Um... not quite sure where this came from. It's just a short little thing saying what I think Leo's six homes might have been like, I dunno, but... Please review?
Disclaimer: I do not own HOO, or Leo, nor do I claim to.
The people at the first home don't even try to make him feel welcome. It's a man and a woman, Brad and Judy, and Leo has no doubt that if he were like the other kids there they would have welcomed him in. as it is, they are certain, just like his Aunt Rosa, that he is the sole cause of his mother's death.
(He agrees with them, but still, it hurts.)
Brad is one of those overweight, red-faced guys that will puff, out of breath, after walking to the corner shop. He's one of those sweaty guys that works in a garage (though he's nowhere near as good as Leo's mum) and wears baggy blue overalls twenty-four-seven. You'd expect him to have a massive temper, and in front of Leo he does, but to all the other kids there he's a kind, fatherly man. He'll kneel down on his hands and knees and play toy trains with them when they ask him to. The only kid he refuses to have anything to do with is Leo.
Judy is worse, in a way. She is short tempered and has a tendency to snap, and she does to everyone, but this means that she's not singling him out in front of all the other kids. Instead, she always 'forgets' his meal, and ends up serving him a cold plate of peas (which he doesn't like) and fish (which he also doesn't like). She just glares at him with her pinched face, which seems to be tightly drawn under an even tighter light-brown bun of hair. And she always 'forgets' to clean his clothes, to give him the 'private time' that all the other children receive.
Only once is he alone in a room with the two of them, and he can tell that they're scared. They keep shooting him nervous glances, talking using simple terms and firm language. They sit on the opposite side of the room the entire time, and not once do they look him in the eye.
The other kids treat him with a bit of wariness, like they can sense there's something up, but all of them are foster kids, so they all assume it's just something bad in his past and leave it at that.
It's only a few days before Leo can't stand the accusatory glares and suspicious glances any longer, so he packs what little of his possessions he has left and runs.
(They hated him there, anyway.)
The second family tries, they really do. It's three kids and the parents, all of them rosy cheeked and smiling and welcoming. They don't treat him with the same baited breath and caution the Brad and Judy did, instead opting to welcome him as much as possible and treat him with as much warmth and hospitality as they can.
The mother, fittingly, is called Rose, a plump, blonde-haired woman who almost smothers him in a huge hug when she first arrives. She smells like lavender, the whole house does, with a dash of cookies and lemons. The husband is a man called Pete, with deep, deep spiky black hair and possibly the friendliest grin he's ever seen on anyone's face. The two immediately accept Leo, and when he hears his social worker quietly asking if they're sure about this, it's suspected that he killed his own mother, they simply respond by saying that no child could do such a thing and that it's virtually a crime to accuse him of such a thing.
Leo's heart warms up at that statement.
The kids – Katie, Kieran and Karen – are equally as nice. All have a year between them, going twelve eleven ten respectively. Leo is the youngest, but he doesn't mind. Everyone in the Davison family make him feel welcome.
(He's actually quite surprised to find that he's happy there.)
Unlike the short amount of time spent at Bard and Judy's house, Leo stays at this place for a whole two years (the longest he ever stays with anyone), until he's ten, actually fitting in with them. He has quite a few friends at school, the Davisons are supportive with his building and making, and he actually starts to think that everything might be okay.
He should have known better.
The nightmares start up, the terrible nightmares of him losing control of his powers and killing the Davisons. He starts to lose sleep, gets snappy, tries to pick fights with the family. They all take it well, bless them, try to be supportive, and he likes them that bit more because of it.
The second he fully realises that he doesn't deserve them, he runs away.
The third house is not like either of its predecessors, and Leo can't make up his mind whether that's a good or a bad thing. Still, the woman (Barbara, single) gives it a good go at being his mother.
He wants a mother and she wants a son, but there's only one mother he could ever settle for.
Barbara is a small, blonde-going-grey-haired woman in her late forties, already with some crow's feet around the corners of her eyes and wearing those cliché jumpers and woolly socks. It doesn't matter about her looks, though – she's nice to Leo, and that's all that really matters.
She can be quite strict at times, not at all like Leo's real mum, and this is comforting, in a way. He doesn't want a replacement mother, just someone to look after him.
Barbara's actually quite old-fashioned, and likes taking him to museums and whatnot. But she'll always take him for ice cream afterwards and often buts him lollipops, despite her insistence that they're bad for his teeth.
She really does try to be a good mum, even though she's more like a grandma.
Apparently Barbra never got to have any children of her own, never found a husband, and decided a bit too late to foster one.
But she's had a pretty good go anyway.
Leo actually quite likes Barbra. He stays with her for a whole year and a half.
Then one night, as she wishes him goodnight, she calls him 'son'.
He doesn't want a new mother, so he runs.
(And he always regrets that.)
