Chapter 4 – Leon #3
Something was going on with James. Leon sure as hell hoped, for his sake, it wasn’t anything as dark as this room was implying, but he’d seen it the day before, and he was sure as shit seeing it now.
Leon had conquered his own demons, and yeah, there were always going to be more to vanquish, but he was here, and he could sit with James while he conquered his own.
He just had to get them out of this damn room.
“What would I do to save myself?” he said, tipping his head so he was speaking to the hooded figure.
“I already have. I fought my demons, went to therapy, made peace with the fact I can’t change how fucked up other people sometimes are, and instead, focused on making my life and the lives of the people I care about better. ”
It felt weird to say out loud, but he meant every word of it.
James looked up at him, the smallest of smiles on his face.
There was a soft noise, almost like something unlatching, and Leon turned to the wall next to them. At about ankle height, a small compartment had opened in the baseboard.
Huh, that was pretty cool.
He leaned over, keeping one hand on James’ back, and grabbed the key. It was attached to a retractable cable that creaked as Leon pulled it out.
“You wanna do the honors?” he asked, but James had turned and was looking at the hooded figure.
They were slowly making their way back into the corner, completely silent now that Leon answered their question.
“That’s some pretty heavy stuff you were saying,” James said. “Are you just expecting people with triggers to safe word out halfway in?”
Leon had no idea what the protocol was for actors to talk to the people going through them, but the person tipped their head to the side, nowhere near as far as the first time, and lifted their other shoulder in the air.
“That’s why we asked at the beginning if you have any mental health issues.
You should’ve seen on the form, if you checked yes, you would’ve been handed a note that would advise you to safe word out of this room and a room later in the house. ”
“What room?” Leon asked sharply, because of course he hadn’t fucking seen it on the form.
Not only was speed reading, or any sort of reading under pressure, not a skill he possessed, he’d been far too busy thinking about how right it had felt to have James under his arm moments before.
Of course, the one time he needed actually to read the fine print, he’d fucked it up.
He wouldn’t fuck it up again, though.
“It’s set up to look like a hospital,” the person said.
James pushed up off the floor, and Leon stood up after him, doing his best to be subtle about studying his face, checking to see if that was going to be a trigger for him or not.
All things considered, he seemed to be okay.
His brow was pinched, but in that way it got when he was struggling with a document on his computer.
“That seems pretty straightforward,” James said, his tone subdued but steady. “This room, though… It's like garden-variety fortune-telling. You throw out a few things to see what strikes a nerve because I bet everyone has something.”
The person inclined their head but didn’t say anything more.
“Right. Well…thanks?” James said.
Leon shook his head. He didn’t even stop to consider before sliding his hand into James’. “Come on, mensch. Time to go.”
He opened the door and let go of the key, and it snapped back into the hole it came from. Right before he stepped through the door, he felt that tingling start in his hands again.
“Hey,” he called, turning to look back at the stranger who was getting comfortable in their pile of cloth again. “Did a group of teenagers come through here, dressed like M&Ms and superheroes?”
The person let out a bark of surprised laughter. “The group with Harley Quinn? She only let me get maybe two minutes in, and then she started shouting at me that I shouldn’t make my ghostly problems their problems, and I should go to therapy.”
Leon’s fingers stopped tingling, and he shook his head before allowing the door to slam shut.
The next room was lit an eerie purple color, and everything seemed disproportionate. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why until they got several paces in and a marionette doll fell from the ceiling two feet in front of them.
Haunted dollhouse. Creepy, but definitely not scary.
James pressed the length of their forearms together, but he seemed to jump and scream a lot less when he was holding Leon’s hand.
“Did you—” Leon started to say, narrowly dodging around a chair that came screeching across the floor. “Want to talk about it?”
James pursed his lips and gazed up at him, and Leon had to pull him out of the way of a ball that eerily bounced across the floor to them.
“About…freaking out back there?” James asked, avoiding looking at Leon.
He definitely wouldn’t have put it like that, no.
