop au?

(Ask game can be found here).

You wouldn't think that three serial killers all separately menacing the city would somehow manage to all work near each other in their civilian lives, but you would be wrong. Oblivious to the alter-egos of their neighbours, all three of them - Mumbo with his coffee shop, Grian with his tattoo parlour, and Scar with his florist business - live their lives working on the same street by day and taking unknowing turns in stalking the city by night.

They all know that there are other serial killers out there, of course. Their MOs are so different: Grian likes it showy, elaborate break-ins and mysterious eyes painted on walls, Mumbo prefers seeming-accidents that only look suspicious to the discerning eye, and Scar enjoys kills of a more political leaning, some of them outright assassinations. The news is always harping on about one or the other of them, and all of them cannot deny a curiosity.

Scar is not so stupid as to get tattoos of his victims, but he does like the cute tattoo artist who owns the parlour, and he does have a lot of scars that could use some covering up... He gets lilacs and poppies all along his rib cage, and ribs to go with it, so they look like a garden sprouting out of his body. It's a big job, multiple sessions and expensive, but at the end of it he asks the man out for coffee just down the road, and Grian agrees.

Mumbo looks at the obvious date at the table in the corner and thinks wistfully of what it would be like to have someone in his own life - the logistics of that, of course, prevent him from pursuing relationships while he's still got that need for blood aching behind his teeth and under his nails, but a man can dream, right? The two of them, when his back is turned, watch him also.

He meets one of those handsome men sneaking out a window with blood staining his shirt only a couple of nights later, and the body in the back seat of his car saves his life - same business and all that, honour among thieves (and murderers). They dump it together - a faked drowning - and the feverish kiss they share tastes coppery. The next time Mumbo goes out on the hunt, both of the men meet him, and it's the start of something so horrific it bends itself beautiful.