Finding Home

by Garrett Leigh

  His head had barely touched his pillow when Charlie ghosted through the door and shut it firmly behind him. Leo started to sit up, but Charlie reached him before he’d got far, and pushed him back down.

  “Stay. Mum says you need to rest.”

  “I’ve been asleep all afternoon.”

  “Humour me. I had a dream last night that you’d killed yourself.”

  A chill ran through Leo. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Promise.”

  “What?”

  “Promise.” Charlie sat on the edge of the bed, leaned over, and pressed his forehead to Leo’s. “I know you feel bad, Leo—like, really bad—but you can get better. Dad said lots of people recover from PTSD.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. None of this is your fault.”

  “It is. I hurt that dickhead who gave you those pills.”

  “So? You weren’t in your right mind. Uh, Dad told me what happened to your mum—” Charlie held up his hand as Leo took a breath to speak. “It’s okay. I know you don't want to talk about it. That’s cool, and it always will be. Just don’t let what happened destroy you, Leo. You’re worth more than that.”

  He got up as abruptly as he had sat down, and retreated to his own room. Leo watched him undress in the window and became lost in his long limbs and flawless skin. He felt calmer now than he had in weeks, perhaps months, or even years, but the ability to share that with Charlie eluded him. With his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, he rolled over and stared at the wall until sleep claimed him again.

  It was pitch-dark when slender arms slipped around his waist from behind, the bulb in his lamp apparently dead. But Leo paid the blackness no heed as a slender form pressed up against him, treating his skin to the best kind of fire. Leo kept his eyes closed and leaned back into the healing warmth. “Charlie?”

  His voice was croaky and hoarse, and his throat hurt. Charlie tugged him onto his back and then supported his head while he pressed a bottle of water to Leo’s lips. “Mum said the sedatives made your mouth dry.”

  And the rest. Leo swallowed the water. “Kate and Reg say a lot, eh?”

  “Only when it matters.”

  Leo had no answer to that. He lay back down, facing Charlie this time, and Charlie mirrored his pose. “I missed you.”

  Charlie smiled, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “I missed you too.”

  “Yeah? Even though I’m a nutter?”

  “Don’t say that. It’s not true. You’d be more crazy if you’d survived all you have without being affected by it.”

  A nurse in the hospital had said that to Leo. He’d vaguely recognised her, and in a brief moment of coherent thought had wondered if she’d treated him before. After all, it had been far from the first time he’d found himself in Swindon Hospital. “Do you think I’ll get better?”

  “I think you can . . . if you try really hard. You’ll have to have loads of counselling and stuff, but Kate and Reg are good with things like that. Fliss used to go to a therapist.”

  “Fliss did? What was it? Anger management?”

  Charlie snorted. “You’d think. I’m not sure what it was for, just that she went, and after a while, she stopped crying in the night . . . like you do.”

  Leo didn’t have the strength to look away. He held Charlie’s gaze and pushed aside the shame that came with knowing his messed-up dreams had disturbed Charlie too.

  Charlie’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, his thumb pressed into his pulse point. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “I need to talk to you about something . . .”

  The stricken look on Leo’s face was more than Charlie could take. He wrapped his arms around Leo and held him as tight as he dared. “It’s nothing bad—at least, I don’t think it is. If it all works out, nothing has to change.”

  Leo spoke.

  Charlie realised he was muffling him and reluctantly loosened his hold. “Sorry.”

  Leo blinked, his hair a riot that would’ve been funny if the stampeding tattoo of Charlie’s heart wasn’t so distracting. Leo rubbed his eyes and fumbled for Charlie’s hands, squeezing them in a death grip. “I hate it when someone tells me shit that they don’t think is bad. They’re always wrong.”

  “I might be wrong.” Charlie bit his lip. “But it’s something that has to happen even if I am, so—”

  “Charlie, what is it? You’re killing me here.”

