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“Leone,” Bruno says, the second his eyes fall on a particular lipstick shade. It’s in line with the others, just beside one that Leone plucked free to add to the small stack of products clutched in his hands.

Leone answers with a, “Hm?” but doesn’t look up from what he’s doing. Busy in the mascara section for this brand.

Not bothering to think it over, Bruno plucks the tube of lipstick free from its place in the display. He walks the two steps to Leone and holds it under his nose – because ever since Bruno was allowed to peek at the stash of makeup in Leone’s closet, he hasn’t been able to get Leone in purple lipstick out of his head.

Slowly, Leone’s eyes drift from the endless row of mascara (that all looks the same to Bruno, barring the stuff with glitter in it) to the lipstick in Bruno’s hand. Then to Bruno himself, Leone peering up from his crouch.

“You had this shade, too,” Bruno says. It’s kind of a battle to stay unaffected. His cheeks want to go all hot, with Leone so close. Bare-faced and open. Weirdly vulnerable.

The night before last, Leone cried in Bruno’s arms. Wrapped in that old sweater of Bruno’s father’s.

And just yesterday, he spent the morning curled against Bruno. Held Bruno’s hand. Sat on Bruno’s couch and stared at his knees, while Bruno relayed his story as gently as possible. Leone chiming in when it got to the hardest part.

Bruno’s parents agreed to help.

Leone slept most of the day away, after that (in Bruno’s room, on an air mattress, because Leone couldn’t fall asleep in the guest room). Bruno did, too (also in his own room, but in his bed, at Leone’s insistence).

School today was torture, with Bruno so anxious to get home to Leone that paying attention in class was a lost cause. He’d raced back to find his mother urging him to take Leone out shopping – she’d worked from home to keep him company – said he’d been quiet all day but he did at least eat –

Now, Leone looks closer to his usual self. His expressions are too soft without his makeup, but more importantly he deserves to have it back, and should never have had it taken from him in the first place.

So here they are. At the drugstore, after buying clothes. One final stop that Bruno insisted on.

“…I had a lot of colors,” Leone says at length, his head tilted up at Bruno.

He sure did, from what Bruno remembers.

Ah, now his cheeks really do feel warm, a reaction that he tries to curb – but Leone’s existence keeps obliterating this box of feelings in Bruno’s chest no matter how he curates it. “I think this one would look nice on you,” he says, of the dark purple in his hand.

Because it really would bring out Leone’s eyes. Compliment the gold and highlight those little periwinkle flecks that are most visible when the sun hits him just right…

Bruno spends too long looking at Leone’s eyes these days. It’s hard to help.

Pale pink lips that have been absent of lipstick for over two days now curl into a smirk. Lopsided and weak, maybe, but it’s wonderful to see Leone smile again. Has Bruno’s own mouth twitching upward. Especially so when Leone’s fingers brush Bruno’s hand as he takes the offered lipstick. Adds it to the handful of makeup he’s already got.

“I don’t want to buy too much,” Leone admits. He ducks his head back toward the mascara in front of him. Scrutinizing. His face is going red, too. “Your mom already spent enough on me…”

Bruno is shaking his head before the end of that sentence. “She wants to, she can afford it.” He adjusts the shopping bags on his arm, dropping them into his fist for a better grip. “And you needed the clothes, Leone, you lost –” Everything.

That tanks the mood. Bruno…shouldn’t have said it. He knows how tough reminders can be.

But Leone can’t deny it, tight-lipped as he is right now, fingers gripping the edge of a mascara package. He’s wearing a borrowed shirt of Bruno’s and the same jeans he showed up in the other night.

He deserves to live with a wardrobe much broader than that, and who knows what’s become of his old clothes. Bruno’s mother has been calling and calling Leone’s house, trying to coax his parents into talks about letting Leone come and get at least some of his things. So that he doesn’t have to start from scratch.

There’s been no luck with that, so far. They never answer their phone. And all of his makeup was already gone, anyway. No choice but to start from scratch, there.

It’ll be okay. Leone deserves a bigger and better collection anyway. One that isn’t hidden away in a shoebox.

“Yeah,” Leone breathes, after a moment. His fingers close tighter around the mascara he’s considering, and he yanks it free of its home, adding it to his stack. “I did.”

His voice is so quiet that it hurts, and Bruno stares helplessly after Leone as he straightens up, moving to peruse foundation. The expression on his face hurts, too. All somber and just the wrong side of serious. Mouth held too tight.

Bruno wants to do something – would do anything to bring ease to Leone’s sharp features.

This afternoon has been wonderful, so far. Shopping with Leone is a dream, even if people stare at them. The heaps of black that Leone tried on (everything from skin-tight to loose, blazers and slacks to fishnets and tripp pants, even a memorable crop top that Leone bought just because it made Bruno blush), and every rejected color that Bruno tried to coerce him into.

It’s been fun, and Leone sorely needs that. To push against the reminders, and the changes, and the trauma – he can’t get away from those things. He should at least be able to enjoy himself.

If Bruno could’ve had someone by his side when his dad…

Pleasant distraction would have been nice. Appreciated. And ultimately, that’s what Leone became – plus so much more.

So here Bruno goes. Determined to stand in the gap for Leone and supply even a tiny piece of happiness to carry him through the grief. Which right now means Bruno will cast his gaze around this overwhelming makeup aisle for anything lighthearted he can latch onto.

He’s never really been makeup shopping before. Only passed through this aisle with a glance, previously. This is his first time looking around in earnest, and he’s thrown for a loop by just how much variety there is. Leone knows his way around pretty well, gravitating on automatic toward certain colors with ease that Bruno assumes comes from experience.

…That thought brings the mental image of Leone browsing this section alone. In a town or two over. Skittish over the possibility he’d be recognized. Reading from a list so he could pretend to be shopping for his mother…

He told Bruno that story, on the way here. The heaviness it left in Bruno’s heart still weighs there.

No need to dwell on it, right now. Bruno’s feelings box has been shaky lately and he can’t stand to aggravate it more than necessary – not when Leone needs him.

Bruno wrangles his attention back to the aisle. At present, there’s Leone scrutinizing applicator brushes, tapping his chin with what looks to be an eyeliner or eyebrow pencil or something like one of those. His brow is creased on a frown. Familiar as ever.

He’s so beautiful.

Sets off butterflies in Bruno’s stomach that won’t migrate to their neat box no matter how he tries to herd them because now isn’t the time. That layer of him that’s just happy to have Leone doesn’t quiet easily, not even when it’s bogged down by melancholy over Leone’s situation.

Bruno just…he’s allowed to walk over and stand right beside Leone and it holds different weight, now. Giddy excitement is there, in knowing that Leone feels the same – but Bruno doesn’t want to push for more. He’s content to fall gentle into Leone. There’s no need to make him commit to anything when he’ll more than likely…move away before long.

Still, though. Bruno is allowed to get in close and meet fondness halfway, for now. And just this is…

God, his heart is a mess. Threatening to fall to pieces over so many different things in a drugstore. His feelings are hard to whip into shape with Leone so near, not that Bruno would trade him for anything.

His shoulder grazing Leone’s arm, Bruno says, “You should buy a set.”

Leone’s breath hitches, and now those golden eyes are locked with Bruno’s. A couple of his fingertips are still resting in the soft bristles of an extra fluffy makeup brush. He shrugs, arm shifting against Bruno’s. “I’ve…never had more than one,” he admits on a mumble.

“So buy a set now.” (Oh, Bruno is very much drowning in those eyes and the warmth of Leone’s body alike.)

Cheeks pink, Leone scoffs, and turns his attention back toward the brushes. “I wouldn’t even know what all of them are for,” he says, but his fingers migrate from that single fluffy brush to a prepackaged set of about half a dozen in various sizes and shapes.

“You’ll figure it out.”

“Maybe.” Excitement at getting to experiment openly with makeup must win out, though, because Leone’s picking up the set, anyway. It’s added to his quickly filling hands.

They should’ve gotten a basket on their way in. Bruno could, theoretically, go and get one now. But he won’t. Would much rather stay here. Instead, he offers, “Want me to hold something?”

“You’re already holding everything else.” Leone’s expression is finally twitching toward something more positive. The fading scab on his cheek pulling a bit as he almost-smiles. “And we’re teenage boys in the makeup section. We’ll look even more like shoplifters if I start handing you shit.”

Bruno blinks at him. “We look perfectly respectable.”

That wonderful smile of Leone’s widens and he ducks his head, thumb fiddling with the edge of a makeup package in his hands. “I can never tell if you’re joking,” he admits –

And now Bruno is grinning along with him. Just a small thing that comes frightfully easy as ever, with Leone. “I’m not.”

“You have to be.”

“No.”

That’s a lie. He very much is joking, and Leone can tell. Otherwise he wouldn’t be laughing like that, a sweet little burst of it that Bruno joins (never mind that it gets them a disapproving look from the elderly woman browsing perfume nearby). Because nervous tension is bleeding off of Leone, evaporating in waves as he moves on with a smile, looking over blush and eyeliner and all.

Bruno tags along at Leone’s heels, and can’t resist: “If you were wearing those pants you just had to have, we’d look like shoplifters.”

Another snort of laughter from Leone. “The tripp pants are fine.” (They are not, Bruno still cannot believe they exist, or that Leone could look so good in them, they would likely give that woman at the perfume a heart attack – then again, maybe they are fine…) “It’s not like I’ll wear them every day, I just…”

He trails off, and that smile on his face melts into a more bitter expression. Bruno feels his heart sink along with it, but all he can do is stand here and watch and wonder about new normalcy and reminders.

“My parents used to say I wore too much black. Mom always really hated those pants in particular. Told me every time we passed the display.” Bitterness on Leone’s face morphs into a wince. “They’re not my favorite, but I kind of went overboard in the store, I’m s–”

“It’s fine.” No more apologies, is what Bruno said that first night, and he stands by that. “They look nice, on you.”

Slowly, Leone’s grin tips back into more positive territory. His cheeks are going pink again, when he aims that look at Bruno. “So you do like them.”

Ah.

Shit, those butterflies are back at it, and Bruno is so, so helpless. Tossed around by his wrenched raw heart that’s only starting to recover, clinging to Leone and every piece of contentment it can. “I don’t,” he lies. Again.

Leone can tell. Again. Is still watching Bruno.

Scrunching his nose, Bruno will admit this for the sake of that smile (and his own hungry emotions). “I only like them on you.”

He doesn’t expect the way that Leone’s face flushes bright red, mouth going all wobbly as he refocuses on the piles of makeup in front of him. Completely charming – Bruno can’t stand this, being so close to him, making him blush and knowing it’s because he’s lucky enough to have a reciprocated crush.

Leone is crouching, now, scanning rows of product with a different sort of determination. He runs his fingers over lipstick color swatches before picking one out.

Then he stands up, his cheeks still hot, and holds it toward Bruno. “This one would look nice on you,” he says. Quiet and too-fast. “With your complexion. I mean.”

Bruno’s heart dissolves.

He doesn’t even look at the color for the longest time, too busy watching Leone’s earnest face. The way he flushes ever darker as he shifts from one foot to the other. His fingers twitching around that tiny cardboard box. But he doesn’t retract it.

Eventually, Bruno pulls himself together enough to take the lipstick. Careful, because if his fingers brush Leone’s hand right this second, Bruno will go the way of his poor obliterated heart.

It’s a muted peach color, if the colored sticker on the box is to believed. Pretty, Bruno thinks. Way lighter than anything Leone would select for himself. A matte finish. Bruno spends a long handful of seconds running his thumb over the shiny brand label, thinking about peach pressed to black – the light tremble in Leone’s fingers as he offered this – piece of himself –

“I’ve never worn makeup,” he whispers to no one. And he’s never thought about wearing it, either. Can’t deny that this color is pretty. Can’t stop staring at it while his box of feelings is rendered fragile.

A sharp inhale from Leone. Nervous. “You don’t ha–”

“Will you help me pick out more?”

