Work Text:
The streetlamp’s glow streamed through the gap between the curtains. Leo’s chest rose and fell beneath the blanket. He was sleeping on his back. He’d never admit it, but his shoulder still hurt too much for him to lie on his side. Adam saw his face twitch, heard the sharp inhale when he moved the wrong way. The scar on his face had faded to a pale pink. But Adam knew it would never truly disappear. And every time he looked at it, it would remind him that his recklessness, his hotheadedness, had almost cost Leo his life.
*
His ears rang. He could still smell the explosion, acrid and heavy, feel the ash on his lips, clinging to his skin. He reached for his flashlight and pushed himself to his feet. Carla was dead. His mother screamed. Leo? Where was Leo? He was lying on Pia, protecting her. Motionless. Adam reached under his arms, and Leo’s body collapsed into his lap, his head lolling to the side. He couldn’t breathe. No. No. His hands were trembling. He didn’t know where to touch him. Where he wouldn’t make things worse. Where he wouldn’t cause more pain. In the flashlight’s bright beam, blood gleamed red across his face and neck.
*
He shook his head and rubbed his face. No. He couldn’t go back there. His eyes flicked to the bed. Leo was alive. Leo was here. Leo had always been here.
The days in the hospital had been dark and agonizing. Leo disappeared behind a set of sliding doors, and Adam just stood there, frozen. Terrified. They tried to examine him, but he refused. They tried to send him home, but he wouldn’t leave. He sat on the hallway floor and stared at the door where Leo had vanished. Esther had been there too. She said something, but he didn’t hear. He didn’t care. He knew she blamed him. It was written all over her face. Adam Schürk, you screwed this up. Again. Only this time, others had paid the price.
He didn’t know how much time had passed when Esther returned. Had she even left? She dropped his bag at his feet, the one he left in the office, full of his things from the house, then turned and walked away. Adam went into the nearest bathroom. A grey face stared back at him from the mirror. Tear tracks streaked his skin. He didn’t even remember crying. Blood had dried on his hands. He pressed the soap dispenser again and again and scrubbed his hands under scalding water. His palms, between his fingers, under his nails. Leo’s blood was everywhere. And when his hands looked clean, he washed them again. His skin burned. He shoved his head under the faucet and let the water rinse away the ash and the dust. When he straightened, gray stains remained on the porcelain. His hair dripped onto the floor.
Colleagues came to question him. He answered. He didn’t give a damn what it would mean for his job. Suspend him if they wanted. He deserved it. He bummed a cigarette from one of them, but after a single drag, he throw it to the ground and crushed it under his boot.
By the time the doctor finally stopped in front of him, it was dark outside. Traumatic brain injury. Bleeding. We didn’t know when he would wake up. If he would wake up. Burns, fractures, contusions. Each word pulled Adam deeper into a dark, Leo-less world. They let him see him. It took everything in him to keep his legs from buckling when he did. His left shoulder and head were wrapped in bandages, the shallow scrapes were coated in that yellow antiseptic, its smell he recognized all too well. Machines and beeping monitors surrounded him. A tube down his throat. TBI patients sometimes stop breathing on their own. Explained the doctor, then left him alone. Leo was so pale. So still. Adam stepped closer, reaching out to touch him, to feel the warmth of his skin. But he couldn’t. His fingers curled into a fist, and he pulled away.
He spent every day in that room, from the first minute of visiting hours to the last. That sterile, white, eerily silent room. He dragged a chair to Leo’s bedside. He didn’t speak. He didn’t touch him. He just sat there. Every afternoon, Esther and Pia came. He was relieved Pia was okay, that she hadn’t been injured more seriously. She squeezed his shoulder, talked to him and Leo. Esther didn't even look at him. She only talked to Leo.
The doctors checked his vitals several times a day. They hooked up new IVs, adjusted the machines, and offered Adam small, sad smiles. Every night, he went home. Showered, ate, and slept by the pool. They put him on leave. He didn’t care. He didn’t want to go back to the office and see Leo’s empty desk. His mother found out, he didn’t know how, maybe from the news. She tried to comfort him, but every word felt hollow. Weightless. He snapped at her more than once and every time, he regretted it instantly. He didn’t want to be the person she thought he was. He didn’t want to be his father. That fucking bastard. Adam had lost those fifteen years too. Back then, he had run. Fled from the place of his suffering, and in doing so, left behind the only person who had ever protected him. The only person who had ever mattered. He had abandoned Leo to the pain and fear of waiting. Of wondering what would happen if his father woke up.
When he finally came back, it felt like stepping into a snow globe, frozen in time. But just like him, Leo had grown up. Maybe he hadn’t reached Adam’s height, but he was bigger, stronger, someone who didn't need his protection. And yet. They had mocked him, gossiped behind his back, and Adam felt he was back in the high school courtyard, fists clenched, rage burning hot in his chest. No one could hurt Leo. And yet. It was Adam’s words that had cut the deepest, his actions that had built a wall between them. And now, because of him, Leo was lying in a coma.
Adam pulled his chair closer. Leo. His voice was barely a whisper, but in this room, it felt like a shout. Leo. I need you. He placed his hand on the edge of the bed, just inches from Leo’s. He shut his eyes. He was scared. So scared. Was this what Leo had felt, thinking Adam was dead? Believing he would never come back? He took his hand. It was warm. Come back.
He didn’t know if he could hear him. If he could feel him. But from that day on, Adam talked to him. Every day. He was careful that no one could hear his words; what he said was meant only for Leo. He held his hand and told him everything, about those fifteen years, about the cases he never solved, the killers he caught. The places he had been. That every single day, he had wished Leo had been there with him. That they had lived it all together. That he had missed him. That when he saw his partner’s transfer request, he had signed up immediately.
If you really love something, you come back. Leo, come back to me. He begged. He pleaded. And Leo’s fingers twitched. A tiny movement. Barely there. His fingers curled weakly around Adam’s. His gaze snapped to Leo’s face. Green-blue eyes met his and for the first time in weeks, Adam felt he could finally breathe.
The next day, they removed the tube from his throat. He couldn’t speak yet, the doctors told him to give it time. But he was alive. He was awake. And nothing else in the world mattered. Adam never left his side. He followed him to the MRI, to the CT scans, waited by the door, smuggled in pistachios, brought a tiny potted plant to put it next his bed, and went with him to physical therapy. The doctors and nurses gave up trying to stop him.
Two weeks later, they let him go home, on the condition that someone stay with him until he was strong enough to be on his own. They told him to rest, to take it slow, to keep up with the physical therapy. Adam wanted to make sure everything happens just as they instructed, because if he had let him, Leo would have tried to go for a run the next morning. His sudden enthusiasm and strictness about following rules made Pia chuckle and even brought an amused smile to Esther’s face. He set up a smaller bed in Leo’s room, right beside his. At first, Leo grumbled, said he could handle himself, that he didn’t need a babysitter. Adam grinned. I sleep better knowing nothing’s gonna happen to you. That shut him up.
*
– Adam? – He turned his head, Leo was watching him. – You’re not sleeping again.
– Just thinking.
– That’s usually where the trouble starts.
Adam snorted.
– I thought the trouble started when I didn’t think.
– In your case? Doesn’t really matter.
Leo shifted closer to the edge of his bed.
– We need to buy some new plants tomorrow – he said. – You killed them all.
– The drought killed them.
Leo smiled, extended his hand, and Adam took it.
– Maybe we should get a cactus.
– Oh, shut up, Adam. Just go to sleep.
And so he did.