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The woman behind the very neat desk gives them both a very cheery smile. “So, you two have decided to become parents! That’s wonderful. It’s a very serious decision, but we’re so happy you’ve made it. The change you can bring to a child’s life is immeasurable, you know. How long have the two of you been talking about children?”
Isa and Lea trade a glance. Lea shrugs and leaves it to his partner to answer. Isa does so, fighting to keep his face from twitching. “About a month.”
Her expression falters for a second, but she slaps her smile back on. “A month. Well, I hope you’ve fully considered exactly how big of an investment this is. A child isn’t a puppy after all.” The reproach is obvious.
“It’s been only a month since we started speaking of adoption,” Isa says smoothly. “As for talking about bringing children into our home…” His gaze slides to Lea who smiles sheepishly. “Well, that started about two years ago.”
Graduate school is murder. Formalized, protracted murder meant to break one both mentally and physically.
At least, that is what Isa has decided on as he glares down at yet another academic paper written by a professor that cares more about their ego than their topic. He rubs his eyes hard enough to make spots appear. “Do this,” he mutters to himself, “and you can feel no guilt at doing nothing once Lea gets back with dinner.”
His long-time friend is good for many things: food, jokes, and paying half of rent. Whether it’s fetching home food from elsewhere or making it himself, Lea is the sole reason Isa remembers to eat every day. He’s due back within fifteen minutes with food from the best Chinese restaurant in town and Isa is going to get through the paper before then if it kills him.
Pulling his reading glasses back down to his nose, Isa glares his way through the next paragraph.
He’s on the last page when the locks rattle and then come undone. He ignores it, trusting Lea to manage to open the door without spilling their food all over the floor. Another of his many skills trained over the years.
“So, this is the place. It’s only clean because Isa can’t stand things out of order and also works off his hate for his readings by scrubbing it down every few days.” Lea’s already talking as the door swings open, no surprise, but he’s talking about Isa, not to him.
Frowning, Isa looks up and meets the glare of a teenager that’s standing just inside the door. Isa blinks once, twice, and then looks at the man behind the teenager. “Lea,” he interrupts.
“Isa, hey!” Lea smiles at him like everything’s normal and swings the door shut. “Got your favorites and an extra order of dumplings. Apparently people are not digging the new spice and I figured if anyone would eat it, you would. Ms. Li says she hopes you like them.”
“Lea,” Isa tries again. Lea goes right around his spot on the couch to unload containers at the kitchen counter. The teenager stays by the door, clearly and continuously glaring at him. “Would you like to tell me why-.”
“Oh! Roxas, come here. Isa doesn’t bite, I promise.” Lea smiles at the kid and Isa does his best not to glare at his best friend who is also an idiot.
The teenager looks at Lea and then back to Isa. He presses his back more firmly against the wall.
Isa frees himself from his study supplies and strides into the kitchen. It’s completely open to the living room so he keeps his voice very low. “What is he doing here?”
Lea glances past him and then focuses on pulling out plates. “I found him just hanging out by the back door at work. Seen him there before, chatted a bit on breaks, you know how it goes. I’m pretty sure he’s got nothing but that backpack. I offered him dinner and our couch.”
The question of “for how long” hangs in the air, but Isa doesn’t take a stab at it. He rubs his face, squeezing his forehead between his fingers. There’s too much...baggage around teenage homelessness for him to even pretend at callousness. “You have a phone,” he says instead. “Next time, perhaps a head’s up?”
Lea knows very well when a battle has been won. He grins and hands Isa a plate. “He’s great, you’ll see.”
By the time they finish dinner and watch two episodes of the Great British Bake-Off, Isa can’t say that he thinks Roxas is great . He’s a teenager, a time Isa does not miss, and he’s entirely too fond of snark and glaring at Isa. He hasn’t even done anything to the kid other than tell him to watch his food so it doesn’t spill all over the couch. That’s just manners, undeserving of a glare.
Yet here he is, feeling like an intruder in his own living room. Isa rubs his forehead and glances at the other two out of the corner of his eye. Lea’s taking up the other half of the couch with Roxas hunched in the armchair beside him. Lea gesticulates as he talks, probably discussing exactly how much he’d hate to be baking in a tent in a field, but would totally win anyway.
