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Tunnels are the worst. Scar hates them. He's not made for them, he's the hero Hawkeye! He's made for shooting arrows and leaping dramatically across buildings! And sure, he can work inside a building when he has to, but tunnels are worse because there aren't any windows for him to bust out through in a pinch. Also it blocks communications, which is just the worst thing in any sort of situation. Not that Scar anticipates needing to call in backup, but it's nice to have the option, y'know?
Now of course, all of this is not enough to actually keep him out of the tunnels. He's a dependable guy. If there's a problem down underground and he's the only hero around to check it out, he'll do it. He just might whine a little along the way.
And really, it doesn't sound like that much of a problem. The area's pretty much abandoned, the remnants of an addition to the subway system that never got finished, so the only civilians he might need to worry about are the ones that go poking around where they don't belong. It's just some scans saying that something's a little off, and really, with all this dirt and concrete muddling the signal it's almost certainly a false alarm. So Scar is just gonna take a quick little stroll around, poke his head through every door he sees, then come back up in an hour or three to shrug and say he couldn't find anything. Easy-peasy. It might even get Cub off his case about overworking himself.
The first patch of moss he comes across, he doesn't think much about. The second makes him pause, as he realizes there's no sunlight down here— but hey, what does he know? He's an architecture history teacher and a superhero and a theme park enthusiast, not… whatever kind of person knows things about moss.
The third patch of moss makes him stop in his tracks, as he pulls a door open and is met with a room absolutely choked with the stuff, illuminated by a single fluorescent light flickering on the ceiling.
He inhales and is struck by an overwhelmingly sweet scent, like ten cloying perfumes piled on top of one another. It sticks to the back of his throat, makes his eyes water, and he can't help a sneeze that echoes down the tunnels behind him.
"Okay," he murmurs, pressing a hand over his nose and breathing shallowly. "Maybe I should've brought the gas mask."
He presses the radio button, hoping maybe there's a signal here, if only a weak one. He's greeted by nothing but static, making him sigh and shut the radio back off. Right. It's either turn back and hope he can find his way here again, or forge on ahead and hope this isn't some kind of toxic gas.
Well. What's life without a little risk?
Keeping his nose plugged and being sure not to breathe too deeply, Scar steps into the overgrown room. His feet sink into the moss, finding hard tile beneath. Across the room is another door, this one slightly ajar, and Scar needs to shove with all his might to get it unstuck from the moss gluing it in place.
On the other side is a hall just as overgrown. Scar keeps a hand on the wall just to assure himself it's there, tracing the lines of bricks underneath all the moss. He sees warm light at the end, and he hopes it's an entrance back up to ground level— although, thinking about it, he can't imagine all this wouldn't have spread upwards if it could.
That thought is proven correct as he reaches the end and finds not sunlight, but a tunnel filled to the brim with vines and flowering shrubs. Tiny specks of light litter the leaves, suffusing the scene with a warm glow akin to a sunset. He stumbles towards the middle of the tunnel, head craned back just to be sure there isn't a hidden skylight above, but there's nothing of the sort. Just densely packed foliage and light where they don't belong.
It's warm, too, far warmer than the empty tunnels he'd been wandering just a few minutes ago. He wipes away the sweat gathering beneath his nose, breath coming out hot, and lets his arms fall to his sides. The air is still sweet, but really not that bad now that he's gotten used to it. Much more worthwhile to have both hands free to better examine the foliage.
A closer inspection reveals the lights to be berries, golden in color and glowing from inside. He plucks one from the vine, rolls it around in his palm to marvel at it, and narrowly stops himself before he pops it into his mouth. He's not that stupid. But he is stupid enough to stick it in his pocket for some analysis person to do analysis on later. Just in case it's edible after all.
He wanders down the tunnel, idly noting the rounded shape of it. This must be the subway tunnel. The one that never got finished. Budget cuts, he thinks. Or assumes. Not something he ever thought to look into, but he thinks he might have heard about it at some point.
