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He shook his head again, his throat closing in.
Rose watched him carefully. “Can you tell me? I swear I won’t push you to do anything.”
Leo swallowed, trying to clear the way for words to form. “I don’t know.” He whispered. “I’m just…I’m so tired sometimes. I just want to…”
Rose clutched his hand. “Are you thinking of hurting yourself?”
Leo scoffed, pulling his hand away. “No! That’s not what I’m talking about, Jesus.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t mean…sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he mumbled. Rose apologising just made it worse.
“What’s making you tired? Like, if you could take one thing from your life that would make you less tired, what would that—”
Leo got up, cutting her off. “I knew you would do this. You just want me to say I want to quit my job, to tell you—”
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t want anything from you, Leo. I just want to listen to what you have to say, okay? Please believe me.”
For a moment, Rose looked smaller than he had ever seen her. Shrunken in on herself.
Leo closed his eyes, his chin wobbling. He was fucking up even this, his relationship with the person he loved the most.
“I should go,” Leo said but was immediately stopped as Rose sprang to her feet.
“Wait. Please don’t, I’m sorry. I won’t push. You don’t have to talk. We’ll order Thai and watch something. Please don’t go.”
Leo paused for a second before nodding. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, but he sure as fuck didn’t want to burden his sister with it.
They didn’t talk about it, and he didn’t think about it, and the rotting feeling inside him stayed dormant for the rest of the night.
***
The days passed, and Leo saw client after client, each worse than the last, no matter what they said or did or if Leo liked them or not.
He didn’t want to be touched anymore, but he couldn’t find a good enough reason to stop.
He sat on his bed every afternoon before work, staring at nothing, wanting to cry but not quite able to. Wanting to call his sister but knowing he couldn’t. Wanting to scream but nothing coming out. It was like a pressure building inside him, suffocating and numbing, and he just didn’t know how to let it out.
His sister checked up on him every day, trying to be subtle about it and failing. Leo would send short, casual replies back, sending her pictures of the food he would make and force himself to eat as if it were a completely normal week.
Damon and Josh didn’t text or call until two weeks of absolute silence had passed. It was Josh, telling Leo that his heat would be in four days and that he didn’t have to feel obliged to come, of course, and Leo just stared at the text for a while, feeling empty. He sent a simple, No worries, I’ll be there. Looking forward to it, even though he was dreading it.
But that wasn’t strange for him these days. He dreaded everything. So there wasn’t anything specific to worry about—not about that or anything else.
***
Leo had to close his eyes for a moment as he entered Josh and Damon’s apartment, the scent of them hitting him all at once. Not just that, but the scent of Leo, too, lingering still, like he’d clung on purpose to this small, safe space.
“Hey,” Josh greeted, the first time he’d opened the door during his heat. He looked good, cheeks flushed, smile tentative but there.
“Hey. How’re you feeling?”
“Kind of amazing. Is this what heats are supposed to be like? Because…wow.”
Leo laughed, feeling something in him settle at the easy way Josh was talking to him. “Yeah, it’s usually pretty fun without the fear of passing out.”
“Damn, I should have been doing this all along,” he joked, expression solidifying into something a little more serious a second later. “You good? You look…tired.”
