Chapter Text
“Leon, we can bring the rest later.” Dan was in the stairwell, if the faintness of his voice was anything to go by. “The important thing is we’re there for registration, your gym socks can wait.”
“I’m coming!” Leon said. He glanced at Harry, who was still puttering in the kitchen over a few dishes in the sink, and spun in a circle to scan the living room. He and Dan had already lugged out two duffel bags and a plastic zipper-bag that used to house a comforter full of clothes, books, shoes, and his trombone case. The back of the Mercedes was packed to the ceiling, and although he missed Dan’s old convertible, the four-door was a smarter investment in the long run.
Over the years, they’d found a quiet and happy routine in the apartment on Eighty-Sixth Street. While Dan and Harry pulled the night shift, Leon caught up on homework and chores. He walked the five or so blocks to the private school he ultimately settled in—one with real resources to help him, Dan reminded him, that came with a good deal of pain in his wallet. He rarely skipped—what reason did he have to? They’d gone out of their way to find him a place that seemed to actually care where he got in life and, for the first time in Tenth Grade, he started to as well.
On weekends and in the summer, they trekked up to Ulster County. A solace to the city where they ran the risk of being recognized if they held each other’s hand in public. So every Saturday morning, Dan loaded the trunk of whichever car he’d recently traded in for, and they made the two hour drive up near Poughkeepsie to a town in the mountains called New Paltz. They ate brunch at sidewalk bistros; had dinner with friends they accumulated in their colorfully painted Victorian homes. It was a town that had taken somewhat kindly to a different sort of family. And, to Leon’s quiet delight, he made a handful of close friends.
Friends with parents like his. Friends who, like him, had been handed through the foster system over and over until they finally stepped foot in a home with a cozy sort of lavender hue about it. A place that finally, for all their troubles, didn’t mind so much. A place that wanted to help, even if they weren’t the model child. A few of them had even gotten acceptance letters right along with him, and at least one would be rooming at NYU with him.
It felt strange, standing in the middle of the recently carpeted living room, to look around and think of it as home. To think, however briefly, that he was going to miss a place. He’d never done so before, and the feeling was foreign and somewhat unwelcome. He looked out over Eighty-Sixth Street for a long time, cataloging the block that had become ‘home’ over the past five years.
Harry’s voice behind him roused him from his tryst. “C’mon, champ,” he said. “Better get on the road before Dan blows a gasket.”
“We’re driving a few blocks,” Leon muttered with a roll of his eyes.
“Yeah, well, I think if you drag your feet much longer he might load you up and send you down on the subway.”
Leon hesitated by the window. He wiggled his toes in his All Stars . “You guys are…you’re gonna be alright, right?”
Harry’s face scrunched. “Whatta you mean, ‘alright’ ?”
“Like.” Leon grabbed his own elbow and stumbled over the words. “You’ll still be here? For Thanksgiving and for Christmas?”
“Probably. This apartment is rent stabilized.”
“No, I mean…” he trailed off again, seemingly incapable of articulating the choking fear that had kept him up all night. He knew, rationally, that it was a stupid question. It was already answered; he knew it as well as anyone. But somehow, some way, he just needed to hear it straight from Harry’s mouth. “I mean, you’ll still be together?”
Harry’s face fell. Wordlessly, he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around Leon. The tears in his voice were evident, and he said, “Leon, of course. Is that what’s been eating you?”
“A little,” he said quietly.
“Why?” Harry held him at arm’s length, pain and worry scribbled all over his face in lines that had grown deeper over the years. He slid a hand behind his tortoise shell glasses and dried one eye.
“I dunno. It’s just…you guys can’t really be normal. They won’t let you. And…I just don’t want to leave and come back and…everything’s changed.”
“Leon, that doesn’t matter. We’re happy here, with what we’ve got. We’ll keep on being roommates—” he lapsed into a momentary silence as he stared out the window. “But you and me and Dan? We’re a family. Just as much as any, with a mom and a dad and two point five children exactly. There’s no breaking that up.”
“Never?”
“No, never.”
Footsteps thudded up the stairwell, and they both turned to find Dan in the doorway. Harry raised his eyebrows, half expecting a playful tongue-lashing, but Dan just smiled. “Had to get one last look at the view, huh?”
Leon felt his expression crumble. For weeks he’d been crawling out of his skin for a taste of freedom again; of that solitude specific to him that he’d grown up craving. But now, he wasn’t so sure he could do it. Before Dan could dodge him, Leon crossed the room and buried his face in Dan’s shoulder. Leon felt him throw his arms to the sides in shock and then slowly, gently, wrap them around him.
“Hey, kid, c’mon. Chin up. What’s the matter with you?”
Leon only cried harder. It felt stupid, to be this way. But this was like folding up the only love—the only real parents— he could ever remember having and throwing it in a shoebox under the bed. The whole world felt like it was looming over them, ready to move in for some devastating blow. If he stayed, if they went on as they always had, he could have this perfect life forever. Nothing would ever change. They would be crystallized in time.
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Dan said. He patted the back of Leon’s head. “Everything’s gonna be fine.
“What if you—” Leon heard his own voice, packed into his ears with tears. “What if you get sick, or what if they find out and you lose your jobs, or what if—”
“Whoa, there, nelly,” Harry’s footsteps approached. He put a hand on Leon’s back. “Listen here, nothing bad is going to happen just because you go for your degree. Hear me?”