Abruptly, he pauses by one of the flowering shrubs, taking note of its bright pink color. Kind of like a certain vigilante he knows. Would Cuteguy like a flower that matches him? Scar bets she would. His heart does a funny little flip-flop when he thinks about it, and without another thought he plucks one of the blooms and cradles it close to his chest as he continues down the tunnel.
His mind catches on thoughts of Cuteguy, barely paying enough attention to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Would Cuteguy tease Scar for thinking of him? Or would she be flustered by the gift? A doofy smile finds its way onto Scar's face at the thought of either, and in the space of his own mind he allows himself the fantasy of Cuteguy letting him lean in for a kiss, lips just as warm and soft as they look, curled up in a grin—
Scar walks into a wall. He stumbles back, and the most embarrassing part of what happens next is that he doesn't trip on anything. The moss underfoot is soft, but not so soft that his feet sink in. His balance simply fails him, and he lands on his back with his head spinning and full of cotton.
Blankly he stares at the ceiling, stars in his vision. Stars? No, those are berries. Lighting his way. Where is he going again? He was just thinking about Cuteguy, but that doesn't mean anything, he thinks about her all the time. But he's down here for… a reason. Investigating. Right. He's investigating an anomaly on the scanners. This mossy anomaly.
He tries to shake some of the fuzz out of his head as he sits up. He's too hot, sweat building up under his clothes and his robo-legs, but he can't just start stripping. He's on duty. And he's already dressed lightly as-is. So he staggers to his feet, barely remembering to pick up the flower he dropped, though odds are he won't be any more successful in getting it to Cuteguy than he was last Valentine's Day. A guy can dream, though.
Which way did he come from? He should really double back, try to retrace his steps back up to the surface. Weird mossy flower infestations aren't in his job description. Both ways look identical, though, so all he can do is guess and keep on walking, hoping to find the path he came in through.
Eventually, Scar sees something. Not an opening in the side of the tunnel, but a pink and black mound in his path. He stares blankly, struggling to parse what he's looking at until it shifts, groans, and oh, that isn't some kind of weird giant flower, those are wings. Wings attached to a suspiciously Cuteguy-shaped person.
"Are you okay?" Scar asks, crouching in front of Cuteguy. Cuteguy shifts, wings shuffling around and generally failing to fold against her back, and with clear effort he lifts his head and looks at Scar.
"Oh," Cuteguy mumbles. Her pupils are blown, cheeks flushed, eyes barely focusing. After a second, he drops her head again. "I'm hallucinating now. Okay."
"I am not a hallucination," Scar says. He can't discount the possibility that Cuteguy is hallucinating something else, but he is fairly confident he himself is real.
"Sure," Cuteguy mumbles into the moss.
"Really, are you okay? You don't look okay." Scar takes Cuteguy's wrist in his hand and frowns— even through her glove, he can feel heat radiating. "You're burning up."
Cuteguy tries to tug her wrist away with none of her usual strength. "I'm fine," he says, sounding faintly drunk.
"I don't think you are," Scar says. "Can you sit up? Here, lean on me— yeah, like that…"
With Scar's coaxing, Cuteguy sits up just enough to rest his forehead against Scar's shoulder. Scar swallows, heart thumping in his throat. Pressed so close together, he can't help but feel his own temperature rising, blood rushing to his face and other places. The noise Cuteguy makes when Scar puts his hands on her waist doesn't help, and he has to force himself to focus on helping Cuteguy stand.
And that's all he's doing. Set aside the crush, set aside that every tiny movement of skin against skin sends a new spark down his spine even when it's just his shoulder against Cuteguy's— this is strictly business. Chivalry. Whatever it is he's doing. A tiny voice that sounds like Cub says he's supposed to be arresting Cuteguy, but Scar got used to ignoring that a while ago.
Cuteguy's knees seem weaker than Scar's on a bad day. He barely limps along with Scar's help, wings dragging on the ground, head lolling, eyes half-lidded and glassy.
