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Four months.
“What,” Scar says, “is that.”
Marcoh looks up at him, beaming. The small kitten cupped in his hands stretches and places a paw on his wrist, and he grins wider at the feeling of tiny claws prickling against his skin. “A cat?”
Scar directs a critical look at the cat that would level a brick wall, and he bends to take off his shoes at the door before venturing closer. He smells like the outdoors, the weather warm enough now for him to extend the length of his daily runs, and Marcoh watches a drop of sweat trembling at his hairline, fascinated.
“I found her in the alley,” Marcoh says. “Hungry and mad about it, but less now. Reminded me of someone.”
Scar glances at him, exasperated. Scar is capable of saying a thousand things with one look, and Marcoh wonders how anyone could think him a man of few words. He crouches down by Marcoh’s armchair and inspects the cat closely, his head cocked to the side.
Marcoh draws his thumb over her little black head and she begins to purr, her newly rounded belly vibrating against his palm. Scar extends a finger slowly, so carefully that Marcoh’s chest aches at the gentleness of it, and the kitten considers it for a long, solemn moment before closing her mouth around Scar’s fingertip, nibbling on it happily.
The corner of Scar’s mouth twitches, his eyes softening, and Marcoh madly and wildly wishes to kiss him. He very nearly does, but even after all this time, Scar refuses to let Marcoh touch him after his workouts until he’s showered, and all of Marcoh’s assurances that he very much does not mind only seem to fortify Scar’s defenses.
“She needs a name,” Marcoh says. He looks down at the kitten to avoid staring at Scar’s mouth, and she rolls out of his hands and onto the knitted throw across his lap. He can’t help but smile at the sight, and beside him, Scar makes an odd sound. When he glances up, Scar flicks his eyes away and stands, tugging restlessly at the bottom of his jacket.
“Spot.”
Marcoh blinks. “Spot?” He looks at the kitten again, wondering if perhaps he’s missed something, but she remains perhaps the most spotlessly black kitten he’s ever seen.
Scar shrugs. “People name their pets Spot,” he explains, as if it’s the most simple thing, and he wanders off to the bathroom. Marcoh sits there in bemusement for a moment longer before deciding that a name is just a name, after all.
“Spot,” he tries, and the kitten mews.
…………..
Spot takes to her new life enthusiastically. She chases bottlecaps across the kitchen floor and attempts to murder Scar’s shoelaces until he tucks them into his shoes and turns them upside down. She climbs into the bathtub and yowls until Marcoh rescues her. Scar makes spaghetti for dinner, and she tangles herself around his legs until he swears softly at her, but without malice.
“Chicken or tuna?” Marcoh asks, holding up two cans of cat food. She leaps at the hand holding the chicken and snags the bottom of his jeans. He watches, amused, as she tries to tug her claws free. “Chicken it is.”
Scar always sleeps early, unless Marcoh can coax him otherwise, and he’s already in bed by the time Marcoh finishes up in the bathroom. Marcoh’s own bedroom has gone unused for some time, slowly filling up with more books, while his own clothing and belongings have begun migrating over to Scar’s. He leaves the door to Scar’s room open, the hallway nightlight spilling soft light into the corner, and he approaches the still form beneath the comforters.
“Scar.”
Scar grunts and rolls over onto his stomach, tugging the sheets with him, and Marcoh admires the expanse of his bare back, the muscles shifting beneath his skin as he settles again.
“And here I thought you’d be glad to see me,” Marcoh teases. He spreads himself over Scar’s back, scatters light kisses across his shoulders until Scar groans and squashes his face into the pillows. Marcoh can feel him quivering, raw strength held tightly in check, and he runs his hands soothingly along Scar’s sides, smiling into the long kiss he presses to the back of Scar’s neck. “No good?”
“’m sleeping,” Scar says, his voice muffled, but his hips twitch against the bed in a way that suggests otherwise. “Long day.”
“Oh, yes. I see.” Marcoh’s hands wander lower, squeezes Scar’s ass meaningfully, and beneath him, Scar makes a stifled sound. “Sleeping.”
Scar lifts his face up from the pillows at last, his cheeks flushed and his mouth slack and damp. “You—” he growls, and Marcoh happily allows himself to be dragged in and kissed thoroughly, reaching down to shove his pajama buttons off his hips and—
A loud yowl startles the both of them, and Marcoh nearly receives a knee between his legs as Scar jerks away, swearing.
A quick look over the side of the bed reveals Spot, tail slapping disgruntledly against the floor as she regards the two of them with the utmost disdain, and Marcoh sighs, reaching over to hoist her onto the bed. “We’ve got company.”
“I was here first,” Scar says, but he doesn’t protest when Marcoh settles back against him, Spot now perched contentedly on his belly.
“Rain check?” Marcoh murmurs, and Scar grunts. A moment later, his hand reaches around Marcoh’s shoulder and scratches at Spot’s ears.
…………..
Six months.
It’s been half a year now, since Scar moved in with him, bringing nothing but two boxes and a wary expression. Marcoh sits in his armchair, Spot draped over his knee and purring, watching Scar make toast and wishing he had a name for this. A name is just a name, he tells himself, and yet he still wonders.
Lovers , he thinks, is a word too young and delicate for the two of them. As far as he knows, they have yet to even say those three words. He pauses there in his thoughts, appalled.
“I love you,” he says aloud, and in the kitchen, Scar chokes on his coffee. Spot’s eyes fly open at the sound, then close again immediately.