That fading blush rushes right back to Leone’s cheeks, and he’s nodding. Smiling, again, only a small curve to his mouth but his contentment grows as he bounces around the aisle. Guides Bruno through products and colors with butterfly-inducing comments like, “I don’t think you need eyeliner, your eyes are so big, but you might want to wear some, so I think this one would be perfect,” and, “With lips like yours, you could get away with a tinted gloss like this one, if you wanted.”

And he doesn’t even seem to notice the implications of what he’s saying. Caught up in makeup-fueled enthusiasm. He’s especially beautiful, here. Natural and calm. In his element. Not at all uncomfortable in his skin, when he’s this buried in beauty recommendations.

The mood from the clothing stores is recaptured, might even be stronger, and Bruno is ecstatic. Flustered.

Wants to always see this expression on Leone’s face, and so hangs onto his every word, soaking up knowledge that he has no chance of remembering in full. Which is okay because he has Leone now, and – wow.

Bruno’s heart isn’t recovering from that whole dissolving issue any time soon.

“You know you’ll have to teach me how to put all this stuff on,” he’s saying, as Leone holds various blushes up beside Bruno’s face. Just to see what would look prettiest. (God. Bruno’s stomach is – he’s enamored.)

A whisper of plastic at Bruno’s cheek as Leone’s arm falls. Seems like he’s only just fully realized what he’s doing. He swallows. When he talks, his voice is soft. “…Of course.”

They stand there, for a moment. Facing each other.

Bruno can feel his face heating in time with Leone’s, but he wouldn’t dream of looking away.

This bizarre sort of spell only breaks when Leone clears his throat. Blinking twice, he lifts his left hand, back to scrutinizing Bruno alongside blush – probably easier, now that he’s sporting a natural flush – and sure enough, Leone nods. “Definitely this one,” he mutters.

Turns out they need a basket after all, for their heaps of makeup, and it swings from Leone’s arm, the two piles mixing as he shops. Pencils and brushes and glosses and glitter, eyeshadow and lipliner and concealer…eyelash curlers that Leone swears by…white eyeliner that he gushes over, because he could never use it, but it would look so nice, even just applied to the inside corners of Bruno’s eyes…

His enthusiasm is so contagious that Bruno grips Leone’s sleeve on their way to the checkout counter, stopping them both short. Turning them around and tugging Leone back into the fray because, “We forgot nail polish.”

It’s only fair that Leone gets to replenish this stock, too. Black and black-with-faint-sparkles. A top coat. Bruno picks out a shimmering gold that reminds him of Leone’s eyes.

And, god, who cares about that elderly woman who gives them the stink-eye before shoving off toward the next aisle over. The parents who turn cart and baby around to avoid them. That cashier that thumbs her nose at Bruno while he checks out with his mother’s credit card.

Bruno only has eyes for Leone.

-

Walking the streets with Leone nearby, the both of them laden with a healthy amount of shopping bags, is frighteningly domestic. They’re barely away from the drugstore and already Bruno’s mind is thinking of the metro thrill-ride that is standing or sitting close to Leone. Tangible solid warmth bumping into Bruno as they go.

He can’t believe he gets to experience that again. (Curious stares be damned.)

But for now, it’s just them and the sidewalk. Brushing shoulders with Leone down the street. No space between them, it would be so easy to reach out and touch him.

Calming that little thrill that races on a loop through Bruno’s chest is impossible. The closest it gets to stifling is when it runs into a wall of concern – because as wonderful as Leone’s company is, he’s been quiet since they left the store.

The furrow between his brows is back, and he stares only at the pavement ahead. Deep in thought. Not about anything good, Bruno guesses. Drooping, curled-in shoulders don’t imply comfort…

And a frown might be Leone’s default, but this one is too tense. It’s an expression he’s been wearing a lot, over the past couple of days. Whenever he falls quiet, and goes somewhere in his head, maybe to catalogue worries or relive terrors or ponder the ways he’s been uprooted. Bruno doesn’t know the specifics, and he isn’t about to ask. Not so soon, and definitely not in public.

What he will do, however, is nudge the back of his hand against Leone’s. Just a tiny touch, to show he’s here.

Somehow the both of them have wound up not carrying any bags in these hands that are side-by-side. A miraculous coincidence to be sure. Not at all one that Bruno instigated by shifting his load to one arm, when he spotted Leone’s empty hand.

Leone’s fingers are twitching in response to Bruno’s touch, which excites that fluttering in Bruno’s stomach. Watching Leone with a sidelong glance, Bruno notices the furrow in his brow easing.

That, of course, only encourages the hungry butterflies devouring Bruno’s insides. A sensation that goes fully wild when Bruno crosses the line and – grabs hold of Leone’s hand properly –

Long pale fingers close around his own, and just like that, Bruno’s heart is trying to beat its way out of his chest. He wonders if Leone can feel his pulse, where their hands are now intwined, all wrapped up in each other’s. Because he sure can feel the clamminess of Leone’s palm where it’s pressed to his own. And it’s so sweet. The way he shifts. Cheeks pink in the fading sunlight.

Bruno is in too deep and endlessly weak. He’ll hold Leone’s hand until the end of the world.

…Or at least until they’re home, and they have to part ways to wash up for dinner.

In the meanwhile, there’s him and Leone and the sunset. Equally as quiet as a moment ago, but Leone seems more relaxed; isn’t as stuck in his head anymore. The only underlying tension to be found now is that of uncharted territory.

It’s good, though.

So much that Bruno can ignore the dirty looks they’re getting. More of them, the closer to the metro station they get. One group of teens coming toward them on the sidewalk make particularly nasty faces –

They jeer as they pass. Rude words that match those scratched onto Leone’s desk, while they knock into his shoulder, making his shopping bags swing.

He doesn’t drop anything. Squeezes Bruno’s hand so impossibly tight. Stares at the ground, teeth grinding.

The butterflies in Bruno’s stomach start to curl up and die and he’s glaring before he knows what he’s doing. Scowling over his shoulder, more than ready to throw himself at those bastards who are still hurling insults –

But Leone keeps a tight hold of his hand and scurries onward. Head down and expression dark.

One of the boys behind them shouts, “Yeah, you better run away!” while throwing out even more slurs, and Bruno wants to kill him, for making Leone look like this. Punch him, at the very least. Minimum payback for that awful quiver at the corner of Leone’s mouth and the way he clings to Bruno’s hand like it’s the only thing keeping him afloat, knuckles white around his shopping bags.

“Don’t,” Leone mutters, and that too-full box of emotions in Bruno’s chest hurts, it’s so cramped in there. “Please.”

Bruno doesn’t have the heart to defy that.

(He’d rather stay here with Leone, anyway.)

-

The brush at Bruno’s eyelid is soft. A smooth, foreign sensation brought to him via Leone’s hand that’s scant centimeters away. Every time Bruno breathes, he’s aware of it there, steady and close as it spreads color over his skin.

Weird to think that Bruno could fall asleep like this – and some overexcited piece of him wouldn’t stand a chance at doing so – but. The closeness of Leone makes it plausible. Those soothing brushstrokes.

Gentle-warm fingertips that rub to blend or erase errors…

Yeah. Bruno could fall asleep here, if given enough time. The foundation was a little more annoying; a powder that made him sneeze, because according to Leone his skin doesn’t need the heavier liquid stuff. Concealer? Is there a difference? He doesn’t know. Might ask Leone later, but for now he’s content to bask in the eyeshadow application.

Leone is grumbling to himself about how, “Shit’s uneven, can’t believe this…” as he tips Bruno’s head this way and that to supposedly see him in better lighting. “Open your eyes?”

When Bruno does as asked, he’s met with scrutinizing gold. Leone is stunning, in the stark bright bathroom. His makeup is back on him for the first time in days, fetching black lipstick at his mouth and shimmery white on the sharp of his cheekbones, dark eyebrows and thick mascara.

That frown looks properly intense, now, decked out as it is. Bruno can’t take his eyes off of it, even as his head is tipped to the side again. (That point of contact is also cause for butterflies.)

Shaking his head, Leone says, “Close them again.”

That soft brush returns the second Bruno’s eyes settle shut, Leone blowing spare dust off of it before bringing it to Bruno’s skin.

“Just a little more on this one,” is Leone’s promise.

Bruno doesn’t mind. He’ll happily sit here all night and well into tomorrow with Leone’s gentle hands traversing his face. But. Be that as it may: “I’m sure it looks perfect.”

There’s that little scoff of laughter from Leone. “Don’t expect a masterpiece. I’ve never done this on another person before.”

“And I’ve never painted nails before,” Bruno says, careful to hold as still as he can while Leone continues on with that eyeshadow. “Mine or anyone else’s.” And yet Leone was filled to the brim with flustered excitement when Bruno offered to do it for him. Sat there blushing through his makeup as Bruno’s clumsy fingers slathered too much black over his fingernails and beyond. (Nothing like the neat, golden job Leone did on Bruno’s nails.)

Leone pauses for a moment, then pokes Bruno’s nose with the plastic end of that applicator brush. He clears his throat, and it’s easy to picture red on his cheeks when he grumbles, “You did fine. The extra stuff’ll wash off.”

“Same for the makeup.” And Bruno really isn’t fussed about it looking perfect, anyway.

“No,” Leone is quick to protest. “You need lotion to get this shit off, or makeup wipes. But if you use the wipes you have to wash your face afterward, even if they claim you don’t. That’s bullshit and you’ll break out. Trust me.”

Oh, Bruno trusts Leone more than it’s possible to trust anyone, and not only when it comes to skincare advice. “I do.” Somehow those two little words will have to suffice to convey everything that’s coiled warm in Bruno’s chest courtesy of Leone.

They’re enough to get Leone to go quiet. The expert touches of that brush taper off, then his hand falls away.

The click of an eyeshadow palette closing sounds, and when Bruno opens his eyes, he can see that Leone is blushing. Fresh pink spreading under his makeup as he focuses too-intently on sifting through the beauty products piled on the vanity. Bruno, for his part, watches those shuffling black-tipped fingers for a moment.

They pick up a slender box, Leone peeling at the plastic seal on it as he faces Bruno again. “If you trust me,” he says, almost tentative, “then can I try some eyeliner?”

An automatic smile pulls one corner of Bruno’s mouth, and Leone returns it. Much to the delight of Bruno’s run-amok feelings.

“Just on the bottom,” Leone is saying. He gets that little box open, and tips a dark pencil-but-not-quite into his palm. “You really don’t need it, but it’ll…” He goes pinker. Shuffles in front of Bruno, who sits peering up at him transfixed. “…Bring out your eyes.”

Why on earth would Bruno refuse?

“Go ahead.”

Leone’s head dips on a nod, and he pops the cap off of that not-pencil. Plastic gives way to a thin stick of makeup, tapered toward the tip. “It might feel a bit weird.”

“That’s fine.” Bruno’s felt a bit weird his entire life by now. Grows weirder every day. Doesn’t care.

When Leone has him look up, he moves willingly. Rolling his eyes toward the ceiling while gentle fingertips adjust the angle of his head and a thumb braces just beneath the lower lid of his eye – he cannot be blamed for blinking at the first ticklish touch of the eyeliner. Or even the second. Thank you very much.

He does his best to hold still after that, but he can’t help but think that ‘a bit weird’ was an understatement, here.

“Sorry,” Leone says, when Bruno flinches for the fifth time. He did, at least, get one eye done and is working on the second. A record that Bruno is proud of. “I’m tight-lining them, it looks better this way…”

“Feels like poking to me.”

Bruno would regret saying so aloud without thought, if not for the way Leone scoffs out a laugh at it. “I actually poked myself in the eye a lot when I first started; it’s way worse than this.”

And that…has Bruno wondering all over again, where Leone learned all this. Whether it was trial-and-error alone, or glimpses of magazines that taught him. Did that trial-and-error take place in the school bathroom? Just Leone and his beat-up old makeup bag, struggling to put on his eyeliner before the bell, hoping that none of the other boys would burst in and…

Bully, badger, or mistreat him.

Unless they were too busy leaving rude notes on his desk for that.

Huh. Look at that. This train of thought is so infuriating that it keeps Bruno from blinking long enough that Leone can finish his eyeliner, and he’s being told to look forward again. Like this, Leone makes little adjustments. His expression set and his hand steady, as he accentuates the lines beneath Bruno’s eyes.

