Elliot doesn't look up immediately when he hears the door open. He's in the middle of a sentence, reading it for the third time because he hasn't been able to concentrate on anything for the weird anxiety that always hits him when he's alone, when he can't hear the faint rhythm of Leo's breathing just over his shoulder or in the corner of the room. It's not like he'll gain anything from staring at the words again, but the stress is burning irritation under his skin, leaving him jittery and snappish and ready for a fight.
"Where have you been, Leo?" he demands without lifting his gaze from the book. That's the right level of anger, he's sure, the casual possessiveness in the question enough to snap Leo's control over his temper and get Elliot the fight he needs to unwind the building tension in his veins.
"Elliot," Leo says, and there's no fight in his voice at all. He sounds so shockingly wrong that any intention Elliot had of being coy crumbles instantly, his book is entirely forgotten as he looks up to see what expression Leo could possibly have to go with that shattered-open tone.
He doesn't hear the book hit the floor as it falls from his suddenly slack hold. He doesn't realize he's standing, doesn't process the stumbling motion his feet make to propel him across the room; there's nothing so conscious as rationality happening in his head. His thoughts are blank, white-empty like he's suddenly been struck with complete amnesia, and all there is is Leo standing in the doorway drenched in red like he's been in a gruesome rainstorm.
"Leo" and Elliot's there, the distance between them gone like it never existed, his hands closing on the blood-soaked shoulders of the other's dark jacket. "Oh my god Leo."
"It's fine," Leo says in that same weird flat tone, calm and cool like the glassy surface of an infinitely deep pool. "It's not mine."
Elliot makes a whimpering noise, something between panicked incomprehension and relief so strong his knees nearly give out from under him. His hands are tightening, his skin going sticky as the damp cloth under his hold gives up its liquid burden to his touch, and Leo is staring at him past smeared glasses, his eyes wide and blank and bottomless.
"You're safe," Leo says, every word crystal-clear on his tongue, his lips forming carefully around the sounds like he's afraid of slurring them. "They're gone, now."
"Who's gone?" Elliot asks. He's starting to shake, he can't feel his fingertips anymore. He's not sure he'd be staying upright at all but for the too-tight grip he's maintaining on Leo's shoulders. He can't figure out how to loosen his hands. "What happened, Leo?"
Leo shakes his head. His hair is wet too, the dark not showing the color like the pale of his skin or the white of his shirt, but it's heavier than it usually is, the ends slow to follow the motion of his head. "It doesn't matter," and he drops, folds to the floor with the strange prenatural grace of tension going slack in all his limbs at once. Elliot follows, knees hitting the support underneath him with a jolt he can feel up his spine and grounding out in his jaw, but even the impact isn't enough to jar his thoughts back into intelligibility. There's a ringing in his ears, his vision is narrowing dark at the fringes, his throat is closing up like he's been running, like he can't remember how to breathe.
A hand lands at his waist, a dark head comes in to rest heavily at his shoulder. Elliot can hear the breath Leo takes, slow and shaky with relief, can hear the soft hiss of a sigh when the other boy says, "You're safe, that's what matters."
"Leo," Elliot says. It sounds shattered, quaking in his throat and trembling up over his tongue. "Leo, what did you do?"
"It doesn't matter," Leo says again, and he lifts the weight of his head. There's a patch of red at Elliot's shoulder, a stain sinking into the fabric. Elliot has the brief, disjointed thought that the shirt will be ruined, that there will be no saving it if he doesn't get it clean immediately. "Don't worry, Elliot, you don't need to worry about it."
"What?" Elliot says, but he can't hear his own voice; it's echoing in his head, turning into something foreign and unclear. "What…" Slurring, now, heavy, he's so heavy, he's tipping forward, the support of Leo's shoulder the only thing saving him from collapsing to the floor. "Leo?"
"It's okay," Leo's voice says, the only clear thing in the haze unwinding through Elliot's head. "It's okay, Elliot."
Elliot wants to respond, wants to demand answers, wants to cling to consciousness, this is important, this is no time to pass out. But he can't think, he can't get his hands to move, and he's sliding down into Leo's lap, his eyelids too heavy to bear and awareness too slippery to cling to. It feels like he's being drugged, like something is pulling him into deep-water cold, and that's important too, there's something there he needs to remember…
By the time he comes to, he's even forgotten the feel of Leo's tears hitting his cheek.