Dan was smiling, holding Leon up by the arms while the boy dried his face. “I think it’s also worth mentioning that we managed pretty well to keep ourselves alive before you came along for good, too, you know.”
“Yeah but,” Leon sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “I’m just worried.”
“You worry about yourself,” Dan said, swinging a playful punch into Leon’s arm. “I think we’ll live.”
***
That night, after they’d delivered Leon to the stately doors of NYU and seen him safely into his dorm, they sat for a long time in a strange silence. Thrown from the freshness of a new relationship into the emergent need of parenting, Harry realized they’d had little time to actually discover what it was like to live together—just the two of them. He sat at the counter for a long time and watched Dan puzzle over the arrangement of the mugs in the cabinet. It wasn’t that the quiet was unpleasant so much as it was unfamiliar. The few weekends they’d taken—once a year, twice at most—and left Leon with Christine, Roz, or Mac were the only real attempts they’d made at sorting out how they were a real couple together; just themselves.
With a light sigh, Harry stood up. He needed to move. It had only been two hours since they’d dropped Leon off, and already he was wondering when he’d call for the night to tell them he was headed to bed. He wandered to the end of the hall and peered through Leon’s bedroom door, left half ajar. He’d taken most of his newer things, leaving mostly what he’d brought with him from the hospital. A few of the more childish things he owned. The place on the wall where the Amazing Harry banner had hung for five years was lighter now, than the rest of the wall. Leon had packed it that morning, rolled carefully and placed it on the top of his duffel bag of clothes. It was the first thing he tacked to his dorm room wall before he hugged them both goodbye.
Harry stepped into the room and stood in the middle of the carpet. He needed to vacuum, but it could wait another day. The floor creaked in the hallway, and he looked up. Dan leaned in, a hand on either side of the doorframe. He winced and cracked first his left, then right shoulder. “Empty nesting?”
“Guess so.”
“C’mon,” Dan said. He threaded an arm around Harry’s waist, and it fit perfectly there. Resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder, he led his head bump against Harry’s while they looked at the mostly empty room. “It’s good for him.”
“I know—” Harry broke off and reached to wipe his eyes.
“He’s a handful of stations away. We can go down next weekend.”
“I know! ”
“Sorry,” Dan bit his lip. If nothing else, over the past five years he’d learned at least somewhat how to tell when he was pushing too hard. When he was meeting roadblocks it wasn’t advisable to plow through. “Wanna just go lay down?”
Harry nodded and followed Dan into their room. He fell into bed—still in jeans and windbreaker—and watched Dan move in the fading afternoon light while he unbuckled his belt, slid out of his clothes, and climbed into bed in his socks and a pair of boxers. He moved slow. He wrapped his arms around Harry and pulled him in against his chest. Ever so gently, he slid Harry’s glasses off and set them on his bedside table. The sun dipped behind a highrise, and the rectangle of bright orange light on the wall disappeared in an instant. Harry closed his eyes but couldn’t seem to cry, although now he wanted to more than ever.
“Y’know,” he said, running a hand up to rest on Dan’s collarbone. “I think I’d make a really terrible parent.”
He felt Dan’s jolt of surprise, like he’d just said something completely ridiculous. It didn’t stop him gently combing his fingers through Harry’s hair, though. After a lengthy pause, he said, “You’re nuts. You’re obviously a fine parent. I think you’re just hungry.”
“Dan, what the hell?” Harry sat up on his elbow.
“What? Kid’s one college, not dealing dope, and you’re in here crying like you ruined him.” He threw his legs over the side of the bed and stretched. “You need therapy. So what’ll it be? Chinese?”
Harry crossed his arms and leaned against the headboard. Dan stood expectantly in front of the window. A few seconds passed, and he made a prompting gesture. Harry refused to look at him. Instead, he fixed his eyes on his feet. Dan ran his thumb under the waistband of the short, red satin boxers and snapped them, propping his hand on his hip. “Okay, fine. Too open-ended. How’s this: chicken or beef?”
Harry lifted his chin and grunted, “Eggrolls.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m not too hungry, I don’t think.”
Heaving a sigh, Dan nodded and picked his jeans up. “I think you are, and I think teriyaki sounds nice, so that’s what you’re getting.” He straightened up and smiled. “M’kay?”
Harry scrunched his nose. “Beef and broccoli or leave me out of it.”
“Sure, fine,” Dan said, his smile growing bewildered. “Whatever works.”
Dan picked his shirt up off the floor and tossed it into the hamper. He wrestled into a sweatshirt hanging from the bedpost and pocketed his money clip. When he turned to Harry, he was met with a look of faint panic. Harry sat up straighter. “Would you—do you mind if I walked with you?”
“Mind?”
“Yeah, like—” Harry stood up. “—like, we could walk together?”
Dan was nodding. “Sure, I don’t care.”
Harry was on his feet in a moment, zipping his jacket back up. The thought of being alone in the quiet apartment was worse, at that moment, than going with Dan. He couldn’t resist a jab, though, and pulled on a sneaker as he mumbled, “You’re such a dick.”
“Yeah,” Dan said, and wrapped his arms around Harry’s waist. “But I’m your dick, and all that.”