  Leo rarely interrupted anyone unless he was angry—and lost. But he didn’t seem to be either now. His eyes were as bright as Charlie had ever seen them, his skin warm against Charlie’s.

  His strong fingers wrapped around Charlie’s own gave Charlie courage. “We need to tell Mum and Dad about—uh—about you and me.”

  “Me and you?”

  “Yes. Fliss knows, and if we don’t tell them, she will.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  That Leo hadn’t scoffed at the idea that Fliss had anything to tell stirred an odd heat in Charlie’s veins. He absorbed it, welcomed it, and squeezed Leo’s even tighter. “She said Mum and Dad will get in trouble if social services find out, especially as our rooms are so close together, and I think she’s right.”

  “But—” Leo stopped and shook his head slightly. “But we haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I know, but there’s rules and stuff. Fliss said that if we don’t come clean now and let Mum and Dad handle it properly, social services might find out and remove one of us.”

  “Remove me, you mean. I’m the troublemaker, and they can’t touch you regardless. You’re adopted, remember?” Leo fell back on his pillows and stared at the ceiling, his expression unreadable. “Kate and Reg will probably get rid of me anyway when they find out about this.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Obvious, ain’t it? I’ve messed everything up—for you, for them, for Lila. Do you all good if I fucked off somewhere else.”

  Anger flared in Charlie before he could check it. He moved fast and covered Leo’s body with his own, pressing their foreheads together hard enough to make his skull throb. “Don’t say that.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t.”

  Leo shivered. His fear was hard to swallow, but Charlie would take it over his habitual apathy any day of the week. Besides, lying over Leo like this, their legs, hips, and chests moulded together, was enough to distract him from just about any emotion Leo could throw at him.

  He drew back from the game of mercy he’d been playing with Leo’s skull. “It’s going to be okay. Fliss said you can have her room if Mum and Dad want us farther apart—and that if we tell them now, it should be enough for them to deal with social services. It’s if we get caught that there’ll be trouble, especially while we’re both fifteen.”

  Leo’s eyes blazed, and Charlie thought for a moment that he would kiss him, but then Leo sighed, and the scorching heat between them passed, chased away by a ruthless reality that couldn’t be ignored. “I didn’t think you were ready to tell anyone you’re gay.”

  Gay. Despite being certain of his sexuality for as long as he could remember, the word still hit Charlie like a train. Kate and Reg would barely blink, he was sure of it—his friends too—but what about the rest of the world? Oh god, what about school?

  Leo touched Charlie’s face, the featherlight trail of his fingertips along Charlie’s jaw more grounding than anything he could have said. “Just because you tell your parents, doesn’t mean anyone else has to know.”

  “Is that what you want? To keep it a secret? Because if people find out about us, they’ll know you’re gay too.”

  Duh, obvious much? But if Leo thought Charlie was as daft as he sounded, it didn’t show. He merely shrugged. “I don’t care who knows about me. Only reason I don’t talk about it is because it’s no one’s business. Besides, it’s not like my reputation around here isn’t already fucked.”

  Leo had a point, and Charlie couldn’t imagine that anyone a
t school would mess with him after what he’d done to Darren Stroud. Wouldn’t stop them coming after Charlie, though—

  “Stop it.” It was Leo’s turn to press his forehead into Charlie’s. “No one has to know, okay? Not if you don’t want them to. Nothing has to change. You said it yourself.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes, when you were rambling about having something to tell me. I thought I was about to get dumped.”

  “Oh . . . well, you’re not, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It is.” A ghost of a grin warmed Leo’s features. “So, anyway . . .”

  “What?”

  “I’m just thinking that if I move to Fliss’s room, we won’t be able to do this anymore.”

  “‘This’?”

  And then it clicked, and the way they were lying made itself known again. Charlie flushed and ducked his head, trying to ignore the yearning desire in every part of his body to be as close to Leo as possible. But it was no good. Leo was right. Once they’d told Kate and Reg, their nights of creeping across the landing to snuggle in bed together were over.

