Scars

Notes: Anon wanted Parker x F!MC but my muse wanted Parker x M!MC and what my muse wants, she gets.

Summary: Moss thinks he’s falling for Parker Shaw, and what it means.

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“What’s this from?” Parker touches the scar on Moss’ jaw, faded now beneath his stubble. Moss turns his head into the caress, holding for just a shade too long, then leans back, fingers linked together behind his head. His heart is pounding like a steel drum. If anyone sees us… But there is no one to see, not here in the dark of his grandfather’s cabin, Elliot fast asleep upstairs. 

Yet he can’t bring himself to care, not quite, not when he’s sitting beside Parker in the dark, their thighs inches away from each other’s. He wonders what Parker’s lips would feel like brushing against the hollow of his throat, and reflexively brushes his fingertips across the delicate skin there. 

“There was this girl… Wren. I wanted to impress her.” Moss rubs his jaw, the ridge of the scar just barely there. He remembers how his mother screamed when she saw him, how she’d wanted to pay to get it lasered off. No son of mine will have face tattoos! This will destroy your life, Moss! “She was this girl I met when I was visiting my bio dad in Montreal. Really gorgeous, older girl with long elf locks and…” he cups his hands against his chest. “Like grapefruits. She was a train hopper.” He takes a sip of beer, finishing the bottle, aware of just how close Parker Shaw is, how he smells of fresh air and woodsmoke. 

Parker hands Moss another beer, dripping with condensation. Their fingers brush, and he hears Parker’s sharp intake of breath, the air between them growing thick and heavy with things unspoken, or maybe he’s just imagining things. Maybe he’s only thinking that because he wants… “Was she impressed?” Parker clinks his bottle to Moss’s, and outside the window, a loon cries in the dark for its mate. 

Moss shrugs, remembering: Wren’s soft giggles, their hands fumbling in the dark. “Sure.” He remembers her pink lips, the way she’d wiped her mouth off afterward and looked at him expectantly, though he’d been unsure of just what it was he was supposed to offer in return. In the end, he hadn’t offered enough, and they’d drifted to sleep in her sleeping bag, cuddled up like puppies. In the morning, she’d disappeared, taking his wallet with her. 

Sometimes, he looks at the scars that spiderweb under the white tattoos on his arms, how they make a map of his life, one bad decision after another — until he went back on the straight and narrow for Elliot’s sake. 

“How about you?” Moss traces a circle around the lip of the bottle with his finger, it makes a singing noise. Outside, the loon responds: Kwuk kwuk kwuk. 

Parker raises a brow and smiles, teeth flashing white in the darkness, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. In the moonlight, every muscle of his chest under his wife beater is thrown into sharp relief, and Moss adjusts his jeans, trying to focus on Parker’s face, not the way his fingers itch with the urge to trace that washboard stomach, down, down, and to feel Parker come apart under his tongue. 

“…I was an Eagle Scout, I told you that, right?” Parker pulls up his undershirt, and takes Moss’s hand, guiding it to his chest. His flesh is just as Moss has imagined it, hard and smooth as marble, but not cold, no: it is hot and supple, and Moss has to bite on his tongue to suppress his groan. “Guess how I got this.” 

Fuck. Parker’s thigh is pressed up against his, and Moss’s jeans are so tight now that his thoughts feel muddled, hazy, swimming with desire and drink. Does he imagine that Parker shivers as his fingers stroke the raised flesh? No. No. You’re just imagining things, Moss. “Long and shallow. Bet it bled like hell.” He presses his beer bottle between his lips, trying to quash the rush of heat that comes over his face. 

“Mmm. You’re good at guessing blades, Moss. That’s a bit unexpected,” Parker chuckles, the sound reverberating through his chest. “Jack knife. It slipped.” He pulls his undershirt back down, and takes a long gulp of beer. 

Moss inhales deeply, trying to calm his breathing, as though it’s every night he sits down in the dark with a man he wants to kiss. “How do you get a scar on your chest, though?” 

“I’m very, very good with knots. But the person I was playing with… wasn’t.” Parker’s lips ghost along the shell of Moss’s ear as he leans in, and Moss feels himself stirring, stiffening, glad it is so dark, that Parker can’t see how damn much he wants to fist his hand in Parker’s shirt and slam his mouth against his. “Scars just mean we survived. They aren’t who we are.” His fingers ghost along the scars on Moss’s forearm, and Moss goes completely still.

Between them, the air beats quietly, the night outside is muted, soft, the monsters all asleep under the lake. But what Parker Shaw doesn’t know is that monsters still walk around in plain daylight, that sometimes the monsters are right in front of you, the kind you never see until it’s too late. “Dude, it’s getting kind of late. I should go to bed, you know? Don’t want to set a bad example for Elliot.” 

“Let me walk you upstairs? Those  steps look like they can be treacherous in the dark.” Parker stands up, offering a hand, and when Moss takes it, Parker pulls him up, his grip firm and warm. “Moss. Hey.” 

Moss realizes he’s steadied himself with his fingers hooked in Parker’s belt loops, and he feels his face heat, glad Parker can’t see it in the dark. “Sorry, bro. I’m usually better at holding my liquor.” 

“You don’t have to pretend when I’m around, you know.” Parker’s voice drops to a whisper, and somehow they are both standing close, so close that they are breathing one another’s breath, deep and unsteady, the embrace of the night humid and heavy around them. “I’m here, Moss Vance. And I’m not going anywhere.” 

Their lips crash together, Parker’s hands are in Moss’s hair, he’s fisting Parker’s shirt and moaning, Parker’s stubble scraping against his lips, tongues hot in each other’s mouths as their hips grind together. His knees might buckle if his fingers weren’t locked into Parker’s belt loops. It feels good, it feels right to kiss Parker Shaw with abandon, to groan Parker’s name aloud. 

“Parker… Oh, fuck.” Parker’s teeth press against the delicate skin of Moss’s collarbone, sure to leave a mark come morning.

Yes, Moss can pretend by light of day that he isn’t falling for Parker Shaw, but when night falls, he discovers that the darkness holds all of his secrets, that it lies beneath the skin, written in his scars.