Fresh Start
cw: panic attack, obsessive/compulsive behaviors. leo's usual dubious/clueless caretaker vibes. tiny mention of aiden's self-destructive behaviors. shaky trust being tested, my beloved.
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Movement sends pain radiating through Leo’s back and shoulder. His memory connects the discomfort to the hospital recliner and he bolts upright.
But they’re home. Safe.
He’s just paying the price for deciding to sleep on the floor outside Aiden’s room after a bought of anxiety convinced him he wouldn’t be able to hear if Aiden needed him. He—
Aiden’s bed is empty.
His mind races through worst-case scenarios, heart tripping along to keep pace but as soon as he fully turns around, Aiden is right there. Curled up on the hardwood, no pillow or blanket, just shy of reaching the doorway. Fallen out of bed? Collapsed? Had Leo slept through him needing help after all? He reaches for his shoulder. What if—
“Aiden? Aiden?”
The kid startles awake, a small gasp escaping his lips as he clumsily but quickly straightens to kneel. Dark eyes wide even as he blinks away sleep. He crosses his arms, hand cradled carefully in the center of his chest.
“What happened? Why were you on the floor?”
“I—I—mmm…mmm…” He shakes his head and lowers his gaze. Not a good sign. “Mmm’sorry—I’m’sorry—”
“Are the stitches okay? Is there blood on the bandages? Are you in any pain?” Leo reaches for him and Aiden flinches back, hard. Now he’s certain something is wrong.
“Mmm’good,” Aiden says, voice wavering. He still won’t make eye contact and he’s slowly, almost imperceptibly inching away from Leo.
“Did something happen? We’ll call Delia if we need to. I just have to see that you’re okay.” He reaches for him and again Aiden cowers back. He hits the futon frame and whimpers.
The sound strikes another cord of fear in Leo, doubling his panic. “You’re not in trouble but if the stitches tore or you’re in pain, I need to know.”
Aiden swallows. “I—I—mmm…mmm…”
Leo strains to hear him at all and considers just grabbing him. He has to see—
“I—I—” Aiden shakes his head, gaze still lowered. His hands tremble as he lifts his arms, turning them toward Leo.
It’s the most anguished surrender he’s ever seen.
“Hey, woah. Look at me, it’s okay.”
Aiden lifts his chin. For a split second, his expression looks incredulous before its replaced by a more familiar one of distrust and fear.
But it was enough.
The kid’s not even breathing, eyes filmed with tears as he obediently holds Leo’s gaze.
You’re scaring the shit out of him.
Leo pushes himself back quicker than necessary, earning another flinch from Aiden who crosses his arms back over his chest protectively, curling against the bed frame. Leo moves to sit in the doorway, heart still pumping adrenaline through his veins, and tries to focus on his breath.
Aiden watches him with open wariness. As defensive as day one.
This is supposed to be a fresh start, their second chance. In the six weeks since finding Aiden in the snow, Leo succeeded in isolating him and not much else. And here he is, only driving that wedge deeper. He’s supposed to be better equipped now that he’s not completely ignorant but it doesn’t seem to make a goddamn lick of difference. Leo should have admitted months ago that he wasn’t right for this but his selfish denial carried them way past the point of return.
Too little too late isn’t going to cut it anymore. The kid deserves more. Someone who’s going to fucking listen to him. Someone he can trust and rely on. He’s going to need so much support. He can’t shower without wrapping his arms and hand, which he can’t do himself. He’ll need help changing the bandages. Not to mention the antibiotics. He probably never slept well to begin with, if last night is any indication. He barely eats. He was hurting himself all along right under Leo’s nose. He fucking tried to—
Aiden sounds like he’s trying to breathe through a straw, inhales shorter and shorter. Leo looks over to find Aiden already watching him, brow furrowed.
When Aiden tilts his head, Leo realizes it’s him.
He’s the one gasping like all the oxygen has been sucked from the room.
Great.
“I’m sorry,” he forces out, but it’s barely audible. “I just—I need—”
He stumbles down the hall, sparing both of them from a backward glance, and shuts himself in the bathroom.
Leaning against the door is no good, he feels pinned there by the pressure in his chest.
