Work Text:
♡‧₊˚⋅♡‧₊˚⋅♡
“Oh! It turned out perfect.”
Yvette yanked the foil straight from his hair with a squeal. He grimaced as it tugged on his roots. It wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever felt, sure, but it wasn’t exactly comfortable.
“Indie, come take a look,” Yvette said as she continued to remove the foils from his hair.
He glanced at his blurred reflection in the salon mirror. He preferred to avoid his contacts for as long as he could. The less he had to look at himself, the better, but there was no mistaking the vibrant pink mop of hair being released onto his forehead.
Indie came from around the corner, makeup brushes in hand, and shoved her face close to his, like being two centimeters away was the best way to get a good look at his hair. “Oh, sweets. The people’ll just eat you up.” She nibbled at his nose and made a noise like a growl.
He sat in the chair and blinked. He had never been a big fan of his so-called “prep” team, but he wasn’t sure there was much he could do about it.
Yvette washed his hair then blowdried it with precision. He watched as she opened up a round jar and scooped up a strange, floral-smelling gel into her hands. “Watch this,” she said as she approached him from the back of the chair.
With his hazy vision, he couldn’t exactly watch anything, but he didn’t particularly care to inform Yvette of that. It wasn’t like he’d ever be doing this himself. If it were up to him, his hair would be shaved down to the scalp. But it was never up to him.
She ran her long, manicured nails through his hair, working the product in. “And up here, I just like to—” He felt more than saw as she formed the front pieces of his hair into waves. He startled when she slapped her hands against his shoulders. “And there you go! Perfectly handsome.”
“Not quite,” Indie said, rushing back in front of him. She brandished a large, fluffy brush coated in a translucent powder. He tried not to sneeze as she assaulted his face with it.
“He’s so pliable,” Yvette said from the corner, impressed.
“It’s incredible.”
Pliable. Exactly what he’d set out to be in life. But he supposed it wasn’t wrong. He sat there and let Yvette turn his hair into bubblegum and as Indie stabbed his eyelids with that special pop of color! He only sort of flinched when Indie plucked his eyebrows and when Yvette went back to rake her nails through his hair and made contact with the scar nestled behind his ear. He didn’t even move as she clipped on the fake star earrings that felt as though they weighed ten pounds a piece. He was perfectly pliable, really. He didn’t think twice to put them in when Indie handed him his contacts.
Yvette and Indie stood behind him, their hands caressing his shoulders like they were petting him, and ooh’d and aww’d over their hard work.
“Dema’s latest star!” Indie said, clapping her hands together, “Clancy!”
He hazarded a true glance into the mirror and almost immediately had to look away. He wasn’t sure who that was, but it most certainly couldn’t have been him.
♡‧₊˚⋅♡‧₊˚⋅♡
“Hurry up and get changed,” Wendt said, shoving the black garment bag into his hands.
He almost appreciated the bluntness. Almost. He stared down at the garment bag, his white robe heavy on his shoulders. “Um.” It was the first time he’d spoken all day. The glare on Wendt’s face reminded him why he didn’t speak.
“Come on, babe,” Indie said, gesturing him towards the dressing room. On their journey, Indie grabbed a tiny white candy heart out of one of many bowls backstage and passed it off to him. “It’ll help you feel better.”
He wanted to say he felt fine, but he ate the candy instead. It’d been a while since he’d last had one. Maybe that was why his head was starting to hurt.
Inside the dressing room, Indie unzipped the garment bag for him and made a noise of excitement. He sat down on the couch and ran a hand through his hair. He just needed to get today over with. Then, he could…
… Get the next day over with. Then the next. Then the—
He gasped as he felt the sharp sting of skin against his face. He jolted upright and brought a protective hand to his cheek. He looked to Indie, accusatory.
“You were messing up your hair! Yvette worked so hard on it,” she said.
He exhaled. “Sorry.”