“Better,” he mumbles to himself, capping the eyeliner. This, too, is set aside. Blindly, while Leone continues to scrutinize Bruno’s face.

…No, such a thing is not good for Bruno’s heart. It beats too fast, too easy these days.

This condition is not at all improved by Leone reaching out with both hands to rub his thumbs over Bruno’s eyebrows – smoothing them with a firm-warm touch that’s got goosebumps erupting down Bruno’s forearms – his breath hitching – softly, so hopefully Leone doesn’t notice –

Those thumbs stroke again. The rest of Leone’s fingers rest light on Bruno’s cheeks, braced there. Surely they can feel the rising heat. Leone’s blushing, too, after all. Hasn’t really stopped since the last time.

He seems to notice what he’s doing, and yanks his hands back as if burnt.

“I –” A pause, while Leone clears his throat. Rubs his fingertips on the fabric of his borrowed shirt. “You’d probably kill me if I plucked those, huh?”

Ignoring the too-fast tumble of those words is only polite. Bruno isn’t sure he’ll fare much better, considering how it takes him an entire minute to work out the fact that Leone is talking about plucking Bruno’s eyebrows. A hard no, for sure. That kind of thing hurts, doesn’t it? Worse than the eyeliner, he suspects…

“I like them like this,” Bruno admits, because he does.

Leone’s face is aflame. “Me – me too.” And, oh, now he looks scandalized, as if that admission threw itself out of his mouth –

But Bruno’s heart just beats all the heavier at it, those butterflies in his stomach raising a fuss.

His fingers and focus back on the makeup pile, Leone digs through products in pursuit of an eyebrow pencil, and Bruno’s insides go wild again, when he notices that it’s the same one Leone used on himself. Black, but it won’t stand out on Bruno like it does Leone, whose white brows are fully covered.

Stepping on the soft of this moment feels strange, but Bruno has a sudden curiosity and has to ask, “Do you pluck yours?” It’s not like he’d be able to tell if Leone did, unless he looked much closer. (He’d love to do so.)

For a minute, Leone doesn’t answer, all of his focus occupied filling Bruno’s eyebrows. They don’t need much help, thick as they are.

“No,” Leone says at length. Two more flicks of that brow pencil and he’s pulling it away, capping it. “I…tried it once.”

Oh.

The weight of that implies that there’s more to this story. There’s always more and Bruno just keeps bringing it up so carelessly –

“Dad wasn’t happy to catch me doing it.” And Leone is trying to make light of that detail, halfheartedly fishing at the makeup pile with one hand, but his heart isn’t in it, and his head is years and years away. Tangled up in the past. His mouth presses into a thinning line of black as he absently rolls a tube of lip gloss back and forth. “To say the least.”

A devastating, sticky sort of feeling clings at Bruno’s ribs. Maybe some remnant of his box’s initial overflow, roused back sore by this dejected picture of Leone. His eyes wet and expression twisting sour.

Bruno can’t look away. Doesn’t know what to say to fix it.

“Did he hit you?”

That shaky whisper certainly won’t help – oh, hell, Bruno wants to take it back, knows he shouldn’t pry – but he’s scared. Afraid for Leone during all those long years before this week. After throwing out their own son, Bruno can’t put anything past Leone’s parents.

Eyes downcast (but still so wet), Leone mutters, “No.” Then he shrugs one heavy shoulder. “Was just rough. Grabbed me and told me only girls did that, and I’m a man.” He pauses, frozen still. “I was eleven, I think.”

He’s looking away, now, focus zeroed in on that pile of makeup as he sorts it in a way that Bruno can’t try to make sense of at the moment, because he’s still stuck on Leone. That dip in his brows and the quiver at the corner of his mouth. The way his hands start to shake like they were earlier. He knows how his father responded was wrong. He has to know – Bruno can’t take it, and reaches out to rest a palm over Leone’s knuckles.

“He shouldn’t have said that,” Bruno breathes out. He doesn’t trust himself to speak any louder.

Leone freezes for another moment. Bends downward a little, over their connected hands. “It could’ve been worse.”

And Bruno won’t argue with him – can’t argue with him, right now. Not with that morose curl to his spine and the way he’s wiping the tip of his nose on his wrist. Wet eyes resolutely don’t drip over, and Leone swears, his hand slipping out from beneath Bruno’s.

“S’good thing I got the waterproof,” Leone is grumbling, as he adjusts in the mirror. He wipes away imperfections that don’t exist, his eyes easing from red. He sniffles twice more.

His armor is fully back in place by the time he’s looking at Bruno – who unfortunately isn’t having much luck with his worn-thin feelings box. The thing is a pile of rickety lumber at this rate, poised to collapse at any given time, cracks so big everything flows out no matter how Bruno fights to keep it in. That level of upset has to show on his face.

Leone, though, plows on.

“You need mascara,” he says, plucking a tube off the counter. “Then lipstick, and you’ll be done.”

Bruno won’t push. If Leone wants to brush this off, Bruno will let it fall to the bathroom floor, where it’ll be swept under the rug. Cleared away properly at some point in the future, when they both have more strength to deal with it.

Slowly, he nods.

Surrenders his eyes to Leone’s reckoning yet again, and learns that the eyelash curler isn’t as lethal as it appears.

-

“Hey. Pretty boy.”

Bruno ignores that hissing voice in favor of staring hard at last night’s homework. Math problems he didn’t complete, because he was too busy laughing with Leone in the bathroom, flicking water back and forth while washing their hands. Then helping Leone load up his shiny new makeup bag. Falling asleep with Leone’s fingers laced in his, Leone reaching up from the mattress on the floor while Bruno’s hand dangled over the edge of the bed…

“Hey.”

That intrusive, unfriendly voice is louder, now. Spewing much worse than ‘pretty boy’.

Still, Bruno ignores it. He doesn’t have any time for Alessandro’s antics, and would rather focus on the memory of Leone’s tearful blush. Earned when Bruno’s mother and stepfather told Leone he looked nice. That he did a good job on Bruno’s makeup, too.

A small, crumpled piece of paper lands on Bruno’s homework, and he brushes it off to the floor. Then does the same with the next three.

Leone was so comfortable and happy. Grinning at the kitchen table while they ate cookies and Bruno’s mother braided his hair, because Leone quietly admitted he wants to grow his own hair long and she is now determined to teach him how to keep it out of his face in as many ways as she knows.

Bruno’s entire desk jolts, and his pencil scrapes a line across his notebook paper.

“Hey, fuckwit,” Alessandro says, aiming another kick at the nearest leg of Bruno’s desk. “Did all that ass pounding fuck up your hearing or some shit?”

The flat-out nonexistent logic of that question aside, Bruno is in no mood right now. Will never be in the mood again, to take this spewed garbage lying down.

But he promised Leone that there would be no punching in class, and so he raises his head as calmly as he can. Lifts his chin and stares hard into cold hazel. There’s still the fading yellow of a bruise around Alessandro’s eye, which is pretty damn satisfying. (Darkening it over again would be more satisfying, but no punching in class.) “I would’ve answered you if you’d used my name.”

That Alessandro is over here at all is quite brave of him. This is the closest he’s gotten since the incident a couple weeks ago. Whatever it is that pushed him to stop behaving can’t be good, and lo and behold:

“How’s your boyfriend?”

Bruno has to wrestle with his heart a bit, here, and remind it that a bully sneering the word boyfriend about Leone is nothing to get excited over…

Frustration wins out pretty quick, something defensive swelling in Bruno’s chest to overcome that silly fluttering. He narrows his eyes at Alessandro. Knows exactly who put those pictures in Leone’s mailbox. “What do you mean?”

Alessandro shrugs. His posture is flippant, as he leans on the edge of the desk-that-used-to-be-Leone’s, and an easy, cruel grin stretches his mouth. “Nothing,” he says. Innocent. “Just wondered if he was rotting in a pit somewhere after his parents finally snapped and did him in for being a –”

Vision dark and pencil tip broken, Bruno stands up out of his seat. “Shut up.”

That horrible ugly jeer on Alessandro’s face creases deeper. He’s standing too close. Bruno has never hated anyone more. (Except Leone’s parents but they aren’t here to face the brunt of his anger.)

“Or maybe,” Alessandro muses, “he did us that favor himself –”

“Shut up.” Bruno has to physically bite his tongue. His gold-painted fingernails are digging hard into his palms and he really, really wants to hit something. Someone. Wants to knock that smirk right off of Alessandro’s smug face – again because he clearly didn’t learn his lesson the first fucking time and he’s still talking shit about Leone even when he’s not here and Bruno won’t take this. The box in his chest is too fragile. “If you don’t stop talking about him like that, I’ll…”

Nothing. Bruno can’t do a single thing. Not to help Leone, and not to teach Alessandro a lesson, either.

That’s just the shit way of the world and Bruno could cry.

But he doesn’t.

A vicious scoff from Alessandro. “You’ll what?” comes the inevitable taunt. “Punch me again? Right in front of everyone, when our teacher’ll be here any minute…?” He shakes his head, and no matter how hard Bruno is trying to breathe deep and stay calm, all he gets is the scent of that over-applied cologne. “Nah, you wouldn’t dare. Lawful Leone wouldn’t like that, rest his –”

“Oh, fuck off, Alessandro, or I’ll punch you next time.”

That’s a new voice. One of many heads turned to watch their altercation, but Bruno spots the girl who spoke toward the front of the class. Long, dark ponytail. Claire, or maybe Clara? (She’s friends with the kid in the glasses next to her, that gave Bruno the notes he missed when he was absent the other day.)

She’s thrown Alessandro for a loop. It’s kind of satisfying, to see him flounder like this. And she means business, too. Bruno remembers something about karate from her poem…

The white-hot anger in Bruno’s chest will take a long time to dissipate, and he can’t promise that he won’t deck Alessandro the next time they cross paths in public – but he can control himself, for now. Especially with their teacher strolling in, bidding them good morning, oblivious to the tension as everyone resettles.

Even Alessandro trudges back to his seat. Grumbles, “Tch, whatever. Lucky I don’t hit girls, dumb bitch…”

It’s so…absurd. Surreal, maybe.

Bruno can’t help but wonder what Leone would make of it all. He sinks slowly to his seat, returning Clara’s (Claire’s?) thumbs-up with a weak hand as he goes. He can already tell he won’t be able to focus today, either, saddled with this restless fury and Alessandro tossing scathing looks every ten minutes.

The teacher skipping Leone’s name during rollcall doesn’t help.

-

At the end of this school day – just like yesterday – Bruno packs up his things and leaves without a word to anyone. Alessandro’s boldness (if he needs a refresher course Bruno will give him one, especially in defense of Leone, who is only trying to live his life as best he can and didn’t deserve years of torment, didn’t deserve to be outed – and now Alessandro thinks he can – joke about it –) and the other students showing contempt on Bruno’s behalf when they never offered it on Leone’s –

Everything has left Bruno more than eager for the soothing presence that is Leone. Getting to coexist in close quarters with him is only strengthening these feelings. Which might hurt in the long run, but…

Stepping back is no use, now that he knows Leone feels the same.

So, seeing him there, sitting on the front steps of Bruno’s house is…indescribable. The urge to run to him and sweep him up in a dramatic hug like they do in the movies is strong.

Heart in his throat, Bruno manages to control his pace. Just barely.

The closer he gets, the harder it gets – but for the disheartening reason that Leone’s posture is less than reassuring. His feet are propped on the step beneath where he’s sitting and his arms are folded in close to his stomach, resting on his thighs. He’s staring hard at the pavement with that increasingly familiar deep frown in place and his eyes far away.

A hug might not be uncalled for after all. Bruno’s feet speed up without his consent, walking him too-fast but he doesn’t bother to control them.

Leone doesn’t notice Bruno until he’s right at the base of the stairs. When those golden eyes look up, they go mournful, sending Bruno’s heart plummeting into his stomach. The makeup is reassuring, at least. That Leone feels comfortable enough to be wearing it, even at home with just Bruno’s mother…that means something.

“Bruno,” Leone mumbles, feet shuffling down a step and eyebrows dipping in that tragic way they do.

