Chapter Text
Something is wrong about Peter when Leo glimpses him at the market.
He can’t explain what it is at first. His shoulders are higher than usual and he keeps his eyes down. He leans away from any kind of touch, which is normal, but it feels different, like he’s hiding something. And he doesn’t greet Leo or Gloria the way he usually does when both of them call his name.
Then Peter drops the fish—which is the smallest fish Leo has ever seen, and he has no idea how one person is supposed to survive off of that, let alone two—and freezes for long enough that Leo is spurred into action.
“Peter?”
Finally, Peter hears him. The boy blinks blearily up at him. Now that he’s closer, Leo can tell his eyes are red, but they’re far too dry, like any tears ran out long ago. Peter looks down at the spoiled fish on the pavement like he’s noticing it for the first time, brings one bandaged hand to his face, bites down on his knuckles.
His…bandaged knuckles.
Leo steps forward and touches Peter’s arm without thinking, wanting to stop him from aggravating whatever is underneath those bandages further. That earns him a startled flinch, Peter stumbling away with a small whimper. Even with the sob that he stifles, his eyes remain dry. Leo watches them fall with a slowness that scares him back to the fish.
“I was—Lutz will—,” Peter stammers.
“Peter. Are you okay?” Leo interrupts. Peter blinks at him once more, hard, shaking life back into himself.
“Nothing’s wrong,” he says.
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if you were okay,” Leo says. In any other case, he wouldn’t consider the two sentiments separate, but Peter isn’t any other case.
Peter doesn’t answer.
It’s then that Leo sees the state of the bandages around Peter’s hands. They look far from new, and from the way Peter’s hands won’t stop shaking, something about what’s underneath must not be right. Leo stares at them for a long time, stares at Peter’s blank expression, and drops to one knee.
“Can I look at this?” he asks softly.
Peter deliberates for a moment. Leo holds out his own hands, palms up, in case Peter wants to cooperate with him. He isn’t sure what he’ll do if Peter doesn’t, but before he can think any further on that Peter sets his hands gently on top of Leo’s.
Glancing between Peter’s face and the bandages, Leo very slowly starts to unwrap them.
When he sees what’s underneath, the blood drains from his face.
“How long ago did this happen?” Leo asks in a hushed tone, turning Peter’s hands over and trying his hardest to flatten out the tremor in his voice.
Peter is scared, but it’s less from the wounds themselves and more from the fact that Leo is drawing attention to them. Leo recognizes that with a familiarity that he didn’t know he had—his subconscious informing him that he’s seen this same reaction before without knowing the exact context. Peter wants to pull away, but he’s been told to stay still in the way Leo grasps his wrists and holds him there, and Peter Duchene is not someone who disobeys orders often. That has been beaten out of him.
“...A couple of days, maybe,” he murmurs. He won’t look at Leo. His eyes are for the cobblestones, and the cobblestones only.
Leo blanches. “A couple of days,” he echoes.
Peter nods.
When the silence that follows is too long for his liking, Peter starts to panic, backpedaling in an attempt to save himself (Leo has no idea why he thinks he needs to save himself from this, and it sets off the ache in his chest that usually corresponds with Peter). “Sorry,” the boy blurts, trying to twist himself away from Leo before he remembers he’s supposed to stay still. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Leo asks, frowning. “You don’t need to apologize, Peter.”
“But I—” He cuts off there, biting his lip. He shuts his eyes, angling his face away. “Sorry,” he says again.
Leo hums a low, short note, searching in the back of his mind for understanding that will make something like this click into place. He finds nothing. So he watches Peter’s face as he compares the bandages with the wounds on Peter’s hands and arms.
He doesn’t meet Leo’s eyes once in the time that it takes Leo to examine the bandages more closely. He just stares at Leo’s shoes or closes his eyes again, and he’s still and silent. When Leo lets go of his hands, he stays put, though he shifts on his feet like he wishes he could go.
“Come with me,” Leo says after grimacing at the bandages. He thought they seemed old before, but looking at them with a more critical eye, he takes more notice of the dirt that stains them and the yellowing that has nothing to do with age.
Peter finally looks at him. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
Leo knows what he wants to say. He folds the bandages in his hands, takes Peter by the shoulder, and says, “Please.”
Peter closes his mouth. Stares at him for a very long moment.
He nods.
Leo nudges him along until Peter remembers how to walk again, and the boy trails just behind him as they make the short journey to the Matiennes’ home. Leo has to remind himself, in a sad sort of way, that Peter won’t run away now. He feels obligated to follow Leo. He reminds Leo of a spooked animal most of the time, with his forever-wide eyes and light footsteps and aversion to loud noises—but he won’t try to…escape, for lack of a better word. Leo still looks back far too many times, even with that knowledge.
He opens the front door, and Gloria is already on the other side, wiping her hands on a dish towel and balling it in her hands, like she was ready for them.
“How did it happen?” is the first thing Gloria asks when she catches a glimpse of Peter. Leo wonders how long she’s known. She seems to have a sense for this by now.