Indie seemed satisfied with the apology. Her smile returned to her face and she took out the outfit he’d be wearing for the photoshoot.
He narrowed his eyes. “Is that…?”
Yvette entered the room moments later and gasped. “It’s perfect!”
Indie rolled her eyes. “It’s not perfect. He ruined the hair.”
Yvette’s face immediately fell. She marched towards him and grabbed his chin between her fingers. Her nails pinched his skin. “I worked so hard on that!”
“That’s what I told him. Talk about being ungrateful.”
He wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to be grateful for in this situation. He turned his eyes from Yvette and back to Indie. “I… have to wear that.” He didn’t say it as a question because he already knew the answer.
“Isn’t it just darling? When Nico told me his idea for the shoot, I just knew we had to make it happen.”
It was Nico’s idea. Of course it was. His face burned. He wondered if Indie could tell even with the layers of makeup that had been caked on his face.
In Indie’s hands was a pinafore dress with a full gathered skirt. A short-sleeve blouse was layered beneath it. The back of the dress tied in a large bow. He swallowed. “Okay.”
Yvette knocked her elbow against his chest. “That’s the spirit!”
“Pliable,” Indie said with a nod of her head.
He sighed and unwrapped his dressing robe. He shrugged it off his shoulders and reached for the dress, but was stopped abruptly by the pull of Indie’s hand.
“Clancy!” she said with a gasp, spinning him around to face her, “What did you do?”
He blinked. “What? I didn’t—”
Yvette placed a hand over her mouth. “Oh. Oh, this simply won’t do. How could you do this? It was going to be perfect.”
He followed their collective gaze towards his bare arms. They were prickled with gooseflesh yet would’ve otherwise been smooth—very nearly perfect as Yvette or Indie would call it—if it weren’t for the deep, jagged gashes on his forearms. “Oh,” he said.
Yvette was horrified. “Oh? You ruin our hours of hard work and all you can say is oh?”
She paced around the small dressing room as Indie continued to fix him with her burning stare.
Clancy looked back down at his arms. “I don’t remember doing this,” he mumbled, more to himself than the two women in the room.
He didn’t remember, but intrinsically, he knew he had. He looked at his nails, but they were neatly trimmed and painted a pink that perfectly matched his hair. He rose his hands to wrap around his arms and pictured him dragging his nails through flesh. Deep enough to cut open, deep enough to bleed. The wounds had scabbed over, but they were very much still there.
Yvette was growing hysterical, now on the verge of tears as she continued to rant. “Do—do you have any idea all the work that goes into this? Do you think we could just call up Francois on such short notice and have him come in to fix this up?”
His blood chilled at the mention. “No—no. He doesn’t have to. They’re just scabs. They’ll go away.”
She scoffed, deep and wet in her throat. Strands of hair came loose from her immaculately done braid. “I think he’s off in Vetomo’s somewhere today. Probably unreachable. God, this is a mess!” she screeched, flailing her hands in the air.
Indie went by her side, wrapping protective arms around Yvette’s shuddering frame. “Hey, hey. It’s not a mess. We just need to pivot.”
Yvette sniffled and opened her eyes to glare at Clancy. He felt himself shrinking and sat back down on the couch, folding his arms up into his lap. “You’ve been given so much. And you don’t appreciate a thing.”
Clancy swallowed. He resisted the urge to claw his way deeper into his own skin. “Maybe I don’t. Sorry.”
Indie sighed, somehow the voice of reason in the room, and opened up the tiny wardrobe in the corner of the room. She procured a long-sleeved button up shirt and thrust it in Clancy’s lap.
“There. It’s a pivot.”
Clancy stared at it, the starched fabric rough where his fingers touched it.
He flinched at the sound of a knock on the door. Wendt’s distinct voice boomed. “Ten minutes.”
Indie gestured for him to get moving. He stumbled to his feet and instantly felt woozy, then a split second later, weightless.
“Clancy.”