"Hey," Scar murmurs. He still has the flower, he realizes— slightly crushed, but still in his hand. "I got you something."
In the absence of any traditional ears, he tucks the flower between Cuteguy's aural wings. Cuteguy barely reacts, tilting his head slightly to press her cheek into Scar's hand. Scar isn't sure he even noticed the flower.
"What happened to you?" Scar finally asks, frowning.
Cuteguy blinks, some small measure of alertness returning to her eyes, but he only lets out a small confused hum.
"What happened?" Scar repeats. When Cuteguy continues to frown at him, he rephrases. "What are you doing down here?"
"Mmn," Cuteguy mumbles unhelpfully, head falling to rest against Scar's shoulder. Her fluffy hair tickles the tip of Scar's ear, and Scar suppresses a shiver. "...Took a shortcut," she eventually mumbles. "Spores got me." He laughs bitterly. "Always with the spores."
"Do you usually take a shortcut through here?" Scar asks.
"No," Cuteguy says. "Don't… don't do tunnels. This'll wasn'here las'time."
Cuteguy's weight sinks into Scar as her words start to slur together, legs giving out. Scar holds him tight, gently lowering both of them to their knees, and Cuteguy curls into him, feverish and shivering and burying his face in Scar's chest.
Scar tries to say something, but it catches in his throat. He feels dizzy, electrified by all the close contact. He's dreamed of this for so long, of Cuteguy's touch— but this is wrong, isn't it? Cuteguy clearly isn't in his right mind, and Scar isn't feeling too hot either.
Well, no. He's very hot. Hotguy, as a matter of fact. And also his face feels hot, and his body feels hot, and Cuteguy is even hotter, and also cute, and up to this point Scar has been very valiantly ignoring just how tight his shorts have gotten but that is getting increasingly difficult with Cuteguy crawling into his lap like this.
"Cuteguy," Scar says, nudging Cuteguy's shoulder. "Hey, Cuteguy."
A small noise gets mumbled into Scar's chest and then Cuteguy lifts her head, eyes landing vaguely in the vicinity of Scar's face. Cuteguy frowns. "You're not wearing a mask," he notes, one hand reaching up to touch Scar's face.
"I'm kind of regretting that," Scar admits, tilting his cheek into Cuteguy's palm. "It smells like a perfume department in here."
Cuteguy hums a little, not looking like he heard a single word Scar said. His wings twitch, pulling in slightly, and then with her hands on Scar's shoulders he pulls himself up to press his mouth to Scar's.
With a fizzle and a pop, the electric touch of Cuteguy's lips forms a short-circuit, and Scar's mind goes blank. Cuteguy doesn't stop at a simple peck on the lips, taking advantage of Scar's slack jaw to slip her tongue into his mouth, only further scrambling Scar's brain. His arms wrap around Scar's neck, and Scar slowly tilts back under Cuteguy's weight until they hit the soft mossy floor. Only then does Scar's brain spark back to life and remind him to do something other than lie there like an idiot.
He moans and sucks on Cuteguy's tongue, eyes fluttering shut. His hands wander Cuteguy's body, exploring the planes of his back, and Cuteguy moans and twines her tongue with Scar's.
Cuteguy pulls back eventually, panting and gasping for air. His eyes are wide, pupils still dilated but gaze firmly locked on Scar. Scar stares back, struggling to wrap his head around the situation. Cuteguy just kissed him. Not just kissed, fully made out with him, stuck his tongue down his throat and everything. There's a spot of drool drying on the corner of Scar's mouth, and he doesn't know if it's his own or Cuteguy's. If it even makes a difference.
Breath hitching, Cuteguy shifts, grinding his crotch on Scar's thigh. Scar lifts his hips as well, rubbing against Cuteguy's hip in search of friction, and when he pulls her head back down she doesn't resist. They trade kisses, sloppy and desperate, legs twined together as they hump and writhe and moan together on the ground.