And, god, it’s still wonderful to see him. Butterflies are nibbling Bruno’s heart where it landed in his stomach. A complete mess. “Did something happen?” he asks, because he hasn’t seen Leone look like this since his first morning here when he told his story to Bruno’s parents. “Why are you out here?”

Standing up, Leone descends the last couple of stairs. “I was waiting for you,” he admits – more mumbling – but Bruno’s chewed-up heart latches onto the words, that flush on Leone’s cheeks. He’s standing right in front of Bruno, now. Within arm’s reach.

His fatigue is tangible, from here. Bruno should ask if he wants to switch places, tonight, and sleep on the actual bed. (Or maybe he’ll want to share, despite the mortifying rule Bruno’s mother whispered to him in all her intuitive glory – he didn’t even say anything, about Leone’s confession – isn’t sure his mother is even sure they’re together – which they’re not, officially. Are they? Doesn’t matter. Not right now.

Point is. If they share a bed again. She doesn’t have to know.)

“My parents answered the phone today,” Leone says. Spits all the words out at once as if they hurt.

They probably do – they hurt Bruno, at least, who slams a lid on his out-of-control thoughts. More than anything, he wants to reach out for Leone, who’s staring hard at his own hands, twisting his fingers together.

Bruno doesn’t pry, waiting for Leone to gather words behind the tense set of his mouth. Eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Bruno’s fingers twitch around the strap of his messenger bag.

“They agreed to let me come get some of my things, but they don’t want to see me. Especially…looking like this.”

Dread swells thick through Bruno. One of his hands lifts toward Leone, lands on the side of his forearm. It gets a shivering sort of reaction out of him, a move that just barely trembles down his spine, and he’s shaking his head, shuffling the tiniest bit closer, still not raising his downcast gaze to meet Bruno’s eyes.

A deep breath, and then Leone keeps talking. “It’s okay. I don’t want to see them either.”

Fingers gliding down Leone’s arm, Bruno grabs hold of his hand instead; Leone grips him in turn, warm and sure. Hopefully bolstered. Bruno still doesn’t have words.

Mascara-coated lashes flutter as Leone blinks wet from his eyes, squeezes Bruno’s hand and hangs his head. It doesn’t do much to hide his sore frown, or that light pink that clings to his cheeks. He’s too tall for that. Bruno is too close.

“They won’t be home, tonight. Said they’d,” Leone swallows, “leave the door unlocked.” Bruno wants to hold Leone so bad that he aches with it, but Leone keeps talking, looks ashamed when he has no reason to be. “Your mom’s going with me, just in case.” And now his eyes finally flicker up toward Bruno’s. They’re so bright, out here in the sunshine. “Can you come, too?”

“Of course.”

Bruno would go anywhere, with Leone.

Which…sounds dramatic. But it’s true. And least of all is Bruno about to let Leone walk back into that house alone. (Without Bruno.)

Leone’s head dips again, on a nod this time, and he mumbles out a soft, “Thanks.” Then he straightens, leans that much closer, and presses a light-quick kiss to Bruno’s head. Dark lipstick landing in equally dark hair and oh –

That’s all it takes for Bruno’s heart to float from his stomach to his chest, beating rapid-fire.

All he can do is stare stunned at that flushed red face, as Leone turns and starts to lead the way inside. Up the porch steps, still holding onto Bruno’s hand, and Bruno doesn’t know what to say, couldn’t possibly get words out like this. That mess of feelings that refuses to be contained in his box is fully riled.

He…should probably get to work constructing a bigger box – one more Leone-sized, maybe – but he’ll be selfish a little bit longer. Hold fast to Leone’s hand and bask in the ghost of that shy kiss.

Leone asks, “How was your day?” as he opens the front door. An attempt to reclaim a casual atmosphere, Bruno thinks. Which might be a lost cause.

It’s fine.

Everything is fine, all of a sudden. Bruno doesn’t have the heart to bring up the macabre rumors of Leone’s death or Alessandro’s taunts now. They seem like such small things, compared to Leone’s parents, Leone’s presence, Leone’s kiss.

Something about stepping into his house hand-in-hand with Leone aggravates all those mixed feelings in Bruno’s gut – there’s no use unpacking any of it now. He can do that later.

For now, it’s enough to sugarcoat his day with an, “It was fine.”

More than enough, actually, when Leone’s mouth twitches toward a weak smile in return.

-

Bruno’s mother drives them to Leone’s house. (Old house, now.)

Leone tells her that it’s not necessary, because it isn’t so far away that they can’t walk, but she counters with a, “Don’t be silly, sweetheart, there’s no reason for you to lug all your belongings down the street when I have a perfectly good car.”

To that, Leone has no argument.

And Bruno is grateful, because he can’t picture a more miserable sight than Leone hauling the remaining pieces of his life around in a suitcase. No matter for how short of a trip.

So, car parked out front, Bruno follows his mother and Leone up onto that familiar porch. From the outside, the house looks exactly the same as he remembers – not a speck of dirt in sight, a tidy lawn, and even a picturesque flower bed. The sparkling car is absent from the driveway. For an hour. An hour.

God – Leone’s parents gave him an hour to sort through his possessions and decide what to keep – and even that had to be wrenched out of them against their will…

That urge to hold Leone rears its head again.

By this point, Bruno has to wonder if he means to comfort himself or Leone more, by doing so. (Leone. Definitely Leone, Bruno’s heavy heart knows that much.)

…The front door is locked.

Leone reaches out to try the handle, with Bruno watching over his shoulder, but it doesn’t budge. The lock holds fast, and Bruno’s heart just keeps sinking the longer Leone stands there with his hand resting on the elaborate fixture. His shoulders rise tight and then go lax. His expression darkens. Frown tugging down at one corner.

Bruno opens his mouth to say something, and his mother is halfway through her, “Sweetheart,” when Leone turns on his heel.

For a moment it seems like he’s storming away – but he nudges a potted plant to the side with his foot, huffs at the nothing underneath it, and then grumbles, “Wait here.” He walks the generous length of the porch to the farthest window, presses his palms to the glass, and heaves upward. It opens for him, and he climbs inside. Awkward, thanks to long limbs and broadening shoulders, but. He makes it.

All the while Bruno watches him with a horrible coldness in his gut. His mother reaches out to squeeze his shoulder when they’re alone on the porch. Everything about this is so unfair. Bruno wants to go home. Take Leone along and curl around him in bed under the covers or maybe ask him for another makeover.

Anything to get Leone anywhere but here on the threshold of this horrible memory.

The door opens, then, revealing Leone in all his downcast glory. His cheeks are flushed in shame, now, as he stands aside to let Bruno and his mother in.

Bruno’s heart is so sore he’s sure it’ll burst. He goes inside for Leone.

It’s…as neat as ever, in here. A place for everything and everything in its place (so long as it’s all something that Leone’s parents haven’t deemed unsightly or unfit, Bruno knows, now). Those same couches that look barely sat on. That pristine white carpet that’s just as pristine as it was a few short weeks ago. The atmosphere that was barely homey to begin with is colder. The gleaming water-ring-free coffee table looks bleak.

…There are less pictures on the walls.

That…might have something to do with the downgrade.

Following Leone’s example of staring straight ahead and refusing to look around would be best, but Bruno can’t help himself. Even as he stays glued to Leone’s back on the stairs, he’s looking around.

Though he does refocus when Leone grumbles under his breath. Something that sounds like, “Should unlock all their windows…hope they get burglarized…” And Bruno has to smile, just the littlest bit.

His mother follows them up – a move that he suspects is due in part to her curiosity, because he’s learned that she’s a bit of a gossip hound. Thanks to her scandalous phone conversations and things she’s shared over dinner, Bruno knows more than he needs to about some of her colleagues –

But even she stops short at the top of the stairs. Tuts loudly in disapproval. Nudges past where Leone is stuck frozen. Stands in the center of the hallway, hands on her hips and a frown on her face.

His stomach hurting, Bruno reaches for Leone’s hand.

It stays lax in his own. Leone is too busy staring hard at the trio of garbage bags lined up in the hall. An orderly path that leads toward the cracked-open door of his old bedroom.

The picture on the wall of a younger Leone sitting on his father’s shoulders is gone. There aren’t many hanging in this little hallway at all, anymore. A few pictures of parents and grandparents with hollow spaces between them where Leone used to be. One vacation photo is too thin for its frame. Leone cut out of the family with scissors and thrown away just like that.

Leone’s hand is trembling. Bruno’s throat hurts right along with his stomach.

“They should be ashamed of themselves,” his mother says.

And Bruno knows she means that, because even she kept a picture of him when they were at their farthest apart. It was very outdated, by the time he moved in, but. She never tried to throw him away.

This is…

Lowering his head, Leone makes a beeline for his room. His hand slips out of Bruno’s, and that hurts for all of two seconds before he latches onto Bruno’s fingers instead. The gentlest sort of touch, his pointer and middle fingers curled light around Bruno’s.

Requesting that he come along. Not dragging him insistent by the wrist like last time.

Not that Bruno needs any persuasion to stay at Leone’s side.

Leone doesn’t give the stuffed-full garbage bags another glance, although once he and Bruno are inside the bedroom it’s obvious that some of them have to have been filled with items from in here.

The place is ransacked. Mildly, sure, but still fucking…overturned and violated and dug through. Leone’s backpack dumped in the middle of the floor. Top two drawers of the dresser tugged open and left that way. Closet door gaping, stacked shoeboxes and sweaters spilling over the carpet. Dark blue comforter rumpled awry and luggage sticking out from under the bed and a single broken hanger lying nearby with a black denim jacket halfway off of it.

Bruno shoves his swollen heart into the box of feelings in his chest because he’s not about to cry right here and now, when Leone needs him to be strong.

“What did they do here…?” The words leak out of Bruno’s mouth on a whisper.

Pale, shaky fingers slip free of Bruno’s, and Leone scratches at the side of his nose with one black-painted nail. “It was, um…” His eyes are wet, but he walks further inside. “Most of this happened the night I left.” He nudges at a wrinkled schoolbook with the toe of his sneaker, and it slips off of the top of its messy pile.

Oh.

“They were…looking for my makeup. Dad yelled the whole time, and I couldn’t stop…” His breath hitches, and Bruno feels an echoing jolt in his own chest, his eyes too hot. “Fucking crying…”

Swearing, Leone shoves the heels of his hands to his eyes, holding them there. It only smudges his waterproof mascara a little bit, and Bruno is drawn in toward him. Wants to hold and comfort and love until the pain stops – but –

This isn’t the type of pain that just stops, he doesn’t think. It’ll fade with time, maybe. A long way off.

Paltry words will have to do, in the meanwhile. They’re all Bruno can offer, spoken softly, close to Leone. “You didn’t do anything to deserve that, Leone. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Leone shakes his head like he’s dismissing that, dragging both hands through his short white hair.

“Do you want these bags to look through later?” Bruno’s mother says gently, popping her head in. She stays leaned in the doorway, looking the room over with a crestfallen expression that morphs into care when her gaze lands on Leone. It makes Bruno’s chest feel the tiniest bit warmer.

“No,” Leone says. It seems like he’s coming back to himself a bit, as he glances around the room. “I won’t miss whatever’s in them.”

“You’re sure?”

A nod from Leone, and Bruno’s mother slips back into the hallway with a quiet confirmation – but then Leone perks up and calls, “Wait –”

And she’s back just like that.

“Can you, um…check them for me? It’s just – my phone isn’t here and it…has all my contacts…”

“Of course, sweetheart. I’ll let you know if I find it, okay?”

Another nod in response, because it seems like Leone’s nearing his limit for spoken words. His eyes are all wet again. Bruno’s mother steps back into the hallway, and soon there’s the rustle of a garbage bag being reopened.

…For a long moment, Leone stands frozen in the middle of his room. Bruno lingers close. Wants to hold him. To thumb the tear tracks off of his cheeks and kiss the crease in his brow – and he can. He’s allowed, now, he thinks. Maybe?

Too bad he’s just as frozen.

When he manages to shuffle a step closer, Leone melts toward him –

Something in Bruno snaps. It’s nothing like that painful breakage during the fight with Alessandro, and is instead fully soft. Warmer and more subtle, it propels him around to Leone’s front and lifts his hands to cup that angular jaw and wipe away the few tears that have escaped.

