The Lies He Spoke

THIRTY NINE

BLAKE 

It was Saturday. Creepy-men-with-boxes-would-move-boxes-in-Pontchartrain-beach-day.

Blake stood outside Andy's room, balancing on one foot, then the other.

He didn't want to do this alone. He knew Olivia had done dangerous things like this before, all by herself, but he had never done that, and he never wanted to.

He clenched his hands together. I'm doing this for Elijah, he thought to himself, and I will not drag Andy into this, and he closed his eyes and forced himself to imagine Elijah in an orange jumpsuit, and then his heart caved in, and he turned away from Andy's door and went to get a flashlight.

Besides never wanting to get Andy hurt, Blake couldn't exactly ask anything of him at the moment. Since that night ten days ago, he had been skirting around Andy, awkwardly making horrible excuses whenever Andy appeared and disappearing as soon as possible.

Logan had told him to let it be what it was, and Blake wanted so badly to do that, but he knew what happened to people who knew too much. He had seen the blood drenching Logan's clothes when Olivia had been shot last year.

There was no way he would put someone in that position again.

Blake finished pulling on his shoes and very quietly pulled Andy's keys from the hook at the door, silently apologizing profusely and promising to make it up to him later.

It was dark outside. Blake made his way to Andy's car and was just unlocking it when he heard a disembodied voice near his ear.

"Going somewhere?"

Blake let out a startled scream and then clutched his chest when he realized who it was, standing next to his car. "Dammit, Andy," Blake rasped, trying to hold in his weak heart. "I almost died." He took a deep breath and pressed both forearms and his forehead into the car hood. "Actually, I think I did die and then my heart restarted." He wheezed. "Oh, god, I think I'm going to die."

"How many times dying is that now?"

"Forty million."

"I have CPR training."

Blake immediately unfolded himself off the car and backed away three feet. "That will be unnecessary, thank you very much."

There was a hint of a smile on Andy's face in the dark. He held out his hand. "Are you going to give me my keys or what?"

Blake held the keys in his fist tightly and shook his head.

"Come on, Blake."

"I just need it for a little bit. I'll be back soon."

"I know where you're going. So if you're going, I'm going too."

Blake's heartbeat sped up to the rate of one minute ago. He could hear it in his ears. This could not be happening. He was not going to get Andy mixed up in this. He was not going to lose him.

He had to get rid of him.

"Fine," he said, tossing him the keys. "I'm not going."

Andy raised an eyebrow. "Why do I feel like you're lying?"

"I'm not."

"Why do I feel like you're going to take an Uber as soon as we go back upstairs to the apartment?"

Blake's face heated like a candle in the darkness. "I'm not!" he protested much too loudly.

Andy unlocked the car, opened the driver's door, and sighed. "Get in, Blake. There is no way you're going alone."