Scar's hands find their way to Cuteguy's hips, thumbs hooking on the waistband and tugging it down a little. At nearly the same time, Cuteguy shoves a hand down Scar's shorts, deft fingers wrapping around his cock. Scar gasps, hips jerking reflexively into his grip, and Cuteguy lets out a small laugh before pulling Scar's shorts down.
The open air is cold against Scar's cock, but Cuteguy's hand is warm as it drags up and down his length. Scar whines when he takes it away, sitting up outside of Scar's reach. Scar props himself up on his elbows, ready to demand an explanation, only for the words to die on his lips when he sees Cuteguy fumbling with the bow at the back of her neck.
He gets it soon enough, the ribbon coming loose and letting the front of Cuteguy's bodysuit fall. Scar's throat goes dry, eyes raking over all the skin he's never seen before— his flat chest, artfully toned, unmarred but for two faint lines running beneath her pecs, the smooth stomach that pulls in slightly with the flexing of core muscles keeping her upright...
Cuteguy swears quietly as she tries to get her boots off while still kneeling over Scar. He wobbles, over-corrects, and topples sideways into the moss, and Scar instinctively moves to help but Cuteguy's hand shoots up to stop him.
"Sstay," Cuteguy says, nearly slurring her words. "Stay. There. You stay there."
Scar bites his tongue and settles back on his elbows to watch. Cuteguy finally manages to discard his boots, then pulls his shorts off with similar frustrated haste. The bodysuit she peels off more slowly, sweat glistening beneath, and Scar is strangely surprised to see plain briefs underneath. He's not sure why he'd expected her to have special Cuteguy underwear, but… well, it seemed like the sort of thing he'd wear.
What isn't such a surprise is how the crotch is soaked clean through, a thin trail of slick briefly bridging from it to Cuteguy's slit before he tosses his underwear aside as well.
"You're not gonna take your gloves off too?" Scar asks, when Cuteguy makes no move for the gloves in question.
"Shuddup," Cuteguy mumbles, glaring at him.
Her limbs shake as he straddles Scar's hips, and Scar swiftly puts his hands on her waist to steady her. His cunt drags along Scar's length, hot and wet and puffy with need, and Scar only resists trying to press blindly into Cuteguy because her hand finds his cock first, guiding its tip to his entrance.
It occurs to Scar, in some distant way, that Cuteguy might have a little trouble getting him in. He's not one to brag, but he knows he's well above average, and Cuteguy is a pretty small guy. Even dripping wet, it takes effort for Cuteguy to lower himself onto Scar, biting her lip and trembling from the effort.
All these thoughts go out the window as the tip slips in. Almost reflexively Scar thrusts up, fingers digging into Cuteguy's toned stomach to hold him in place while Scar buries himself halfway in a single thrust.
Cuteguy lets out a strangled noise, wings flaring out and every muscle going tense as his walls clench and flutter around Scar's girth. "Stay," she chokes out, bending over and propping her arms against Scar's shoulders. Scar's hips twitch, and nails dig into his skin. "Stay."
With all of his might, Scar stays absolutely still. Cuteguy's breath shudders, her stomach clenches, and achingly slow he rolls his hips, lifts up an inch, and then slides further along Scar's length. Down she goes, and Scar wants so badly to prop himself up by his elbows and watch her swallow the inches, but he contents himself with just the feeling.
With nearly an inch to go, Scar meets resistance. Cuteguy rocks his hips, pulls up a little, and Scar nearly whines— only for the noise to turn into a moan when Cuteguy presses back down, rocking her hips and forcing Scar deeper until their hips press flush together. It's an impossibly tight fit, and for a minute Cuteguy just tries to catch his breath before sitting back up.
"G-Good," Cuteguy mumbles, rolling her hips against Scar's. Scar bites back a groan. "Good, good boy. G'boy."
Scar moans. On the next roll of Cuteguy's hips, Scar meets him, and the sound Cuteguy makes is like music to his ears. Head thrown back, sweat trailing down her neck as she pants and moans— Cuteguy has never looked more beautiful. Like an angel. He is an angel, wings and halo and all, and down here in the golden light and too-sweet air Scar is more than ready to devote himself to her worship.