Leone’s quivering eyebrows dip on that dramatic pained expression of his. The tip of his nose is reddening along with his eyelids, and he sniffles. Golden eyes sorrowful-wet.

“You’re safe,” Bruno whispers. Isn’t sure why he says that. There’s a lump in his throat that keeps him from speaking louder or elaborating. He is frustratingly useless, here.

“Yeah…”

That single word is barely-there, just like Leone’s fingertips on the back of Bruno’s left hand. So light they almost tickle, until Leone grabs hold of that palm and clings to it. Guides it away from his face in the process but this works, too, because it’s not like contact is lost.

The two of them are kept just as close…

It’s strange. To feel giddy and desolate all at once. Bruno wonders if caring for Leone will always be this way.

“I should…” Leone steps back, giving one last squeeze before he drops Bruno’s hand. The other one slips from his cheek as he heads for that suitcase halfway out from under the bed. His voice stays low as he talks. “See what I can pack. I know I want that jacket, and my Monteverdi collection should be here somewhere…”

A bizarre fondness swells alongside the anguish in Bruno’s chest. Leone liking Monteverdi is charming. Typical of him, somehow, and Bruno picks up that discarded black jean jacket to pull it from its broken hanger and fold it as best he can.

CDs, an MP3 player, a couple of books, one pillow, other favorite clothing pieces, two pairs of boots, several stowed-away necklaces, a single tiny container of shimmery eyeshadow that missed the trash, a piece of paper bearing Leone’s aunt’s phone number that he had taped to the inside of his bedframe, retrieved when it turns out his parents smashed his phone –

All of this is packed neatly into that lone suitcase. Bruno holds himself together. They talk, some. Little bits of banter that ring just a little bit hollow. But it’s better than crying. (Bruno is tired of crying.)

Helping Leone pack up assorted items from his room is domestic and melancholy and reminds Bruno too much of when he had to shove himself into so few boxes. Load them up into his mom’s car and move away from the familiarity of the sea. He collided with this city, back then, and might very well have been swallowed by it, if it weren’t for Leone – who is now stuck in the same miserable cycle and it isn’t fair.

What Bruno left behind and what Leone is leaving behind are different. But. Childhood homes are…

There’s a lightened stain on the carpet where a younger Leone used a product with too much bleach to try and hide a spill. Scratches on the dented walls from haphazardly rearranged furniture. Even a safety pin in the back of his desk drawer that he shows to Bruno – says he tried to pierce his ear with it (something else that did not go over well with his parents).

All these little pieces of Leone that’ll be left behind, forgotten or scattered. It feels odd to look at them with fondness, but Bruno doesn’t know what else to do. He’ll hang onto these memories. Even the ones that Leone discards.

It’s the least he can do.

-

Leone sits at Bruno’s desk, turning the scrap of paper over in his hands. Leftover tape is folded around the sides of it, and the number is penned in blue ink. Has a hasty sort of look to it.

“…I don’t know if I want to leave,” he says.

Every single one of Bruno’s heartstrings is tugged on at once, and he holds tight to the back of the desk chair. Tries not to outwardly display anything as he says, “You’re always welcome here.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all. Because he knows that Leone could do well with someone who’s lived through being disowned by their family before – a positive influence to guide him forward with open acceptance, help him adjust and shoulder his grief – Bruno’s counselor said something similar about his situation.

Never mind that Leone’s been officially pulled out of school. And distance wouldn’t hurt him either. (Definitely wouldn’t bring him the pain it brought Bruno.)

But…

Bruno is selfish and he wants Leone with him – and his parents wouldn’t mind –

It’s stupid. Bruno is being so stupid, letting his feelings win.

“She’s never had kids,” Leone is saying now, skimming over the topic of staying here. There’s a frown on his face, not as pained as usual, maybe. Severe black lipstick making it appear more intense than it is. “I don’t even know if she’d want me around.”

Bruno shrugs. Tips his head to try and look Leone in the eye. “My mother got accustomed to me.”

A deep sigh, pulled in through Leone’s nose and let out slow from his mouth, a little shaky. “I grew up here,” he says.

Then stay, Bruno wants to tell him. But he knows it isn’t that simple. Doesn’t think that’s what’s best. The way that Leone almost broke down while stepping over the threshold of his old house for the final time is enough to testify to that.

“And…” Now, Leone’s eyes lift to Bruno. That downward curve to his mouth eases, some. “You’re here.”

Bruno’s heart skips a beat and it hurts. Feels good. He is infatuated. Likes Leone so much that his lungs seize up for a moment, his breath caught on long dark lashes and honeyed gold eyes. He could sink into their depths and live there, cozy until the end of his days. Don’t stay for me, he can’t say. “I’ll always be here,” he can say. Does say.

That frown on Leone’s face is fragile, now, all wobbly like it gets when he might cry. His cheeks are going pink, and he sets the phone number down.

“I’ll decide tomorrow.”

-

Another school day proves that the rumors surrounding Leone’s permanent absence won’t be easily dispelled – they’ve even grown, somehow – but Bruno leaves the grounds in high spirits at the end of it. Muffled excitement builds in the pit of his stomach as he goes, and he frees it, just a little, from its boxed-up prison for this afternoon’s special occasion.

It’s…silly. Considering these past days have already been tantamount to a prolonged sleepover with Leone and therefore wonderful, between the pain.

But today…

Bruno will get home early, and there’s no school tomorrow – and just last night, he dug through his little box of treasures from home to find his lovingly worn copy of Il Postino. The VHS skips in a few places, if he’s remembering right, and he hasn’t watched it since before he lost his father. He…hasn’t had the stomach to handle yet another sore reminder of home and long-lost cozy nights.

Now, though. He has Leone. Someone who makes dusting off old memories hurt less.

God, that tiny smirk Leone got when he read the summary on the back already helped. As did his accusation that Bruno is a romantic. Accompanied by that blush when Leone realized what he said.

And Leone agreed to watch it, just like that. Even mentioned he’d walk to the store for snacks.

Bruno’s mother and stepfather have a bit of their own shopping to do, later. So if all goes well Bruno will get to spend two hours curled up on the couch beside Leone. He is determined to work up the courage to lean into that warm side, soak up the comfort that is Leone’s presence and hope he can offer some in return, because Leone deserves it.

All things considered, Bruno cannot be blamed for bouncing restless on his toes a few times while waiting for the train doors to glide open.

(He steadfastly will not think on how this might very well be one of Leone’s last days here with him. It’s much better to focus on the bright side, and think only of the time he has…)

Good cheer carries Bruno up the front steps and into his house –

Where his mother comes to greet him.

He knows something is wrong the minute she hits the entryway. Her brows are creased on a frown, and she looks…sort of like she did when Bruno broke in front of her. A secondhand hurt.

“Sweetheart,” she says, in that same careful tone she used when she found Leone’s destroyed phone in that garbage bag. Her fingers brush the ends of his hair and land on his shoulder, and he has to swallow his heart. Won’t jump to conclusions. “Something happened to Leone, today.”

“Is he alright?” Bruno is asking before she even has all the words out.

“He’s not physically hurt,” meaning he isn’t fine emotionally, “but he was upset when he got back from the store. He didn’t want to talk about what happened, and I didn’t want to push…”

It’s understandable. Bruno hasn’t pushed, either. Hasn’t wanted to. Some horrible piece of him resents that he’s had to leave Leone alone to cope with whatever this is – no matter how the logical part of him protests that he couldn’t have known. Can’t stay home from school every day, and there’s no saying whether Leone would want to confide in him even if he was around.

But he could’ve gone with Leone, to the store. Could’ve been waiting here, at least, as a safe presence afterward – Leone said that, about Bruno feeling safe, when he confessed – god, cracking this box of feelings was a mistake –

A deep breath. Bruno reins himself in.

“Where is he?”

“In your room.”

Breezing past his mother – and his stepfather, who’s wandered to the mouth of the entryway, by now – Bruno rushes for the stairs. He has to see Leone safe.

“Bruno.”

That’s his stepfather. Bruno stops on the stairs, and pokes his head over the railing. Can’t talk right now, heart’s in his throat and won’t stop beating a frantic rhythm there but he’s sure it’s so much worse for Leone –

“Do you want us to stay home?”

…Hm.

Some still-small piece of Bruno is soothed, by that offer. He appreciates that it exists, because his parents have their place, for sure. Helped to show Leone that he can be cared for and accepted as he is. Have been invaluable, when it comes to digging up Leone’s options for school. They’ve put him up in their house while he recovers from this blow, and given him a safe place to land, and Bruno is grateful.

“That’s alright.” If this is anything like the last time, though, Bruno isn’t sure there’s anything to be done except to hold Leone through the immediate aftermath. “You can go.”

With that, he flashes them a smile that might look more like a grimace, and speeds up the rest of the stairs. He hears his mother call up about having her phone if he needs them for anything and he shouts his acknowledgement – and then they’re gone and he’s in his room, tossing his messenger bag aside and casting around for Leone.

Turns out he’s.

In the closet.

Wedged into the backmost corner, huddled beneath where Bruno’s funeral clothes hang.

The need to fight the whole world just to protect Leone has eased off, some, thanks to seeing him here in one piece – but the closer Bruno looks, the more hurt rises back into his chest.

Leone seems so tired, slumped worn on the floor, his eyes bloodshot and mascara smeared dark around them. And when he spots Bruno, he only curls in on himself tighter. Lets his reddened eyes shift away as he mumbles out a croaking, “Hey…”

“Hey,” Bruno whispers back, while sinking to the floor. He shoves himself in across from Leone. There’s barely enough room for both of them. They fit perfect. Ankles brushing where Bruno staggers their bent legs.

There’s silence, for a moment.

Leone’s breath is soft and shaky. Audible in such close quarters.

Bruno listens to it until he can’t stand it anymore. Memories of hospital respirators far away and all too recent at the same time. “Bad day?”

A bitter sort of scoff from Leone, and his head falls back against the wall. His eyes narrow to thin slivers of gold, shiny in the dim light of the closet, watching Bruno from beneath darkened eyelashes. “I ran into my grandfather at the store,” he pushes the words out in a way that’s deliberately steady.

Bringing his legs together, Bruno sandwiches one of Leone’s ankles between both of his own. Can’t curb the urge to hold onto him in some way. Won’t look away from those mournful eyes that dart to the side.

“He wasn’t very happy to see me.” Leone tries to laugh along with that, but it comes out as a choking sound that makes Bruno’s throat hurt.

He doesn’t have the heart to ask for details. Won’t ask Leone to relive another negative family interaction. All Bruno can do is inch forward and try to encapsulate safety. An accepting presence to make up for so many that reject Leone outright based on the fact that he wears lipstick (Bruno doesn’t understand what the problem is but people are assholes).

Leone pinches the bridge of his nose, head tipped forward to rest against his hand, eyes squeezed shut. His palm flattens to run over his forehead and through his hair, mussing the short strands.

Sitting there, with fingers tight to his scalp, clenching in his hair, Leone speaks on a watery mumble.

“He, um…told me I should be ashamed, going out in public looking like a…like this.” Here, he gestures to himself with a free hand. Is staring hard out the open doorway of the closet. Looks to be on the verge of crying, but then the lines of his face smooth out and he only sniffles. Takes a few deep, hitching breaths.

It hurts to watch him. Soreness in Bruno’s chest exacerbated by the wet of Leone’s eyes. Those trembling hands. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says, softly.

But Leone just shakes his head. Rakes his fingers through his hair, before rubbing down the side of his neck, gripping his own shoulder. His eyes flicker toward Bruno then back to the wall. “I want to get it out of my head. Can’t stop…” One hand waves haphazardly in front of himself.

Can’t stop thinking about it, Bruno surmises. He nods. Does his best to stuff the heat of his own eyes into the bigger, better built box he’s just started constructing. It’ll hold.

