Scars

Teddy loved Billy's scars.

Every raised ridge of skin, every dark blemish. Each one had a story, told part of the inspiring tale that was Billy Kaplan, Wiccan, a Young Avenger, a superhero.

But Teddy wasn't the only one who was slightly in awe of Billy's scars.

The buff blond was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, pulling the mage into his arms and kissing a dark line on Billy's left temple when Tommy nearly ran into them.

"Dudes!" Tommy complained, pulling to a halt just inches from the embracing couple, crossing his arms and glaring at them. "If you're gonna have a make-out session, don't do it in the doorway! Some people actually use doorways to go from one room to the next!"

"Sorry," Billy said, but he was grinning and didn't sound particularly apologetic, though he backed away from his boyfriend to allow room for his brother to enter the kitchen.

Tommy however had tilted his head, eyes on the skin of Billy's temple that Teddy had just tenderly kissed. Usually it wasn't visible because it was covered by the mage's dark side-bangs.

Reaching out, Tommy brushed his thumb over the scar, asking, "What was that from?"

"This?" Billy reached up his own hand to touch the marred skin. "That was from a piece of debris that hit me when we broke you out of Juvie and you blew up your cell."

Tommy stuck his hands in his pockets, grinning wryly. "Well, at least that's the only one that's my fault, right?"

"Pretty much," Billy said, grinning back. "These," he ran his fingers along the curved edge of both his ears, over three dark puncture wounds on each, "are from the devices that the warden of the Cube stuck in my ears to prevent me from hearing my own voice and casting spells." He loved showing off his scars. "And this one," he lifted his shirt to reveal a dark, diagonal slash across his side, "was from one of the alternate earths that an alternate Noh-Varr had turned into the capital of the new Kree Empire, and we were attacked by these Kree guards with bladed gauntlets." He started tugging down the waist of his pants to expose some skin low on his hip.

"Nuh-uh, I think I've seen enough!" Tommy said, waving his hands in front of his face, and Billy laughed slightly and pulled up the waist of his pants again.

"It's not really an inappropriate place, and it's an interesting scar!" Billy protested with a grin. "I got attacked by an alien symbiote in another of the alternate dimensions we visited, and it left a kind of chemical burn or something. Teddy loves kissing that one."

"I really don't need to hear that stuff," Tommy snorted, shaking his head, white hair swishing across his face, before he turned to the Kree-Skrull, expression somewhat impish and somewhat curious. "So," he said, raising an achromatic eyebrow at Teddy, "does Billy enjoy kissing all your scars, too?"

"Well, not really, 'cause I don't scar," Teddy said, shifting slightly. "I mean, I do scar—it's just that due to my Skrull shapeshifting and healing ability they fade away completely in only a day or two."

Billy smirked. "So instead I just kiss everywhere that I can figure has been scarred at some point," he said, grinning at his brother mischievously.

"Let's just pretend I never asked!" Tommy declared, throwing up his hands and making a disgusted noise, spinning in a circle. "I really don't need to know all the places you touch each other with your mouths!"

Rather than being embarrassed by this remark, Billy just looked smug and Teddy just laughed.

Tommy tilted his head as he regarded his brother, brow creasing slightly, before he asked, "But couldn't you use your magic to get rid of your scars, if you wanted?"

"I could," Billy said, "but why would I ever want to do that? All my scars are interesting stories, I like having the reminders. Would you get rid of your scars if you could?" He raised his dark eyebrows questioningly, apparently confident that his point was about to proven.

Tommy just barked out a rough laugh. "Scars? Me? Are you kidding? I don't scar." He grinned, a strange, dark light in his eyes. "Superspeed metabolism and healing. I heal so fast by body doesn't even have the time to scar. And I would never want to be able to scar." He laughed, and it sounded jovial, his smile bright, but the humor didn't quite reach his green gaze. "I'd have to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts all the time to avoid uncomfortable questions."

Before Teddy and Billy could even begin to process that statement, the speedster said, "'Scuse me!" and zipped past them into the kitchen, opening the fridge and declaring, "I have a date with a very attractive sandwich that I absolutely cannot keep waiting!" He started taking things out of the fridge. "What do you think, a BLT or a PBJ? Actually," items were moved around the shelves at superspeed, "we don't even seem to have peanut butter. There is some almond butter though. An ABJ, then? Aww, what the hell, why have one when you can have both, right? What type of jam, huh? Blackberry or strawberry or—lemon curd? Why the fuck do we have lemon curd? 'Curd' is an awful word, it feels repulsive, so it probably tastes repulsive too. What kind of cheese? There's pepper jack and cheddar and—damn, there's a lot of cheese in here! Who buys all this cheese?! And I'm not seeing any bacon. And there's lots of green stuff, but it's not looking like lettuce. Also, we have sunbutter? An SBJ? ABJ or SBJ? Oh hey there's some sauerkraut in here. Isn't that pickled cabbage or something? Damn, that's a huge fucking jar of sauerkraut! Who likes sauerkraut that much?!"

Teddy and Billy could only blink as they tried to make sense of the speedster's fast rambling.

"I like sauerkraut," Teddy managed, latching onto the last word he'd been able to recognize.

"Saurkraut is evil!" Billy contradicted, whirling on his boyfriend indignantly and crossing his arms. "When I was seven I once opened the refrigerator at my house, and a huge jar of sauerkraut fell onto my toe and it really hurt. I got a blood blister and had a huge purple blotch on my nail for months!"

Teddy smiled. "Which toe?" he asked.

"That one," Billy said, pointing to the big toe of his right foot.

Teddy bent down and picked up the mage's bare foot, kissing the poor toe that had been squashed by an evil jar of sauerkraut many ears earlier. Then he made a face. "You really need to wash your feet, Bee," Teddy said, standing and making an exaggerated show of wiping his lips, before smiling impishly. "Why don't you come take a shower with me?"

Tommy, who by now had finished making both of his sandwiches and was holding one in each hand, made a revolted noise, waving a sandwich at them and announcing, "You two are absolutely disgusting, you know that right?!"

A piece of bacon fell out of one of the sandwiches, and he quickly stuffed a sandwich into his mouth and used the subsequently empty hand to snatch the piece of bacon from midair. "Sheroushly," he said through a mouthful of ABJ, as he stuffed the bacon back into the other sandwich, "Ah 'inda eashin' righ' 'ow, ah rea'a do' wa'a hrow' u'."

Teddy just stared at the speedster. "What did you say?" he asked, laughing and shaking his head.

"He said: 'Seriously, I'm kinda eating right now, I really don't wanna throw up,'" Billy answered easily.

Now Teddy turned to stare at his boyfriend. "How could you understand that?!" he inquired in disbelief and a little bit of awe.

"Well," Billy said, shrugging and grinning, "we are spiritual twins."

"You, Billy Kaplan, are amazing," Teddy grinned, leaning in to kiss the mage on the neck, lips pressing against a psuedo-vampire bite (that had been a strange dimension).

Tommy made a gagging noise.

Casting a quick glance at his brother and smirking, Billy then turned fully to his boyfriend, wrapping his fingers in the collar of the alien's shirt. "So, Tee," he murmured, just loud enough that he could be sure Tommy would hear, "why don't you and I take that shower you were suggesting, and I can let you kiss that scar on my a—"

Tommy made an undignified noise and sped out of the room with his sandwiches.