Work Text:
‘Mumbo, is the moon big?’
That had been the first time Grian had actually been concerned. It hadn’t been the first time that he’d noticed - no, he’d absent-mindedly taken notice of the moon seeming larger than normal while he was working on the midnight ceiling for the alleyway. Crouched between layers of dark grey glass and end rods, starting to feel slightly dizzy from the effect, he had taken a break and retreated from the alley slightly nauseous from overworking himself. He had taken a short walk around Boatem, stretching his aching limbs, and he had looked up at the sky.
But he hadn’t been concerned.
So now, after some quick and intense escalation involving a religion that Grian was steadily finding less and less unlikely, he was staring at himself in his bathroom mirror and prodding at his eye-bags. There was no bed in his bedroom, and just looking into his mirror made himself feel nauseous, like he was going to collapse.
Instead of sleeping, he headed to the observatory.
The moon, as always, stared down at him from the sky with an eerie calmness to it. The slight pull of gravity tugged at his shoulders, an encouraging pull, come to me, let me take you, the moon was saying to him, murmuring in an inviting tone, and he broke into a run to the observatory, a familiar tingly fear fluttering in his head. The moon is angry, he told himself, his wings fluffing up in anxiety behind him, and she wants to punish you. Stay away.
The familiar copper roof greeted him calmly as he stumbled up to the door, dragging his hand lightly across the wall as he walked into the building as if to catch himself when he inevitably passed out. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept, and he was starting to regret this whole Mooner disaster, but there was something about the dread pooling in his stomach that made him unable to sleep anyway. It was easier to keep his eyes open, so he didn’t have to worry about what could happen while they were closed.
He collapsed into his chair and brought his knees up to his chest, continuing his research. Grian had been working on a lot of maths, which he usually hated, but it was just hard enough to keep him awake obsessing over it. If the moon had grown x amount of blocks in x amount of time, how long did they have until it killed them all?
The exhausted panic growing in his chest kept him awake.
He had been working for a few hours, and it was nearly sunrise, when he heard the intruder. It was just that point in the night when he got so tired that the colours in front of him blended together and he could never quite understand what was going on or what he was doing. The footsteps scattered around the doorway similar to his own and in a similarly exhausted voice, he heard his own name spoken.
“Grian?”
He stumbled to his feet and, in perfectly coherent fashion, ran at them.
The figure let out a surprised, slightly pained grunt as he was pushed to the floor, and something clattered to the floor to their left, and as he looked up at Grian from where the shorter man was on top of him, Grian realised in half-shock and half-embarrassment that it was Scar.
Scar was sitting, startled, his hair ruffled and messy under his hat, which was tilted to the side, his face slightly flushed. His cane had fallen to the ground when Grian had jumped him, but he didn’t seem too bothered. He was staring at Grian with his green eyes unusually bright and unusually wide for someone as tired as he clearly was.
Grian found that he did not hate how dishevelled he looked. In fact, he thought he should probably look like that more often. For reasons unnamed.
“Oh,” he said, very intelligently, fighting off the very un- Grian thoughts that had just assaulted him, and shuffled back off Scar. “It’s you.”
They were now both in separate dazed piles on the floor. Scar chuckled, and he sounded as tired and out of it as Grian, or even more. “Hey, G.” he said. “I would ask if you - if you’ve slept, but-” and he paused, as if he knew what he was meant to say but didn’t have the words, eyes squinting, “I don’t think you have.”
Grian, his face hot, let out a breathless laugh and looked up at the split ceiling, where the moon was retreating into the horizon and the sun was beginning to creep up on the other side. “I haven’t.” he said. Then, as an afterthought, “I think I’m dying.”
“No, Grian,” Scar said, grinning as if nothing bad in the world could ever happen, which Grian so envied, because the moon was going to crash and kill them all , “You’re not dying! You’re just-” and he cut off a yawn, “a bit tired.”
“A bit,” Grian parroted. “A bit tired.”
“Yeah, just a bit,” Scar giggled, “just a teensy bit tired,” and then his face dropped. “Honestly, I think I’m dying too.”
“We should just,” Grian said, and then paused. “I forgot. I can’t keep a thought these days.”
Scar laughed. “Neither can I.” he smiled.
They stared at each other in silence for a few more seconds, and Grian found himself thinking against all sense that he really did wish Scar would come closer.