“It – it was before the check-out counters. I couldn’t get past him.” Leone swallows hard. Doesn’t cry. Maybe he’s already gotten enough tears out of his system, judging by the smudged makeup. (Bruno wants to cry for him but there are many reasons why he can’t let that happen.) “He asked how I could – how I could do that to my parents. They’re distraught – horrified…I ruined their fucking lives…why’d I waste their time and money if I was going to turn out – like this –”

Oh, hell, the way those words hiccup their way out of Leone’s chest – his expression crumpling – Bruno can’t take it. “Leone…” he mumbles, gets up on his knees and sidles in closer, to the side of Leone’s legs, where he’s reached for immediately.

Hands bury themselves in Bruno’s shirt as he pulls Leone into a hug. Sinks into this folded shape of him as those arms wind around and cling close, his face pressing to Bruno’s shoulder. Probably smearing makeup there. It doesn’t matter at all. Bruno couldn’t care less. Just holds Leone flush to his chest and breathes.

“That’s not true,” he says. Leone deserves to know that. To have someone tell him that. “They let you down, not the other way around.”

Leone is shaking, but his head dips in what might be a nod. Could be just more tears wiped away. “He t-told me I was lucky – because his advice was to – he told them they should’ve just beat the gay out of me when they had the,” a sharp, hitching breath, “chance.”

“No.” Bruno puts as much conviction into that word as he can, because how could anyone say that. God. He squeezes Leone so, so tight. Feels those fingers wind secure and trembling in the fabric of his shirt, and each hitching breath. Aches deep in the pit of his chest. Presses his mouth to Leone’s forehead. “You don’t deserve any of that. You don’t.”

Long minutes tick away with the two of them there. Leone clutching Bruno like a lifeline and Bruno fully content to hold him.

He…needs this contact, too. Not as much as Leone, but. It’s a selfish balm to that lonely space inside that fills up that much more when Leone is nearby. Tangible and real even when he’s upset.

Bruno’s care runs so deep it’s bound to hurt him. He won’t stop.

The face buried in his shoulder slips downward a bit to hide in his arm instead, warm through the fabric of Bruno’s light jacket. Like this, it’s easier for him to get a hand in Leone’s hair, scratching gentle along the base of his skull as he breathes deep. His eyes are closed, and he’d look almost peaceful, if their lids weren’t reddened, smeared with dark makeup.

Bruno takes a chance. Kisses Leone’s temple. Butterflies in his stomach and a lump in his throat.

“I have to get out of here,” Leone says at length, eyes fluttering open. His voice is so quiet. As much of him leaning into Bruno as is possible in these cramped quarters and this awkward position.

And…those words have a layer of pain to them, packed with truth though they are.

Losing Leone hurts.

Moving away isn’t as permanent as death. Bruno has dealt with the latter. Still recovering, but. Much as he wants Leone, he wants Leone’s safety more. That’s something he can’t ensure with his arms alone.

Losing Leone’s steady proximity hurts, sure, but the thought of letting him stay here with suffering around every corner hurts worse.

“I can’t live like this…afraid of running into them everywhere…” That peace of mind is something that Leone sorely needs. A place where he can walk the streets as himself and not risk facing the brunt of his past. “Just look at me. Hiding in a fucking closet, because –” His mouth snaps shut, and he presses it to Bruno’s arm.

“Because you were harassed. And threatened.” By someone else who was supposed to care for him. It makes Bruno feel furious sick.

Leone’s fingers flex tighter in Bruno’s clothes. “I’m a coward,” he mumbles, darkly. “I just…ran away from him. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be angry but I couldn’t.” His nose bumps Bruno’s sleeve. “Every single day I’m more and more on edge. I’m so tired of being afraid.”

That’s odd, because Bruno’s never known Leone to be afraid. Not once. Not even now, curled up and tucked away in a closet – but. Maybe it’s more accurate to say: “You never let it stop you.” Quietly, the words tucked against Leone’s temple. “You’re brave, Leone.”

This inhale is shakier and slower than the last, Leone’s breath trembling out from between his lips. He’s shaking his head. “You’re too nice,” he mutters.

It makes Bruno want to smile, almost. He can’t manage it right now. Too nice is what Leone deserves.

And Bruno meant what he said.

Since that first day in the school bathroom, he’s been siphoning courage and borrowing strength from Leone. Just being with him is bolstering. So much unapologetic existence allowing Bruno to feel real.

Leone was – is something that Bruno can count on to slip through the cracks of grief and remind him that there’s life for him outside of that. He saw Bruno as-is and…found a friend, there. A connection that Bruno can’t put into words. So many pieces reaching out.

“So’s your mom,” Leone continues, voice as low as ever. “She tried to comfort me. Your stepdad looked worried, too. And they let me stay here…”

Oh, Bruno would’ve kept Leone hidden in his room, if that’s what it took to give him a safe place to exist while finding his feet. Permission be damned. But that wasn’t necessary, and Bruno knows before the words even leave Leone’s mouth that he’s lucked out three times over as far as parents are concerned.

“You’re lucky.”

Yes. He is.

For more reasons than Leone is talking about here.

But it also hurts, a little. To hear that morose voice refer to someone else’s parents that way when his own have been downright horrible to him in all the ways that mattered most. A glimpse of simple affirmation throws the rest of Leone’s treatment into sharp relief.

“My dad would’ve liked you,” Bruno says. So unprompted that he didn’t even know it would come out of his mouth. (But it’s true. Leone would’ve gotten a firm handshake and a small, genuine smile. Would’ve been welcome at dinner every night…and onto the fishing boat every weekend…)

Leone nuzzles into Bruno, his eyes falling shut again as his hands shift for a better grip. A more secure hug. “If he raised you,” he mumbles, words muffled by Bruno’s arm, “I think I’d like him, too.”

Ah. Box be damned, Bruno really will cry, at this. His eyes are hot and he has to press his wobbly mouth to Leone’s forehead in order to swallow the resurging lump in his throat.

“…I still bought snacks, by the way,” that small voice says.

And Bruno smiles at it.

-

They wind up on the couch, Leone leaned flush against Bruno, head on his chest while they watch Il Postino.

He falls asleep before the ending, and Bruno can’t even begin to care.

-

Sitting up in bed, Bruno watches a sleepy Leone totter his way across the dark bedroom. His hairline is still wet from washing his face, and he collapses onto his air mattress with a fwump sort of noise. Lies there facedown. Wholly endearing.

“…The kids at school started a rumor that you died,” Bruno finds himself saying, for some reason. Maybe that this is a fact best delivered when Leone is in an exhausted heap?

Leone rolls partially onto his side and squints up at Bruno. “Holy shit.” Now he’s wrapping himself in blankets. Half-asleep, so it’s not going very well, all crooked with one foot stuck out, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Just buries himself ever-deeper and murmurs into his pillow. “Good. Tell them my parents did it.”

And then he’s fully-asleep.

Bruno stares at him for a long while, warmth flooding his heart and easing any residual ache.

-

Tonight is Leone’s last night in Bruno’s house.

It’s still sinking in. Hasn’t hit Bruno fully, yet, he doesn’t think, sitting here on his bedroom floor with Leone’s fingers buried in his hair. They card through, tugging a little clumsy, but Bruno doesn’t mind.

He’s reveling in the feel of them there, as they gather sections of hair. Leone is trying to master the art of braiding, working off of the examples that Bruno’s mother has been imparting during his stay – it would be easier if Bruno’s hair was longer, but that’s part of the challenge. According to Leone. Plus, he wants to learn how to style it even when it’s not-quite-long yet…

So Bruno as his model it is. Seated on Leone’s air mattress while Leone himself is up on the proper bed, brushes, combs, clips, and hair ties spread out next to him for easy access.

A tiny braid tied off with a shiny blue rubber band sways next to Bruno’s cheek. Leone’s got the basics down, and is now struggling with the elusive French braid. He’s restarted three times by now, and each time Bruno holds his blue-banded braid out of the way while Leone gathers the rest of his hair.

He’s quite attached to it, this braid.

The little gathering of hair holds the memory of Leone’s fingers brushing Bruno’s temple and cheek, thin strands of black hair twined around and twisted together. Delicate work that held Leone’s focus the whole way through…

While Bruno was free to watch his face, with that intense look to his eyes, and the creased concentration in his brow.

Bruno did his best to memorize every feature (including those pale eyebrows that are indeed scruffier than an initial glance would show). He won’t be able to see them every day, anymore.

First thing this morning, Leone called his aunt and told her everything that happened.

Almost everything – Bruno tried to offer privacy but Leone gripped his fingers the same way he did when getting his things from his old house, and so Bruno stayed. Sat in on Leone’s story for the third time, but for the first time heard himself referred to as “a very close friend” that Leone is staying with, and, more vaguely, as a mumbled, “I told them there was a boy I really liked.” That was the last straw for his parents. According to Leone’s retelling.

Bruno wasn’t mentioned by name. Leone’s fingers had curled tighter around his, though, and it was enough. It fed that fond fluttering in Bruno’s gut that he’s long past trying to control.

…More importantly, the prospect of Leone moving in was discussed and plans were finalized and now it’s realer than ever that he’ll be leaving. Moving all the way down south to his aunt’s place – to live with her and her girlfriend. A whole new neighborhood. New school. New people.

This is what’s best for him, Bruno knows. It isn’t fair to keep him stuck here. Disowned by his parents and pulled from school. With his aunt he can get the support and help he needs. Put some distance in and start to heal.

And…Bruno’s parents bought them both cell phones. Surprised them, earlier.

It still makes Bruno ridiculously happy, to think about the matching sleek black devices. Leone’s tearful expression when he saw.

The distance won’t feel as great, with these. Leone leaning in close to help Bruno personalize it and show him texting shortcuts while adding them to each other’s contacts hadn’t hurt, either.

Neither had packing together, eating together, re-watching the ending of Il Postino together, doing Bruno’s math homework together. Leone divvying out Bruno’s makeup and emphasizing the difference between eyeliner and brow pencil, Bruno insisting that Leone pick a few of his barrettes to take with him for when his hair starts to really grow out…

Leone’s been by Bruno’s side all day. Companionship that Bruno wouldn’t trade for the world.

He will to enjoy it to the fullest, while he has it here.

“Your hair’s so slippery,” Leone is grumbling. From the feel of it, he’s still struggling to keep all of it sectioned off while also gathering it bit by bit into the braid. A skill that only practice can bring. Even Bruno doesn’t bother beyond the basics, when it comes to braids, but Leone is determined.

Holding as still as he can, Bruno’s mouth twitches on a grin. “That’s because it’s too clean,” he says. “The dirtier it is the better it stays in place.”

“…Well, thank you for washing it.”

“Mm.”

Leone goes quiet, after that. It could be because he’s focused extra hard on his hairstyling, or maybe he, too, is suddenly overcome by the notion that he and Bruno have been using the same shampoo these past several days.

Because that’s what’s holding Bruno’s tongue. That…domesticity, with Leone.

Completely ridiculous, but it’s still got butterflies ravaging Bruno’s stomach, beating at the exterior of his new emotion-packed box. If he cracks the lid to let them inside, there’s no telling what might escape, so he has no choice but to let them run rampant. They’re overexcited at Leone’s proximity. At his warm fingertips along Bruno’s scalp. At him swearing and starting the braid over again.

God.

Bruno will miss this boy so much.

He’s…so tired of missing someone. In the way that Leone is tired of being afraid. It feels like a lifelong pain he’s stuck shouldering against his will. No matter how hard he tries not to have someone to miss –

Someone always goes.

But. Across the country is a lot more accessible than whatever afterlife exists. Bruno will be able to get to Leone. See him, talk to him. Only less than half of a school year to go, and they can…Leone said he wants to move in together, by the sea. Take a trip there, at the very least. He still wants that, hopefully.

Bruno will ask, someday, but this final quiet moment here isn’t the time. Maybe when he visits, they can talk about it. Plan for a future where they can be together more permanently. A real couple. If Leone wants.

The butterflies are damn near violent, now. Bruno wonders if Leone notices the heat rushing to his ears, because all the hair that usually blocks the view is now being tucked into a clumsy French braid.

Don’t cry, Bruno tells himself. Don’t blush. Stop blushing.

Leone will notice –

Seems like he’s gotten the hang of braiding, at least. There’s a rhythm to the movements as his fingers work their way over the top of Bruno’s head, and then down the back. Smoother, but still halting now and again to correct a grip or tighten a piece. It’s slow going, all the way to the end.

