In my world the sun used to rise twice. Outside of the window and in my arms.
Now it doesn’t rise at all.
That was, until I saw you again.
I hope my brief presence in your life again wasn’t an eclipse.
Still your Teddy.
“Are you still my Teddy?” Wren whispered, dashing the tears from his cheeks before they could hit the paper.
It was already too worn. It hadn’t left his grip since he’d received it, too scared to open it, yet unable to let it out of his sight.
The midnight hours he usually spent haunting the halls of their house or venturing out into the woods were now a ritual. A veneration and a wake all wrapped up in one. His stitched heart didn’t know whether to hope for healing or bleed out.
He didn’t know if he ever would have opened it if he hadn’t gone back to Nexus.
And now he couldn’t close it.
“Teddy!” was chirped with a melodic avian whistle. “Teddy bear!”
Wren froze, ice running down his spine and crystallizing him. He could barely react as Blu hopped onto his knee with twitching wings, as if searching.
“Teddy. Where’s Teddy?” the bird parroted, like they were back to that fateful night, before Wren had stopped saying that name. Before Blu had stopped repeating it.
“Teddy’s gone,” Wren whispered.
“Gone,” Blu chirped, nudging his shaking hand with his beak. “Don’t cry.Can’t sleep.”
The soft click of a door made Wren’s breath hitch and he hastily stuffed the note into the neck of his oversized hoodie next to the warm body of a slumbering snake he had named Noodle, and gave Blu their hand signal to stop talking.
He glanced over his shoulder through the darkness and caught Midas’s tall shape silhouetted against the dim, amber light from the hallway.
Wren couldn’t see his dark eyes, but hefeltthem on him, his heart slamming against his rib cage at the thought of what he might have seen or heard.
He looked away, down at the expensive coverlet where Blu had hopped off to nestle in a crease in the fabric with his feathers puffed up and his eyes closed.
Midas shut the door, plunging them into darkness before a small side lamp was flicked on, the reds and golds from the stained glass hitting the walls and ceiling.
It wasn’t enough to fill the room with light, and Wren was grateful.
He listened as Midas rustled around his room, removing his leather jacket and shoes before slipping into a simple pair of black silk pajama pants and a matching robe. He left the robe tie hanging, leaving his tawny chest bare, and Wren caught sight of the spiderweb of scars that traveled down his neck, left over from his accident.
He didn’t know which of them had the other beat on the scar count these days.
Midas slipped onto the stool at his vanity, reaching behind him to let his hair down. It fell with a glossy bounce, shimmering onyx waves that made hair models (and Taylor) jealous. He reached for his hairbrush, but fumbled the thick wooden handle slightly, making it spin into a nearby glass bottle of cologne and causing a domino effect of vanity chaos.
Midas’s brow furrowed and he curled his hand into a fist.
Wren frowned as he watched him stiffen and stay that way, vibrating slightly as he stared straight ahead at the mess. Midas was particular, but he wasn’t uptight and prissy like Hart, so the reaction was strange.
“You okay?” Wren signed into the mirror.
Midas’s eyes flicked up at the movement and Wren repeated the sign again.
“Fine,” Midas signed back, straightening and shaking his hair over his shoulders like nothing had happened.
Wren continued to frown as he watched him tidy up, meticulously putting everything back in place and not allowing any items to touch. He took up his hairbrush and began brushing.
