The Pact (Scömìche)(completed)

34 Arlington memories

Hello darling readers! Support your favourite authors and stories by voting in the Pentatonix Fanfiction Awards 2017. The Pact  is nominated for Best Angsty Fic. 💖

I'm voting for my favourites here :✨✨   https://www.wattpad.com/434432974-the-pentatonix-fanfiction-awards-2017-open-voting  ✨✨

Vote as often as you want, closing 4th August. Writers thrive on love and attention, just as we all do 💕

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Now, Christmas in July! 🎄 The return to Arlington brings back memories for Mitch, as he moves towards a future with Scott. Past, presents, secrets. 🎁

It's a longer one again (3k); these two have so much to say... with mature elements. Watch out.

s/o to @sapphiremoon13 - you called it!

On the twenty-third of December, Mitch flew in to Dallas Love Field and a tearful welcome from his parents. He spotted his mother waving energetically as he walked out to arrivals.

"Great to see you too," he said while Nel hugged him and wept.

"It's been so long, honey, welcome back." She stepped back and dried her eyes. "Let your mom have a few tears, Mitch. I know you hate it."

He smiled and shook his head. "Well, if you can't have tears for a Christmas homecoming, when can you. Right, Mike?"

His dad merely smiled. "I'm saving mine for when we get home."

It was truly surprising to Mitch how easily he slotted back into his childhood room. The walls were painted rather darker grey than he would have liked. He preferred the pale dove grey of a cloud not yet weeping raindrops. But he smiled over his old posters, mounted on boards as a memorial to his days of teenage angst and questioning.

There was a new board up since his last visit. How long had it been? Too long was the only answer he could come up with. He examined photos of Pentatonix and Superfruit, a screenshot from a movie in which he'd barely had two minutes of screen time, red carpet appearances, magazine pages. Pictures of himself with Scott, posing for cameras and laughing at each other, revealed the full extent of the bond they had back then. People often talked about Heart-eyes Hoying, but he'd always laughed it off. Now he saw those blue eyes trained on him, watching proudly as he hit a high note or served face for the photographer. And all at once it hit him.

Scott had always loved him. He was the proud witness to Mitch's growth, his confidant and encourager, from the time he'd persuaded an awkward gay teenager to skip graduation and try out for a talent show, to launching a YouTube channel together, playing sold out world tours, and never leaving his side for more than a minute.

Mitch put both hands over his mouth and gasped. How could he have forgotten and turned on the one who never let him down? And then Nel must have spent hours finding these pictures and printing them out, gluing them to the board and displaying them. All so he would feel at home. She never asked why Scott didn't call or visit any more. She trusted he would tell her when he was ready.

This was what home meant. It was the place where he could be seen as he actually was, remembered for what he had been, and loved no matter what. He'd told Scott, so long ago in a coffee shop, that glamour was exhausting. He was worn thin, his surface polished so that no-one guessed the emptiness at his core. He didn't let the tears fall. But regret pierced his heart, another self-inflicted wound to carry. He breathed away the tightness in his chest, and went out to see his parents.