Conflict Resolution (Conflict Mediation: Not So Normative Spin-Off #3)

Chapter 1 – Leon

Chapter One

LEON

“And how are those breathing exercises working out for you?” Caden asked.

Yarmen meowed loudly from Leon’s lap, as if to try and answer for him.

Honestly, he would probably know better than Leon.

While he’d been doing the exercises whenever he needed them, he didn’t know how to tell if they were working.

Hell, until a few weeks ago, he hadn’t known he had anxiety to begin with.

“I think they’re working?” Leon said.

Yarmen started purring, and whether that was because Leon had answered the question correctly or because he’d begun to stroke Yarmen’s ears, who could say?

“Has James noticed any difference?” Caden asked, adjusting his glasses in the telehealth video box on Leon’s laptop.

Had Leon’s boyfriend–damn, he would never get tired of saying that–noticed any difference in his anxiety since he started doing breathing exercises?

Probably not. It wasn’t something Leon talked about with him.

Not since the panic attack he’d had in the hospital room of horrors.

He still blamed Hailey for that–the haunted house, not the panic attack.

Although, the haunted house and the panic attack had led to him kissing James, so maybe he should cut Hailey some slack.

It had been six weeks since they started dating, and they’d gone on several dates, but at no point had Leon felt the urge to discuss his newfound anxiety.

Even so, Caden was thrilled for them. He was a lot less thrilled that Leon had somehow been in therapy for years and not a single therapist had ever diagnosed him with anxiety.

Same, Caden. Same.

“He hasn’t been with me when I’ve had to use them, which is really only when I’m talking to Hailey’s mom, and she starts telling me some of the shit she saw in the emergency room, or about the latest terrifying headline.

Or when I’m talking to Hailey, and she lets slip that she snuck out to go see her faefriend last weekend and had to use my fire escape to slip in her bedroom window. ”

Leon’s fingertips started tingling just recounting the story.

Apparently, that was his body’s tell that he was beginning to feel anxious.

For most of his life, he’d believed it was a sign that he was itching–literally–for a fight.

Funnily enough, it was both. Caden had explained it as “your body is flushing blood to your extremities to prepare you for fight or flight. You also might be clenching your thoracic muscles, which can lead to restricted breathing, reduced blood flow, and tingling in your extremities.”

Caden sighed and took off his glasses. “I’m not even going to bother reminding you that you have the right to remove yourself from stressful conversations.”

“Yup,” Leon said, running his hand down Yarmen’s back.

Yarmen happily sank his claws into Leon’s jeans and arched his spine in pleasure.

“Or that you can always set boundaries with them, so they don’t put that type of emotional burden on you.”

“Nope, you sure don’t need to tell me that,” Leon said, as he glanced at the clock.

Caden laughed softly. “Okay, good. Then I think that’s about all I have for you today. Is there anything you’d like to add to our list to discuss next time?”

Leon hesitated, having already waited quite some time to bring this up. Now seemed like as good a time as any. “Uh, yeah,” he said slowly. “One of James’ minions–”

“The younger employees he oversees and mentors?”

Leon smiled, a ballooning warmth pressing up against the inside of his sternum as he thought about the face James would make if he heard anyone call him a mentor.

He thought he was more like a glorified babysitter to his team of Gen Z-ers, but Leon thought he was absolutely a mentor.

He exemplified what it meant to not only be a good worker but also a good colleague.

In the past six months, he’d begun leading a series of highly popular brown-bag seminars on being an ally at work and had just been nominated for Employee of the Year.

James didn’t know this yet, but the email had crossed Leon’s desk earlier that week.

“Yeah, like I said, his minions,” Leon said.

“One of them asked me if I’d ever been assessed for ADHD.

I told them fuck no, ‘cause god knows my mam didn’t give a shit about stuff like mental health, but…

I don’t know. James and I have talked about it a bit, and he said he could see how some of my habits and tendencies around the office could be ADHD or some type of neurodiversity. ”

“Has he seen enough of you outside of work, like perhaps around the house, to be able to speak to any other tendencies he’s noticed?” Caden asked, his pen frantically jerking across his notebook at the bottom corner of the screen.

