Page 82 of Gunpowder

Whatever. Not my problem anymore.

Present

Over, under, over… no. Over, under, then the other piece, and then… under?

Wren gave up, pulling the haphazard braid loose and running his fingers through his hair. He could see his reflection well enough in the glass in the living room but being able to see what he was doing wasn’t helping. Blair had done some braid-thing when they were at the hotel and it had helped keep some of Wren’s hair out of his eyes, but Wren didn’t have the patience to keep trying to recreate it. He sighed and smoothed his hands down the front of his black vest.

A few months ago he had been counting the days until graduation. It had been the only thing getting him through each grueling hour. In the recent weeks, though, he had stopped counting, and more surprising still graduation had rushed up on him sooner than he expected. He straightened his shirt collar, fingers brushing the chain of his necklace. He ran his fingers over the pendant laying against his chest. Serotonin. Happiness. He made someone… happy.

And his father, the one who believed happiness could only curse him, had been so quiet. Wren had been questioning everything he thought he knew about himself, and there was usually another voice in his head that wasn’t his own, eagerly waiting to answer him but it had been quiet lately. No guidance, no berating Wren for letting the iron-tight seal around his emotions get chipped away until it was shattered entirely. There had always been something. Until Blair.

Always cold until Blair. Always numb until Blair. Wren closed his eyes and a pale face danced behind them; a loopy patient on a day that must have been a lifetime ago. Wren’s fingers curled tighter around his necklace. He had been so tired but he remembered Blair’s words following him out, words that were still following him. You never know.

He turned at the sound of rapping on the door. There were only two people who ever knocked on his door and that wasn’t Reymond’s knock, so he already knew who would be on the other side when he opened it.

“Hey,” Blair said, sounding for all the world like someone had put a needle in him and sucked his soul out.

Wren raised an eyebrow and stepped back. “Long day at the office?”

“I… yeah.” Blair tugged at the sleeves of his wet jacket. He looked around even though there was nothing in the apartment he hadn’t seen before. “Looks like more rain out there.”

Wren clicked his tongue and went into the kitchen. He’d heard the coffee maker stop while he was still trying to unfuck his hair. “Of course. Perfect weather to be driving in. At least you won’t be on your bike, it might slack off by the time you leave. In the morning,” he added, throwing a smirk over his shoulder.

Blair looked him up and down like he hadn’t seen him until that moment. “You’re all dressed up.” No sooner than he said it his face fell even further, if that were possible. “Graduation.”

Wren poured coffee into a thermos. He couldn’t blame Blair for forgetting, not with everything else going on. “You can stay here. I’m skipping on whatever mind-numbing festivities they want to have afterward and coming back here. I don’t feel like listening to Andy do karaoke.”

Blair didn’t answer him. At first Wren thought Blair might be considering it, but he had returned the carafe to the coffee maker, put the lid on his thermos and Blair was still uncharacteristically silent.

“Wren, I have to go,” Blair said flatly.

“Okay,” Wren said, finding himself with the foreign urge to reach for him, to soothe whatever malady of the brain plagued him and made his usually expressive voice sound so empty. This whole concern thing was new.

“Not just tonight.”

He leaned back against the counter. “What nonsense does Clifford have you doing now?”

“It’s not that.” Blair swallowed visibly and looked at his feet. He dragged his eyes back up to Wren’s like there was nothing that could take greater effort. “Wren, you are the most intelligent and beautiful person I have ever met. And I wish I could have met you before all this, or maybe after,” he continued, sounding oddly distant, “but I didn’t.”

An unpleasant and unfamiliar sensation formed in Wren’s chest. “I’ve told you I don’t care about this mess with your gang.”

“I do. I also care about you, and things are about to get really nasty with Phantom. Ever since we got together, I’ve been slipping. They know it. I’ve known it. I just chose to ignore it.”

The sensation was spreading to his face, making it warm, making his eyes hot like when he looked at the computer screen for too long. “Blair.” It came out quieter than he wanted but the strange feeling was in his throat, too.

Blair’s eyes, his stunning green eyes that bled into hazel around his pupil, looked at him but the man himself seemed to be a million miles away. “I should have decided this sooner, before we were both so invested. I never, ever wanted to hurt you. God, it’s the last thing I want to do. But I can’t be distracted right now.”

Wren sat his thermos down too hard, his fingers unsteady. “Distracted,” he echoed.

“I’m sorry, Wren.”

“Don’t you dare.” Wren took a long step forward that brought Blair within arm’s reach, and he took the stupid idiot’s face in his hands. “I don’t know where this is coming from, but don’t you dare treat me like some defenseless whelp that you have to shield from danger. You know full well you don’t have to distract yourself with me, so you better tell me right the fuck now what’s going on.”

Blair looked like he was in more pain than the night he was brought in with a hole in his leg, but that didn’t make any sense because then why was Blair doing this?

“I just can’t do this anymore, I can’t make myself not worry about you. I can’t have my heart divided between you and Incindious. I took an oath to them first.”

“You...” Wren shook his head. Blair put his hands on top of Wren’s, and disgusting, traitorous hope flared in his aching chest.

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