Roxas rolls his eyes, but for a moment, Isa sees the corner of his lips curve up.
They actually talk about it once they’re both heading for bed, Isa taking a seat on Lea’s bed as he brushes his hair out at the mirror on his closet door.
“I’m not saying he has to leave, but if he truly is homeless… You work all the time, I’m a fulltime student, and he should probably be enrolled in school too. Not to mention the other legalities of any kind of system he might have dodged or if he’s just a runaway.” Isa is going to have a headache for days.
Lea looks at him in the mirror. “I know it’s complicated, but come on, we can at least give him a couch and a shower and some food for a while. He hasn’t really told me anything yet, but I’m not tossing him back out there or to some home that hates him.”
Isa sighs. “I know. Again, I’m not suggesting that. Just...see if he will talk to you about where he’s come from. He trusts you somewhat and we need more information. I am not dealing with the cops showing up because his family is shit and sent them to track him down.”
That earns him a snort. “Put those legalese chops to use, Isa. Talk them right back out the door.”
“Shut it.” Isa pushes himself up off the bed. “I’m not in law school and I’m not arguing with the police. I’m going to bed.”
“Isa,” Lea says right when he reaches the door, “thanks. I know we’ll be able to make his life better here.”
Isa sighs and waves a hand. “If you believe so, then I will save further arguments. Good night, Lea.”
“Night.”
Collapsing onto his bed, Isa groans quietly. Leave it to Lea to make life that much more complicated all out of a heart that’s much too empathetic. He’s been there, of course he’s empathetic with a homeless teenager. You were there, you should have predicted this happening eventually.
Isa rolls over to scowl at the ceiling, thoughts whirling. He just needs to sleep. Things should be dealt with in the morning. He forces himself up to change and tries not to think about how much better he slept when there was more than just him in the bed.
Roxas stays in the apartment and the living room becomes more like a third bedroom with each day that passes. Isa can’t even be annoyed. He has a desk in his bedroom specifically for studying even if he prefers the light in the living room. And Roxas is quite particular about keeping his things together, always packing them away and grabbing his laundry the moment it’s come out of the dryer. He’s wary especially of Isa in a way hard to ignore.
That it makes him want to try that much harder is ridiculous. Still, he makes note of sizes and preferences as he switches the laundry from the washer to the dryer. Lea drops comments about the things he’s seen Roxas looking at whenever they go out wandering and they both keep an eye on what he’s eating.
Things get left in the living room or added onto Roxas’s pile. A couple shirts, a new pair of shoes, nothing sizeable or expensive, but Isa sees Roxas lounging around in shirts that aren’t worn practically transparent at the seams.
Arguments happen, particularly about school. Isa is staunchly for it while Lea shrugs it off. As someone with a GED, he hardly sees the problem in letting Roxas do whatever he wants and study a bit on the side. Add in that they aren’t Roxas’s legal anything and Isa doesn’t have much ground to stand on. They can’t register him for school; they can hardly afford to take him to the doctor.
Roxas studiously ignores these conversations, earbuds in and music blaring loud enough for them to hear.
Unable to tackle the school issue, Isa considers another, arguably more pressing problem: Roxas deserves a bed to sleep in. Unfortunately, theirs is a two bedroom apartment and there are three of them. Isa knows one solution, but also knows that it’s not a line he and Lea are willing to cross yet.
Still, Lea finds him sighing at the couch while Roxas is out doing whatever it is he does while not at their apartment.
“If you’re trying to figure out how to scrub it next, give it a rest. The expense is not worth the work, Isa.” Lea leans on the back of the couch, ice cream stick twirling between his fingers.
Isa makes a face at him. “I’m not thinking about cleaning the couch. I’m thinking about how we’re going to give him a bed. His back has to be killing him.”
Lea hums and eyes the couch. “I could-.”
“Don’t start. You deserve what rest you get. Having people coming in and out of the living room when you’re actually asleep would ruin that.” Isa rubs his forehead. Roxas had pointed out a couple days ago that he’s going to get a permanent frown stuck there and Isa couldn’t argue it then or now. “Also, you’re about a head taller than it is long. Your back would be ruined.”
