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“You look awful,” Oz said, and Leo whipped his head open to see his friend leaning against the door of his office, smiling sadly at him. Oz looked like he had in the days before the completed reunification of the Baskervilles: exhaustion and bone-deep despair written into his very tendons, a red Baskerville cloak wrapped around him like a funeral shroud, and Leo blinked at him, and Oz’s image resolved into Oz as he was now, looking only worried, wearing a blouse and slacks and no cloak.
“And you’re here late,” said Leo. “Aren’t you supposed to go home at five?”
“I did,” Oz said, entering his office. “It’s currently nine in the morning…which is when I’m supposed to come in. Master Glen, did you get any sleep last night?”
“I guess not,” said Leo, who had not realized that it was morning already. This had been happening more and more lately, unless Vincent slipped something in his food, and Leo blamed the fact that there weren’t enough hours in the day. The other Baskervilles were doing their best to support him, but Leo wanted to go through all of the records of the memories he’d wiped himself, and that on top of all of Glen’s duties was a lot.
Oz did not look impressed, and Leo was reminded of the days before Pandora fell but after he’d stolen Elliot’s memories and unlocked his powers as Glen, when Oz would visit him in the cell in which he was confined and encourage him to rest, to eat, to take care of himself. Leo had screamed at Oz, mostly, told him to fuck himself, done everything he could to get Oz to snap and kill him.
“So,” Oz said, pulling a chair up to Leo’s desk. “I’m your bodyguard, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m paying you for.” Though maybe Alice had been a little closer to what Leo wanted, when she’d claimed that Leo would be paying Oz to be his friend. “Why do you ask?”
“As your bodyguard, I’m supposed to protect your body—right? Like, your physical state?”
“I guess,” said Leo, unsure where Oz was going with this. He was definitely going somewhere— often, when Oz and Elliot had been having a more civil conversation about books, Oz would start off a chain of questioning like this that would end up with Elliot accidentally agreeing with Oz on some facet or other of a book he disliked, and then starting a fistfight over it—but Leo was too tired, and too hurting, to try and think about where Oz was going with this. Better to ride it out. You could build a friendship on that, maybe, and if you couldn’t—well, Oz had to get his memories back at some point, right? It wasn’t impossible. When Oz and Leo had discussed the conditions for the return of Oz’s memories, they had settled on one that Oz thought improbable and Leo thought likely enough. As per the terms of their agreement, Leo couldn’t share the condition with anyone or do anything to bring it about that didn’t fall directly under his duties as Glen, but—well, it was inevitable, he thought. It would happen sooner or later. It had to. Leo wasn’t stable enough to consider any other option.
“And your physical state is harmed by you not sleeping,” said Oz.
“That’s subjective,” said Leo. “And anyway, I had some important work to do.”
Oz raised his eyebrows. “Subjective how?” he said. “I mean, you’d definitely completely lost track of time when I got here. How much work did you get done overnight, anyway?”
“That’s not important,” said Leo.
“But you just said it was important,” said Oz.
Leo scowled at him.
“Look,” said Oz, “you’ll get more work done if you’re sleeping properly, you know? And you’ll get it done better. And, more importantly, you’ll be in better physical condition, too.”
Leo glared at him. “Why do you care? It’s not like we’re friends or anything,” he snapped, unable to stop himself. Oz didn’t remember him anymore. He didn’t remember that they were friends. He didn’t remember how hard he’d fought for that friendship when even Leo had given up on it. He didn’t remember anything. He’d thrown it all away, excised that part of his life like it was a tumor, and made Leo the scalpel to cut it away. Leo had agreed to it, yes, but—it still hurt.
“Well,” Oz said slowly, “you’re a generally likable person, I think—”
Leo scoffed.
“You are,” said Oz. “I know I liked you immediately, at any rate. I—it was extremely kind of you to offer me this position, and I’m grateful and indebted to you for it. So of course I care about you.”
That was a load of hot steaming bullshit. Leo knew it; Oz probably knew it too. Leo had never been an especially likeable child, and now that he was a fresh adult, and in a position of power, he’d stopped trying entirely. On top of that, Oz and Leo both knew that Leo had promised Oz that he would be totally free from all the Baskerville bullshit going on when he wiped his memory, and hiring Oz as his bodyguard was explicitly and obviously going back on that agreement. Leo had never even pretended otherwise.
“If you liked me immediately, maybe we should look at loss of cognitive capabilities due to amnesia,” Leo groused. “And we both know that me hiring you wasn’t kind, since I did promise you when I erased your memory that you’d be freed from having to deal with—you know—any of this stuff going on here, and you have to deal with it now.”