He wasn’t sure which of the women said it. Despite himself, he felt the slightest upwards twitch of his lips. It seemed as though the candy was beginning to kick in. Just in time to help him get through this shoot.
♡‧₊˚⋅♡‧₊˚⋅♡
“Smile. Wider. With teeth. C’mon, the Bishops paid good money for that smile. Put it to use.” Fingers snapped in front of his face. “Clancy.”
“Sorry,” he said. He blinked rapidly to try and prevent his eyes from watering any more than they already had. He didn’t want to hear anything else from Indie about him ruining her hard work. His eyes were dry, and his mouth was dry, and the studio lights were absurdly bright. He blinked again.
Wendt grabbed onto his chin and tilted it upwards and to the side. “Here. Like this. Since I have to do everything my-fucking-self.”
Wendt positioned his bare thighs so that one leg would be draped over the other. His arms, which had been locked behind him for the better part of an hour, were moved to the front instead. He splayed out the fingers of Clancy’s right hand to rest on one calf, then placed the left at his side.
“Not too hard!” Indie shouted from across the set, “The last thing we need right now is to bruise him.
Wendt picked Clancy’s left hand back up and shook it in the air, his fingers pressed hard into his skin, as though to prove a point. “I don’t give a flying fuck. I don’t get paid enough for this.”
Clancy just stared at him. Wendt looked back and dropped his hand in favor of grabbing his chin again.
“Makeup!” Indie shouted.
Wendt rolled his eyes and said to Clancy, “I told you. Like this.” He tilted Clancy’s head back and to the side again. “Since you can’t manage a goddamn smile, give ‘em those stupid doe eyes instead.”
Clancy stared at him again, his lips downturned. Wendt patted him on the shoulder. “Perfect. Just like that.”
To the crew, he called out, “Let’s get those cameras rolling.”
Somehow, the lights on stage got even brighter, and he winced. He lowered his head and raised a hand to shield his eyes. The wooden box he sat on—he thinked it was shaped like a heart, but he hadn’t really bothered to check—made his back ache.
“Jesus Christ, Clancy. Can you do fucking anything?” Wendt said, already rushing back out.
Clancy waved a lazy hand. “Just—stay there. I can fix it.”
Wendt eyed him with suspicion and exhaled hot air from his nose. He crossed his arms and waited.
Clancy resumed the pose asked of him, his eyes watering from the sting of the lights.
Seemingly satisfied, Wendt resumed operations. “We want our audience to remember that when times aren’t the best, they can rely on Mulberry Bliss to give them that boost,” Wendt said, waving his hands from behind the camera.
“And they can!” Indie said with an eager nod.
Wendt gave her a quick side-eye glance. “Yeah, sure. Point is, we want to sell them on it. The city’s goal is to make seventy-five percent of Dema’s population a Mulberry Bliss customer by the quarter’s end.”
Another crew member whistled. “That’s a pretty lofty goal.”
Wendt shrugged. “I think you’d be surprised. There isn’t shit else to do around here. Makes for a pretty eager bunch of consumers.” He turned his gaze towards Clancy. “And when you have this bitch shilling it, they’ll buy just about anything.”
Clancy hardly even registered the words. He was just waiting for this to be over.
Wendt called ‘action’ soon after, and Clancy tried not to flinch as the camera shutters clicked in earnest.
♡‧₊˚⋅♡‧₊˚⋅♡
The shoot must’ve continued for several hours after that. He lost track after the third ‘demonstration’ of how the pills were meant to be taken. By the time he changed out of his assigned outfit and back into his gray button-down and large black overcoat, the sun had set completely. He was pretty sure that the rest of the crew had gone out to dinner at the city’s only functioning restaurant, but they hadn’t bothered to invite him. He wouldn’t have gone, anyways.
He walked back to his apartment in a daze. All he wanted to do was take a shower and crank up the heat as high as it could go. He wanted to wash away the layers of makeup caked on his skin. He wanted to leech the color straight from his hair.