He hate hate hates the fourth home, with a blazing and burning passion. It's a man called Trent and his girlfriend Trudy, both of which treat him like dirt. They only take him in for the money, and they don't care about his well-being or anything like that. He hates them and they hate him.
They get him to do all the hard work around the house when they just can't be bothered, and if he doesn't do it 'properly' Trent decides to teach him a lesson (but what sort of lesson involves hitting, screaming and insults?) It's hell for Leo, it really is.
Trent is a drunk. A spitting, red-faced, muscly drunk. Leo never even stood a chance against him. The guy clearly knows his stuff when it comes to beating people up, was probably one of those guys that ruled the school when he was younger. Trudy was probably his star girlfriend, a cheerleader. Now she's skimpy, even skinnier than him (and that's saying something), has bright red hair and drinks almost as much as Trent, though she can clearly handle her drink a lot better. Her most remarkable feature, though, is her sneer, which never seems to drop from her face. She doesn't try to stop Trent picking on Leo – if anything, she encourages it.
Leo really didn't know before now that people could be so bad as this.
(He should have stayed with the Davisons, or Barbra.)
It's a world away from his mother, or Barbra, or the Davisons, or even Brad and Judy. He actually stays there months, though, feeling like he deserved it after ditching Barbra.
Then one day Trent screams something about his mother, and Leo has had enough.
It's so easy to leave, it isn't even funny. Trent doesn't even try to stop him.
(Later, when he finds out that Trent's in prison for child abuse, all he can feel is dread. Because Trent's going to be let out in three years, and he has no doubt that, somehow, the man will find him.)
The fifth home – maybe that is the worst. The last was physically damaging, but he can never stop hating himself for this home.
His years being thirteen to fourteen. He wishes he could just erase himself from that time, could make it all reverse and make it so that it never happened.
The sad and simple truth is, he's so damn tired. Tired of trying to be nice, funny, trying to pretend like he isn't a murderer. He's still hurting after his mother, after leaving Barbra, and Trent did nothing to improve that.
The family's nice enough. Joanna and Steven McCoy. Both tanned, the woman with caramel hair in a ponytail, the man with light blonde/white spiky hair and bulging muscles. They have two kids of their own, both of which immediately glue themselves to Leo, deciding that he's their new best friend (Liam and Suzie McCoy, twins, his age). And Leo just can't help it.
He lashes out at the world.
He becomes a bully.
It's… surprisingly easy, being a bully. There are these girls in the year below him, Amber and Lily, both of them kind of spotty, Lily slightly overweight, Amber scarily thin. And whenever he's feeling particularly down about his mum or Barbra or Trent, they're just sort of… there. Easy targets.
It sounds horrible, but he feels obliged, somehow. Trent kind of bullied him, and there has been the issue of bullies at Barbra's home (not that he'd ever admit that), and he's just so sick and tired of being the scared little kid that gets picked on.
This time, he's in control.
(Liam and Suzie join in, as does the group he's made friends with at the new school. He isn't the leader of the group, the main bully, not by a long shot – but it was him that started it, and while some members just watch, Leo does actively join in.)
They sometimes pick on some other kids, too. He always feels terrible afterwards, but when he's making someone else feel bad it's kind of a relief – finally, somebody else is suffering instead of him.
Then someone tells the teachers about it, and his whole group is called into the office.
All the others deny it, but Leo just sits there silently, and doesn't say a word.
At home, Joanna and Steven shoot the three of them disappointed looks, and decide to punish them by grounding the twins for months.
Leo is certain that they're going to give him back to care, soon, anyway, so the night before his fourteenth birthday he runs.
(If he could forget that time, or better yet, stop it from ever happening, he would. It's just a pity that he can't.)
The last home he ever runs away from is huge. There are seven kids other than him, and three adults in charge of him. Emmy, her husband Pete, and Emmy's brother Rick. Emmy is basically the female version of Rick, and Pete is possibly the nicest guy you'll ever meet in your life.
They do try to look after him – or at least, Pete does. Pete is the only one who wants anything to do with him. Emmy and Rick have read his file, and both believe that he killed his mother (on purpose), and they clearly know about the bullying. Pete, however, has apparently decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Emmy and Rick are like Brad and Judy, if not worse. He hates it, but knows that he deserves it when he gets no TV privileges, or they just happen to run out of dessert before he can get his, or when they don't wake him up for school like they do the other kids and let him be late. (It's only because of Pete that he's even anywhere near on time.)
The other kids are alright, albeit a little wary. They do invite him to play football and stuff with them, or to watch TV, or to just plain hang out with them, but he always declines. He'd much prefer to just build something, or take something apart and build it again.
Pretty soon he can't stand it, the loneliness of this place, the suspicion and distrust, so he packs a bag quietly, and runs.
(When the police eventually catch up to him, a whole three weeks later, they decide that foster homes clearly just aren't working for him. Instead, they decide to send him to the Wilderness School, for 'troubled kids' (and hell if he isn't a troubled kid).)
So... yeah. Please review!