Cuteguy lifts his hips an inch, and Scar meets him on the way down. "S— hah, ha-aa— aah—" Cuteguy moans, mouth open wide, eyes hazy and lost in pleasure.
Her hands wander her body, one circling his nipples while the other finds its way down between her legs, feeling around the point where he and Scar are joined. With fingertips pressing around Scar's girth, Scar can really get a picture of how Cuteguy is stretched around him, practically split open. Scar moans and presses into him, wanting to bury himself balls-deep again, and Cuteguy moans back.
"Again," Cuteguy mumbles, hand moving to circle his clit. Scar obeys, holding her hips in place while he thrusts up. Cuteguy lets out a garbled noise, throwing his head back further with eyes shut in blissful rapture. "Don't, don'stop," he gasps, and with a grunt Scar thrusts harder, wringing little gasps and moans from her as she rubs herself off.
With a cry, Cuteguy clamps down on Scar, every muscle taut and trembling like a bowstring. His walls clench and spasm around Scar, and Scar fucks him through it, thrusts losing rhythm as he teeters towards his own climax. He presses deep as it hits, holding Cuteguy's hips tight as he buries his seed as deep as he could possibly go. Hot and thick he spurts into Cuteguy, and she whimpers and tightens her thighs around his hips.
When the aftershocks begin to die down, he loosens his grip, eyes sliding open to look at Cuteguy. She's starting to droop again, eyes open but unfocused, and Scar catches the moment she starts to tilt sideways. He lunges to catch him, arms wrapping around him and cock sliding out as he lays Cuteguy gently on his back.
"More," Cuteguy mumbles feverishly, eyes closed and face covered in a thin sheen of sweat, blindly reaching and grabbing and pulling Scar back in. "More, more… please… more…"
"More," Scar agrees. He's still hard, achingly so, and his head spins with the need to get back inside of Cuteguy. Just once isn't enough, he needs to fill him again and again, keep claiming him until it becomes irrefutable that he belongs to Scar and Scar alone.
There's a line of drool from Cuteguy's mouth to his chin, and Scar licks it up before pressing a kiss into her mouth. It's sloppy and wet, neither of them coordinated enough to make it graceful, but Scar is too far gone to care. All his remaining care goes into finally kicking off the shorts that have been around his knees this whole time, and then he pins Cuteguy down to trail messy kisses all along her neck and jaw while he lines himself up at her entrance.
It takes a few tries for the tip to catch, but then he thrusts deep with no buildup. Cuteguy lets out a cry, swiftly silenced by Scar's mouth, and his noises quickly turn into whimpering moans with every thrust inside of him. "Nn— S— S-Scar," Cuteguy whines, when Scar comes up for air. "Scar, Sca-aar…"
Scar groans and pounds harder, eliciting even louder moans of his name. Not a single thought passes through his head, save perhaps that Cuteguy's neck looks very nibbleable, which he immediately follows up by nibbling on Cuteguy's neck. Cuteguy moans something that could be Scar's name again, or possibly just incoherent syllables, and rather than try to parse it Scar kisses his mouth again.
Their tongues tangle together, voices moan together, and Cuteguy's legs wrap around Scar's hips to hold him so close that Scar begins to wonder where either of them starts and ends. Certainly, pressed so close together, Cuteguy's hands tangling in his hair to keep him close enough to kiss, they could be the same— and he spills inside of him, not even slowing, letting the cum spill with his thrusts because there will be more where that came from. Cuteguy shudders beneath him, hole clenching and chest heaving, and Scar runs his hands down her sides.
It will take a while to explore every inch of Cuteguy's body. That's alright, though. The world revolves around them, and Scar has nowhere else to be.
Scar wakes up groggy, dehydrated, and alone.
For a moment, his head is utterly empty of thoughts, aware of nothing except the fact that he exists. Then an ache wanders up his legs, blooming into a foggy recollection of what he did to cause such a pain— namely, how much time he spent rutting into Cuteguy, a hazy cloud of debauchery that only ended once Scar was too physically exhausted to continue.
