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Scar was losing his ability to be positive about this. He had bad flares before, but normally they weren’t this long. It had been over a week of stumbling to the bathroom and using his chair for the quickest dinners he could heat up. The worst part was the boredom. Normally he could at least distract himself in a flare but the degenerative part of degenerative disability was hitting different. His hands hurt. His hands hurt a lot. His whole upper body was giving him too much of a hard time to fight. It was barely responding to anything but his strongest drugs.
One thing about lying in bed for days on end meant he had some serious creative energy slowly building up. The hours he had spent watching TV on his comm was giving him more things to build, to try, to play around with. The world chat was entertaining, but so tempting. Sometimes he could use this to trick his body into doing a little bit of work , moving around and slowly but surely doing better. In this instance, that tried and true method of fake it till you make it was useless.
Fortunately, Scar had the benefit of his wonderful boyfriends. specifically wonderful boyfriends who understood how painful boredom could be. He opened his most recent message with Grian, Ignoring the latest message from the man asking Pain any better today? And instead sent his own message of I am so bored help . He watched the bubbles appear as Grian clearly typed out a message backspaced it and then continued typing. He could imagine his boyfriend paused midway through a project and tried not to feel guilty about interrupting him. “ I am allowed to be a burden,” he said out loud to himself. Jellie stopped licking herself to look at him as if to agree.
His comm dinged.
want me to come over?
yes please.
on my way
It was easy to love Grian. He heard the avian land and come in. Jellie went down to greet him, and Scar couldn’t help but smile as he heard Grian’s voice creep up in octave, and could almost imagine Grian bending down to pet her. “Yes you are very cute, but I know Mumbo has your feeding system automated.”
Grian even bothered to knock at Scar’s door, which was sweet but only gave Scar extra time to contemplate how truly terrible he looked. His room was in a horrific state. The goal for the past few days had simply just been to get clean clothes on and keep a path open for his chair, but now he looking at it with another person's eyes. It was impossible to see anything but a mess. There was nothing he could do, and he wasn't going to make Grian wait.
“ Come in,” he called. Grian came in. Scar took a minute to stare at his boyfriend. Grian had his red sweater sleeves pushed up, forearms out. He must have been building when Scar interrupted him, because there was a little bit of sweat on his hairline and there was a single vein visible on his arm. He was beautiful. His hair was messy, but in a way that suggested he lived a full life. A brief moment of jealousy hit him, Scar’s own life feeling so small. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. And yet, Grian was looking at Scar so sweetly, and it felt like being in his own ray of sunshine.
“Have you been able to eat?” Grian started.
“Yeah, I’m running low on the stuff I have frozen.”
“I’ll pick you some more tomorrow,” Grian said, which was so nice Scar had to briefly close his eyes.
“Does anything not make it worse?” Grian asked, which was. Another right question, borne of practice. His boyfriend had come a long way since, “are you going to die?”
“Heat. The meds that make me drowsy.” he tried to shrug, and then winced.
“Do you wanna go outside for a bit? Get some endorphins in your system?” Grian gave him a teasing little wink, half just for the joke of it, but half to let Scar know whatever he wanted was on the table.
Scar thought about the energy it took to get outside, mixed with the fact he would need Grian to push his chair, and must have made a face.
“Maybe later,” he said, which might be true.
“Got it.” There was a long pause. “I could get you off,” Grian offered.
“Grian!” he said, mostly out of surprise Grian put it on the table, in words, so fast.
“I’m serious.”
“You can’t just -”
“Why not? I love you, you’re sexy -” Grian cut off as he fell into Scar’s bed. He rearranged himself so they were face to face. “No pressure, I just want to do something nice for you.”
“I can’t exactly recipromacate,” Scar replied, stumbled over the word.
“Me and Mumbo were at it like rabbits this morning, I don’t think I could go again. It doesn’t have to be anything more than me jerking it for you.”
Scar thought about it. “That actually sounds really good. I would love to shower first.”
“Yes! Okay, let’s do it. Are you able to take more pain meds?”
“That depends. What time is it?”
Grain had to check his own comm. “Almost four.”
“Yeah, I can take some more.”
“Do you want to take them before a shower or after?
“Let's do before, they’ve been taking a while to kick in.”
Green helpfully grabbed the pain meds in question, a label with a little red sticker. He also opened Scar’s water bottle. Sometimes, when Scar was doing this bad it was helpful to not be asked about every little thing he needed help with. At a certain point it was actually more humiliating. Despite the occasional unhelpful impulse, he didn't have to prove his own capability to his boyfriend.
Scar managed to zone back in in time to catch: “You work on getting upright, I'll grab you a clean towel.”
So he did. Sitting on the edge of his bed he had a choice to make. Walker or cane where out the question with the state of his arms and hands. His wheelchair was in reach or he could try on his own.
“Grian, is my shower chair good?” he called out. He was almost certain Jellie couldn’t knock it over, but it gave him another second to make peace with needing his chair for a ten foot journey.
From out in the hall he heard Grian give a good pat on the plastic chair in question, echoing in the bathroom.
Scar laughed. He probably could have made it to the bathroom on his own but the cost benefit of falling was just too much to deal with. Not to mention it would get in the way of his orgasm. Now that he was thinking about it, it had been almost 2 weeks since he last came. He met Grian in the hallway. The other man holding a very fluffy towel from a cabinet Scar had been meaning to get rid of the doors off but hadn't managed to before the flare hit.
