tw: aftermath of assault, aftermath of sexual assault, medication mention, hospitalization mention.
notes: approximately 4 years in, following scenes that do not yet exist, so let's call it a prologue of sorts
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Leo’s eyes are filled with unshed tears, but his expression is, at this point, more exhausted than anything else. He sits on the closed toilet seat, the cup of water in his hand shaking as he brings it to his lips. Luke, minutes earlier, collapsed to his knees in front of him, and now watches his chest rise and fall with every breath. He can’t be sick, because Leo is sitting on the toilet, but, god, he needs to be.
After a mostly failed attempt to drink, Leo sets the cup on the counter and lets his hands fall onto his thighs. Everything moves in slow motion; the car ride home, the hospital, the phone call before that. Nothing feels right. Until Luke covers Leo’s hands with his.
“I thought I lost you.”
The words tumble out of him, and Leo, expression tight, nods once, swallowing. His eyes close as he fights to keep control of himself. He nods again, as Luke lifts himself, pressing his lips to Leo’s forehead.
“I can smell him,” Leo whispers, shaking. “His c–” Luke can feel Leo’s hands clutching at the back of his shirt. Can feel every tremor that runs through him. “His cologne,” Leo says. “His…” He starts shaking in earnest. “His s-s-sweat,” he continues.
Luke nods.
The drugs will wear off in a few hours, the nurse had said, as Luke signed his name over and over and over again. He may be disoriented, nauseous. He’ll be exhausted for the next few days at least. Make sure he rests.
“Did they say if I’m a-allowed to sh-shower?” Leo asks, as Luke pulls back enough to see his face.
Luke nods, his words catching in his throat. Letting Leo out of his sight right now, for even the time it would take for him to run the water, is unfathomable.
He takes a breath. “We just need to be careful,” he says softly. As Leo breaks contact to pull off the oversized t-shirt, Luke urges, “Your shoulder–”
He was found tied to a pipe in one of the vacant buildings downtown. We estimate he’d been there for two or three days, but he doesn’t have a good grasp on how long it was. We’ll know more once we review the security footage.
The image that the officer showed him is burned into Luke’s memory. It will live there for as long as Luke lives, a suspended moment in time that he will never be able to undo.
At the same time, Leo winces, his opposite hand clutching the damaged muscle in his shoulder.
Luke is quite sure that he’s seconds away from the edge, and grabs the cup to distract himself. If he falls apart here, Leo will be on his own. He takes a breath and gulps down Leo’s water, then refills it from the sink.
“Just take it slow, okay?” he says, each word as casual as he can make them, his tone at odds with the war inside of him. He offers Leo some approximation of a smile and helps pull the sleeves out so that Leo can slide his arms through them. He lifts Leo’s shirt gently over his head, careful of his back, where the injuries lie deep below his skin, his shoulder, the joint pulverized by the position that he was kept, his neck, covered in finger-shaped bruises. He tries not to look too closely, but instead, focuses on Leo’s eyes. I thought I lost you, he thinks, over and over.
“Can you stand?” Luke asks, drowning out the noise inside his head as much as he can. Leo tries. He clutches Luke’s outstretched hand weakly while the other works to loosen, and eventually lower, his pants. There’s blood on them, too, and a wave of rage rolls through Luke, as violent as the moment the police had called him.
“You can’t soak,” Luke says gently, as he helps Leo lower himself into the tub. He runs the warm water over Leo’s hair, careful of the injuries that lie there, too. “But we will get him off of you.”
Leo nods. He’s the saddest version of Leo that Luke can remember seeing, even with the medicine tempering his reactions. “Okay,” Leo whispers, and lets his eyes close.
Luke works in silence, starting first with Leo’s hair. They tried to clean him up at the hospital, but didn’t get far. Luke works his fingers through the slightly outgrown waves, gentle in his movements, and so completely, relentlessly aware of the faint tremors that steadily roll through Leo.
With Leo’s back, Luke lightens his touch, just ghosting over the skin there with water and soap. At the first contact, Leo’s muscles tighten, his body jerking for a split second as he wraps his arms tighter around his knees. Luke watches all of this helplessly. He whispers a reminder for Leo to let him know if it hurts, but he knows Leo won’t.
He cleans Leo everywhere he can reach, everywhere Leo will allow him to clean him, as Leo adjusts his positioning to give him access to his body. Luke aims for a sort of clinical detachment as he rinses days of filth off of him, but he fails miserably. Every flinch ignites a fire inside of him. Every whimper, every tear that eventually rolls down Leo’s cheeks. With the most gentle touch Luke is capable of, he cleans the final remnants of crusted blood, the sweat, and everything else from Leo's body, and the fire inside of him builds and builds and builds and builds.
When it’s done, or as done as it can be for the time being, Leo is half-lifted out of the tub, wrapped in a towel, and practically carried back to his bedroom. He takes the medicine that Luke hands him without a word. Then, in a broken, devastating moment, Leo whispers, “Did they catch him?”
Luke pulls the blanket up to his shoulders and sits on the edge of the bed. “Not yet,” he replies. But they will. It’s only a matter of time. Leo nods, his eyes red and fighting to stay open, fighting against the drugs that will soon pull him under. He rolls to his side, and, as Luke runs his hands through his drying hair, he finally lets his eyes slide shut. Exhaustion runs through every line of his body, but as the minutes pass, as his breathing evens out, as the tremors recede, the tension begins to loosen in Leo’s body.
Luke turns off the light and eases himself down next to Leo. “I’ve got you,” Luke whispers, and wraps his arms around Leo, the same as he’s done every single night, with the exception of the last three, for the past year. “I’ve got you,” he says again, as he closes his eyes.