“He hasn’t mentioned anything specific, but we also haven’t been spending a lot of time here the past few weeks.”

Leon had been doing his best to take things slow with James, who was skittish at best and cagey at worst. While this wasn’t his first relationship, it was his first relationship since his mom’s cancer went into remission.

For a long time, James had been her primary caregiver.

He still played a big role in providing that care, but she was becoming increasingly independent, and it was shaking the foundation of James’ life.

Leon didn’t want to shake things more than he had to, so for the most part, they’d kept to their usual Friday and Saturday night hangouts, doing relatively the same thing they’d always done: going to dinner, bars, and queer events around town.

Tonight, though, James was coming over to introduce Leon to “the best drag competition show, seriously, I can’t believe you haven’t seen it yet.

” It’s not like Leon had purposefully avoided it; he just hadn’t gotten around to starting it when it first began, and now it felt rather daunting to try and catch up.

“If you’re able to speak with him about that and bring whatever he tells you to our next session, I can say that from our conversations, I’ve picked up on a few things here and there.

I think it would be worth doing an assessment, especially if you want to seek treatment–whether that be pharmaceutical, therapeutic, or otherwise. ”

Leon nodded, and they confirmed they would return to their usual Tuesday evening sessions before hanging up. Caden had a conflicting appointment this week, so they’d agreed to a Saturday session, but that wasn’t really convenient for either of them.

As Leon shut his laptop, Yarmen jumped off his lap, landing gracefully on the dark wood floor before sauntering back towards Leon’s bedroom for his afternoon nap.

A nap actually didn’t sound half bad. Leon had picked up his apartment before lunch, and now all that was left was to vacuum, sweep, and dust.

After their fateful conflict mediation session, which was actually a couples counseling session–oh, the irony–they’d become fast friends and spent a fair amount of time at Leon’s place.

It felt natural for James to curl up on his couch, and he was excited to have James come over more often, but now as his boyfriend.

Aside from enjoying James’ company, Leon was hoping that having guests, other than Hailey, would motivate him to clean more often.

Usually, he let things pile up until, in a fit of clutter-induced rage, he would blow through the place at two in the morning, tidying and scrubbing until it was spotless.

Then the process would begin all over again.

Hosting a guest more often would be a welcome change.

He was also hoping that the intimate side of their relationship could progress a bit further than it had thus far.

They’d had one steamy makeout session the night they started dating, but aside from that, they hadn’t gone past kissing, and James hadn’t stayed the night.

Leon had stopped hooking up with random guys once he realized, some seven months back, that he liked James.

His hand would suffice for as long as it needed to before James was comfortable moving their relationship forward, but Leon wouldn’t mind if that happened sooner rather than later.

Ignoring the tightening in his groin at even the thought of getting to kiss James tonight, Leon got up to follow Yarmen. As he passed by his couch, he noticed a sock tucked under the edge that he must have missed on his first pass around the apartment.

He balled it up and tried to make a three-pointer in his laundry basket in the corner, but the sock bounced off the rim. It landed amidst the other dirty clothes spilling out across his floor.

Leon groaned, and Yarmen shot him a smug look as he burrowed deeper into Leon’s bedding while Leon gathered up all the clothes to do a load of laundry. If by some chance he and James ended up in his bedroom, he didn’t want dirty laundry to be the first impression James had.

On second thought, he should probably wash his sheets, too. Yarmen glowered at him, but Leon was a good pet owner, so he gently maneuvered around him, setting him back on the bed while he kept his smirk to himself.

Leon was somehow able to cram everything into one load, but the exertion left him surprisingly hungry, so he made himself a snack–before realizing that while the sink and counter were clear of dishes, that was because they were all sitting clean in the dishwasher.

By the time he finished unloading the clean dishes, it was too late for a nap.

He needed to do the original cleaning he’d planned for the afternoon, but of course, things could never be easy.

The floor was dirtier than he’d thought and would need a thorough mopping–except he didn’t have any more floor cleaner.

He could always ask Hailey’s mom, but that would probably take longer than just running to the store.

Plus, the store hopefully wouldn’t come with any ER horror stories.