Peter doesn’t answer for a while. He recoils from Gloria when she kneels down to give him a once-over, pulling his hands to his chest.
“Peter, baby, I need you to tell me what you can,” Gloria says more gently.
He freezes. Looks up at her, something softening in his eyes. Leo frowns. “I don’t really know,” Peter says quietly after another long pause. “It just sort of—I was making dinner while Vilna Lutz was out, and—”
“He left you on your own?” Leo hisses.
“—the pan kind of…stung me, a little?” Peter continues uncertainly. He looks down at the burns, like having his eyes on them will help him describe the feeling. “And then the pot—it fell over. It got all over me.”
“How long had the pot been on the stove?” asks Gloria, voice tight. Leo glances over at her. Her expression is schooled, her eyes tracing over Peter’s hands and arms. She’s focusing on the most immediate problem to distract from everything else that comes with it.
Peter blinks at her, lost. “…I’m not sure,” he admits. “The water was boiling. It…”
At that he trails off, the muscles in his face twitching. Gloria’s breath hitches. She nods.
“Alright,” she says after a moment. “Alright.” She stands and guides Peter to their dining table, pulling out a chair and nodding for him to sit. “It shouldn’t be terrible, Peter,” she tells him as she looks through the pantry. That’s a flat lie—Leo’s seen her burn herself before, and it hurt her badly even after dealing with it quickly and using the proper treatment. But Peter believes dishonesty is one of the greatest offenses, so he swallows the lie. If not because he doesn’t think Gloria could be lying, then because he’s reaching for something to assure him he’ll be alright. Gloria locks eyes with Leo on her way out, jerking her head toward the stairs.
“And how does it feel now?” Gloria asks as she returns to the table. Leo turns and starts up the stairs.
Leo hears Peter’s hesitation.
“Like nothing,” Peter answers.
“What?”
An edge of panic seeps into Peter’s voice. “I don’t feel anything. I haven’t felt my hands since…”
Leo falters on the stairs. He catches himself, and he hopes the sound of him nearly falling doesn’t carry into the kitchen.
When he comes back with medicine from under their bathroom sink, Peter is sitting in a chair, swinging his legs nervously while Gloria gets water from the sink.
“He didn’t rinse them,” she whispers to Leo while she brushes past him. He stiffens. Gloria’s jaw is tight, and her eyes are intense. They aren’t as intense as Peter’s. He watches the both of them with open terror in his eyes.
“Are you going to tell Vilna Lutz?” he asks in a tiny voice.
Gloria pauses. “You don’t want us to?”
Peter’s shoulders rise. “He won’t like it if he knows you did this,” he says.
Leo frowns. Gloria exchanges a look with him, eyebrows furrowed. He shakes his head slightly. Gloria takes a breath and turns back to Peter.
“He won’t like it?” she echoes as she kneels and starts washing the burns as gently as she can.
Peter flinches each time her hands brush his skin. He doesn’t pull away, but it takes effort on his part. “Lutz says we should be able to take care of things,” he explains. He swallows. “On our own.”
“This isn’t something you should take care of on your own,” Gloria says, pushing aside the bowl of water. She steps back, looking at her handiwork or at something else; Leo can’t tell. She winces and asks, “How did you wrap these?”
There are still marks on Peter’s skin where the bandages were, visible on top of the red skin and blisters. In a hollow voice, Peter answers, “Tightly,” and Gloria winces a second time and decides not to ask him where he learnt how to care for wounds. Both her and Leo know the answer to that. It adds to the discomfort they feel when his name comes up in conversation surrounding Peter.
“Well,” Gloria says after a long moment, putting most of her focus into applying salve to Peter’s burns, “you aren’t supposed to wrap these tightly, okay?”
Peter stares at his shoes as Gloria puts the salve to the side and takes a roll of bandages from Leo. She explains as she wraps Peter’s burns up again that the bandaging should be looser, that he should rinse his hands and arms with cool water and redress them each day. There will be some scarring, since it took this long for them to be properly treated, but they’ll heal. When she’s finished, none of them move.
Then Peter says, “I need to go.”
He’s swaying in the seat and he’s struggling to keep his eyes open, which gives Leo pause. “Right now?” he asks.
Peter nods, but it takes him too long to do so, and when Gloria guides him out of the chair she doesn’t lead him to the door, but to the living room. “Could you rest a little first?”
He hesitates, staring at the couch.
“Please,” Gloria adds.
His eyes find hers. He examines her face closely.
“...Okay,” he says after a long silence. His hands move like he wants to twist them in his sweater, but he can’t control them the way he wants. He drops them back to his sides and does his best to climb up onto the couch.
Gloria locks eyes with Leo over Peter’s head as she passes over a blanket. Looks toward the door, across the street where Vilna Lutz resides. Leo grimaces and shakes his head, and Gloria frowns in agreement.
Peter is asleep so fast it makes Leo wonder how long he’s been awake. He stays that way until the sky goes dark and the street lamps turn on.
Vilna Lutz is very unhappy when Peter gets back late.
Leo and Gloria Matienne hear all of it.