He opened up the front door—it didn’t lock unless someone else wanted it locked—and shut it behind him.
It wasn’t a generous amount of space, but it was by far the nicest place he’d ever lived in. It was sleek and modern with a separate living room and bedroom. He had a stove he didn’t know how to use and a television that automatically turned on from the hours of five to eight in the morning to play the daily broadcast of Good Day Dema. It was pretty useless outside of that.
There was one singular window in the apartment in his bedroom. It overlooked Nico’s tower.
He threw his keys on the counter and buried his face in his hands. The Mulberry Bliss was starting to wear off again, and he could feel the headache coming. In their campaign to promote the product, he had a feeling they’d leave out the fact that the Bliss only happened the first few go-around. After that, you were left searching for the same high only to find less and less of a return on investment. He eyed the candy bowl and crunched another one between his teeth.
“Clancy?”
He jumped, his hand flying out and crashing into the bowl. It fell sideways, the tiny pills fanning out in every direction and onto the floor. He instinctively dropped to his knees. “Shit,” he said under his breath as he scooped them back into his palm.
“Clancy.”
He didn’t bother to glance up. He gathered the remainder of the pills and stared at them. He wondered what would happen if he took them all at once. If he’d need that many just to get through the day at some point.
He rose back onto his feet and deposited the pills back into their jar. “You finally found the new place.”
Torchbearer slunk into the kitchen, a familiar pinched look on his face. Clancy had a feeling the expression was because of him rather than Dema this time around. “They dyed your hair.”
He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and gripped the edge of the countertop instead. “It’s nice to see you too.”
“I’ve been looking for you all week,” Torchbearer said, like it suddenly changed everything.
“I’ve been out shooting commercials.” He shrugged off his overcoat and threw it in the corner of the kitchen.
Torchbearer watched as it crumpled upon landing. “Commercials.”
“Yes. That’s what I just said.”
It wasn’t too long ago that he spent his days solely waiting for the chance to see Torchbearer again. He wasn’t sure when that desire turned into annoyance, and then into reservation. It was just another thing to do. Another person to disappoint.
“What for?”
Clancy glanced up at him, his eyelashes still clumped with thick mascara. He turned his back to Torch and unbuttoned his shirt with trembling fingers. There was a lot that he didn’t care about Torch seeing, but that was one of the very few. He turned back around and rested his hands on the counter.
Torchbearer’s gaze shifted lower. He swallowed. “Your scars.”
Clancy glanced down at his smooth, bare torso. “What about them?”
“They’re gone.”
He couldn't pretend like he didn’t know what Torchbearer was talking about. He pursed his lips. “Yeah, they are. Want some water?”
He moved towards the fridge, but Torchbearer grabbed onto his arm. “Clancy.”
He froze and looked Torchbearer in the eye. “Clancy is dead. You of all people should know that.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem still using that name.”
He sucked in a shallow breath and resumed his path to the fridge. “A beer, then,” he said, opening up the door.
“You don’t drink.”
He grabbed one of the chilled beverages and popped the tab. “I do now.”
“Tyler.”
The can crinkled in his grasp. “Don’t call me that.”
“Then what am I supposed to call you?”
He pursed his lips.
Torchbearer scoffed. “Right.”
He didn’t think he could make Torch understand. He took a sip of his beer. “The Bishops killed Clancy. They killed the rebellion. Now I’m here to tell the people of Dema that I’ve seen the error of my ways.” He plastered on a smile that even Wendt would approve of. “I love Vialism. I think it’s incredible. We should all be so lucky to achieve true Glory.”
Torchbearer backed away, horrified. “You don’t really believe that.”
His eye twitched. “Of course I don’t. You have that little faith in me?”
The truth was, he didn’t believe in much of anything anymore. Certainly not in Vialism, but not in the Banditos, either.
“Well, it seems like you don’t have an issue in shilling their narrative.”