He doesn’t sleep that night, and instead, can think only of Leo, and his world fractured once more by Parker Destin.
Monday - Wednesday : work on the art for that chapter.
Thursday : Writing the chapter, work on other art stuff.
Friday, 9pm, Singapore time : I'll upload the chapter.
Saturday - Sunday : break from art.
I plan to start this schedule on the 17th, my family will be out on holiday until the 12th. So until then, the update schedule will be weekly, but on different days because I'll be out of the house. This week, I was mainly working on other art things so the update should come out on Thursday, 6th of December. Hope you'll like the first chapter! Please leave me some feedback/ critiques to help me improve!
Trauma ask game: 1 and 2 for Leo, or River if someone beat me to Leo?
from this ask game (river answered here)
What would your OC say is their biggest trauma?
"I'm not sure," Leo says. "I think it's a little bit easier to pinpoint now, with some distance from the worst of it. I–" he presses his fingers into the back of his neck nervously. His hair, a little longer now, curls out. "There are... countless moments in my life that..."
He takes a deep breath, mulling over how much he wants to share. None, is what his brain screams at him, but he presses forward against his better judgment.
"The day I was arrested, knowing that I'd never see my family again. Learning about Isaac, and being completely helpless to do anything about it. The entire Parker contract, up through its brutal ending, and then–" he flinches at the memory "–the second, even more brutal ending. Everything that happened with Ivan, and everything that happened at the clinic after."
The words flow faster now, and Leo shakes his head, pushing forward. "Losing Will," he says softly. His lips press into a tight line and he blinks hard.
"I think I would say the worst of it, though, was when they took Luke away. It was... after, everything. We were already out of the townhouse, and living in the shittiest little apartment in Baltimore, when they arrested him. Even after every horrible thing that's been done to me, to the people I love, and to Luke... I don't think anything has impacted me the way that did."
Hi, so. I miss Leo. And I have so many questions about him and what happened during the gaps in story posts. Just wanted to let you know im thinking about you both, and Luke too I guess.
I have been thinking about Luke recently and the development of their romantic relationship, which I also have so many questions about.
Anyway, sending love and hope for a new drabble in the near future 🫰🏼
(Also, obviously no pressure at all, the world is fucking crazy and im proud of you for just being here 💅🏼)
thank you for sending this!! i miss him too, and i fear i probably have many of the same questions, until something is written edited and posted for consumption, it's all subject to change in my mind, i'm sure their background has changed 1000 times over :) - any top priority questions/requests if i were to chase down some motivation to put something together?
ps im so happy you're still around on here, this isn't over just a deep deep sleep, but if you have a big question, i suppose even the forbidden one, let me know, maybe i'll encourage me to commit to some plot
“Wh… what’s happening?” The boy’s voice is hoarse, barely whispered, punctuated by a pained gasp for breath.
As the car bumps along the driveway toward the gate, Agent Tyson catches his first glimpse of clear blue eyes, which struggle to focus. From the sideview mirror, he can see Ivan Petrov himself, donning nothing but silk, plaid pants and a white t-shirt, emerging from the house. Petrov crosses his arms over his chest, staring daggers at the car. Tyson looks away, but rests his hand absently on his gun. His eyes instead finding the worker’s too-pale body.
“It’s alright,” he finds himself saying in response. “Close your eyes.”
The worker complies, almost immediately. He isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to do, but he has pulled enough workers from this home in similar conditions to – he looks down at the file before him – Leo Evans, and knows well enough by now to know that Ivan Petrov doesn’t pull his punches. If Leo looks like this on the outside, the inside isn’t going to be any better.
He feels around under the seat until his fingers contact the thick, wool blanket, and he pulls it out. He drapes it over Leo’s body, which stills almost immediately. If he’s still shaking, Tyson can’t see it. If he’s still bleeding, he can’t see that either. And if he can’t see it, it does’t need to be real. At least he tells himself that, over and over.
“What was it like for you?” Will asks him, long after they’ve turned out the lights. They lay, bodies entangled, on a single twin bed in their small, shared room. The other bed is cold and untouched, the same as it has been for the last three days. This close, Leo can feel Will’s heart racing, and he wants, so badly, to help him feel safe again. Leo inches closer and ducks his head under Will’s chin.
“What was what like?” Leo whispers back, although he understands, generally, where Will’s head is at. It’s been an impossible day, Will’s first back in Mr. Peterson’s house after his holdover between contracts. He’s got that jumpy, frantic energy that Leo is too familiar with.
“I don’t know,” Will replies. “Your break, I guess. Or… anything you want to tell me.” He pauses and buries his nose into Leo’s hair, squeezing him tightly. Leo can almost feel the smile that ghosts across his lips. They weren’t sure, two days ago, if they’d ever see each other again. Mr. Peterson though, a man of his word, sent a car for Will the moment he was cleared to be released, and he arrived back at the mansion in time for dinner.
“It’s always bad,” Leo says carefully. He swallows, then releases some of the tension that he didn’t realize was building up. “For me. It’s never…” He shakes his head, and feels Will’s lips press into his hair. He lets Will pull him closer, and closes his eyes. “It’ll never be anything but bad.” And then, after a split second of doubt, Leo says, "Do you really want to hear about it? Would it help?"
Will nods, pulling back just far enough that Leo can see his outline in the dark. "Yes," he says.
Leo takes the deepest breath his lungs can manage, picks one of the tamer memories of his most recent holdover, and, for the first time in so many years, decides to share a piece of his story.