“You’ve literally been paying me to sit in your office all day and read, and chat with you,” said Oz. “Believe me, I’m not ‘dealing with’ anything I don’t want to be. And yeah, I did like you immediately. I liked you a lot and I still do. So that’s why I care about you, and that’s why I’m telling you to take a break and take a nap.”
Leo glared at Oz and only got a smile in response.
“I’ll guard the room to make sure that nothing happens to disturb you,” Oz said cheerfully. “Where’s the closest bed you can use? You can come over to Alice’s and my apartment, if you want.”
“I hate you,” said Leo.
“Well, I like you a lot, Master Glen,” said Oz, an answer so fucking audacious that Leo wondered for a moment if he’d been conspiring with Vincent. But Vincent had made it extremely clear that he blamed Oz for Gilbert’s current state, and refused to speak civilly with him even if Leo was in the room, so they probably weren’t working together to make Leo’s life harder.
“Go to hell.”
“Of course, Master Glen, so long as you sleep while I’m there!”
Oz’s general response to Leo telling him to go to hell, pre-amnesia, had been, But we’re both already there, aren’t we? It had been gallows humor, and the first time Leo had heard it was the first time he’d laughed since losing Elliot. Pre-amnesia, too, the only time Oz had ever called Leo “Master Glen” had been when he was mocking the Baskervilles, a small reminder that he was still ‘Leo’, that ‘Leo’ was still loved.
Something deep within Leo’s chest twisted, and his hand twitched towards the paperweight on his desk, and he snatched that hand into his lap, because this Oz was not his friend Oz and it certainly wasn’t Elliot, and if he tried to bash his head in with a paperweight Oz wouldn’t come back.
“God,” said Leo. “Fine. Fine. Whatever.” He stood. “I’ll take a nap, fine.”
And Oz’s smile changed, then, more relieved, more real, like the sort of smile that had peeked through on Leo’s friend Oz, sometimes, when Leo would cave to his pressure and take care of himself, and Leo felt sick, and Leo thought, God, he’s the same guy, we just aren’t friends anymore, and Leo found himself wishing desperately that he’d never gone to see Oz that day, never brought him back in.
Leo headed out of his office, Oz on his heels; he tried to think of nice ways to tell Oz to go away, but couldn’t come up with any. His head ached, and his heart burned, and he was tired, Oz wasn’t wrong about that, but this exhaustion was not just physical. Leo wanted his friends back, didn’t want to be alone anymore, but he didn’t know how to reach out. Vincent popped up all the time, of course, but his priority was Gilbert, and—well, that wasn’t really a surprise. Gilbert was really not doing okay. Anyway, Vincent wasn’t his friend. He never had been, and Leo didn’t know if he ever would be. He had no idea how he’d managed to befriend Elliot; with Oz, he had been nice to him once and Elliot had helped him out of a dark place, and Oz had latched onto them both and refused to take no for an answer.
“…Master Glen,” said Oz, his voice serious, and Leo hoped that this was a request to leave, that maybe he could catch even one single break today, though, knowing Oz, it probably wasn’t that.
“Yeah?”
“I know that we aren’t friends,” said Oz, “and you have no reason to listen to me or believe that I care about you. But I really, really do care about you, and I care a lot, and…I can’t really explain why, or give a good reason, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. And I know I’m not the only person who cares about you, and I’m not the only person who worries about you, and—just—please take care of yourself, okay? You need rest. You need to eat properly. You need to take breaks. You can’t just run at 100% all the time, Master Glen. Nobody can.”
“…Thanks, Oz,” Leo said quietly. “I—I’ll try my best.”
Oz grinned at him. “Great,” he said.
“And you know…” Leo swallowed. “I wouldn’t be opposed to being friends. That would be nice, I think.”
Oz’s smile broadened. “Awesome,” he said. “Friends, then.”
“Yeah,” said Leo, thinking about book clubs and breaking up fistfights, and gallows humor when a trio became a duo. Last time they’d become friends, Elliot had commanded Oz’s respect and adoration and Leo had been able to snap up the friendship when Elliot started pitching a fit about Oz’s family history; this time, there hadn’t been any of that assistance, and it was comforting, almost.
Coincidence, inevitability, I don’t care which it is! I’m glad I got to know you!
Oz’s words echoed back in Leo’s head, and Leo thought that the Oz he’d known would have been glad to know that they were friends again. He opened the door into a dark break room with a couch, and immediately dropped down onto it, already closing his eyes.
Oz frowned. “I said a bed,” he said.
“I’ll sleep in a bed tonight,” Leo said into the arm of the couch. “This is just a nap.”
“…Alright, I guess,” said Oz reluctantly. “Rest well, Master Glen.”
“Yeah,” said Leo, and he closed his eyes, and did his best to sleep.