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It was odd. Once upon a time, that had been his norm, but now it felt like a fever dream. Being with Percy was easy, but it was different from his friends, and it gave him a strange, hollow feeling in the center of his chest when he realized he wouldn’t be getting used to it.
Even if Percy came around a lot, Wren knew he’d do everything to avoid him. He didn’t have a choice anymore. He liked him. He was funny and sweet and awkward as hell. And he was fucking delicious. He’d fallen apart under Wren’s hands like he’d been born to do it, and if Wren wasn’t careful, he’d get addicted.
He hadn’t been with anyone as responsive as Percy before. He hadn’t been with anyone who made him feel so…
Fuck. He didn’t have words for it in any of the languages he knew.
But whatever it was, it had him breaking all his rules. He was still lying on Percy’s hotel bed, a pizza from room service between them and quiet desire humming under his skin. Wren had eventually gotten dressed when he dragged himself from Percy’s warm, all-encompassing embrace, but Percy had just grabbed one of the hotel robes from the little closet and was now lounging against the headboard with his legs crossed at the ankles.
Wren had laughed himself silly watching Percy eat pizza with a knife and fork, which led to Percy turning bright red, and Wren hadn’t been able to stop himself from straddling his thighs and kissing the taste of garlic out of his mouth. Eventually though, Percy had put a stop to it, and while Wren’s gut ached with the need to ask for more, he was grateful at least one of them had some self-control.
Still, Percy hadn’t asked him to leave, and Wren couldn’t bring himself to stand up and walk out.
“Show me something in BSL,” Wren said, tossing his uneaten pizza crust back into the box. He sat up, folding his legs as he spun around to face his should-be lover.
Percy’s brow furrowed. “Like what?”
Wren shrugged. “I don’t know. Tit for tat, maybe? Show me a few phrases you want to learn in ASL. For Lila,” he added. Maybe he was playing dirty, but he really wanted to see his language on Percy’s hands.
Biting his lip, Percy shrugged and adjusted the hem of his robe before lifting one hand in a fist and pushing it toward Wren. He then took both hands, flat palms, and ran them downward along his front. He ended the sentence with something that looked like a chef’s kiss.
Percy let out a puff of air, then shook his head. “This is something I’d say to her, not you.”
Wren laughed softly and reached out, squeezing his ankle. “Yeah. I got that, sweetness. What did you say?”
Percy’s cheeks bloomed splotchy pink. “You have a pretty dress.”
Wren’s chest clenched. “Aww. That’s really sweet.”
Percy dropped his hands to his lap. “I don’t…I’ve never been around kids, you know? I reckon they’re fairly easy to please, but I didn’t exactly have the best childhood, so my instincts might not be that great.”
No, Wren told himself. No. Do not get attached. Do not ask. He cleared his throat. “Well, if it helps, she really likes the princess cookies our baker decorates, so complimenting her dress will win you big points.”
Percy’s smile went soft and sweet. “Yeah? Can you, er, show me how to…” He held his hands out, palms facing each other, and he moved them in gentle circles. Wren assumed that was the BSL version of “sign.”
Wren wriggled a little closer, half-desperate to feel the warmth of Percy’s body, even if he couldn’t let himself have more. He met Percy’s gaze and held it for as long as he was brave enough to draw the moment out, then lifted his hands. “Your dress is very pretty, princess,” he signed, embellishing a bit.
Percy’s grin widened as he slowly copied Wren’s motions. And he did a good job. Better than most hearing people did on their first try. “Was that right?”
“Perfect,” Wren signed, then voiced it aloud. “She’s really lucky to have you. You know that, right?”
Percy shrugged and glanced away, his chest heaving with a tortured breath. “I want to think that. I want her life to be better than ours was.”
Wren bit the inside of his cheek, but the words were too hard to keep in. “I feel that. I know my parents love me. Loved me,” he corrected. He wasn’t sure he wanted to call it love. They’d eventually stopped pushing back against him using ASL and aligning with Caleb and the Deaf community.
They’d learned a few phrases here and there and made a mediocre effort to ensure that Caleb was included—but that was mostly just letting Wren interpret their visits, which were now few and far between. But it was when Caleb came out of the closet that things took an even worse turn.
At the very least, they’d waited for Caleb to leave the house before his mother broke down, but Wren wasn’t sure he wanted to forgive her for the way she’d cried and asked, “Is it too much to ask that just one part of him be normal?”
It had been like a knife to the gut.
He left that night without saying a word. He went home, took off his implants, and left them on his dresser for months. He felt a desperation to separate himself from the person his parents wanted to be so intense it almost made him sick to his stomach.
Everyone noticed. Caleb cornered him more than once, demanding to know what changed.
It took weeks for Wren to find the strength to tell his brother what had happened after he left the house. Caleb just took it all with a stoic expression and a single sharp nod. It was obvious he hadn’t expected more from his parents. After all, that was the same reaction they’d gotten when they realized Caleb’s implants had failed and he would not ever pass in the hearing world.
Wren began worrying this would cause another canyon to develop between him and his brother, but in the end, it brought them closer together. Caleb went with him when Wren was ready to come out himself, and they didn’t stick around to see their mother cry again, though Wren hated that he could hear her ranting through the closed front door just before he stepped off the porch.