“I meant more about what you said. It sounded like that room struck a nerve for you?”
James jumped nearly a foot in the air when a lifesize—and very creepy looking—baby doll popped out of a box.
“Okay, fuck this room,” Leon said.
He charged ahead, pulling James behind him as they ducked, dodged, and at one point, jumped over several more obstacles that came their way.
When they reached the end of the room, there was a little bit of hallway connecting this room to the next. He pressed his back up against the wall and guided James to stand in front of him.
James squinted, as if trying to see what new horrors lay ahead. Maybe Leon shouldn’t be asking him to dig up the horrors they’d already faced, but he felt like if he didn’t, no one would.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” he said slowly, and James’ shoulders curved forward defensively. “But, if you want to, and you’re done with this whole thing, we can safe word our way out of the rest of the house, or I can try and find a fire alarm to pull?—”
“That’s illegal if there isn’t actually a fire,” James said, his dimple making a guest appearance in his left cheek as his lips curved up.
“Alright, my little mensch,” Leon said, shaking his head. “Then I’ll find a fire escape for us to climb out of.”
“So heroic. Maybe you should have worn a superhero costume.”
Leon narrowed his eyes, but James was on a roll now.
“Did you bring the drumsticks so you could defend us with them? That would be so bad boy aesthetic, I would have to tell all my minions. Your street cred would be safe for at least the rest of the year, if not more so.”
Leon raised a very unimpressed eyebrow. “You finished?”
“Do you think if you tell the next ghoul that we did accidental couples therapy, they’ll be too busy laughing at us to try and scare us?” James said, his dimple disappearing as his smile turned sardonic.
Leon wasn’t taking the bait, even though he so badly wanted to. “You don’t have to do that,” Leon said softly.
“Tell them our deep, dark secret?”
Leon wanted to turn James around, press him up against the wall, and share his deepest, darkest secret: that underneath the sarcasm and tightly crafted facade, he had seen the real James…and he liked him. He liked him a whole hell of a lot.
So much so that he poured every ounce of sincerity he possessed into his next words. “You don’t have to deflect with me. Not anymore. We used to do that shit ‘cause we didn’t know how to talk to each other, but I would hope you know that I mean it when I say you can talk to me now.”
James' eyes widened, and he took in a sharp breath. A flush was slowly crawling across his cheeks, turning them the same color as his lips, which were chewed raw on the side he bit when he was uncomfortable or nervous.
His canine, just barely visible, was still crooked, his hair was messed up in the front, and he was still wearing that ridiculous costume. Despite all of that, or maybe because of it, he was so goddamn beautiful, Leon could barely stand it.
“Leon, I…” James said, his eyes slowly travelling down Leon’s body, past his ripped shirt and ridiculous belt to look at their joined hands hanging solidly between them.
James squeezed his hand, almost experimentally, and Leon squeezed right back.
Leon wasn’t sure if he did it on purpose, but James took a step forward until they were almost chest to chest. There were less than two inches of height difference between them, but it was just enough that James had to tilt his head back a touch to look into Leon’s eyes.
They were so close, Leon could count each one of his dark eyelashes.
Friends didn’t stand this close together.
Friends didn’t stare into each other's eyes, like maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to find some sort of answer to all their unasked questions there.
“Thank you,” James said, his breath ghosting across Leon’s lips. “That…means a lot to me. I don’t think I’m quite ready to talk about it yet. I want to give it a little more thought and then…maybe we can talk about it later?”
Leon didn’t move a muscle. He barely dared to breathe. He was pretty sure if he let an ounce of his control slip, he was going to close the distance between them.
If it had been any other conversation, any other moment, he would have. But this wasn’t the right time.
There would be a right time, though. Maybe not tonight, or this week, or even this month, but Leon was pretty sure it was coming sometime soon.
He nodded, making sure to keep his shoulders pressed back into the cold cement wall.
James released another breath before nodding back and turning to be the one who, this time, would lead them into the next room.