Or so he assumes. He can't really remember much past the first creampie, but he knows what it feels like when he's pushed himself past his limits and then some. He hadn't imagined he'd ever feel it in this context, but hey. First time for everything.
Opening his eyes, he half expects to see Cuteguy lying next to him. There's no one there, nor does he find anything when he rolls over, and he almost starts to wonder if he dreamed it up, deluded himself into thinking something like that could ever happen— and then he finds a feather. Small, fluffy, and crushed beneath Scar's knee, but unmistakably one of Cuteguy's. And that's— Well. Alright. So it actually happened. Scar doesn't know how to feel about that.
He thinks if earlier today— Yesterday? How long has he been asleep?— he was told he'd get to have sex with Cuteguy, he'd be over the moon. Even just a kiss was beyond his wildest dreams. But now, he just feels vaguely ill, and he thinks it's only partially a side effect of the spores.
Dragging himself upright is a chore, brushing away the moss that had begun to cling to his face and looking, before anything, for his robo-legs. They're under a bush some feet away, fortunately not broken— that would be humiliating to explain to the techs. The rest of his clothes are similarly scattered, and he dresses himself in a daze, all the while thinking about what he's going to do next.
For starters, he's in trouble. Possibly big trouble, depending on how long he's been unconscious— and he should be worried, probably, that he's still in the danger zone, can still smell sweet perfume choking the tunnel. But his body feels cold, and he's only mildly dizzy, so he figures he can probably find his way back on his own.
Which leads to what he's going to say once he's out of here. Not the truth, surely— and it's probably bad that he starts with that conclusion. Not very superhero of him. But he's lying when he puts the mask on, and he's lying when he takes it off, and maybe he's not supposed to lie to the government too but he figures it's good sportsmanship. Cuteguy can't be doing much better than him, after all, even if he got a head start. It would be unfair to make sweet love to him all night and then turn around and let the law know where he was.
So he's lying. Not even a big lie. Just leaving Cuteguy out of it. Hotguy wandered around in the tunnels and ran into some weird moss that knocked him out for a while. Didn't see another soul even once. Simple as that.
That simple plan needs to be dragged painstakingly from the syrupy mess that is Scar's brain, half of which is otherwise occupied keeping him from falling back over. It's a miracle that he actually finds his way out of the moss, stumbling into a dark, narrow tunnel and forcing himself to keep walking until the only light he sees is that which comes from his own equipment.
He's never been so glad to smell stale tunnel air. He sinks to the ground, coarse stonework digging into his back, and lets clarity trickle back in with every breath.
With that clarity comes an awareness of a light blinking on his visor. That's the radio alert, isn't it? It's there to tell him… something. Something important, he assumes, but he's not sure he'd remember what it was even if his head wasn't made of strawberry pudding.
Well, he can probably figure it out by turning it on. When he does, he is immediately greeted by a burst of static containing a barely-intelligible voice. "HAWKEYE! What's the situation?!"
"I'm lost in the tunnels and there's a guy yelling at me over the radio," Scar mutters, unable to help a petulant tone.
"What was that?" Cub asks, or something like it. His voice keeps cutting out.
"I said—" Scar says, then takes a deep breath. "I am not in any active danger," he says, as clearly as he can manage. "But I am very lost and I don't think I can get out of here on my own."
"Lost?" Cub echoes. He probably says some other stuff too, but it gets drowned out by static and this clickety-clacking sound. The exasperated sigh comes through loud and clear, though. "How did— get— there?"
"I have no idea," Scar says, finding it in himself to be sheepish. "Think you can send someone with an actual sense of direction to come get me?"
"I can send a team," Cub says. "Stay right where you— signal— weak—"
"Way ahead of you," Scar mutters, sinking further against the wall. Then a thought miraculously occurs to him, and he sits up straight. "They need gas masks."
"What?"