His breath hitched. He looked at Torch and saw hesitation and suspicion lingering in his eyes. He tipped his head back and drank for as long as he could without choking. “It’s easier like this,” he settled on saying, daring Torchbearer to challenge him as he fixed him with a cold stare.
Torchbearer did. “We’re not supposed to do things because they're easy.”
His expression faltered for a brief moment. He stepped closer and peered up at Torchbearer, bearing his teeth. He’d once been taller, he was pretty sure, but he always slumped his shoulders these days. “I don’t. I do it because it hurts less.”
Torchbearer exhaled, his breath hot and close. Torch’s fingers reached out towards his torso, right where his scar was supposed to be. The one that matched Torchbearer's. He hovered over but didn’t quite touch the skin, like Clancy was something fragile. Or maybe contagious. “What did they do?”
Clancy shrugged and looked away as he placed his beer on the counter. “Scars go against their branding. They're ugly, unsightly. They don’t want a poster-boy that hurts himself, so they have someone to fix that.”
Torchbearer blanched. “That’s—”
“They changed my tattoos, too. Bet you didn’t know that.”
He’d somehow managed to render Torchbearer speechless for once. He looked him in the eyes as he slipped the unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders. “Everyone should be like Clancy, who loves his city so much he decided to permanently ink it on his body,” he said in a low voice, holding out his arms so that Torchbearer could get a closer look.
This time, Torchbearer did grab onto him. He grabbed his forearm and ran his fingers over the altered tattoo. “They made it into a neon gravestone,” Torchbearer said, something like anger in his voice.
“Yeah. Didn’t you hear? They're my favorite thing about the city. Reminds me that true glory lies beyond this life. So much so that the ink is made from the ashes of the Glorious Gones.”
Torchbearer seemed genuinely sickened. He dropped Clancy’s arm. “You’re lying.”
That actually drew a laugh from him, short and clipped. “Well, yeah. Believe it or not, that’s one line they’ve yet to cross. But it’s a popular rumor online. Surprised you haven’t heard it.”
Torch worked his jaw. “I don’t spend much time online.”
“Why? You don’t wanna see me?” Clancy mimed one of the poses from the shoot. He placed his hand against his chin like he held a handful of pills within his palm and stuck out his tongue like he was lapping from a bowl.
Torchbearer watched with a grimace. “Not… like that.”
“Why? Does it bother you?”
“Clancy—”
He dropped his hands and crossed them at his sides instead. “No. Tell me how much of an inconvenience I am for you.”
“You’re not an inconvenience.”
“You’re certainly acting like I’m one.”
Torchbearer scoffed and flailed his arms by his sides. “Everything I do is for you.”
“What, do you want a round of applause? Should I roll out the red carpet?”
“Don’t be like that.”
“Be like what?” He walked out of the kitchen and in the direction of his bedroom. He didn’t want his entire evening ruined just because Torchbearer had decided to play hero for the evening by showing up.
He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged off his shoes, then his socks. Torchbearer stood in the doorway, exasperated. “I’m sorry that I can’t do more.”
Clancy brushed aside a lock of pink hair that had fallen in front of his forehead. He wasn’t sure he’d get used to that. “Not sure you were ever doing anything in the first place.”
Torchbearer knocked the back of his head against the doorframe. “Jesus.”
Clancy knew he was being unfair, uncharitable. He didn’t think he would’ve survived his first few months back in Dema if it weren’t for Torchbearer being there. But then months had turned into years. And nothing ever changed except for him.
“I don’t even know who I’m talking to right now,” Torchbearer said, shaking his head.
Clancy didn’t say anything, because he didn’t really have an answer. He certainly wasn’t Tyler, the naive boy from Dema that believed freedom was a mere leap away, and he certainly wasn’t Clancy, Trench’s inspiration. He was nothing.
He shrugged and unbuckled his belt, then pulled off his pants.
Torchbearer watched him. “They shaved your legs?”
His face burned and he stood up from the bed. “Shut up.”
