Comfortably Predictable (Wren)

[Wren O'Hara]

Wren watched passively as Dante struggled with the lighter. It might have been funny, if not for the almost-visible cloud of frustration that was brewing around his friend like an ominous storm. Wren was 5’10” and at least 160 pounds of broad-shouldered muscle, but even he knew better than to get between Dante and a cigarette.

After a few moments of fruitless attempts, Dante rounded on him, and Wren shrunk against the wall in a barely perceptible recoil.

“Sorry,” he said genuinely, as though it truly had been all his fault.

His companion responded by kicking the wall several times. Wren furrowed his eyebrows in worry. He thought about saying something obvious, like you shouldn’t do that, but his lips remained dutifully closed.

If Dante had something to say, then Dante would say it…

Right?

That was just how it was.

[Dante Russo]

“Rrrraah!”  Dante turned from the wall and chucked the dead lighter across the field of snow.  It skidded across the thin crust of ice and slowed to a stop an impressive distance away from them.  Dante had quite an arm when he was pissed.

Dante bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, breathing hard, squeezing his eyes shut.  This sucked.  This sucked so freaking hard.  Dante was resisting the urge to punch the wall.  He knew it was a stupid impulse that could only result in pissing him off more.  He let out a loud breath and looked up, combing his fingers backwards through his hair.  His eyes were damp, and he was blinking rapidly.  


“Aight, here’s the thing,” Dante said, turning to Wren. His tone was aggressive, and he was all but snarling at Wren. “I fucking hate Christmas. I don’t do holidays. I have issues! I just—“ He stopped short and took a step back, breathing. Hands on his hips. Looking at the ground. Visibly shivering.

Just fucking tell him. He’s not gonna be all ‘omg yer cray-cray, lol, fuck off’. If you’re actually going to do this, he has to know. Dante took a deep breath and looked up at Wren. He looked at him seriously for a moment before opening his mouth again.

“Are we friends?” he asked. “I mean, really friends, not just.. two people who tolerate each other. Like, if I got arrested, you’d bail me out.” Dante’s expression was like stone. This was a serious question, and Wren better be fucking honest.

[Wren O'Hara]

After his initial flinch, Wren stayed perfectly still against the wall. He was still watching, cautiously, as Dante acted out his frustration. He watched the lighter arc impressively through the air and land with a dull plop somewhere in the far-off snow.

Then, he looked back to Dante to find Dante looking at him. The other boy managed to articulate a full sentence, which gave Wren a moment of relief.

He raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement, waiting patiently for Dante to tell him all about the thing.

He wasn’t offended, because it wasn’t as though he particularly loved Christmas as a general rule. He wasn’t religious, and winter was his least favorite season by far. He had once heard that a lot of people killed themselves during Christmas. He could kind of understand that; there was something about the sheer togetherness that was a little depressing, even for him, and he tried to imagine what it must be like to go through Christmas when you had actual, real problems.

Dante announced that he had issues. Wren, ever-steady, wasn’t about to admit that he had sort of kinda already guessed that. He blinked a slow, non-judgmental blink. Hazel-green met blue. They studied each other.

The question hung heavily between them, and Wren was pensive for a moment.

“Yeah,” he said, simply. He cleared his throat before elaborating. “I mean, that’s why I invited you.”

He didn’t have a lot of close friends as a general rule, but Dante was the closest he had to such a thing on campus by far. It had just sort of happened, and Wren had found himself falling into a routine with the other boy before he’d even realized what he was doing.

“It’d be cool if you kept out of jail, though,” he added, as an afterthought. His parents had money, but Wren himself only got so much allowance.

[Dante Russo]

“Yeah, well, no promises,” Dante said with a huff. He knew himself well enough to know that he tended towards stupid, impulsive behavior on a regular basis. He took another deep breath.

“Okay. The thing is,” he paused and swiped his tongue across his lips, “I.. have..” he took another breath and glanced toward the sky. He’d never actually said the words out loud to anyone before. Jo Jo knew, but only because he’d seen Dante totally lose his shit on more than one occasion. Dante didn’t make a habit of talking about it with people who didn’t already know.