"Gas. Masks," Scar repeats. "There's spores."
"Gas masks," Cub repeats. Scar nods, forgetting for a moment that he can't be seen. "Are—ou okay?"
"Been better," Scar admits, settling back against the wall. "Pretty sure I'm not dying, but, y'know. Don't waste too much time up there."
"—on their way," Cub says. "Stay right where— okay? St—y. Stay."
"I'm staying," Scar yawns, crossing his arms against the chilly air. Having backup is nice, he muses, as the radio crackles and hisses in his ear. Makes things so much easier. He hopes, wherever Cuteguy ran off to, he has some kind of backup too.
"Grian. Hey, Grian. We're home."
Grian groans and leans away from the voice nudging him, reluctantly peeling his eyes open. This is… Jimmy's car, right. And there's Jimmy, still in his pajamas, still wearing his worry all over his face. And here's Grian in the passenger's seat, with a backpack in his lap containing nothing of interest. Just some clothes that need to go in the wash. Nothing incriminating at all.
Now halfway-oriented in his scrambled brain, Grian finally moves to undo his seatbelt. He fumbles with it, hand repeatedly failing to land on the button, until Jimmy does it for him. In the time it takes Grian to climb out of the car, Jimmy circles around and helps him up, one arm around his shoulders.
He wants to be annoyed, to shove Jimmy away and insist on walking on his own. They're barely ten feet from the apartment building, he's not so far gone that his legs have stopped working. But it's a very near thing, and Grian's pride is already in tatters, and he'd really just like to go to bed. After showering. Oh, lord, he desperately needs a shower. So he lets Jimmy take his bag and lead him inside, grumbling only mildly along the way.
It's worst when they reach the elevator, where Grian has to stand still instead of letting momentum carry him forward in a series of controlled falls disguised as footsteps. Exhausting enough that even when they step out into the hall, he sinks into Jimmy's side, mind carefully skating around anything resembling a finished thought. Grian had too much to drink, that's all. Might not have paid as much attention to his cup as he should have. Breadcrumbs scattered to lead Jimmy away from the trail, which he can't tell if Jimmy is following because he really is getting better at reading minds. It's a risk Grian can afford on an average day, but not like this. He wishes he could have called Mumbo, but Mumbo's on vacation which he damn well deserves— so he's stuck with Jimmy.
This is why Grian doesn't drink.
Jimmy's hand cups around Grian's chin, tilting his face up. Grian blinks, uncomprehending, at Jimmy's frown, as his head is tilted for him. "Grian, you…" Jimmy murmurs, and a tiny noise bubbles up in Grian's throat in response, face strangely heated. "...You've got feathers."
"Oh," Grian mumbles. He lifts a hand, numbly feels along his cheek— yep, there they are, soft and tiny and not supposed to exist. It takes a concerted effort to fold them back into his skin, and he's not sure they won't just sprout back up as soon as he stops thinking about them. Awful. He really needs to sleep this off.
Worse still is how warm Jimmy is when he wraps his arm around Grian again, and how warm Grian feels— and nope, nope, that's quite enough of that. He shoves Jimmy away. "I can walk on my own."
"Are you sure?" Jimmy asks, and Grian waves his hand away before it can land on his shoulder.
"It's just down the hall," Grian insists, leaning on the wall. Jimmy continues to look worried, continues to hover close, but tough luck because Grian has had far too much close contact recently, and he is getting to his apartment on his own.
He fishes his keys out of his pocket when he gets there, taking a moment to process when Jimmy holds out his backpack as well. Right. Right, yeah, that's important. Don't want to leave that in Jimmy's hands.
Jimmy continues to hold onto the backpack even when Grian tries to take it, and he looks at Grian very carefully. "You know I'm on your side, right?" Jimmy eventually asks. "If— if something happened. You know you can tell me, yeah?"
Grian's mouth is dry. "Yeah," he says, not denying anything and not thinking about anything in particular. When he tugs on the backpack, Jimmy lets go. "I'll see you in the morning."