“Well, shit. Do we swap out the couch for an actual bed?”
Isa shakes his head slowly. “No, that’s...really not something a teenage boy would want, right?”
“You ask that like you weren’t ever one.” Lea is smirking at him. Isa makes a face at him and he laughs. “Yeah, probably not. Rox would love some privacy.” He turns and eyes the rest of the apartment. Their washer and dryer are in a glorified closet and there’s not much else besides their bedrooms and the bathroom. “Shit.”
“Agreed.” Isa slumps forward, resting his arms against the back of the couch. “We can’t break our lease, neither of us has the money. The only other thing I can think of is us sharing and Roxas taking the other bedroom.”
This is, unsurprisingly, met with complete silence. After a very awkward beat, Lea clears his throat. “Well...again my hours are all over the place so it wouldn’t be like I was crashing while you were studying. And you were never that loud…”
Isa can feel the flush climbing up his neck and refuses to look at Lea. “I do value silence.”
“So...we could do that...for Roxas.”
“Right, for Roxas.” Isa straightens, still not looking at his roommate. “Should we tell him before we start moving things or surprise him?”
Lea coughs and moves toward the kitchen. “He’ll shut it down if we offer and I’m not moved over. He already feels like he’s taking up our space. Let’s surprise him.”
Isa is still sure that Roxas is going to bolt once they tell him, but Lea wraps an arm around Roxas’s shoulders and swings the bedroom door open like it’s so much more than a cleared out room. Isa hangs back, but can still see the way Roxas turns slightly, hugging Lea tightly. It makes his heart twist. He’s never had to worry about actually having some place to sleep. Giving Roxas that is well worth the awkwardness of sharing a room with Lea again.
They’ve done it before, both of them undergrads shoved into a room barely made for two. It had been tolerable for a year. Then they’d broken things off, a nasty fight with things said that were impossible to take back tearing them clean apart. Isa had gone out of his way to avoid the areas he knew Lea frequented and didn’t see him for almost a whole year.
Then there was the incident, something he refuses to talk about with anyone but his therapist.
Then Lea found him.
He apologized, Lea forgave him. They were friends again.
Friends, never anything more. Never any discussion of old late nights where they’d squeezed into a tiny bed, wrapped together and whispering dreams into each other’s ears. Never any talk of the touches, fingers in hair and brushing cheeks until they drew together.
Isa pretends very fiercely that he doesn’t miss feeling like the center of Lea’s world. He’s gotten quite good at it.
But now they’re back in the same room and habits he’d mostly forgotten come back into play. Like, Lea humming under his breath as he gets dressed in the morning and does his hair. He never makes his bed either, tossing the blankets around because “it’s not like it ever makes a difference to my sleep schedule.”
The worst is arguably the fidgeting. Lea can’t help but twitch small items around on their shelves. Sometimes it’s the shells he’s gotten from somewhere, smoothing them between his fingers and then adjusting their spots minutely. Other times he walks past the bookshelf, tweaking the line of books so one is slightly forward and the next slightly back. It’s enough to drive Isa wild. Things can just stay put .
But he presses his lips together and doesn’t say a word. It’s fine. This is fine.
Isa wishes he could stop dreaming of Lea’s fingers playing with his hair instead.
“You guys are going to kill me,” Roxas says as he sets his bag down with a thump.
Isa glances up at him over the top of his reading glasses. “How so?”
Roxas swings his legs up over the arm of the chair and slumps down, already messing with his phone. They just transferred his service to Lea’s plan so now he doesn’t have to worry about it shutting off. Blue eyes look over the phone at him and then narrow. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed that Lea is the one with a sense of humor.”
“I’ve heard you joke, Isa. Please, I’m not deaf. I also have eyes. You guys are killing me with your awkwardness.”
“Our awkwardness.” Isa pulls his glasses off. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Things are the same as always.”
Roxas rolls his eyes and pockets his phone. “So, you’ve always looked after Lea like you want to grab him and toss him into your room to not be seen for several hours?”
Isa glares at him. “I often think about throwing both of you out the window, but I don’t want to pay to replace the glass. No, I don’t look at Lea that way.”