“I’m not trying to make fun of you. All of this is just… weird.”
“Good thing you don’t have to stick around, then. You can go back to Trench and leave me here.”
Torchbearer’s face fell. Instead of acknowledging Clancy’s comment, though, he said, “I thought you said they got rid of your scars.”
“They did.”
“Then what’s up with your arms?”
He froze and pursed his lips. He glanced back down, remembering all of the issues it’d caused earlier. “Haven’t gotten around to those yet. Guess they’ll have to put me back under the needle. Maybe give me a big ol’ map of Dema on my back while they're at it.”
“You did that, didn’t you?”
“I don’t see why that matters.”
Torchbearer finally abandoned his post in the doorway and walked towards Clancy. He tried to grab on to Clancy’s hands, but Clancy backed away. “Because you hurt yourself.”
He swallowed down his shame and leveled his voice. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not.” There was that side of Torchbearer that he’d been missing. The one that actually, genuinely cared for him out of love and not obligation. The drugs, the drinking, the tattoos hadn’t been enough. The scratches had. That was something that Torchbearer could fix, theoretically.
Torchbearer traced a finger along one of the gashes. Clancy let him. “You’re going to kill yourself.”
He rolled his eyes. “They’re just scratches. Besides, they won’t let me kill myself.”
“It’s not just scratches, and you know that.”
Clancy hardened his gaze.
“How many of those pills have you taken today?”
He tilted his head to the side. “What pills?”
Torchbearer scoffed and pursed his lips.
He didn’t have the energy to play a game. “Not enough, clearly.”
“They’re going to kill you,” Torchbearer said, his concern tangible.
“I’m too valuable for Dema to kill me. Too smart. Who else’ll write their little jingles?” Clancy approached Torch and tugged on the lapels of his jacket. “Maybe if you fuck my brains out, they’d finally put me out of my misery.”
Torch backed away and ran a hand over his face. “Jesus. I’m not going to do that, Clancy.”
He frowned. “Well why not?”
Torchbearer looked at him, exasperation on his face. “Because you—you’re—“
Clancy crossed his arms. “Too broken for you?”
Torch’s expression shifted. He looked almost sad. “No.”
Clancy cocked his head to the side. “But you don’t want me anymore.”
Torchbearer steeled his face, his gaze hardening. “It’s just—not like this, Clancy. This isn’t you. You don’t really want this. It wouldn’t be right.”
“What isn’t me, Torch?”
Torchbearer waved his hand. “All of this! Are you kidding? The—the hair, for starters.”
“Right. The hair.”
“And this goddamn apartment.”
“What’s wrong with the apartment?”
Torchbearer paused. He swallowed. “Clancy, the last time I saw you, you were sleeping on the floor of a cell.”
Clancy looked down at the ground.
“I’ve never heard you talk like this before. It’s like you don’t even care.”
That made him scoff, so hard and deep it hurt his chest. “Because I don’t. I can’t. If I let myself care, or—or believe that there’s some way out of this, that one day I’ll get to waltz back into Trench and act like none of this ever happened, then that will be the thing that kills me. Not Dema. Not the Bishops. Not myself.”
“Clancy.”
“I’m stuck like this, Torch. There’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing you can do about it. The sooner we accept that, the better.”
Torchbearer stared at him with shining eyes. He didn’t have the energy to deal with that, either.
“I’m going to take a shower. So now’s your chance to escape.” Clancy shut the bathroom door behind him before Torchbearer had a chance to say anything in response.
He turned on the faucet and stepped out of his boxers. He looked in the mirror and realized he was still wearing those stupid star earrings. He swiped at his face like it could take off all the eyeshadow and eyeliner and mascara that had been caked on, but it didn’t budge.
He stepped into the shower and watched as a light stream of pink water cascaded down his shoulders. He knew it would take much more to make the color go away. Yvette would probably touch it up before his next photoshoot, anyways. He had a feeling his new carefully-cultivated image was going to stick.
