Investigation

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TW: MENTION OF SELFHARM IN THIS CHAPTER

Travis' Pov:

I was too startled to speak. I could only look at Sal with wide eyes when he reached behind his head and unbuckled his mask. It falls into his lap.

After looking into his blue eyes for another moment, I slowly move my eyes away from his and take a look at his face.
The right side of his face looks completely mangled. Deep, defined scars replaced all of the normal skin structure. His right eye looks a little bit more closed than the other one and his nose is completely missing. The only thing left from it are two holes that go deep into his face. There's an arrow-shaped piece missing from his upper lip as well, exposing part of his teeth. His lips are completely scarred. But the left side of his face looks almost normal, except of a thick red scar under his eye and on his cheek.

I don't know how I feel. I try to look for feelings like disgust or fear inside of me, it would make sense to feel that when looking at such a thing. But there aren't any. I don't even feel pity for Sal. Instead of that, I feel happy? Yeah, I feel happy because Sal trusts me enough to share this with me. And instead of finding his face disgusting or ugly, I find it beautiful. This is Sal. The real Sal. And how could that ever be ugly?

"Travis?" Sal's voice is only a whisper but I can hear him more clearly now that his voice isn't muffled by the mask. I can also see his lips and his jaw move, which is so unfamiliar. I got so used to only seeing that expressionless face that it feels like seeing him for the first time again. "Travis, why are you crying?"

I didn't even realize that there were tears rolling down my face again. I have the slight urge to wipe them away, but I can't move mesmerized by Sal's face and the moment.

"Sal, you're beautiful" I whisper, almost don't talk at all.

In response of that Sal's scarred cheeks turn pink. He's blushing. I try to burn the picture of his flushed cheeks into my mind. Now there are tears forming in his left eye.

"Y- you don't need to say that." His voice sounds raspy and shaky. It's so weird seeing him like this, he's so calm usually and this is different. But not a bad kind of different.

"Yes, I need to. Sal... this is you. Not some emotionless prosthetic. You. You're beautiful." My voice is still only a whisper and I'm surprised at my own honesty. I didn't really mean to say everything I thought out loud, but Sal doesn't seem bothered with it.

He raises a hand and wipes away the tears that are rolling down from his eye.

"Ah, shit, now I'm crying" he says and sniffles, "This kinda proves my point from earlier, tho. You're not an asshole, Travis. You're amazing."

"Because I made you cry?" I laugh and raise an eyebrow at him.

"Yup, exactly, dude. You're amazing."

"Oh, shut up, Sal", I say but my cheeks heat up.

He really does trust me.

"What do you say? Will you let me help you?"he asks and suddenly his voice sounds serious again.

I just nod and without saying another word, I reach out to his waist and pull him into a hug. Well, kinda hug because we're still sitting on the ground. He buries his face into my neck and instead of feeling the hard plastic of his prosthetic, I can feel his scarred skin and tears falling down onto my shoulder.

Sal's Pov:

"You want him to live with you? Are you fucking insane, man?" Larry calls out outraged, after I told him about my conversation with Travis.

Save me, please.  -A Salvis FanfictionWhere stories live. Discover now