Page 94 of Gunpowder

Blair didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Spencer texted me that everyone’s meeting at the bar later. I told him I’d come once you were awake, I didn’t want you to wake up by yourself. I’ll be back soon, though.” He took a deep breath, weighing his decision one final time but the sight of Wren in a hospital bed made his next words come easily. “I’m leaving the gang.”

“No, you’re not.”

He couldn’t blame Wren for not believing him. “I’m serious. You asked me once if I’d ever considered living for myself, and I thought it was impossible because even if I left Incindious… there was still you. But loving you is living for myself. You’re my fucking world, Wren. And I almost lost you.” He knew he needed to explain further—to make sure Wren knew he wasn’t just filling some hole inside of Blair like Incindious did, that Blair wasn’t going to poison their relationship with that kind of dependency.

By the time Blair found his words again, Wren put a finger against his lips, smiling faintly. “Blair, shut up.” He removed it once he saw that Blair was going to comply. “Let me say this again: no, you’re not. I never thought I’d say this after all the time I’ve spent trying to convince you that you’re better than that chain-smoking pride parade of a gang, but I don’t want you to leave them. Not right now. I’m not trying to minimize your feelings, but everything is still too raw. Give it some time, and if you decide to leave Incindious, leave them for you. Not for me.” Wren curled his hand around the side of Blair’s face, thumb stroking over his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Blair turned to press his lips against Wren’s palm, fighting to keep more tears at bay. He’d cried enough for a lifetime. “God, I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’ve mentioned that.” Wren withdrew his hand. “Come on. I see enough of this place without being here in my free time, too.”

The hospital was collectively unhappy with Wren for leaving so soon, but there wasn’t much they could do to stop him. Thema, despite her protests to Wren checking himself out, went to get him the spare set of scrubs he kept there for when he was on call, since the clothes he’d been wearing were in pieces and stiff with dried blood.

“Let me help, you’re gonna pull your stitches,” Blair chided as Wren tried to pull his shirt over his head.

Wren scoffed, but he let Blair tug it carefully over his injured arm and bruised shoulder. “That’s rich coming from you.”

Blair found Wren’s glasses and—after cleaning them to the best of his ability—unfolded them and placed them gently on Wren’s face. An aching tenderness spread through Blair’s chest as he untucked Wren’s bangs from under the frames. “There he is.”

Dressed in navy scrubs, Wren looked almost exactly the same as the day they met, if not for the missing chunk of his hair and the emotion in his eyes that had taken the place of the disdain and desolation that had filled them back then.

For once, Wren didn’t seem to know what to say. But Blair dared to think he looked happy.

Wren draped his arm over Blair’s shoulders as they walked out of the hospital, and Blair wrapped an arm around his waist in return—carefully, making sure to avoid anywhere he knew to be bruised. The sunlight hit Blair for the first time in… however long he’d been sleeping in Wren’s hospital room, as they passed through the sliding glass doors. He remembered walking out after he’d been shot. Seeing a black car drift the corner into the parking lot. “I see Wren has decided to grace us with his presence,” Reymond had said back then.

It was almost strange to remember a time, and such a recent one at that, when he didn’t know who Wren was. Before Wren was everything to him.

“You know, I always suspected my father was involved in something more than just running the Masters Corporation, with how paranoid he was and the way he taught me to fight,” Wren mused as they reached the Lexus. “But an assassin? Well, then again, I guess I wouldn’t have believed Jinx so easily if it didn’t make so much sense.”

Blair opened the car door for him. “Y’know, I thought my dad was bad for walking out on us.” He paused to circle around and get in the driver’s seat. “But at least he wasn’t ‘oh, he’s an assassin—that makes sense’ bad.”

Wren laughed. He flipped the visor down to examine himself in the small mirror, wincing as he took in the state of his hair.

“I could even that up for you,” Blair offered, pulling out of the parking lot.

Wren flipped the visor shut.. “You can just cut it all short, I don’t care.”

“No!” Blair said immediately, then flushed as Wren looked over at him with a raised eyebrow. “I like your hair,” he mumbled.

Wren showed him mercy after that, withholding his teasing and not making any more casual threats to cut all his hair off. They were about halfway to Flushing when Blair felt weight on his leg. He glanced down to see Wren’s upturned hand on his thigh, and when Blair looked over, Wren was staring out the window far too pointedly for someone who wasn’t trying to avoid eye contact. Blair grinned as he laced their fingers together.

The closer they got to Harlowe’s, the harder Blair found himself gripping Wren’s hand.

By the time the bar came into view, all the lightness had evaporated from Blair’s chest, and reality came crashing back down.

Blair parked the Lexus against the curb and looked up at the brick facade of a place he used to call home. Now he didn’t know what it was. There would be no Julian beyond those walls. No Felix. Every surface used to hold another happy memory, but now all Blair could see was Felix holding a gun to his head. Since the day Felix, Spencer and Julian found him sulking on a street corner, Blair had devoted himself entirely to the world that lay beyond that red door.

“I’m not ready for this,” Blair whispered.

“You never will be,” Wren said, and squeezed his hand. “Let’s go.”

Blair got out of the car and gravitated back to Wren’s side as they walked up to the door. He noticed that Wren had retrieved his necklace from his personal effects at the hospital, even though there were still flecks of dried blood caked on the silver pendant.

Blair’s legs became leaden as they stopped in front of the door and sapped him of his momentary happiness. He felt like if he stepped forward, whatever laid on the other side would be cemented in place as the awful truth, but if he just turned around he could close his eyes and pretend his family was still in one piece.

Before the war, he might have had just enough childish optimism to try it.

He didn’t bother trying the door. After everything, it was definitely locked. Blair took his keys out of his pocket and flicked through them until he found the one he was looking for. A metallic scraping sound filled the air as he tried to slot the key into the lock. He cursed under his breath, but his frustration only made his hands shake harder, and he was about to hurl the damned keys into the street when Wren took them away from him. Wren slid the key in easily and left it there for Blair to turn.

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