“Ready?” Grian asked.
“So ready,” he replied. Grian kissed the top of his head. “ Love you,” he said quietly.
“That's my line,” Grian complained. He turned the water on, then shed his sweater. Underneath he was in a tank top, that really showed off his musculature. Scar knew he was one of a select few who got this view with any regularity and took a moment to bask in it.
When Grian deemed the water was hot enough he helped Scar make the transfer onto the shower chair.
“ Let me take care of you?” Grian asked. Often they joked with each other, but Scar knew the meds would be making him loopy soon, and they had talked about how Grian hated feeling helpless when Scar was in pain.
“ Okay,” Scar replied.
Mostly, they were quiet. Grian washed his hair, the smell of Scar’s strawberry shampoo taking up the bathroom. He made a point of massaging Scar’s scalp.
“You’re amazing,” Scar told him, drawing out the word more than he meant with a yawn.
“Still good?” Grian asked.
“Meds hitting. It’s good.”
Grian talked about building, then about pranking, then obviously praising but somehow still teasing Doc’s design of the perimeter.
Finally, with the fluffy towel sitting on his head, Scar just feels clean for the first time in several days.
“Still up for part two?” Grian asked. Scar takes a moment to look at the blond man.
“Unless you’ve changed your mind, I will start screaming if you don’t touch me.” His body was doing its best, and he wanted to take advantage of the reprieve.
“I got you, baby.”
Grian folded a new towel and placed it on the bed, and then Scar transferred himself onto the bed, situating himself on top of the towel.
“You’re really setting high expectations,” he teased, once he had caught his breath.
“You’re the one getting your oxygen ready,” Grian quipped back. “Do you want to get a shirt on now?”
“Please,” Scar replied. Grian helped him into a faded cotton Hotguy shirt that was firmly relegated to pj status. Then he set up the cannula, and Grian took his face into his hands, and kissed him. Grian’s hands were warm and strong, alive and present. When they parted, Scar looked at Grian’s face to see his pupils blown wide.
“I would love to have sex with you,” Scar whispered. It came out somewhere between wistful and pouting.
“When the flare is over, you can rail me until I cry,” Grian replied.
“Promise?”
“Void Scar, yes. Let me get you off so you can sleep properly with those meds in your system.”
“Aye aye Captain.”
“Alright, can you lean forward so I can get in behind you?”
“Yeah.”
Grian scotched in, tucked right behind Scar. He had taken his shirt off at some point, but Scar assumed that was from the shower. Scar sat between his legs, propped up on either side by some pillows. It let him rest his arms comfortably so they didn’t feel like they were slowly ripping out of his shoulder sockets.
Grian started touching him. He had one arm wrapped around Scar’s chest, mostly to make sure Scar could do as little as possible. He was so tired he was pretty sure he’d fall asleep as soon as the drugs kicked in. With Grians’ other hand, he reached down Scar’s body, and stopped on Scar’s thigh. He was already sensitive, and tensed under Grian’s hand.
“Don’t tease,” he asked. Grian paused, hand having moved to his pubes.
“Should’ave asked, just your dick or do you want me in your hole?”
It was a fair question. Sometimes when he was showing off, he’d fuck himself on his fingers for ages, soaking his thighs, and generally driving his partners up the wall. But they both knew he couldn’t actually cum like that without serious investment and getting pretty worked up.
“Just my dick, I think.” Scar answered.
“And not too wet, right? The friction is good for you?”
“Yes. Please.”
“I’m not gonna make you beg, I’m just your hands today.”
Grian reached down the final inch or so, let his first two fingers slide on either side of Scar’s cock and then began to make circles around it. Scar breathed out in relief, pushing his hips up to meet Grian’s hand.
“Harder?” Grian asked.
“Mmh, yeah, and a little tighter circles. “
“Got it. Any variations or do you want it consistent.”
“Keep it,” he breathed out.
“I got you,” Grian promised. And he did. Scar bucked his hips into Grian’s hand, but the other man never faltered, just gave him exactly what he needed. Grian was strong and kept him in place, not having to worry about what his body would do or how it could fail or hurt. His body still ached, but for the first time that feeling was competing with pleasure, easy and overtaking. Something he could actually access.
He breathed heavily, and managed to say, “Close.”
Grian kept going, sending him neatly over the edge with a fairly anticlimactic noise from the throat. Grian slowed, all but rocked him through the handful of waves.
“Good?” Grian asked.
“Real good,” he answered. Grian pressed a kiss to the side of his head. They waited, quietly, for Scar’s heartrate to normalize. He knew he was fading fast, exhaustion from being upright this long hitting him like a truck.
“M ready to lie down,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, course.” He could hear the smile in Grian’s voice, maneuvering around the bed, paying so much care to Scar’s body. He lowered Scar onto a pillow, and pulled the comforter over his naked bottom half.
“Love you,” he called out, eyes half closed.
“So that’s a no for underwear,” Grian teased.
“Mmmhmm.” He heard footsteps, then the bedroom door open. A single meow from Jellie. “Yes, I’ll get you a treat before I go, spoilt thing. Go snuggle your dad while I get him new water.”
He could hear Grian begin his stated tasks, but he was falling asleep before Grian made it back.