“Riiiiight,” Roxas drawls. “I’m just imagining it.”
“Yes, you are. We’re friends and have been since we were kids.” Isa closes a book with a very empathetic thump. A perfect end of discussion.
Roxas doesn’t take the hint. “Just friends, you two...sure, Isa. I’m just going to make sure I knock before I open that door when you’re both inside.”
“Don’t you have things to do,” Isa says waspishly. Roxas just smirks at him and swings himself up out of the chair to go get a drink.
It’s pathetic that a sixteen year old can tell he’s pining and Lea can’t.
Worse, maybe Lea knows too.
Isa covers his face and exhales heavily.
When Lea and Roxas come home with Xion, Isa can’t even find it in him to be surprised.
Xion is very shy, terrified of him almost or at least it seems that way. She flinches away from any shouting and doesn’t talk much at all when they’re eating together. She watches the windows and doors, exits, and always keeps one hand tucked into her sweatshirt pocket. Whatever she’s holding onto, it stays hidden.
Something in Isa recognizes where those actions and reactions come from. He’s careful with her, far more careful than he was with Roxas. He always makes sure to walk a little louder and a little slower before entering the room. He always makes sure to keep his temper in check even if Lea and Roxas are doing their level best to be as annoying as possible. He never, ever says anything that might chase her off, not even when she stares at him for long periods while he’s attempting to study.
It must be a week before she speaks to him when they’re alone. Isa is in the middle of squinting at a cake recipe and wishing desperately that he trusted the local bakery more. Xion has been watching from the living room in her quiet way. Fumbling with the spices, Isa traces a finger down the list of ingredients. “What was next…?”
“The vanilla.”
Her voice is surprisingly strong for someone who seems so meek. Isa looks up, blinks, and then looks back at his quickly growing mess. “I thought I added that.”
“You picked it up and forgot the right measuring spoon, so you put it back down. It never went in your bowl.” Xion points at the bottle. “That’s the good vanilla. Lea said it was for special occasions.”
“And this definitely qualifies. His birthday is tomorrow.” Isa adds the vanilla and smiles at her. “Thank you. It’d be worthless without the vanilla.”
He’s rewarded with a shy smile back and Xion sits up a bit straighter. “He didn’t tell us that.”
“He wouldn’t. He doesn’t think much of his birthday.” Isa goes back to the recipe again. “I mentioned it to Roxas so that he’d keep Lea out of here for a couple hours. I thought we’d all sign the card and have a nice dinner and some cake tomorrow for him.”
“That’s really nice of you.”
Isa snorts. “I have my moments.”
“I know Lea bakes, so he must think you’re really sweet to try.”
He pauses in his motions and squints at her. She’s grinning and his lips twitch. “He’s always been much more trying than me. I have to catch up somewhere. His birthday seems like a good reason.”
Xion giggles. “You’re a good boyfriend.”
Isa fumbles the cup he’s holding and almost tosses flour all over himself. “Oh, we’re not...that. We’re friends.”
She’s frowning when he looks her way. “Really? But I thought...you guys really love each other.”
“We do,” Isa agrees slowly. “But as friends. We tried dating before and it...it didn’t work out.”
Useless and lazy and messing around. This is serious! This is our future. Get off your ass already, Lea, and focus on what’s really import- .
“It didn’t work out,” Isa repeats and refills the cup. His motion is much more robotic as he adds it to the bowl. He can feel Xion watching him.
She clears her throat. “Did you ever talk about it?”
“No. We...repaired our friendship instead.”
“So, you don’t know for sure that you’re only friends.”
“Xion,” Isa says tiredly, “sometimes, it’s better to leave things lie.”
Xion sighs at him. “I don’t believe that.” She pulls herself off the couch and comes into the kitchen. Her sleeves are already rolled up and she takes the flour from him. “I do believe that you suck at this and need help.”
It’s not an apology or even a true end of their conversation, but Isa smiles at her. “Maybe. Are you a baker?”
“Not a bit, but at least I can remember things.” Xion sticks her tongue out at him and then freezes. Before she can look away, Isa laughs and offers her the recipe.
“Then let’s get this done.”
