Sprig and a Stone

The Big Team base was quiet. Faint rain could be heard outside, pattering on the glass of the greenhouse. It had previously been sunny but an unexpected rainstorm showered the city in grey overtones and cooled off the summer finale’s heat with chill water. The rain collector was filled and showered the plants in pressurized mist, fogging up the glass interior slightly. The immense humidity made Eddie feel at ease. Guilt over the events that happened earlier that day still persisted but this moment of peace was enough for him to organize his thoughts.
It wouldn’t take long, however, for Eddie to realize he wasn’t alone in the greenhouse. Grayson sat nearby, a potted geranium sitting on a table in front of him. He was in the process of deadheading it, snipping the flowers off one by one with a small pair of gardening scissors. The aggressive, sloppy way in which he snipped at the plant said a lot about his current mood. He glanced as Eddie entered, before going right back to what he was doing, perhaps even more ruthlessly than before.

His eyes met Grayson’s but quickly looked down towards the geranium who was frankly at the centre of this when it just needed a light trim.
“Hey… I… um thought you might be in here.” Eddie rubbed his arm, more of a nervous tic to feel the fabric of his turtleneck than soothing an itch. “Can we talk about… what happened?”

Grayson didn’t look up from the plant at first, but after a few moments sighed and set down his scissors. He couldn’t make a habit of giving everyone he was mad at the silent treatment. “Sure. Guess we should.” He said, picking up the plant and returning it to where it belonged. “I guess… I just don’t know why you couldn’t trust me.”
Looking up at the glass and seeing the overcast day, Eddie stepped forward but still appeared to almost shrink into his clothes. “It’s not that I couldn’t trust you..” he stammered to find the right words. “I… just… was impatient. Seeing what he did before? I thought that by following the team’s footsteps in the shadows, I’d be able to sneak and find the cure while you distracted them.”

A conflicted expression crossed his face and the rain picked up, the light pattering on the roof turning into a steady and weighted drone.
“That shit isn’t a cure, Eddie!” Overgrowth snapped, calming down before continuing, “You heard GAIA talk about the side effects. I told you we were gonna ask Whiz to make a safe version. Are you really that desperate to not be like-” He stopped, stepping away and suddenly becoming very interested in a fern. The silence spoke volumes about how that sentence was about to end.

“Like you?” Eddie said in a cold tone. It wasn’t often that he was visibly struck with emotion but those words combined with the situation had tears welling up, glossing over his eyes behind the glasses. He realized what he said too late and turned away, pressing his palms up to his eyes, insisting quietly that he wouldn’t break down.
“That’s- that’s not what-what I meant.” He paused and took a breath, adjusting his glasses.

“Isn’t it?” Grayson says, turning around. His voice is soft and there are tears in his eyes too. “I mean I get it, Eddie. I’m not exactly a freaking movie star, am I? And you know something, six months ago I would have begged Iconoclast to inject me with that garbage.” He admitted, “The only reason I joined Big Team way back when was to find a way back to normal. So I get it, Eddie. I just… I just also get that if I had done that I would have missed out on a lot, and I know your situation is way different from mine, and I support your choice to want to get rid of it. I just wish you’d think about how it feels to be the thing that the person you… might really like doesn’t want to be, to the point where he’d throw himself in danger to get away from it.”

He wipes his eyes and shrugs, “But hey, maybe I’m just selfish. Maybe there’s just some small, petty, pathetic part of me that’s worried that you wouldn’t be with me if you didn’t have the whole gargoyle thing. Maybe you just deserve better.”
A beat of ambient rain made the room feel heavier than the humidity indicator and Eddie turned back. He looked guiltily at the ground, dragging his foot through some shed leaves for a millisecond, exposing a few colourful ones among the brown.

“You’re not being selfish.” Despite all efforts, his eyes filled with tears again. “You did the most selfless thing that someone in your position could do. A hero? Instead of… hiding away and waiting to get messed up by some darkness lady or practicing some kind of chill meditation with a cranky old person.”
“I didn’t think of… the person I really liked and I fucked up there.” Eddie looked back up at Grayson.

“I’m sorry for not trusting you.”

Grayson’s gaze softens. “Hey, you aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re keeping yourself safe, and that’s the most important thing. Just because you have powers doesn’t mean you have to be a hero.” He steps forward, “Besides that, you’re definitely a hero for me. Do you have any idea how much we ordered take out around here before you came along?” He says, trying to defuse the tension, if only slightly.
“I fucked up by not being honest about how I felt. I’m sorry for that, and for giving you the cold shoulder.” He takes Eddie’s hands into his own.

He’s not a crybaby normally but Eddie couldn’t stop himself now. Pulling Grayson’s hands closer, Eddie pulled him into a hug just as the automatic misting system switched to sprinklers.

“Guess you’ll have to call me Cookout as my codename, huh?” he said between gasps, a slight smile in his tone.
“Heh, catchy,” Grayson said, holding Eddie close, rubbing his back gently and allowing him to get out everything he needed to. “I promise, Eddie, you and I are gonna walk in the sun together someday. No matter what it takes.” He whispered.

Eddie pulled back and took Grayson’s face between his hands, nodding sharply. He sniffed and, in the waves of rain and showering of the plant sprinklers, pulled Grayson in for a kiss.

Grayson returned the kiss, holding it for quite some time before pulling back. The words left his mouth before he even realized it.

“I love you, Eddie.”