God, like he just cornered Aiden.
He fumbles to turn on the sink, hands shaking. His fingers feel like precarious stacks of marbles rather than joints, skin slick from perspiration. Why did he have to replace the valve with stupid spoke handles? It takes a few tries before he can cup his hands together to hold onto any water. Given how little he’s breathing, the first splash feels like he’s waterboarding himself. He straightens, gasping and sputtering, but the innate reaction overrides his anxiety and he manages to pull in some deeper breaths. He keeps his hands under the tap and forces himself to focus on the sensation of the cold water against his skin, the air in his lungs.
One, two, three, four…one, two, three, four…
The panic recedes the more he breathes but guilt is quick to fill the vacancy. He doesn’t know what he was thinking, letting his prescription run out. He’s useless when he’s like this.
His hands still shake as he twists off the faucet, nerves wrung out and cold. He avoids his reflection and turns to lean against the counter while he towels his hands dry. His phone’s almost dead from not being charged all night. He stares at the chat with Delia, his string of blue bubbles filling the right side, unanswered. The last one, “What time do you get off today?” is a poor cover for his real question, “How soon can you come over?” Without hesitation, his anxiety is all too happy to supply countless awful explanations for why she hasn’t had three fucking seconds to send a single thumbs up in the last six hours. His pulse steps up again, his fingertips start to tingle.
Leo drops his phone back into his pocket and scrubs his face with his hands, forces another few rounds of deep breaths. There’s a headache building right behind his eyes. More sleep will help but he has to take care of Aiden first. Starting with an apology.
He finally turns to meet his tired, bloodshot eyes in the mirror. The lines of his face, deepened by exhaustion, make him look like he’s pushing forty and the fact that he hasn’t shaved since last weekend isn’t exactly helping. He scratches the corner of his jaw where there are a few traitorous white hairs. When he reaches for his toothbrush, he knows he’s stalling but how will he even start explaining his reaction to Aiden?
At some point, he replaced his toothbrush on the charging stand and started washing his hands. Based on the suds caught in the drain, he already washed them more than once. He can’t get stuck here, not now. His heart starts rushing again and his throat feels tight, panic and frustration balling in his chest. How many times has this happened in the last day alone?
“It hasn’t been this bad for years,” he whispers in his defense to nobody.
But he still can’t stop. Not yet. He meets his eyes in the mirror again, ignoring the flare of self-pity and disgust. Just one more time, he tells himself, trying to believe it.
Four pumps of soap. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…
The door opens and he immediately loses count; isn’t sure if he wasn’t finished yet or if he’d already started over again. Aiden peeks through the crack, crease between his brow telling Leo he’s also biting his lip. When Leo meets his gaze in the mirror, Aiden ducks back into the hallway.
Shit.
Aiden wouldn’t have taken such a liberty without knocking first, probably more than once and only then after Leo was in here for way too long. Another total failure for the list. But at least it was enough to snap him out of the loop.
The poor kid looks like he’s expecting a hell of a lot more than Leo suggesting breakfast when he comes out into the hall. He’s pressed against the span of wall between the top of the stairs and Leo’s bedroom. Not quite adjacent to where Leo stands in the bathroom door but clearly trying to find some middle ground that isn’t retreating to his room at the end of the hall.
Leo buys them both a little space by turning to the washer and dryer to switch their laundry from last night. He wonders if Aiden notices the two extra towels he used when he needed more than one shower to feel like he could sleep. God, he’s completely unraveling.
Aiden is no more relaxed when Leo faces him again.
“Aiden, look—” he says at the same time Aiden says, “M’sorry.”
He holds up a hand and Aiden flinches.
Well, that’s about right after what he pulled. But man, if it’s not a kick in the gut while he’s down. To make matters worse, Aiden seems to think it’s his responsibility to set things right after being subjected to Leo’s irrational panic. His guilt starts to turn into a physical ache in his chest.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”
Aiden watches him carefully like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, long fingers worrying the cuffs of the hoodie.