“Why’d you come?” he asked, not rudely. Mainly to get the treacherous thoughts out of his sleep-deprived mind.
“I have been stress-baking.” Scar said mildly, and Grian let out a soft oh and swivelled to see the box that Scar had dropped, which he had completely forgotten about. He really needed a nap.
“What’d you make?” he asked as Scar reached over and snatched the box, shuffling closer to him. Scar looked at him for a few seconds with a very blank look on his face like he had completely forgotten what he had made.
“Cookies?” he said with a nervous smile.
“Was that a question or an answer?”
Scar groaned, falling dramatically onto his back onto the floor. “I don’t even know at this point. I can’t remember baking them, but all of the bowls were out and suddenly I was taking them out of the oven. I’m so tired, G, and I can’t think.”
“I get it,” Grian said slightly miserably, dropping his head onto Scar’s chest. The taller man stiffened very obviously, and an embarrassed flush came across Grian’s face as he jolted back upwards.
“And then when I do think, it’s stuff I shouldn’t be thinking,” Scar muttered in frustration, and when Grian looked up at him he had his head tilted up at the ceiling, at the telescope. “I do love the building you’ve done here,” he said absent-mindedly.
“We should probably stand up.” Grian said. Scar made a face, but he reached over the floor and took hold of his cane, beginning to stand. Grian stood with him, but as soon as he did, a grey spotty blindness took over his eyes and a faraway ringing started up in his ears. He was vaguely aware of swaying in one spot for a second or two and then falling forwards - then, the scrape of Scar’s cane and a crash as they both fell back onto the floor.
“Sorry,” Grian murmured into Scar’s chest. Oh, his face was in Scar’s chest. When he looked up, Scar looked just as flustered by this as he was. His hat was missing, having rolled across the floor.
“That’s fine,” he said breathlessly. “We’re tired.”
“Do you ever think of sleeping anyway?” Grian found himself asking.
“Oh, constantly,” Scar nodded. His eyes were raking over Grian’s face like he was trying to memorise it.
“Yeah,” Grian breathed.
Positioned the way he was, he would only have to lean the slightest bit forwards to press his mouth to Scar’s.
And when that thought came into his mind, his jaw nearly dropped, because god-dammit he needed some sleep and then he could get back to his repression, like normal Grian. He needed to shut his eyes, and stop staring into Scar’s! (He didn’t.)
Instead, he opened his mouth.
Which was usually a mistake, if you were him.
“When I’m tired, I get really impulsive.” he said before he could stop himself.
“Oh really?” slipped from Scar’s mouth like he was breathing, so naturally, like he wasn’t even thinking about it. All he was focusing on was Grian.
Grian’s eyes were sliding from his eyes to his lips, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
“Scar,” Grian said, a whisper, like it was meant for Scar’s ears and Scar’s ears only.
“Yeah?” Scar hummed. He brought up his left hand and danced his fingers up and down Grian’s back like it was simple, like he was just fidgeting and not making Grian think he was going to burst into flames.
“Usually, when I make an impulsive decision, it’s a mistake.” Grian breathed. Scar looked up, made eye contact. Uncharacteristically serious.
He paused for a moment before he spoke, like he was drinking the other man in with his eyes.
“Not always,” he said, like he was begging for it.
Grian kissed him.
And it was exactly like he hoped it would be. And maybe he could chalk that up to how he was so tired everything was a blur, but really, who cared? All he knew was Scar’s lips on his, and his hands touching down his back and his waist, and Grian tangled his hands into his hair, and Scar breathed shakily against him, and suddenly he felt a lot less tired, like Scar had woken him up. Like Scar had kissed life into his lips.
When he pulled away, Scar chased the kiss, but ended up leaning back anyway, his breathing coming fast and heavy, like he’d just run a marathon.
“You still think that?” Grian whispered.
“Yeah,” Scar said breathlessly. “Now, let’s get some sleep.”
Grian frowned. His eyes strayed to the box of cookies beside them, and he heard Scar let out a choked laugh before he realised he had tracked his gaze.
“We can have cookies when we wake up,” Scar said. “We can’t upset the moon if we sleep during the day, right?”
“Why didn’t we think of that before?”
“I don’t know,” Scar said, sounding actually quite confused. “Maybe we were just… too tired.”