  The need to make the most of their freedom was abruptly overwhelming—for Leo too, apparently, as he rose up to meet Charlie’s kiss. Their lips met, sweetly at first, but then harder as the heat they’d lived with for so long took hold.

  Leo rolled them, pressing Charlie’s back into the mattress, and holding him there with his weight. Charlie gasped and dug his fingers into Leo’s back, fisting his T-shirt, and wondered if he dared stake a claim on the skin that lay beneath.

  I want to touch him.

  I need to touch him.

  Resolved, Charlie fought Leo for dominance, and won, rolling them again, and tugging at Leo’s T-shirt until Leo gave in and pulled it over his head.

  Oh God.

  Charlie had seen Leo shirtless before on the rare occasions that Leo had changed his T-shirt in Charlie’s room, but now, with him so close, Charlie tasting the sweet scent of his smooth skin, it was almost too much.

  Almost, because nothing was going to stop Charlie laying his palm on Leo’s chest and counting the beats of his thudding heart.

  “I love it when you do that to my wrist,” Leo whispered. “It feels like you catch the fear and push it all away.”

  If only. Charlie would take every terror Leo had endured if such a thing were possible. “Kiss me, Leo.”

  Leo obliged, and returned the favour of stripping Charlie of his T-shirt. Their bare chests touched and the stars exploded.

  It was nearly dawn and neither of them had slept. Charlie lay with Leo’s head in his lap and ran his fingers through Leo’s hair. “Are you okay?”

  Leo hummed lazily. “Yeah. Are you?”

  “Yeah.”

  They didn’t speak again for a long while. Charlie amused himself with Leo’s crazy hair, and then, when he’d run out of curls to wrap around his fingers, turned his attention to Leo’s arm.

  The sight of it made him want to wrap Leo in his arms and never let go, but they’d done that already, and their reality seemed all the more real. Leo’s arm was just the start of his wounds, and for him to stand any chance of healing, their confession needed to happen as soon as possible.

  “Stop staring at it.”

  It was a phrase Leo had thrown at Charlie before, but there was no bitterness in his tone now, only a gentle admonishment that stirred Charlie’s soul. “Did it hurt when it happened?”

  “When it was burning?”

  “Um, yeah . . . I suppose.”

  Leo shrugged, and his sleepy eyes flickered with an emotion Charlie couldn’t quite decipher. “It didn’t hurt at the time, or even when I first saw it. Adrenaline kept me moving until Lila was safe, and then I hit my head falling out of the window. At least, that’s what they said when I told them that I couldn’t feel it.”

  “You couldn’t feel it at all?”

  “Nope. Not until I got to the burn unit at the hospital and they started messing around with it. I screamed the bloody place down then.”

  Charlie shuddered, hardly able to imagine the pain behind the burned wreck of Leo’s arm without screaming himself. “I bet you waited for Lila to be taken care of before you showed any pain.”

  “Not on purpose. I lost my shit as soon as I felt it.”

  Charlie knew he was right, though. There was much he still didn’t know about Leo, but his protection of his little sister was absolute. And now Charlie had to protect him. “I’m going to speak to Dad in the morning.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Leo’s tone gave nothing away. Charlie held Leo’s head up and slid down the bed. “Do you want to come with me? I can do it by myself if—”

  “Charlie, I’m coming with you.”

  “You are?”

  “Course I am. You think I’d let you do it on your own?”

  Charlie hadn’t really thought about it. In the hours he’d spent tonight simply holding Leo, he’d imagined only a world where they could always be like this—free and happy, the only complication the threat of the rising sun. “I’d like you to come,” he said. “And it will be easier. Mum and Dad will want to hear it from you anyway. They won’t just take my word for it.”

  Leo grunted and rolled onto his stomach, his face smushed against Charlie’s ribs. He was clearly fading, and it wouldn’t be long before he fell asleep.

  Charlie didn’t have that luxury. Reg would be up soon, and he needed to be back in his own bed by then. But there was one thing he needed to know before he tore himself from Leo’s arms. “Leo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look at me.”