…Leone doesn’t reach for a hair tie, though, when he’s done. His hands stay halted in the tips of Bruno’s hair. Lingering there for so long that nerves kick to life in Bruno’s gut, and he hopes Leone isn’t frowning that dour frown of his, back there. Lost in his head.

And then those hands let go, leaving Bruno’s hair to unravel at will. Slowly, like the braiding itself was.

They don’t return, either, those hands. Leone sits silent and still, from what Bruno can tell. Eventually he shakes his head to dislodge the rest of the braid, his hair falling loose. Except for the little plait at the front.

The quiet is so stifling; Bruno has to ask Leone what’s wrong. Turn around and look at him, at the very least, to see what he can read on that expressive face –

But Leone moves first, shifting to the side and slipping off of the bed legs-first. He lands on the air mattress next to Bruno, sitting down with only a handful of centimeters between them. His expression is…tight. Crease between his penciled brows. Mouth a taut, grim line wearing black lipstick.

“Bruno.”

Tilting his head for a better view of Leone’s face, Bruno hums out, “Hm?”

The morose shape of Leone’s mouth parts, then closes again. It quivers in place, for a moment, and then: “I think maybe…” A deep breath. Golden eyes meet Bruno’s. “Maybe we should break up, before I go.”

…

…

Leone squirms under Bruno’s staring, looks away – and Bruno starts breathing again. Shaky, thanks to the way his heart is pounding, a horrible sick fluttering in his stomach that won’t quit because of this wording from Leone that’s – that –

“What…?” is all Bruno can get out. Barest hint of a thing.

His mind is reeling and will need a moment or two to recover.

In the meanwhile, Leone goes on.

“It’s just – the distance’ll be a problem, right? Everyone says it never works out, and you deserve someone that can be close to you. Take you on – on dates and all that shit.” Leone’s face is on fire, cheeks bright red. His eyes are shiny-wet and he’s looking anywhere but at Bruno, glaring at his own hands twisted together in his lap. “I got so used to being with you, and I think that – being apart is going to suck. I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t stay here but I don’t want to leave you, and I think the easiest way to make it hurt less is if we end it now – and –”

Only now does Leone look to Bruno. Darkened eyebrows are dipped dramatic, his shoulders slumped imploring, and he looks so unfathomably sad.

“And please stop looking at me like that,” he’s saying, his voice trembling before he steadies it. “This is…it’s what’s best.”

He says that, sure – but Bruno can’t comprehend it. Doesn’t think Leone himself believes it.

No matter how stone-faced Leone’s trying to set his expression, it isn’t working. He’s not designed that way, Bruno knows him too well, can spot the upset all too easily. That tumult. He can feel it, too.

Bruno has to argue this point. It’s just that, a certain detail won’t leave him alone and –

“You…consider us a couple?”

The very notion of that is all Bruno can focus on with anything resembling clarity, and the butterflies aggravate his stomach lining something awful. That pink flush on Leone’s cheeks goes fiery red all over again, flaring up brilliant. His black lips press into a tight line and he breathes heavy through his nose. Looking away again.

“I.” Leone swallows. “Yeah. Did you not –” He cuts himself off. Mortification spreading over his face.

Bruno should really, really assuage poor Leone out loud – it’s just so hard to speak with this much running through his head –

Leone thinks of them as together. All this time, Bruno was worried about going slow, didn’t want to push or overwhelm Leone when he had so much on his plate. Such a big new to adjust to, already. No need to add a first boyfriend to that pile.

They’re closer, Bruno thought. More readily in each other’s space. Mutually crushing hard but taking only the tiniest of steps toward anything resembling a relationship.

They can fall into that anytime, he thought.

But this whole time, Leone’s…

“Yeah,” Bruno whispers, accepts it. “We’re a couple.” Oh, god, the reality of this shouldn’t be so mystifying. It’s not the root of the problem, here. Not the point Bruno should be pushing no matter how amazing. “Why do you want to…break up?” Damn, Bruno can understand why Leone had such a hard time saying that aloud – even negative terminology like this still carries the dating implications which is –

An absolute wonder –

Cheeks still flushed bright red, Leone flounders for a moment. Maybe over Bruno’s easy acceptance of the relationship jargon. (Despite the fact that he’s been thinking of them that way all along.)

“Because it’s for the best,” Leone repeats, “since you’ll be here, and I…” He falls quiet.

Bruno stares hard at him. Remembers what he said about Bruno being with someone else, and a scrap of indignance rises hot in his chest, through the butterfly storm. “I told you not to decide on your own that I’m better off without you ever again.”

Balking, Leone’s mouth opens, then closes. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

Bruno raises an eyebrow. Searches golden eyes flecked with periwinkle.

“…Kind of.” The admission falls soft from Leone’s mouth. It looks like he tries to accompany it with a sheepish grin, but the corners of his lips barely twitch, a move that hurts Bruno’s stomach. “Not completely, though – just.” Leone’s jaw ticks, and he blinks away the shininess in his eyes. “If we’re together, and I’m all the way…I just don’t want to lose you.”

And that’s all he elaborates. Bruno sits here, blinking at the side of Leone’s face for half a second. Because that hurts, but it’s so completely and utterly ridiculous that it’s almost a relief. (Only almost.)

“So,” Bruno starts, slowly, “you’re opting to lose me now, just because you might lose me later?”

A frustrated groan from Leone, and he drops his head into his hands, hiding his face. “I don’t know, Bruno, I just – I can’t, okay? Can’t fucking…” He stays curled in on himself like that for a bit, and Bruno – for the millionth time since meeting Leone – wants to reach out and hold him so badly.

That might not be appreciated, right this second.

It’s better to let Leone try and find the words he’s looking for.

(Or maybe, between the two of them, it’s Bruno who’s the coward. Even more afraid of losing Leone than Leone is of losing him, so much so that he couldn’t even bring himself to think of them as dating.)

Eventually, Leone lifts his hands free of his face. He scowls at the dark smudge his lipstick left on his palms, and wipes them on his pajama pants. Still frowning, notably not looking toward Bruno. There are tears in his eyes and his mouth trembles open and he says, voice thick, “I don’t think I could stand it, if one more person I’m close to stopped caring about me.”

…Oh.

Bruno’s chest is sore, but he isn’t fast enough at offering helpful words –

“So I thought that if I,” Leone inhales sharply, and sniffles once, “if I broke it off now, before I got too attached, it wouldn’t – maybe both of us could –”

A pause while Leone steels himself, and Bruno’s mind is whirling. Because he gets it. “Leone –”

Shaking his head, Leone is still refusing to meet Bruno’s eyes. “And, y’know, my own parents didn’t love me in the end, so I can’t be…I’m – you’ll realize you deserve better than…” Leone’s sleeves are pulled over his hands, and he’s picking at the ends of them, his eyes glued to the far wall. “Please don’t make this so hard.”

God – everything hurts but Bruno is done being a coward. Can’t stand for this, just like he can’t stand for Alessandro’s bullying or the way that Leone’s parents treated him his whole life.

“Leone. Look at me.”

A lingering moment of hesitation, but Leone does, eventually, let his golden eyes shift toward Bruno.

For Bruno’s part, he shuffles around until he’s sitting facing Leone properly. Has a perfect view of those sad eyes and the mournful shape of Leone’s mouth, and if Bruno had to hazard a guess this is only so hard for Leone because he doesn’t want to be doing it.

There’s no doubt in Bruno’s mind that: “I will always, always care about you.”

Leone’s expression sinks at just those words, but Bruno isn’t done. Has had his fill of fear.

“It doesn’t matter how far apart we are. I don’t want to lose you, either, and I don’t want to break up.” (In fact, now that Bruno is aware they are dating, he is very content to stay this way for the foreseeable future. Hold tight to Leone until the end of their days.) “I’ll be with you as long as you want me, I’m always right here, alright?” Bruno is tearing up against his will – too many goodbyes, too many reminders –

But he’s got nothing on Leone, whose eyes are so full of tears they start to overflow. Trace wet paths down his cheeks and he’s shaking some, sitting there.

Tired of holding back, Bruno reaches out on automatic, this time. He cups Leone’s cheeks and wipes those tears away as they fall.

“And besides…” Smiles are still something that Bruno has trouble with in these moments, but he tries his best, for Leone’s sake. Manages it so easy around him. “It’s not like we’ll never be together again.”

That living-on-the-coast dream is one that Bruno will cling to for as long as he’s allowed.

But even if he doesn’t get that…he can have Leone.

Eyes downcast, Leone breathes slow. He doesn’t dislodge Bruno’s hands – at least, not until he takes hold of one of them, slowly guiding it down to his side. He sniffles away more tears. Rearranges himself until he’s cross-legged in front of Bruno. Their knees are almost touching. They’re still holding hands. One of Bruno’s palms is still cupped to Leone’s jaw, fingers brushing his damp cheek.

A deep, shaky sigh from Leone. “You’re too…” Those words are barely breathed out, and Bruno is ready to argue that he is not too anything, for Leone, but then Leone is murmuring, “I really, really like you.” And he’s squeezing Bruno’s hand in a move that’s all too familiar by now.

“Me, too.” Bruno’s heart even kicks into an excited crescendo at the mere thought of how much he likes Leone. And that it’s reciprocated.

Young as it may be, it’s strong and he wants it and he’ll selfishly keep it locked in his chest.

That stubborn set of Leone’s mouth twitches toward a smile. It doesn’t stick around for long, but it doesn’t have to. It’s impossibly sweet, enough to set Bruno’s heart racing all over again, stuns him enough that his fingers slip free of Leone’s face. “You won’t let go?” Leone says. So, so soft. Quiet like he’s afraid of the answer.

“I won’t let go. Not unless you really want me to.” (And even then, Bruno may have some trouble. The last time he tried, his wrenched-raw heart almost shut down – but if it’s best for Leone, he’ll do it.)

Leone smiles again. Small and weak. Beautiful like the rest of him. “I won’t, either,” he says, of letting go.

And he still looks sad but he’s no longer devastated and they can work with this. They get to keep this new, fragile thing that’s between them. Nourish it and see what becomes of it, because Bruno is very much like Leone in that he doesn’t think he could withstand losing anything else. Especially not something that’s become so dear to him as Leone has. A shelter from the storm.

One last little piece of safety – and oh, hell, Leone is sitting so close. Centimeters away. Holding Bruno’s hand. Looking Bruno in the eye.

He’s leaving, tomorrow.

Bruno doesn’t want him to take any doubt with him, when he goes. Selfishly wants one more piece of Leone, to hold in his own heart and his own mind, because he’s already so used to having Leone here…

This quiet moment seems like the perfect time.

One hand still tangled with Leone’s, Bruno lifts the other back to his face. Runs his fingers along the sharp of that jawline, then flattens his palm to it, thumb brushing at an angular cheek. Touches that Leone relaxes into. Leaning his face into Bruno’s hand and sighing gentle through his nose.

His eyelids dip, too. Periwinkle-flecked gold darting down Bruno’s face then back up. Pale skin heating to pink as he and Bruno drift closer, noses brushing –

They meet halfway on a kiss.

It’s the smallest, quickest flash of contact. Bruno’s lips against the soft, slightly tacky give of Leone’s.

But it. Feels like everything falls into place, in that second. There’s nowhere else Bruno would rather be. Nothing else he wants. Just Leone in front of him and the lack of space between them. Empty air that gives way when Leone – flushed bright red, now – leans back in with purpose and kisses Bruno again.

He lingers longer, this time. It’s just as soft, just as sweet. Sends Bruno’s insides into just as much of a tizzy. His hand slides from Leone’s cheek to the side of his neck, and he can feel it when Leone shivers.

When they part, it’s all too easy to drown in the liquid gold of Leone’s eyes. They’re sparkling, again.

“Fuck,” Leone breathes, shaky. Himself as ever. His forehead drops until it’s pressed to Bruno’s, and his eyes fall closed. He stays there. Resting close. Sharing breath.

Bruno does not at all mind. Is content to grip Leone’s shoulder and breathe him in.

