“You’re an idiot,” Wren said, his voice shaking from tears, cheek wet where it rested against Teddy’s chest. “There is no happiness without you. There never would be.”
“I think deep down I knew that,” Teddy said, drying Wren’s tears. “But I was hurting so much every day, and the thought of you feeling the same was killing me. Imagining you living a life where you barely remembered my name was easier.”
“We gifted each other names when we first met. I was never going to forget. Despite the hurt, I still choose the name Wren for myself. I wanted to be your Little Bird forever.”
Teddy looked floored by the admission, eyes glistening. “You always were. And I was always your Teddy Bear.”
“Come live with me,” Wren said suddenly.
“What?” Teddy asked.
“You asked me before and you said I could choose. My sanctuary is roughly halfway between your house and mine. I built a little cottage there. It’s not fancy. It’s a tiny living room and kitchen…”
“…with a bedroom and a bathroom and not much else.” Teddy finished for him in breathless awe.
“You remember.” Wren smiled.
“Of course I remember. You actually built it?”
“Well, had it built. But I’ve never lived there. I couldn’t, because…”
“Because it was our dream,” Teddy murmured.
Wren nodded. “I had it made exactly the way I used to describe it to you and then locked it away. I used to tell myself I had to do it for closure and so I could move on, but I think I always hoped you would somehow come back to me. And we could…”
“We could live the dream,” Teddy said.
“Yes.” Wren swallowed, feeling nervous for the first time in a long time. “So…it’s there…if you still want…”
“Of course I want,” Teddy said, cupping his face, his gorgeous eyes shining. “There is nothing I want more.”
“Okay,” Wren said. He stood up and pulled Teddy up behind him. “Then let’s go home.”
Epilogue
“Shhhh,” Wren whispered to Blu as he entered the cabin, stepping out of his rubber boots and shedding his outer clothes as he walked through the barely lit hallway.
“Shhh,” Blue whisper-screeched at him, flapping his wings and making more noise than a bird that tiny had any business making.
Wren waved a hand at him, walking toward one of the two doors in his new home. Their new home. He kept having to remind himself that his dream had come true. He was living in his sanctuary, among his animals, with the person he loved more than anything in the world.
The cabin he had built while broken down and trying to find meaning was now filled to the brim with it. Teddy’s laughter, his warm, comforting voice, the scent of him. The touches he had put all over the place when he moved in. Weird artwork he said spoke to him, shelves tucked into corners filled with books, and more pens and paper and notebooks than Wren had ever seen in his life.
There wasn’t a leather-bound journal in existence that Teddy didn’t covet, and Wren swore to himself he would be spending all of the money he had squirreled away over the years to buy him every last one of them.
He slipped down the tiny hallway and placed a hand on the cool surface of the door, thankful to his past self for not closing it properly when he walked out earlier that morning, because the knob was creaking something fierce and neither of them were capable of fixing it on their own.
Wren made a mental note to ask Fix to take care of it that afternoon when they all came over for lunch.
Living away from his brothers hadn’t been an easy decision to make, no matter how long he had dreamed of it and no matter how many nights he’d spent away from their house before he officially moved out.
He had always wanted to live out on sanctuary grounds, but turning it into a reality had been bittersweet in the end. He missed them. The quiet understanding they offered, and the loud distraction they provided. The fierce type of love they gave him, and the gentle acceptance of who he was that they showed.
They’d helped him move, Black wailing as he pretended to carry boxes and Midas sneaking protective objects he had accumulated over the years into his stuff as if Wren wasn’t aware of what he owned. Fix had made sure their freezer was full of meals and Ash had moved their couch so many times in his quest to find the perfect spot that Wren had been sure they’d have to buy a new one before anyone even sat on it.
Hart had appeared stoic. Quietly proud of Wren and calm in the face of all the change. But Wren saw his hands shake as he put up a framed poster of an eagle soaring through the sky with the words “All birds find shelter during the rain, but an eagle avoids the rain by flying above the clouds” above it. Wren hadno idea what that meant, but he knew the poster would never be taken down.
Even his brothers’ partners had left their marks on their new home.