  Leo raised his head, squinting into the faint light that was beginning to filter through the open curtains. “What is it?”

  Charlie chewed on his lip until he tasted blood. Leo swiped at it with his thumb. “Come on. Just say it. Can’t be worse than the shit we’ve already been through.”

  And there it was—the glimmer of hope Charlie so desperately needed every time he met Leo’s eyes. “Do you honestly believe that? That it’s all going to be okay . . . in the end?”

  Leo held Charlie’s gaze for a long moment before he slowly nodded. “I believe it can be, if I want it enough.”

  “Do you? Do you want it enough?”

  Leo smiled tiredly, his eyes barely open. “Course I do, mate. I want it all.”

  Six months later . . .

  “Slow breaths, Leo.” Reg’s hand was warm on Leo’s shoulder. “You’re not on trial, remember? Just answer the questions to the best of your ability. No one’s asking any more of you.”

  “You’re not on trial . . .”

  Maybe not, but if the police hadn’t walked away from what he’d done to Darren Stroud last winter, he probably would’ve been by now.

  Don’t think about that.

  Leo shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Kate had wanted him to wear his school trousers, but Reg had dissuaded her: “Let him be comfortable, love.” After all, with Leo’s evidence being prerecorded, it wasn’t like many people would see him today—just the judge and the barrister for the prosecution.

  “He won’t be able to see you, Leo. I promise.”

  Leo hadn’t believed the lawyers, but Reg had only had to tell him once.

  He won’t see me.

  Leo didn’t know much, but of that, he was certain.

  “Are you ready?” This time, it was Carol, the social worker, who spoke—a kind woman who wore her hair in long plaits and who had become Leo’s loudest champion outside of the Poulton family.

  Leo nodded and steeled himself. Dennis was far away in his prison cell, but opening the wounds Leo had fought so hard to heal still wasn’t going to be easy. Already, his heart was skipping beats, his skin burning with the phantom fire that all the love in the world had never entirely extinguished. He pointed to the door at the end of the stark corridor. “In there?”

  Carol nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Like most things Leo found himself afraid of
in his new life, the anticipation of giving evidence against Dennis turned out to be worse than the actual event. The questions he was asked were no worse than he’d expected, and no one argued with his answers.

  And when he closed his eyes and hid his face, they stopped—at least until he was ready for them to continue.

  When it was over, Leo emerged from the small, airless room to find Reg waiting for him at the nearest exit.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Reg said. “You tell me how it went on the way back to the car. If you want to, that is. It’s okay if you don’t.”

  Leo waved good-bye to Carol and followed Reg out of the court building. “You wouldn’t ask me anything if I said I didn’t want to tell you?”

  Reg smiled wryly. “You are allowed to keep some things to yourself.”

  Leo grunted, because the way things had changed at home in recent months had left him little of the privacy he desperately craved, and Reg knew it. Not that Leo was going to complain about moving into Fliss’s light and airy loft bedroom, even if it did mean that he and Charlie rarely got the chance to be truly alone. The shadows were bright in the attic, and Leo slept among them like he’d never slept before.

  They reached the car. Leo slid into the passenger seat and retrieved his Arsenal snapback cap from the back seat to jam on his head. “Are we going home now?”

  Reg smiled and handed over the phone he’d taken off Leo before they’d gone inside the court building. “I think you have a call to make first. I asked the school to let Charlie answer his phone at lunchtime. It’s quarter to one. If you ring now, you’ll catch him.”

  Charlie. Leo had fought hard to keep Charlie from his thoughts since they’d parted at breakfast that morning, because Charlie was beautiful, and pure, and deserved better than to share Leo’s headspace with Dennis.

  But that was over now. Leo’s evidence today had been the last loose end in Leo’s old life, and he was finally free—when his screwed-up brain allowed him to be. And so he took the phone and called Charlie, and waited with bated breath for him to answer.