Gaara could have asked. He did not. He dropped the conversation like a hot iron, avoiding, now, the face that seemed to him too familiar for comfort.
He instead stared up at the dark staircase stretching above them like a tower. So much of him wanted to go home. Part of this was the desire to burrow under the covers and sleep until dawn. The other part was the bubbling urge to drive straight to his old spots and lose himself entirely. It was only an itch now, soft but insistent; Gaara recognized it and knew at once it would not stay an itch for long.
He stilled his nails from scratching at the insides of his palms and took another glance at the first few steps. All he could picture was Lux, alone, tumbling headfirst down an entire flight. With this, he corralled him toward the staircase, one hand already on the rail, which sagged wetly under his hand from the beginnings of wood rot. “I don’t think you would be okay. You probably shouldn’t be left alone right now.” He was uncertain who, exactly, he was trying to convince.
What he wouldn’t do now for a handful of pretzels and an Ambien.
Gaara was right. Of course he was. Not that it kept Lux from protesting, albeit weakly, as the two of them began the dreaded climb together. He was soon silenced when a carelessly placed foot slipped off one of the steps and only the creaking rail and Gaara’s hand on his upper arm saved his face from making very uncomfortable acquaintance with the floor boards. Man. Being drunk wasn’t nearly as fun as people made it out to be.
Lux felt exhausted, mentally more so than physically, but eight floors were nothing for those weak of will. Alas, he doubted that Gaara would let him sit down and take a nap on the stairs. Thankfully, frequent practice and a fairly active lifestyle kept the athletic challenge moderate for Lux. At some point, it even started to feel meditative. Keeping his balance during their ascend demanded focus, and for a while Lux almost forgot why his cheeks were crusted with salt and a quiet stranger was walking side by side with him.
They passed by the third floor, which always smelled obnoxiously like the sweetest vanilla perfume, as if the respective tenant had been camping outside her apartment door for hours. Then the fourth, where loud music penetrated the walls from behind one of the doors and even louder shouting from behind the other. The fifth, where they could hear a baby crying, and decided to take a small break to recuperate. Something about the sound of the wailing infant prodded at a very deep and terrible part of Lux conscience, however, and he soon urged Gaara to move on before that one seemed entirely ready. On the seventh floor, where the light was broken and always flickered, Lux thought about his brother Levi and their younger sister. His throat tightened.
Finally, upon reaching the eighth floor without any major tumbles, Lux leaned against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment, just to stop his world from spinning. Almost mechanically did he pull out the keys to fidget with the door. They slipped out of his hand, but after a muttered curse and scramble Lux managed to unlock his apartment and drag himself inside.
It was a small apartment - a single room stretched out to accommodate a cheap kitchen, a worn out couch and an even cheaper futon bed in the corner. There was a TV that Lux mainly used to muffle the silence, and two doors leading into a bathroom and a built-in closet - probably the most fancy part of his entire home. A band poster had been stuck to one of its doors by the previous inhabitant, and although Lux had never heard a single one of their songs before he had kind of taken a liking to it. To him, it was like the ghost of a person he would probably never know, but whom he still remained connected to through the experience of living in this place, and staring at that poster every time they got dressed in the morning. A lonely photus that his sister had gifted him the day of his move crept down the side of one of the kitchen cabinets, and the fridge showed a few scattered polaroids. Most of them showed Lux together with a blond guy around his own age, noses crinkling with laughter, or the same blond man with a young woman who was holding the camera up for a selfie, just when her boyfriend leaned in to blow in her ear.
Aside from these details, little to nothing within the apartment spoke of the man who lived here. No dirty dishes, no pizza boxes, no unfinished books near the bed, cozy decor or other personal items. On the contrary, the place seemed almost uncannily clean and tidy. The bed was made, the windows clear, the furniture old but far from dusty. It was evident that Lux, despite paying very close attention to his own style and clothes, had not thought it necessary to properly customize his home. And why would he? He didn’t like spending time here anyway. It was cold, and lonely, and shabby, and far away from the rest of the world. But it was his, nonetheless.
“Home, sweet home...”, Lux mumbled to himself before turning on the kitchen light.