He scrubbed at his face with a washcloth until he felt like it might fall off. He scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, and still more product remained. He touched his face and it felt gluey. He huffed out his frustration and instinctively crossed his arms and dug his nails into the flesh. He stayed like that, with the water hitting his back, unmoving for a moment. Torchbearer would be disappointed.
Torchbearer probably wasn’t going to be there when he exited the bathroom.
He dropped his hands and chose to focus his energy on raking his nails through his scalp until that, too, burned.
He stayed in the shower until the water turned cold and the skin of his fingers pruned. His head pounded again and his stomach growled, but he wasn’t particularly hungry. He wrapped a towel around himself and looked into the fogged-up mirror, which was just clear enough to still make out a bright shock of pink hair. He wasn’t sure why that made him want to cry.
He emerged from the bathroom not long after wearing his only pair of pajamas—in a matching gray, of course—and felt his heart drop at the sight of his empty room.
He stood in the doorway and exhaled. He’d told Torchbearer he could leave. The fact that he had shouldn’t have made him so upset.
“Clancy.”
He very nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Torchbearer in the hallway. “You’re here.”
“I made you dinner. Sort of. You didn’t really have much food.”
He choked down the odd, unfamiliar feeling of tears. “Oh.”
“It’s just pasta and butter,” Torchbearer said as he guided Clancy back into the kitchen.
He tried to disguise his sniffling by pressing his hand to his nose. “Oh.”
Torchbearer handed him a bowl of the pasta and he stared at it. “I didn’t even know the stove worked.”
Torchbearer gave him an odd look. “Well, it does.”
“Yeah.”
“Are you going to eat?”
He looked up at Torch. “Are you?”
Torchbearer wordlessly grabbed another bowl out of the pantry and gave himself a small serving of pasta. Clancy sat down at one of the counter’s barstools. He didn’t think he’d ever used them. He picked up his fork and swirled the pasta with it. He tensed up when he felt Torchbearer sit on the stool beside him.
“You look a lot better without all that makeup,” Torchbearer said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You look more like you.”
Clancy glanced at him. “Like how I’m supposed to be.”
“You’re not supposed to be anything. You’re just you.”
He took a tiny bite of pasta. “I shouldn’t be like this.”
Neither of them said anything after that. They ate their pasta in silence, and when they finished, Torchbearer carried the bowls off to the sink and washed them by hand. Clancy watched him with a hand perched under his chin. It was so bizarrely domestic, like the scene belonged in someone else’s life entirely.
Torchbearer caught him staring and glanced up. “I can stay. If you want.”
“The night, you mean.” Without thinking much about it, Clancy’s hand found the candy bowl again. He grabbed two of the pills and rested them on his tongue. Torchbearer stared at him. Clancy dared him to say anything as he swallowed.
“The night,” Torchbearer confirmed.
He suppressed the urge to sigh and nodded.
Torch finished with the dishes not long after that. Clancy retreated to the bedroom and waited for Torchbearer to follow him. He crawled under the covers and turned onto his side. He felt the bed dip beside him and the sounds of Torchbearer unlacing his boots. “You want me to get the light?” Torchbearer said.
“No,” Clancy said, “Leave it on.”
He heard the sounds of sighing and felt the blankets shift. Torch laid beside him, close but not quite touching. Despite the brief game he talked earlier, he preferred it like this. He was done with hands all over him, prying and manipulating.
“Clancy.”
He rolled over until he could see Torchbearer’s eyes. Torch had taken off his beanie and his curls had been pushed flat. He resisted the urge to reach out and twirl them between his fingers.
“It’s going to get better. You know that, right?”
Clancy blinked. He rolled back over. “Goodnight, Torch.”
It was another moment before Torchbearer spoke again. “Goodnight, Clancy. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
♡‧₊˚⋅♡‧₊˚⋅♡
He awoke to the sight of smoke billowing from the towers, piercing his room in a haze of gray. The other side of the bed was cold.