Xion slots into their little group like she’s been there all along. As the days and then weeks pass, she opens up. Her jokes become more frequent and so do her smiles. There’s less need to be so completely careful, but Isa still never rushes her. Perhaps that’s why she talks to him in bits and pieces about her past.
Some of it makes him furious, but he pushes it down and away, and focuses on what he can do now. He holds her when she cries about people who should have loved her and promises her that he and Lea will never abandon her. She holds on tight and Isa knows that they’ll need to do some very complicated legal things very soon. It will be worth the headache if it means making this thing into a family.
They shove a second bed into Roxas’s room and string up a curtain for privacy when either of them needs it. Xion decorates it with pictures and little things she’s picked up in her journey from her past to the now. She and Roxas debate posters and music, but get along well. They come home talking about friends over dinner and Isa could smile for a week after Xion asks him about school.
Lea tells him not to be so smug and flings mashed potatoes into his face. Roxas and Xion freeze, but Isa is already sending potatoes right back at Lea’s head. The mess this results in is worth all the laughter as food flies.
Life is...good, almost perfect.
Almost, because Roxas and Xion are thick as thieves and equally convinced that there is one thing that needs fixed in their family.
Isa can’t decide what the worst part is. Roxas constantly tossing out comments about how much he’s noticed Isa’s looks at Lea or that he heard something or other in their room at night is frustrating. But, Xion’s method of attack is much more targeted and much more effective.
She slides onto the couch beside him and asks about their childhood together, about being students together and pulling pranks and sharing ice cream. Isa gets caught up in the telling and laughing over the past and then he always seems to look up and find Lea in the doorway, listening and smiling in that way that always makes Isa’s heart turn over.
Xion, phone in her hand, smiles innocently and asks for another story a couple days later.
The worst might be that it keeps his thoughts spinning back to the same place over and over. The could be hurts, because he had it once upon a time. He had it and he lost it by being a selfish, controlling bastard. He lost it and he doesn’t deserve to demand feelings from Lea ever again.
His dreams and his wishes stay silent, locked away behind his lips as they lie in the same dark bedroom. They could be miles apart and Isa would feel just as lonely.
He rolls over to put his back to Lea and tries to sleep. Red hair, green eyes, and gentle, teasing fingers follow him into his dreams.
Isa throws himself even further into work he can actually accomplish. He works at his classes, his readings, and he throws himself into research on legal guardianship. He files paperwork and puts the interview date on their calendar and lets Lea convince him that they’ve got it as they sit outside an office.
And they do. They get it officially documented that Roxas and Xion are in their care until they’re eighteen. They tell the two of them over pizza and a movie.
Roxas and Xion trade a look and then a shrug. “Well, yeah,” Roxas says. “I thought that was already true?”
“But now it’s true in the eyes of the state!” Lea waves an imaginary flag. “No more shoving you brats in closets when the police come by.”
Isa rolls his eyes and scoots a bit closer to Lea as Xion squeezes onto the couch on his other side. Their legs press together and Lea smiles at him tiredly. Isa looks quickly to Xion. “You’re alright with this then?”
Xion nods. “Yeah, that gives us two years to practice baking together.”
Lea erupts into laughter and Isa couldn’t look away from him even if it cost him his life.
In the end, it’s neither Roxas nor Xion that breaks Isa down.
It’s not even Lea who takes notice and makes a move.
It’s something so incredibly silly that Isa doesn’t like to remember it often, because he goes so red Lea teases him even more.
It’s his birthday, they’ve had a cake much better than the one he and Xion made for Lea. They’re watching the third episode in a docuseries on wolves and Xion and Roxas have fallen asleep, exhausted from celebrating and their first week back in school.
Isa is slumped against Lea’s shoulder, exhausted himself from his classes. Lea’s arm is around his shoulders, a friendly hold if there ever was one. Isa has convinced himself not to analyze it or pull back and just enjoy it. This is what they have, a solid friendship, one that can support two lost teenagers in this mad world.
He yawns and doesn’t immediately open his eyes back up. “I should go to bed…”
“Mmm,” Lea hums, “but this is so invigorating. I think this dude is about to go into wolf fur density for the fourth time.”
