Page 78 of Gunpowder

It’s not like he hadn’t realized it before, he’d just stomped it down every time it got too close to the surface. It had finally consumed too much of him to fit even in the most well protected corners of his mind. There was no room to run from it when he was looking at Wren and feeling it with every fiber of his being like a proven fact. The sun would come up in the morning, and the guns on the nightstand were loaded, and he was in love with Wren Masters.

21

GHOST

Blair woke up sometime in the night, or maybe the earliest hours of morning, to find the other side of the bed empty. He ran his hand over the sheets. They were cold. He sat up and looked around for a clock, disoriented for a moment by the perfectly whole blackness. He felt for his phone on the nightstand and tapped the screen. It was almost four in the morning.

“Wren?” he said, just in case Wren was somewhere in the room.

No response. Blair groped around on the floor until he found his pants (it was too damn cold in Wren’s apartment to walk around without either clothes or Wren on him). He used the flashlight on his phone to navigate to the bathroom, also empty, and then out into the hallway. It was no brighter there. He ran his hand along the cool wall and wondered how Wren stood waking up to such overwhelming darkness when he already had nightmares. He was starting to worry when he saw the light from Wren’s phone, a faint glow he could just barely make out over the back of the couch.

“You okay?” he asked, putting his own phone in his pocket.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

Blair sat next to him. It could have been the harsh light from whatever article he was reading on his phone, but it looked like there were dark circles under his eyes. “Bad dreams?”

“Yeah.”

Blair didn’t take Wren’s shortness personally. He sounded fucking exhausted. “I could try to help you study if you want to bring some books back to your room.”

Wren rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “I’m done with school. The ceremony is in a couple of days.”

“You shoulda told me,” he said, giving Wren a nudge to his side.

“I was planning on it.”

“When?”

“In a couple of days.”

Blair huffed a laugh and slid his arm around slender shoulders. “I promise, no Incindious stuff until after you’re officially done with your graduation. I’m sure having all this going on hasn’t made it easier for you.”

“Don’t care,” Wren mumbled, head lolling into the crook of Blair’s neck.

He smiled as Wren’s hair—at its longest when the styling products had worn off or been washed out for the day—tickled his chest. Wren was still wearing his necklace. He thought Wren would have taken it off before he went to sleep but whether it was there intentionally or he just forgot, Blair liked that it was still there. It hasn’t been that long since we first kissed here, he thought, even though it seemed like so much more time had passed. He stared at the wall of glass currently blacked out by panels of dense fabric that ran along a sturdy bar attached to the ceiling. He liked being able to look out and see the city, he didn’t think he could ever bring himself to block out a view like that but he guessed Wren just didn’t have the same passion for New York. It wasn’t his home, after all. Not that I think anywhere ever has been, from the way he talks about his father.

“If you want to come back to bed, I can wake you if it seems like you’re having a bad dream,” Blair offered. He glanced down when he didn’t get a response. Wren’s fingers had gone lax, his phone abandoned in his lap. “Wren?”

Well, good. He slid his arms under Wren as carefully as he could, not wanting to wake him back up. Wren’s phone sat in the dip of his body where he hung between Blair’s arms so that was one less thing he had to worry about carrying. Wren muttered incoherently as Blair carried him down the hallway, all half-formed words and shapeless sounds. He eased the door open with his shoulder and felt his way across the room until his knees hit the bed.

Wren didn’t stir as Blair laid him down. Blair’s leg on the other hand had plenty to say about having to support his weight as well as that of another grown man, but as he had done since he was first shot, he ignored it. He put Wren’s phone on the charger and rejoined him in bed. Blair didn’t even have the blankets over them yet when Wren turned into his chest and took his waist in a tight grip.

Blair closed his arm around Wren’s back. If he started to shake Blair would be able to feel it, and he would make sure that ghost of a man in his dreams couldn’t hurt him.

A persistent buzzing dragged Blair from sleep. He fumbled for his phone, one arm still around Wren, whose hair was spilled out across Blair’s chest, his necklace trapped between them. Blair traced the silver chain around Wren’s neck, forgetting all about the call until its buzzing caught his attention again. Blair was seriously tempted to ignore it until he saw Spencer’s name on the screen. He swiped it and brought it to his ear. “Hey, what’s up?”

“You need to come to the bar. We found something.”

“Oh shit, really? I’m on my way. Give me half an hour, I’m at Wren’s.”

Spencer hung up and Blair put his phone aside on the bed. It wasn’t like Spencer to end a conversation so abruptly, but if they’d found something they could use then Spencer was probably focused on making a plan.

“Sunshine, hey,” Blair said gently, tucking some hair behind Wren’s ear. “I gotta go.”

Wren made a malcontented sound but otherwise didn’t stir.

Blair laughed, running his knuckles along the side of Wren’s face. Even in the darkness cast over the room by Wren’s blackout curtains, Blair could see him in the dim grey light. He looked so soft when he was asleep. And so fucking beautiful. “Wren, baby, I’ve got to go.”

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