The Tea Shop [mxm]

XIX: Long Days and Lies

Wren was once again too distracted to focus on his work. This time the cause wasn't accidentally suggestive messages from Elliot, this time he was too wrapped up in thoughts about what might happen. He'd only gotten an email about it yesterday, and only seen it this morning, so he hadn't had any time to let it actually sink in.

He was going to France.

Apparently he'd done a good enough job at the last company he'd been working temporarily for, so now his boss wanted to send him away again. While he was wrapping up loose ends and finishing his current work, he was also expected to start planning and organising his trip to France and the work he'd do for the company there. And not only that, he was supposed to find a place to live during his stay, and while that might seem easy - why not just stay at a hotel? - he'd have to take into consideration he'd be living there for a whole year.

Apparently his boss thought it was appropriate to send him to France for a year to straighten out the financials of their French branch, which was technically under local ownership but still consulted their main office. There he'd be doing a thorough analyse of their economic situation, down to the smallest detail, and set up a fool proof plan of how to deal with any problems the market economy might go through the next couple of years.

He would do this with a team he'd hand pick himself, and together they'd work things out. It wasn't an easy task, but it was necessary. Wren knew he was one of the best at his job, and France had gone through some serious issues that needed fixing, because apparently their previous financial advisor was an incompetent idiot who couldn't do his job without messing everything up.

Now Wren had to pay for his mistakes. He'd have to put his life on hold for a year because of that imbecile. Jesus, Wren was positively fuming when he'd learned about this.

What was he supposed to tell Elliot? Their relationship had been steadily improving and moving further, growing more serious, the last few weeks, and now he'd have to leave all that behind. He wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.

Okay, that's a lie. He did know what to feel. He just tried to tell himself that he didn't, so he could resist the urge to storm into his boss' office and strangle the man for not giving him a choice. The conditions were simple; agree to do this, or find another job. Wren didn't want to lose his job, no matter how much he hated it and how much stress it caused.

So he did agree to go to France, reluctantly. Now all he had to do was tell Elliot that he would be leaving within a week, and that it was highly probable that he would have too much work on his hands to fly back to visit. They'd have to spend a whole year apart, and who's to say Elliot wouldn't have found someone else by then? Wren knew how Elliot felt about him, but after only spending a couple of months together, was their relationship strong enough to last a whole year apart from each other? Most likely not.

They wouldn't even get to spend Christmas together - Wren had to leave sometime before December 22. Wren had been looking forward to Christmas with Elliot ever since his birthday, and they had made plans of celebrating Christmas Eve together with Mae, before Wren would go home and celebrate with his family he hadn't seen in so long.

Now that wouldn't happen.

Throughout the day Wren grew steadily more worried about how Elliot would react to the news. He'd be absolutely gutted, for sure, but Wren knew that there was something Elliot was struggling with mentally, and he didn't want to make any of it worse. Even if he didn't know what it was.

Elliot had never told him what happened in the Tea Shop that day that seemed so long ago now, and Wren didn't want to push him. He remembered being so worried about Elliot, wanting to help, but there wasn't anything he could do at the time because he and Elliot barely knew each other. Now, on the other hand, they knew each other very well and Wren had expected Elliot to tell him at some point, but it seemed like it was never the right time to bring up the subject.