𓈊 HotGuy and Canary

Chapter 1

Grian walked into the Magical Menagerie, waved and smiled to the customer leaving, then flipped the Open sign over. His happy smile turned mischievous as he made his way around the shelves of junk to the cash register, where Joel was counting the money they made that day.

"Twenty-four... twenty-nine, thirty-one..."

Grian snickered and leaned against the counter. "I heard that Mad King got his shit rocked by Canary today," he teased, ending in Joel tossing a mini bobble head at him. "That must sting, huh? One of the most feared supervillains to exist... beaten by the most unfeared superhero."

"Keep talking, little birdie," Joel practically growled, making Grian laugh. He was definitely embarrassed. "See where that gets ya'."

"It's all over the news," Grian said, and Joel crumbled all the money in his hands. "Joel! Scar and Timmy need that!"

Joel glared at Grian. "I don't need you rubbing it in my face, dickwad," he grumbled, then shoved the crinkled cash at Grian. "It's only forty anyway."

Grian sighed and stared down at the money in his hands. "Let's use some of the stuff we stole from the bank the other day," he said. "I was planning on using this to take us all out to dinner tonight, but this isn't nearly enough to feed four."

"Gods above, G, we'll have to take a few hundred," Joel said. The inflation had been terrible in Hermit Town over the last couple decades, and it took almost a hundred dollars to pay for McDonald's for one person. And a real restaurant took twice as much.

"Tim is our brother, Joel," Grian replied. "Scar is my boyfriend. It's been too long since we've done something special, the four of us."

Joel sighed, waving a dismissive hand at the shorter man. "Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever."

Grian looked up at Joel after pocketing the money, his eyes widening when he saw that Joel was starting to cry. "Dude-"

"Shut up," Joel said.

"Aww, the big ol' meanie is crying because I'm taking him out to dinnerrr," Grian teased lightly in a mocking voice. "Oh, you're such a softie!"

Joel's face turned bright red. "Grian," he whined.

Grian smiled softly at his brother. "Okay, okay, I'll stop," he said, lifting his hands in a placating gesture as he turned around. "...Cutie."

"GRIAN!!"

' ¤ ▪︎ ° • ☆ • ° ▪︎ ¤ '

"a squared..." Jimmy paused before flipping through his math notes. "Ah, a squared plus-" He stopped when Scar began to whine from the open dining room. "What's wrong?"

"It's so boring when you do your homework," the brunette fake sobbed. "Come play cards with me."

Jimmy sighed. "I'm going to fail this class, Scar," he said, "and I really need to finish this year with good grades. Grian really wants me to get a degree."

Scar frowned, but stayed quiet.

"Okay, a squared plus b squared equals c squared," Jimmy continued to murmur to himself. "Wait, which one is a?"

The door to the apartment opened and Grian and Joel walked in, the former waving around hundreds of dollars and the other sighing.

"Guess who's going out for dinner tonight at the Chromia Tavern?" Grian practically sang, Joel rolling his eyes behind him. "Go put on your nicest clothes, lads, food's on me!"