Isa snorts and then feels a very gentle touch against his head. Fingers brush through his hair, pulling it back and gently straightening the pieces. He can’t breathe and knows he tenses.
“Shit, sorry,” Lea mumbles, already trying to pull his hand back. “I wasn’t thinking. I just, you look so-.” He breaks off as Isa wraps his fingers around his wrist.
He pulls Lea’s hand back toward him. “It’s...okay. You...you know how much I like it.”
“How much you used to anyway. But I shouldn’t have…” Lea stares blankly toward the television. “You don’t want me doing it.”
This is so ridiculously incorrect, so unfortunately untrue that Isa does the thing that will haunt him till he dies.
He sniffs and covers his eyes as tears slide down his cheeks.
“Isa?!” Lea sits up, free hand reaching to touch his shoulder. “Oh shit, man, I wasn’t trying to remind you of anything. Fuck, I know how fucked up you were after all that and here I go reminding you because I miss you so much and that’s so damn selfish.”
“What?” Isa rubs at his eyes and squints at him. “You think I, because of that? Lea, you could never remind me of that.”
Lea shakes his head. “After what happened...Isa, I thought you’d never want anyone to get that close again. I never wanted to...to scare you.”
Isa sniffs again and reaches out to take Lea’s hand. “You never could. I’m being foolish, because I...I never stop thinking about being able to do these things again. I’ve been ridiculously enamored with you for months. Even they noticed.” He nods toward the kids, wrapped in blankets on the floor.
“I don’t know that they noticed. More like heard me whining like a baby about how fricking gay I am.” Lea sighs gustily. “I told them not to bother you with it, that it was the past and you needed a friend more than anything like that.”
They’re talking around each other, talking around it, and Isa is suddenly sick of it.
“Lea,” he says softly, still crying slightly. “I’ve always loved you. I was the one who ruined things. I never wanted to bring up my feelings because I didn’t want to ruin what we still had in our friendship. Of course I love you still.”
They only have the light of the television to see by, but it’s enough for the flush over Lea’s face. He reaches out slowly, putting a hand in Isa’s hair again. He draws it through the long strands and then down to cup his cheek. It’s a small distance to close, laughable in how long it took them to get there.
Lea brushes their lips together, but it’s Isa how presses it into a kiss. It’s soft and short, but leaves them both breathing harder. Lea snorts and presses their foreheads together. “We’re stupid, if we’d just talked…”
“Yeah, no shit,” come the whisper from the floor.
They both jump, banging their foreheads together. Lea swears and Isa bites his lip to stop from doing the same. They both glare down at the kids who are smirking at them.
Xion winks. “I told you like the first week, Isa.”
“God, we had to hear Lea complain so much and this is all it fucking took. You two suck.” Roxas grabs the blanket and turns over. “Go to your room if you’re going to make up for all that lost time.”
“Eww, Roxas!” Xion kicks at him.
Isa’s face is burning and he turns to press it into Lea’s shoulder. “I hate our kids.”
“Me too. Let’s leave them to clean everything up.”
Neither teen notices them, wrestling on the floor.
Isa takes Lea’s hand again, not inclined to move. “They can get it in the morning. I want to keep celebrating.”
“Oh, damn, it’s not after midnight yet.” Lea’s face lights up and he pokes at Isa’s cheek until he lifts his head. Once he’s looking up, Lea kisses him again. “Happy birthday,” he whispers and Isa’s stupid heart turns over as a couple tears sneak their way from his eyes.
Lea wipes them away and they curl back together.
In the morning, all of them are sore from sprawling over the living room. But, it’s a morning Isa won’t forget, because it starts with fingers in his hair and a kiss to his forehead. He lifts his head and kisses Lea, ignoring Xion and Roxas’s protests.
They asked for it after all.
“So, we’ve been Roxas and Xion’s legal guardians for a while. We simply wanted to make things that much more official.”
The woman blinks and looks back down at her papers. “Well, I think that’s wonderful. Let’s get started.”
Lea takes Isa’s hand and squeezes it. They’re on their way. Each step forward tying them together even more tightly.
Isa squeezes back and hopes they finish the adoption in time for their wedding. Their whole family, official in every way possible, as they tie one more knot.