“The cat?” Scar asks, once he’s capable of speech again. He's gotten coffee on the cuff of his shirt, and he frowns at it while Marcoh watches with endless endearment.
“You.” This suddenly doesn't seem like a conversation that should be had across two rooms. Marcoh stands, displacing an annoyed Spot, and crosses the room. The counter stands between them, and he circles around that as well, taking Scar’s mug out of his hand and setting it down safely. “I love you.”
Scar makes another choking sound, his face flushing dark and his eyebrows drawing together in a flustered scowl. “You don't have to say it,” he mutters, and Marcoh clutches at his hand. Scar’s fingers are still warm from the mug, and Marcoh grips them between both his hands.
“I thought it should be said.” He watches Scar carefully. “So that you know.”
“I knew.” Scar looks almost in pain, his eyes landing anywhere but on Marcoh’s face, and his hand twitches awkwardly in Marcoh’s grip. “I- you- I also-”
“You don't have to say it,” Marcoh says mercifully.
Scar’s eyes snap to him, nearly wild in whatever internal struggle holds him captive. The last time he looked like this, Marcoh reflects, was the first time Scar kissed him. He leans up first this time, and Scar kisses him with nearly palpable relief. It's a little harder than normal, an edge of desperation in the way Scar’s mouth moves against him, teeth catching at Marcoh’s lip.
“I know,” Marcoh says, when he breaks for breath, and Scar tips their foreheads together, his mouth swollen and wet and smiling.
…………..
Eight months.
“For you,” Scar says, brusque and fleeting as he passes by, and Marcoh barely has time to feel something slipping into his coat pocket before Scar’s disappearing around the corner.
It takes some juggling of the pile of clipboards in his hands- leave it to Scar to plan an untimely ambush- before he finally manages to reach into his pocket. It’s a small box, the size of his palm with a red ribbon tied around it, and he stares at it, nonplussed.
It isn't his birthday, though he thinks carefully for a long moment to make sure it isn't, in fact, an anniversary of some kind. Scar doesn't seem the type for such things, in any case. Curiosity gets the better of him, and once he deposits his clipboards, he tucks himself against a private corner in the back of the clinic and opens the little box.
In a nest of soft red tissue paper sits four chocolate truffles, dark and round and dusted with white sugar. It clicks a second too late, and he groans at himself. Of course .
He finds Scar hiding in the supply room, and Scar manages one surprised, “What’re you-” before Marcoh’s on him, arms around his waist and steering him back against the shelves.
“What did you tell the store clerk, when she asked you who those chocolates were for?” Marcoh asks, as if carrying on a conversation they left off before. Scar flushes, eyes darting away, and Marcoh smiles at him, his chin against Scar’s chest. “Your wife, maybe? A girlfriend? I believe I’m a little old to be a girlfriend.”
“A roommate,” Scar says reluctantly, and Marcoh laughs softly, more amused than he expected.
“That's certainly true.” Behind Scar’s back, Marcoh takes a chocolate from the box still in his hands, and he puts it in his mouth. It's dark and rich and not overly sweet, and the shell crunches delightfully between his teeth as he rises up on his toes and kisses Scar.
At first, Scar’s mouth is stiff with surprise, and then he melts like the chocolate on Marcoh’s tongue, as weak to this as always. His mouth opens easily against Marcoh’s, and he gives a low groan as he tastes the chocolate that makes Marcoh wish fervently that they were anywhere but here in the supply closet of their workplace.
The chocolate is gone by the time Marcoh settles back, his calves burning from holding the stretch, and Scar is nearly the color of the tissue paper in the box. It's a good color on him.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Marcoh tells him.
…………..
One year.
It's a rare morning when Marcoh wakes before Scar, the sky outside their bedroom window just beginning to lighten. Against his chest, Scar breathes quietly, curled in on himself, and Marcoh unwraps himself carefully from Scar’s back, pushing up on an elbow to look.
Spot looks back at him from her spot tucked beneath Scar’s chin, her tail draped over his neck, and Marcoh smiles down at the both of them, his heart so full that it hurts.
There's a fading mark on Scar’s bare shoulder, one that Marcoh remembers putting there with great fondness, and he bends to fit his mouth over it once more, something dark and hot twisting inside him at the thought of Scar wearing the shape of his kisses.
For God’s sake, he thinks at himself, but he indulges himself in another kiss, this one feather light over the sharp line of Scar’s cheek.
Scar stirs at that, his nose wrinkling as Spot’s tail flicks over it, and Marcoh watches, a little regretful, as he wakes.
“Good morning,” he says, and he makes an apologetic sound as Scar tries to move and immediately groans. Neither of them are young men, and despite their combined enthusiasm in the bedroom, their bodies never fail to reprimand them the next morning. “A massage later?” he offers, and Scar gives a drowsy grunt, burrowing back in his pillow.
It's another day, as ordinary as any other. Marcoh looks down at Scar, already asleep again, and is briefly overwhelmed by his sheer existence.
You’re thinking too much again, Scar would tell him, in that low rumble of a voice, and he would press a finger to Marcoh’s forehead and twitch an amused smile when Marcoh blinks out of his reverie.
“C’'mere,” Scar says. Not asleep, after all. He cracks an eye open and squints up blearily at Marcoh, who obeys happily enough. An ordinary day, like any other.
Marcoh hopes there are many more just like it.