A.N: Song: simply the best – Tina turner, Word: Safety, Colour: yellow.
He didn't think it possible, but telling Erik how he did get his scars was oddly therapeutic. Not even his parents knew how he gotten them all. All he told them was that he fell or something.
Margaret had of course managed to find out about the one on his forehead when she brought home a certain Spaniard - who had been one of the offenders that day. Willem had the tanned man in a choke-hold for a good five minutes before releasing him.
Needless to say his sister had demanded to know why he held such a distance for her new boyfriend. Even if he was the oldest, his younger siblings always had some power over him.
Thus came the truth – and while she sympathised, she didn't agree he should still be bitter.
"I've never liked heights, I'm terrified of them really," even the though of climbing something high makes him a bit dizzy "So when they dared me to climb to the top of the wall, I didn't want to. Pride be damned, you know..."
Erik nodded but stayed quiet, and for a moment Willem can at least pretend someone sympathises and knows why this is a big deal to him.
"They were older than me, not by a lot. Two or three years perhaps...but I was eight, they seemed like giants back then."
"I bet you had the last laugh in that then, considering your current height..."
"Heh, yeah. I've outgrown them all now,"
A small smirk becomes present on his features as he thinks how easy it is to beat the three off them up now-a-days.
"Revenge is sweet," Erik muses.
Willem laughs, Erik has a good point and the little odd jokes makes it so much easier to talk about it.
"I was fully prepared to just leave, ignore them and go home. It was then they said they'd find Margaret, and if I didn't climb the wall: they'd kidnap her," Willem frowns at the memory. Even if people doesn't believe him, he does care for his siblings – a lot more than he'd ever admit of course.
"You believed they'd be able to do such a thing?" Erik raises an eyebrow questioningly, obviously the cynic in him is having a hard time picturing Willem falling for such a stupid threat.
"I was eight. And I really worried about my siblings, I was just too naïve to really understand they never could have done anything like that."
"Fair enough. Any reason they picked on you?" Erik twirls his pen in-between his fingers as he listens to the story being re-told.
"I was an easy target I guess.."
"Considering how you currently look, I'd never peg you for the victim,"
"That's what everyone else seems to believe. Probably the scars that do it," Willem sighed.
"Scars? Plural? You have more?" Erik blinked and his deep blue eyes widened for a brief moment in surprise.
"Yeah," He nodded and pointed to the one on his forehead "this is just the most obvious one,"
"So how did you get the other ones?" there is a genuine streak of curiosity to Erik's voice as he quietly voices his question.
"Let me put it this way: being addicted to drugs is dangerous, getting a hold of drugs when you get desperate is a whole other level of danger." Willem sights before straightening his back slightly.
Lifting his t-shirt up he reveals a rather long pink scar on his abdomen. It's healed up nicely considering the depth and length – Willem has to admit the surgeons did a god job all in all.
"Do I even dare ask how you got that one?" Erik leans ever so slightly forward to study the scar with more detail, Willem catches himself before he leans back in an subconscious effort to hide. Erik seems to be to absorbed in looking at the scar to even notice Willem is blushing ever-so-slightly from how close Erik is suddenly sitting.
"Knife wound, after the paranoid dealer though I'd tell the cops." He sights and deflates slightly - wincing as he suddenly feels a strange sensation on his abdomen.
"Ouch, looks painful..." Erik mumbles as he runs a pale finger over the light pink scar.
Willem doesn't know what to say, nor does he quite know what to feel. It's a really odd sensation to have someone else touch his scar. His skin isn't as sensitive there, so it's as if Erik's finger is just barely ghosting over his skin; yet Willem can see Erik is touching him with more force than a light touch.
"W-What about you? Have you got any scars?" He finally manages to splutter out – not quite as dignified as he'd hoped it would sound.
"A few..." Erik straightens up and leans away from Willem with a shrug.
"Erik, stop being so fucking vague."
Sometimes Erik could really press all the wrong buttons and drive Willem far up those pasty white walls in annoyance.
"Fine..."
Erik unbuttons his shirt, letting it slide down and off his arms before turning around, his back facing Willem.
And Willem can't stop staring. For more than one reason really. Running down the Norwegian's back – at a slight angle – are four long scars. Claw marks.
"What the fuck..." he breathes out as he stops himself in trying to touch those scars.
