Page 15 of Haunted Mediation
What the fuck was he doing?
Hold your hand and call you darlin?Seriously?
Leon hadn’t called his last ex “darlin’.” He hadn’t called anyone that since his first boyfriend, who had royally trashed Leon’s heart.
If he were being honest with himself, which he tried to do as often as he could, Leon could admit he didn’t have the best dating history. He’d seriously dated five men, and each one of them had taught him a different lesson in how to get his heart stomped on, his boundaries breached, and his trust shattered. Not that watching his mam and her parade of suitors hadn’t already done a great job of that for him when he was a kid.
Why, then, had he thought it was a good idea to tease James, only to have his teasing come true, like some sort of demented self-fulfilling prophecy?
Probably because James was just so damn cute. One moment he was jokingly calling Leon “daddy”—which, no, absolutely not, but he was right, Leon was above kink shaming—and the next, he had tears in his eyes as he stumbled through the first of what was more than likely going to be a dozen or so rooms in the old factory turned haunted house.
It’s not like this was the first time they’d held hands. They’d been instructed to hold hands for almost an hour during their conflict mediation session. Since then, Leon had given James a hand up from his couch, a cafe chair, or a low restaurant booth plenty of times. Why did this feel so different, then?
Boys are often only focused on one thing.
Damn, wasn’t that the god's honest truth, though? James felt so good under Leon’s arm, and he really did look good in a suit. To make matters worse, those damn dress pants were so much more flattering than the ones he’d been wearing the day before. He had a fantastic ass: round and oh-so biteable.
Sadly, Leon couldn’t see his ass, or pretty much fucking anything, because the next room they were now stumbling through was pitch black.
“Seems like a tripping hazard,” James mumbled as he pressed up against Leon’s side.
His words echoed a little around the space. Thus far, they’d made it about a quarter of the way into the room without running into anything. Leon was just beginning to wonder if maybe it was empty, and the dark was the only scare factor, when something grabbed his leg.
“Motherfucker!” Leon shouted, kicking out with his leg.
Whatever it was let go, and he heard a skittering noise and then silence once again.
“Are you okay?” James whispered, as if whatever was there with them in the darkness wasn’t already well aware of their presence after Leon’s shout.
“Something grabbed my leg, but it’s gone now,” Leon grunted. “Fucking scared the shit out of me.”
James breathed out quietly in a soft staccato rhythm that took Leon a moment to recognize as a muted laugh. “Well, at least you’re finally being supportive.”
Leon was tempted to raise an eyebrow, but James wouldn’t be able to see it in the dark. Was that what he’d meant? He’d wanted Leon to be as scared as he was?
Leon didn’t really love haunted houses. He didn’t like random shit touching him, and he sure as fuck didn’t want to have to worry about accidentally punching some poor actor if they jumped out at him. He’d tried to be as gentle as he could with his kick, and given that there hadn’t been any responding grunt or groan, he assumed whatever grabbed him hadn’t been human, or if it had, Leon hadn’t made contact with his kick.
When nothing else attempted to grab him, Leon began leading them forward again. He angled his body slightly ahead of James, so that whatever they encountered would hit Leon first.
That was how he ended up with a face full of spiderwebs. He growled in annoyance and quickly ripped them off his face, pausing for only a second to see if anything else was following before he pressed ahead.
James squeezed his hand once, possibly in question, and Leon squeezed back. For some reason, this caused James to clamp his fingers more firmly around Leon’s. Unfortunately, that pressed Leon’s rings painfully into his other knuckles, and he pushed his fingers out on reflex.
Like Leon’s hand was on fire, James immediately loosened his grip, but before he could do something stupid like let go while they were in the middle of a pitch black fucking room, Leon turned his hand to the side and threaded their fingers together.
Without the use of his vision, he was much more aware of sound, so he caught the exact moment James’ breath hitched.
“What? Did something touch you?” Leon asked, pulling James in front of him so he could fend off whatever was coming after James.
“N-no, I…sorry. I wasn’t expecting… You just surprised me,” James whispered.
His face was only an inch or so away from Leon’s, and his warm breath ghosted over Leon’s cheek. For one reckless moment, he imagined tilting his face and pressing their lips together.
He could blame the dark. He could blame that beer he’d chugged, which, to be honest, he’d stopped feeling twenty minutes into their walk. He could blame the fact that this frustrating, schoolyard crush he had on James had kept him from hooking up with anyone else for almost six goddamn months, and he wasdying.
Of course, he wasn’t going to do any of that. No, instead he pulled James back to his side and continued moving slowly through the room.
That, he could blame on his own stupid, chicken-shit self for not coming clean about his feelings when they’d first started.
