A
Acorn
Guest
Leon held her in the darkness of his old room, only a sliver of light coming from beneath the closed door. As his eyes slowly adjusted, he could make out the shelves on the far wall and for a disorienting moment he saw his room as it'd been before he'd moved out — before his grandmother had converted it into a place for all the crafts she used as a means to keep her hands and mind busy.
His high school baseball trophies had been lined up on the uppermost shelf (he'd wanted to play football like his friends, but his grandmother had flatly refused, citing potential brain injury as her main concern, and she hadn't been swayed when he'd pointed out that he could take a baseball to the face, too). The next shelf had contained all the hardback books they'd read together before bed when he'd been little; all adventures, usually with a pirate or some other quick-witted and sharp-tongued figure as the protagonist. And beneath that, on the final shelf, he'd kept his notebooks that he'd doodled and sketched in, along with an assortment of framed pictures of him and his grandmother, and the one photo he had of his mother during her quinceañara.
He hadn't had any inkling what the future held for him, and he wondered what the teenage version of himself would've thought of him now, returning home after his own adventure that'd started the full moon he'd gone camping with his friends. He probably would've thought the whole werewolf thing was kickass, that Rita was hot, and that he was doing a shitty job at making her feel better. Though crude and lacking the sophistication and nuance he'd gained in adulthood, teenage him wouldn't be wrong — especially when it came to how well he was doing at consoling her. Leon was silent after she explained her nightmares and why she hadn't been sleeping, feeling the weight of her every word and the pain and guilt contained within but unsure what to say.
As he thought, the only sound in the room were her sniffles and the rustling his hand made as he rubbed a circle against the fabric of her borrowed shirt, just between her shoulder blades.
She'd been forced to see Chase's death, and though he was there, holding and doing his best to support her, she'd been made to see him suffer, too, so he could understand why her brain had made the leap it had. He understood now that she was afraid of losing him the way she'd lost Chase, and it sent cold tendrils of unease into his chest. He couldn't reassure her that things would end any differently for him without lying. He couldn't tell her he'd be safe always, that he'd be guaranteed to survive the life they led; it was unreasonable to think they'd seen the last of Jenny and Lorelei, and he didn't imagine anything but violence would come of their next encounter. And he understood why she saw both of them in her nightmares, and why she spoke of it with guilt thick in her voice.
"I don't know," he said, finally breaking his silence, "but I know it's okay you see both of us. I know you don't have to stop caring for him to care for me, too."
His high school baseball trophies had been lined up on the uppermost shelf (he'd wanted to play football like his friends, but his grandmother had flatly refused, citing potential brain injury as her main concern, and she hadn't been swayed when he'd pointed out that he could take a baseball to the face, too). The next shelf had contained all the hardback books they'd read together before bed when he'd been little; all adventures, usually with a pirate or some other quick-witted and sharp-tongued figure as the protagonist. And beneath that, on the final shelf, he'd kept his notebooks that he'd doodled and sketched in, along with an assortment of framed pictures of him and his grandmother, and the one photo he had of his mother during her quinceañara.
He hadn't had any inkling what the future held for him, and he wondered what the teenage version of himself would've thought of him now, returning home after his own adventure that'd started the full moon he'd gone camping with his friends. He probably would've thought the whole werewolf thing was kickass, that Rita was hot, and that he was doing a shitty job at making her feel better. Though crude and lacking the sophistication and nuance he'd gained in adulthood, teenage him wouldn't be wrong — especially when it came to how well he was doing at consoling her. Leon was silent after she explained her nightmares and why she hadn't been sleeping, feeling the weight of her every word and the pain and guilt contained within but unsure what to say.
As he thought, the only sound in the room were her sniffles and the rustling his hand made as he rubbed a circle against the fabric of her borrowed shirt, just between her shoulder blades.
She'd been forced to see Chase's death, and though he was there, holding and doing his best to support her, she'd been made to see him suffer, too, so he could understand why her brain had made the leap it had. He understood now that she was afraid of losing him the way she'd lost Chase, and it sent cold tendrils of unease into his chest. He couldn't reassure her that things would end any differently for him without lying. He couldn't tell her he'd be safe always, that he'd be guaranteed to survive the life they led; it was unreasonable to think they'd seen the last of Jenny and Lorelei, and he didn't imagine anything but violence would come of their next encounter. And he understood why she saw both of them in her nightmares, and why she spoke of it with guilt thick in her voice.
"I don't know," he said, finally breaking his silence, "but I know it's okay you see both of us. I know you don't have to stop caring for him to care for me, too."
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