"Svalbard isn't exactly the safest place on earth when it comes to wildlife."
"Do you mean...that..." Willem can't even formulate his sentences any more, he's too focused on the jagged pink scars on Erik's back – such a stark contrast to his pale and smooth skin.
"Polar bear..."
"Please tell me you're joking," because the thought of Erik going up against something as large and ferocious as a polar bear – and live to tell the tale – is mind-blowing.
"Wish I was actually," he sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Willem counts 4 blonde strands of hair that fall down onto the bed in the process
"God damn it...you really can one-up every thing I've ever done," he wasn't really angry, just amazed at how Erik still had the strength to continue living.
"Well...to be honest, the idea of being in a fight with a human is more terrifying to me than a fight with an animal,"
"Liar." He tried to sound angry, yet the words only come out as a slight huff. He didn't really want Erik's sympathy in such a way – it only annoyed him
"No...Animals attack for natural reasons. They're hungry, hurt, scared of you or you're between them and their offspring. Humans can attack for the simple reason that it's 'fun'. That scares me." A shiver ran down Erik's back as he spoke.
"How did you reach such a conclusion?" Willem couldn't help himself. Reaching out he ran four fingers over the four scars on Erik's back; and Erik freezes immediately underneath his touch. Willem softly traces them as if he was the polar bear – imagining the bear ripping up the Nordic male's back as if it was simply paper. Such tremendous force behind the wounds – evident by the look of the scars.
A few places Willem could almost feel Erik's ribs, and as Erik shivered and bent his back ever so slightly at the sensation of Willem's touch, and he could feel the vertebra in Erik's back where the scars ran from left-to-right down his back.
He really needed some more substantial food is Willem's ultimate conclusion.
"Four years of living isolated from humans, only contact I got was a week or two once a year with my brother...I'm still re-learning a few things," Erik admitted with a sight as he slowly turned around to face Willem again. It didn't take long before his blue and white pinstriped shirt was once again buttoned up and covering his torso.
Suddenly a few more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Erik wasn't used to speaking to other humans except his brother, so it was now a little bit more understandable why he always had that blank unreadable expression. After all: even Willem knew how smiling was often considered by animals as a threat; and not the friendly and caring gesture humans saw it as.
Moments of silence passed as Willem tried to wrap his head around what Erik had just told him. It was unbelievable really. He had never seen any real wild animals – save for the local zoo – so the concept of things in nature being deadly was foreign to him. He was Dutch, not Australian.
"How did you...survive?" After all, attacks by polar bears were no simple feat to survive.
"I had a gun...as required by law up there,"
"Then why didn't you shoot when you first saw it?" Something that large and scary comes towards you, it would make sense to shoot it.
"It was a female bear...she had two cubs..."
Erik casts his glance to his feet, not bothering meeting Willem's eyes as he speaks.
"I by accident came between her and her offspring...but that was my fault so I didn't want to shoot her."
"But you did, that's why you're still alive...right?"
Erik shook his head.
"No, I finally fired a warning shot towards her then threw my jacket at the ground and ran for my life...at some point I threw my gloves, hat and scarf off too...that's probably what saved me"
"What?" Willem blinked in shock and confusion. "What does stripping have to do with surviving?"
"It's the best way to distract a polar bear...it stops to sniff at each article of clothing you discard,"
"But isn't that as equally dangerous? Spitsbergen is fucking freezing..."
"Yeah, hence why I ran like fuck. I thankfully wasn't to far away from my weather station, but it took an hour before the doctors could come pick me up and patch my back up. That's why the scars are so jagged and big...immediate treatment would have made them more like yours," he sighted and leaned against the wall.
"I think they look pretty cool actually, especially when I know why you have them," Willem smiled as he spotted the faintest blush appear on Erik's cheeks at the compliment.
"Umm...thanks..." Erik scratched the back of his head nervously, this attention was so new and alien to him – he didn't really know how to respond.
It was odd Willem decided. That it was only little by little that he was unravelling the mystery of Erik's personalty. For each bit of information he gave Erik, he would in turn get information back. Marianne had been right from the start.
Erik was a friend. He just hadn't realised just how much of an important person Erik had become to him so quickly.
A.N:
Sorry about the delay on this chapter, but thank you all who have reviewed, faved and watched this story! Tusen takk!