And that was a short list.

“I have flashbacks. About Rebecca,” he said finally. There was a tremble working it’s way into his voice, and for once he was glad it was so fucking cold out here. He could easily blame that on shivering. “I have, like, nightmares and shit too,” he continued, staring across the expanse of snow so he didn’t have to look at Wren. His heart was pounding. “And it’s worse around the holidays.” His gaze flickered toward Wren, but he couldn’t look at him.

“Home was pretty bad,” he added, dropping his eyes to the ground. He kicked at some snow and bit down on his lip, feeling more awkward than he cared to admit. As a general rule, Dante tried not to do the whole ‘vulnerable’ thing. Vulnerability wasn’t safe.

“Say something.”

[Wren O'Hara]

Wren managed a small quirk of his lips at Dante’s coarse dismissal of his statement, but it faded so quickly that it might have never existed.

He was hanging onto his friend’s words, because it was hard not to when they came slowly and with so much difficulty. The other boy was looking up, and down, and off to the side; anywhere but at Wren. Wren didn’t mind. As long as the words actually came eventually, that was really what mattered.

And finally, there it was – flashbacks. Nightmares and shit. Wren remained silent, trying to ponder what that might mean. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? He didn’t really know a lot about anything like that. Someone who was good at psychology, or at feelings, would probably know better. He only knew that it was important, and this moment, and the fact that Dante had trusted him enough to tell him, was very, very important.

At the very least, he now understood why Dante hated Christmas. He would, too, if he had memories like that – memories that haunted him badly enough that they snuck up on him uninvited, even in his sleep. He couldn’t relate, but he understood.

A beat of silence passed before Dante demanded his input, and he paused for another couple of moments with his lips slightly parted in hesitation. I’m sorry? No, that sounded like pity. He didn’t find it pitiful.

“Okay,” he managed, finally. It was a simple word, but his tone was of acknowledgement, soft and reassuring. He cleared his throat. His nose was kind of numb.

“What do you need me to do?” he asked, after another brief pause. It was a very vague question, which Wren supposed was alright. He realized that he wasn’t a therapist, and so anything of that nature was far out of his capacity. But they were friends. It had been settled, and his invitation to Dante certainly hadn’t been revoked.

[Dante Russo]

“Buy me a lighter,” he answered quickly.

Dante was almost positive that wasn’t the kind of answer Wren was after. It had nothing to do with what he’d just told him, but Dante’s method of coping involved a lot of distraction. Not that it was a healthy way to cope or anything, but it was what he preferred.

Besides, he really wanted to smoke his damn cigarette! Maybe three, now. Anxiety made him want to chain smoke.

What he really needed, but wouldn’t ask for, was some kind of reassurance. He wasn’t sure what that would look like. His life wasn’t exactly rich with reassuring people. What he needed was to know that Wren wouldn’t wig out when Dante woke up screaming in the middle of the night. He needed to know that Wren would keep him from hurting himself. He needed to know that Wren would be able to talk him down.

Of course, there was really no way to know any of that until it happened anyway. So it was pointless to ask. Right? Right? It seemed like a good justification for not saying anything.

Sort of. Either that or he was pussing out and being completely irresponsible.

[Wren O'Hara]

Whatever Wren had been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been that. He had been prepared to do a lot of things, too, like… well, he wasn’t sure, now. A hug, maybe? A friendly pat on the back? Lunch?

But a lighter was just as good, he supposed. It was sort of like retail therapy.

“Deal,” he said, his voice thick with solemn amusement. He looked over the small courtyard that flanked the side building and over the rolling hills, where the greyed-out outlines of the buildings in Pilot Ridge were visible. If they left now, they wouldn’t be back in time for class, almost certainly; he looked at his watch, just to be sure.

They had approximately fifteen minutes to get there and back, not including the time it was going to take for Dante to smoke an as yet unknown number of cigarettes.

But, then, he supposed that once you admitted that you would post bail for someone, the thread of detention was nothing much.

He did, however, pull the hood of his sweatshirt over his short-brimmed black knit hat as a precaution against the growing cold.

“Let’s go.”