…All of Leone is trembling. Just a little. Bruno can feel it where they’re holding hands, along with where Leone’s palm is resting atop Bruno’s knee – which is – such a gentle touch, Leone’s fingers twitching.

“You’re shaking.”

“…” Leone’s head slips free of Bruno’s, and lands on his shoulder instead. “I’ve never kissed a boy before,” he says, voice small. The tiniest bit indignant, maybe.

Ah.

Bruno smiles. Can’t help it. “You’ll get used to it.”

A quick, light laugh from Leone, and he’s smiling, too. Sounds so choked-up happy that Bruno’s chest goes painfully tight with it. “I’m going to miss you.”

Not half as much as Bruno will miss him. “You won’t get the chance to miss me,” Bruno says, wrapping Leone in a hug, “because I’ll visit the first chance I get.” Five-to-six-hour train ride be damned. “And I’ll call you every night, text you all day…” And he’s exaggerating, of course – it takes him all day to compose a single text at his skill level – but Leone still gives an outraged:

“Don’t text in class!”

Even as his neck is flushing red to match his cheeks…

God, he’s so wonderful.

(And Bruno means it, when he says he’ll never, ever let Leone go as long as he still wants Bruno to hold him. Only untangles them now to go and retrieve his dad’s sweater from the drawer, the one Leone wore his first night here. It’s clean, now. And Bruno gifts it to Leone – agreeing on the spot when Leone asks, shyly, if Bruno will wear it to bed tonight, just so it smells like him tomorrow.)

-

Leone can’t sleep.

He’s lying flat on his back in Bruno’s room, on a not-uncomfortable air mattress. The same one he’s gotten decent sleep on over the past several nights – but right now he’d rather stare hard at the ceiling than even think of closing his eyes again.

When he does, he sees everything again. Hell, even with his eyes open, now, there are memories running rampant in his head…

His mother on the phone, after that first time Leone had tried on her lipstick. He was five. Six, maybe. Her voice was hard. Disappointed. Disgusted. And she was talking to a friend or a family member or someone and saying, “Of course, I put a stop to that right away. Can’t have him growing up thinking he’s a girl, or falling into the delusion that he likes men.”

A bully, the first day Leone wore makeup in class – not Alessandro, he’s just the latest in a long line of vandalism and assault – telling him he looked nice only to laugh in his face. Sneers and slurs galore followed. Leone was shoved into walls, tripped in hallways. Harassed in the bathrooms.

They threw his homework in the toilet, once. Yanked his lipstick out of his hand while he was applying it just to smear it over the mirror and stomp on it until the tube was dented and destroyed.

And he didn’t do anything to stop them.

His breath is hitching and his stomach is upset but he can’t stop his stupid fucking brain.

Mom and dad ranting over dinner about how vile it is, for ‘man to lie with man as he lies with a woman’. Rhetoric that Leone blindly spouted back, all those years. Grateful that if he had to keep his makeup secret, he at least wasn’t into – boys –

Crying in the shower – god. Leone fucking cried in the shower, once, when everything got too hard to carry, and then he did it again years later. Just a few weeks ago, now. When he realized he might like Bruno.

Funnily enough it was his parents that opened his eyes to it. His mother poking him in the side good-naturedly one afternoon, when he came down to dinner after a phone call with Bruno. “You must’ve found a special girl to be smiling like that,” she’d teased, and his father, too, mentioned that Leone had been extra happy, lately, and that was a sure sign of a boy who’d gone head over heels for a girl.

In that moment, Leone brushed it off. Blushing. Refusing to let the mortification out because all of that was for Bruno. The fondness and the fluttering and the smiles that Leone couldn’t help –

He thought it was just because he finally had a fucking friend – but –

His mom asked when he’d be bringing this latest girlfriend home because she must be lovely, to get Leone laughing like that on the phone, but the only person in his head was Bruno. Always Bruno.

He went to the library and researched shit, ducking between shelves and checking over his shoulder while scouring the internet because he can’t he couldn’t it’s wrong he likes girls and his parents would kill him if they knew he was even entertaining the idea. But they’d kill him for the makeup, too, so he thought, what’s the harm. He had to know.

Then maybe he could stop all of it. Ignore it. Keep pretending he was what his parents wanted.

And, god, those feelings for Bruno really were eerily similar to how Leone felt about a past girlfriend – his parents were right about that –

One night, for a change of pace, Leone held it together in the shower only to cry into his pillow. That was the day he read Bruno’s poem aloud in class. He wasn’t especially upset by Alessandro’s taunting and violence, no – Leone cried because Bruno – he defended Leone. Was always so genuine to Leone, for Leone’s sake, always so kind –

Wrote that fucking poem that clicked belatedly, composed of words that spoke to the wretched longing in Leone’s own piece of shit heart –

And Leone knew, then, that he couldn’t stop it, and he didn’t want to. Because it felt good, being with Bruno and caring about Bruno. Leone felt safe. He could be his whole self and Bruno liked him that way. Never, ever told Leone that boys don’t do that or that he ought to tone it down for his own good. Bruno was sympathetic toward Leone, when others said those things.

His big blue eyes would go all sad, and he’d say something heartfelt, and Leone would want to collapse into him and hide there, for a while.

Even before he recognized this crush for what it was, Leone caught himself thinking wouldn’t it be nice, to date someone like Bruno. If he were gay, he’d thought, Bruno would be a great boyfriend. He got Leone to smile and laugh, which…Leone had never done while wearing makeup before.

It stretched odd at the lines of his face, that first smile in the boys’ bathroom. Something in him eased, that day, and it’s been softening ever since. The world doesn’t seem so hard to bear, anymore, with Bruno in it.

Leone couldn’t bear to get rid of these feelings.

But neither could he try to be with Bruno, even if his parents were dead (and, god, sometimes, these days, he wishes they were because that would be easier), the rest of his family wouldn’t – the world is – he couldn’t subject Bruno to that. To anything.

…Except he did – he got Bruno bullied – and outed to the entire school –

Leone just kept running to him, though. Wasn’t strong enough to stay away.

He still really wants to run to Bruno. Bury himself somewhere safe for just a few minutes. Maybe he can sleep tonight, if he gives in and does so, but he’s scared, suddenly. And he’s…he’ll be fundamentally alone, soon. Should learn to cope. Thinks maybe he’s broken in some kind of way. (But not in an attracted-to-Bruno way, never that way. It may just be the only part of him that’s not broken.)

Something in him has gone dark. Even that is reaching for Bruno, who was too good then, and he’s too good now – no matter what he says. And Leone…is lucky enough to have him. As confirmed by their…

Fuck.

Leone can’t believe he kissed Bruno. That Bruno kissed him.

Excitement flits through his stomach every time he thinks of the soft-warm feel of Bruno’s lips against his own. Thrilling, even as it soothed some sore piece of him, in that way Bruno is always capable of.

Case in point. Gentle fingers land on Leone’s arm, and only now do his eyes fall closed. He can breathe deep, focusing on that careful touch, those fingertips rubbing their way up and down his bicep. With Bruno so tangible, it’s easier to stay lost in only his most pleasant, Bruno-centric memories.  

Leone isn’t curled up alone in his old bed, cold beneath the covers and feeling sick for reasons he can’t comprehend while his parents rant loudly downstairs. He isn’t being snubbed by any number of teachers whose eyes glazed over his raised hand because they thought if they didn’t acknowledge him he’d stop existing so loudly.

He’s in Bruno’s room. Crouched in the drugstore makeup aisle with purple lipstick shyly offered to him. Holding hands on the street all the way back. Standing in the bathroom scrutinizing the gentle lines of Bruno’s face, fighting to steady his hands so the eyeliner doesn’t smudge. Wearing makeup at the dinner table (biting his tongue on anxiety the whole time but both of Bruno’s parents said he looked nice and that was all they said).

He’s trying on the strangest clothes he can in an attempt to get Bruno to smile that mostly only gets him to stare (but that’s fine, too). Sitting in the library watching Bruno’s cheeks go pink because Leone complimented his poetry. Eating lunch and doing homework with his desk pressed to Bruno’s.

He’s fighting off butterflies during walks to and from school together – especially that day he asked if Bruno wanted to stop at the bakery beforehand, and blue eyes lit up sparkling.

He’s…sleeping on Bruno’s chest after being pried out of the latest in a long line of closets – and he’s safe, now. Bruno won’t let him go. A warm hand on Leone’s arm, here, in the dark. Tight arms that wound around him, holding him through too many tears.

That warm hand on Leone’s arm migrates upward, and Bruno leans farther off of his bed so that he can cup Leone’s jaw, thumb over his cheek.

Leone opens his eyes to stare into blue that’s blindingly bright, even in the dark.

“You need to get a good night’s sleep,” Bruno says.

“…I know.” If Leone could, he would, but he’s afraid it’s a lost cause, tonight. There’s too much parading around in his head. Memories on the loose that refuse to be tied down, and feelings warring through his gut and his heart that won’t shut the hell up for five fucking minutes.

Bruno watches him a moment longer, in that lingering way he has. As if he can see right through everything that Leone is. He reclaims his hand, and Leone misses it instantly. Bruno starts grabbing for his own covers instead, shimmying out from under his blankets as he lifts them. “Switch places with me. You’ll be more comfortable up here,” he’s saying –

“No.” Leone cannot possibly do that. He can’t curl up in Bruno’s residual warmth and breathe in his scent all night. God. Leone can’t do that. Not tonight. His stupid fragile heart is beating painfully hard just thinking about it.

It’s too much to hope for that Bruno won’t argue. He’s halfway sitting up in bed, his covers thrown off. “You should have the bed, it’s your last –”

“I told you,” Leone interrupts. He knows it’s his last night here and that’s one of the many reasons why he shouldn’t rely on the comfort of Bruno to get him to sleep. Seeing as that’s impossible to say out loud, though, Leone reiterates the same point he made on his second night here. “I’m not going to take your bed, Bruno.” (There, see? He’s only being a good houseguest. He is not someone so overwhelmed by affection that his heart barely functions like a healthy organ anymore…)

Of course Bruno doesn’t let the matter rest at that, either. Stubborn as he is. (And Leone adores that but it’s almost more than he can take, right now.) “At least come up here with me,” is what Bruno tries next, and –

Shit –

Leone has to swallow twice, before he can respond with a simple, “I can’t.”

Spending the night wrapped up in Bruno while also being surrounded by his blankets and pillows and sheets would do Leone in. No way would he have the strength to pry himself away in the morning.

“…Alright, then.”

Somehow, even knowing Bruno as well as he’s come to, Leone is not at all prepared for the way that Bruno rolls right off of his mattress – brings his pillow along with him – almost lands directly on top of Leone who barely scoots over in time –

“What are you doing?” he asks on reflex, even though the answer is obvious.  

Because Bruno is now tugging blankets out from under himself and worming his way beneath them, humming out a pleasant little noise. “I’m sleeping here,” he says. Like it’s that simple.

And he sure is sidling right up next to Leone. Wearing that overlarge sweater, with that tiny braid from earlier still intact. He’s warm and comfortable and he cares about Leone – he won’t let go, so maybe it really is that simple, for now. What the hell is Leone going to do? Kick him out? Refuse to be cuddled? God…

The comfort that is Bruno sinks in close, arms wrapping snug around Leone’s middle. Leone sets one hand on top of a forearm. Can feel soft breaths puffed out over his chest through the fabric of his t-shirt. He holds onto Bruno in turn.

Leone’s heart is thundering away, and his stomach is twisting up pleasant as he sinks into everything Bruno is. Everything he offers.

If memories assault Leone, now, it’s a guarantee they’ll be sweeter. Focused only on these arms that support him at his lowest. (Which is sappy but it’s true so Leone doesn’t care. He’s too tired and too fond.)

A kiss is pressed to Leone’s shoulder, and his heartrate spikes that much more.

“Goodnight, Leone,” Bruno says, settling back in. Closer than before.

“…Goodnight, Bruno.”

Even as comfortable as this, Leone doesn’t sleep a wink.

But it’s okay. He spends the entire night relaxed, holding tight to the reassurance that – no matter what might happen, for now, here, with Bruno – he has permanent permission to exist.