“You’re not in trouble,” Leo adds, taking a note from Delia. “Just finding you on the floor—”
“Mmm….you…w-w-w—” Aiden shakes his head, swallows. “Mmm…here…” Leo waits but Aiden doesn’t say anything else, just huffs out a little sigh of exasperation before letting his gaze slide to rest on Leo’s make-shift bed. Which of course he tidied, blanket neatly folded and pillow set on top. His eyes lift to dance around Leo’s face, searching for some sign that he’s getting it.
“I was sleeping here…” Leo feels obtuse stating the basest fact he can pull out of this exchange but Aiden nods.
“I—my—” He scrunches his face up and shakes his head. He’s pinching and pulling at the cuffs of his sleeves now, grip tightening. He swallows hard twice before he tries again. “I’mmm…you…here…”
“You…” Leo hopes he’s not taking too far of a leap. “...moved onto the floor when you saw me there?”
Aiden turns his head away like he’s expecting to be slapped, gives a tiny nod.
“That’s okay, it’s okay,” Leo says quickly. “But you didn’t have to sleep on the floor just because I was. Anyway, that runner is actually pretty thick, I—” Aiden bites his lips together like he wants to say something else. “What is it?”
He knots his fingers together then separates them after a quick glance up at Leo, smoothing them against his thighs. “I—I—mmm…” He takes a deliberate step closer, halving the space between them. Does it with the air of stepping up to the chopping block. He waits for Leo to connect the dots. When he doesn’t, he lifts one of his hands, stopping just shy of brushing the back of Leo’s, before letting it fall again and tucking both behind his back.
“Oh.”
Despite his countless missteps, Aiden wanted to be closer to him.
“Well, that’s okay.” When he realizes it sounds like giving permission he amends, “I mean, of course it’s okay. You can do whatever you want. Sleep wherever you want.”
Aiden furrows his brow.
“Sorry. I just mean— We never— I was worried—” Leo takes a breath. “You…” Cried yourself to sleep in my arms. “...fell asleep and I didn’t know if you wanted me to stay. I didn’t want you to be surprised when you woke up.” He sighs. “But I guess you were anyway…”
Aiden shakes his head. “S’okay.”
This kid would let him get away with murder…and then try to apologize like he invented death. Leo has to learn to get out ahead of these things if they’re ever going to have a chance.
“Were you—Did you have bad dreams or…”
He lifts one shoulder in a half-shrug but doesn’t meet Leo’s gaze.
“We’ll figure something out for tonight, yeah?”
Aiden nods. He keeps his eyes down but he’s dropped his shoulders from his ears, hands in the pocket of the hoodie. Leo wants to wrap him up in a hug, make sure knows he was never in trouble, and tell him he never has to sleep alone again if he doesn’t want to.
“I shouldn’t have freaked out like that,” he blurts instead. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
Dark eyes search his.
“It’s just— I panicked and I wasn’t thinking straight. After last night— After everything— It’s worse when I haven’t slept enough but it’s not your fault. It has nothing to do with you—” This word-vomit explanation is doing him no favors but he can’t seem to stop. “I promise it won’t happen again. I just want to make sure you know you didn’t do anything wrong, it was all me and I’m going to—”
Aiden opens his mouth and closes it again.
“What?”
He shakes his head, dropping his gaze.
Leo scrubs a hand over his face. “Short story long, I’m sorry for panicking.”
Aiden peeks up at him then looks down again. Slow and deliberate, he pulls his good hand out of his pocket. He keeps it low, arm bent just enough to allow him to turn his palm up. A suggestion of an invitation, rather than an overt one, and one that could easily be missed.
Leo can’t help but smile as he squeezes Aiden’s fingers.
Now Aiden ducks his chin against his chest in a good way. Not quite smiling but almost.
“How about some breakfast?”
“Mmm’yeah…mmm’thank…you…” Aiden parses the words carefully.
“Eggs and toast sound okay? I think we’re out of bacon.”
Aiden nods. “Mhm.”
He’s agreeing too quickly, making himself easy and accommodating. Is it because he’s afraid or does he think he has something to make up for? Either way, it feels like backward progress and Leo wonders all over again how he will ever rise to this occasion.
But he can think of worse ways to spend the rest of the day than trying to get a real smile out of Aiden. So at least he has somewhere to start.
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