Jimmy nods, and then a door closes between them.
Grian's legs carry him all the way to the bathroom before they start to give out. He props himself up against the counter, wincing as every ache he's been ignoring makes itself known in screaming unison, and after fumbling with the faucet until the shower turns on he begins to undress.
Jumper goes in the laundry hamper. Button-down goes in the hamper. Trousers go. Socks go. Briefs— He hesitates. Just for a second. Then he peels them off slowly, wincing as they try to stick to his skin, wincing again when he stands and feels warm fluid trickle down his already-sticky thighs. But that's what the shower is for. Getting rid of the evidence. And then he can wash his clothes, and go to sleep, and pretend all of this never happened.
Of course, that plan relies on Hotguy keeping his big mouth shut the next time they meet. Which is a tall order.
Maybe Grian shouldn't have ran off the moment he woke up. Should've woken Hotguy up and had a conversation instead of shoving him away and taking off as fast as he could dress himself. On the other hand, it was pure adrenaline that kept his mind clear enough to find his way out, so… three cheers for blind panic, he guesses.
The shower is blazing hot when he steps into it. He pulls his wings out and holds them under the spray, water running down the feathers in rivulets and rinsing out the spores he's sure must be all over him, while he focuses on cleaning between his legs. He scrubs, and scrubs, and scrubs some more, until his skin is red and raw. Still more cum keeps trickling down, until he drops the cloth and buries his fingers inside of himself, digging and clawing to get it out. Just how much is there? How long was he lost in a haze, desperate to be filled, fortunate or unfortunate enough to meet someone able to give him that?
He ends up doubled over on his knees taking short, shuddering breaths, barely aware of anything but the water on his back and the stickiness of his hands. Maybe if he pretends it was someone else, it'll be easier. If he imagines it was Scar inside of him, like he was so willing to believe in the moment. Steam rises around him, the air hot and humid and thick as molasses, and his vision starts to haze over, eyes drooping and mind wandering into a more pleasant fantasy— and his hand shoots out, yanking the faucet to the left.
In an instant the hot water goes freezing cold, shocking Grian back to his senses. No, he needs to live in reality. He doesn't like Hotguy, he'd never have chosen to do anything with Hotguy, but there was no choice involved. Not on either of their parts.
He rinses his hands off and then drags himself out of the shower, shivering violently all the way. He shakes his wings dry, towels himself off, then stumbles towards the door intent on finding something more or less clean to put on before he stops being able to keep himself from passing out again.
His bare foot lands on something unexpected, and he stops. Just looking down at it, all he can make out is a small pink blur on the floor. From the shade, it looks like a part of Cuteguy's outfit— a stray ribbon, maybe?— so he kneels to pick it up, intent on stuffing it in the backpack to deal with later.
It's just a flower, he realises. He sniffs it, finds it remarkably sweet, and it takes an embarrassing amount of time to recognise it as having come from the tunnels.
He nearly drops it. He certainly flinches back from it as if burnt, as if merely touching it is going to send him right back into that syrupy haze. But holding it at arm's length, one hand pressed over his nose and mouth, it's just a flower. Sort of sad, sort of wilted, sort of miraculous it managed to come with him all this way.
When did he even pick it up? An answer wanders vaguely from the haze, a coarse hand running over his aural wings and holding his cheek, and maybe that's just an invention of his scrambled brain, or an unrelated gesture, but it does seem like something Hotguy would do. Taking advantage of Cuteguy's indisposition to flirt.
Grian would feel better, actually, if he could confidently say Hotguy was taking advantage. If he could just be angry. If Hotguy hadn't been just as feverish as him, just as out-of-it in the brief moments that Grian was lucid. If Grian had somewhere to place the blame for the violation twisting him up inside, apart from his own decision to take that damned shortcut.
Somehow, Grian ends up filling a glass, setting the flower in water and leaving it by the window. He should really dispose of it instead, probably will in the morning. But for now, until he's finished sleeping off its side effects, it gets to live.