He wore black on black on black. A tailored suit with midnight velvet lapels beneath a long trench coat with layered armor stitched into the lining.
Elegant on the surface. Lethal underneath.
He couldn’t stop replaying what he’d seen back in the War Room.
The way Meridian’s partner had walked up to him, tilted his head, and licked his lips in asking.
Meridian answering with a kiss. Not vulgar or sloppy, but chaste and intense.
It looked as if it meant everything to a man he’d heard was incapable of emotions.
Scar didn’t know what to do with that, so he found himself questioning him before he could think better of it.
“So, your partner, Ex. He’s…um…”
The sentence dangled for so long he was beginning to think he’d crossed some invisible line.
Meridian turned, and his full gaze landed on him.
Even in the dark, it hit like a punch to his stomach.
“Xavier,” Meridian said quietly, pausing a long moment before he said simply. “He is.”
Scar waited.
Waited.
…and waited
He blinked. “He is…what?”
Meridian looked back out of the window as if in deep contemplation.
“Xavier is too much…and not enough.”
Scar swallowed. Something in Meridian’s voice compressed the space around them.
“He is a light that pierces darkness. He is life, when I loathe living.” Meridian’s tone grew colder. “He is love, though I’m incapable of emotion. He is the reason I stop killing when the job is done.”
Scar stared.
“Xavier is everything, I can’t explain,” Meridian finished. “So I say he just…is.”
“Holy fuck,” Scar breathed.
A few blocks passed before Meridian spoke again.
“I see how you look at Gage.”
Scar’s instinct was to deflect, scoff, or turn it into a joke. But he did none of those.
“I look at him with pity.” He said. “He’s not cut out for this life. He’s no killer.”
“Is that so?” Meridian deadpanned.
“Yes, it is so,” he said harsher than he meant. “Gage’s mission is to get into heaven, not save the fuckin’ world.”
“History tells us God had the fiercest warriors,” Meridian said. “Michael. Gabriel. The Seraphim. You must not read the Bible?”
