Leon enjoys it when the world is quiet. He doesn't mind the noise at home, but he likes it when its quiet. And today, out by the lake in the park, it is. Save for Luke's sporadic grumbles about being forced to sit on a freezing park bench, which he is certain his backside is stuck to. It's Friday 13th of February today, and despite the fact that Leon knows it is just a superstition that bad things happen on Friday 13th's; he wanted to get out of the house, even though he'd only just gotten home from school. Better he be away from the people he loves- he makes bad things happen on Friday 13th's. But Aramis had insisted that someone go with him to the park, and Luke volunteered. Even though Luke was always grumbling, Leon knew he never meant it. Just like all of his teasing was never, ever meant to be mean. He'd told Leon so within the first week, when Leon had panicked after Luke teased that he was "too quiet". He only grumbles and teases because he loves me, he finds himself thinking at least five times a day, and it's a comforting thought.

His hand sweeps across the page, and the last of winter that he sees before him is transferred magically onto the page. The ice on the lake is melting, and the grass around it is slowly getting greener. He picks his colours carefully. Luke is holding the pencils for him in gloved hands, and every now and again he tells Leon he likes the colour he's chosen, but not once does he look at the paper. Leon is grateful for that.

He'd panicked once, a month after he'd moved in, when he found the twins looking at a piece of art he'd done that wasn't quite finished.

Logically, he knew they were only little and they didn't mean it, but Leon couldn't help feeling uncomfortable when he saw them holding his unfinished drawing of the two of them, crinkling it in their chubby little hands that he spent hours perfecting on the paper. The last time someone looked at an unfinished drawing he'd done, they ripped it up. It had been in art class when he was seven- he was meant to be drawing the person opposite him. The girl had pinched him hard when she saw his drawing of her. He'd had panicked then.

He asked the twins to put it down, and they said they would but they were "just looking." He asked them again, and they looked at him crossly. No. It's their faces, they could look. The argument went on for another three minutes and forty seven seconds- he was looking at the clock- until he screamed. He screamed and cried and the twins had frozen in fear before dropping the sheet and running to get Aramis. He didn't want to create a fuss, he really didn't, but the more he tried not to panic, the more he did, and the more he got angry. And then he hit himself on the head.

Aramis had his arms around him in a second. He pulled Leon's arms down and crossed them on his chest, and then pulled Leon in for a hug so his back was pressed to Aramis' torso. He laid the both of them on the ground on their sides, and Leon struggled against him. Aramis tried very hard to maintain slow breathing- making sure Leon could feel the rise and fall of his chest in a regular pattern.

Leon felt himself calm down, and soon he rolled over, burying his face in Aramis' chest, soaking the man's t-shirt through as he cried.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, and Aramis had told him he had nothing to be sorry about. The twins came in a minute later, telling them they were sorry and wouldn't look again until he said it was okay. He had wiped his eyes and told them it was okay.

That was the first time any one tried to help with a meltdown- that's what they called it when Aramis took him to see Dr Dumas- a young woman with bright red hair. No, Dr Dumas called them "episodes of challenging behaviour- like a meltdown." Either way, he has autism spectrum disorder and he has mild hypersensitivity related to hearing. He doesn't mind the normal sounds of loud laughter and talking, but fireworks and music that's too loud set him off. He's also more inclined to meltdowns when he feels unsafe.

He'd not had so many meltdowns in the time that he'd been with Aramis. In the orphanage, they called them tantrums and told him that he should have grown out of them by now. Aramis didn't say that, and neither did Porthos.

He looks over to Luke, who is studying the lake in front of them.

"Thank you for coming with me."

"I don't mind." Luke is quiet for a while, and then speaks again. "You know Porthos loves Aramis."

"Aramis loves Porthos too."

"Yes, he does." Luke agrees. "I think Porthos is going to tell Aramis tomorrow. It's Valentine's day."

"Okay."

"Do you mind if I go for a walk- just to that third tree and back?"

"I don't mind."

Luke carefully leaves his pencils on the bench, and jumps up to go for a walk and bring some life back to his legs. Leon continues drawing, until someone snatches his notebook out of his hands.

"The spaz likes to draw!" crows one of the boys. Leon blinks at the two of them. They are in the year above him at school. He hasn't been called that word in a very long time, but he's used to their jeering. It's only them in the entire school, and usually a teacher tells them off, but no one is here to do that.

"Give it back," he says, his voice low. He can hear Luke running back towards them. He grabs for the book, and the boy lifts it out of his reach. The other one is laughing at him.

"What? This piece of shit?" The boy relishes saying the last word, like he's never said it before. It's a bad word. Celeste gets told off for saying it, Leon thinks. "You want it that badly? Go and get it." The boy throws the notebook, and it lands on the lake. It lands too far out to reach without stepping onto the ice. Leon runs after it anyway.

"LEON!" He hears Luke yell, but he ignores him. The two boys have run off now that they've seen Leon isn't alone. He keeps running, and he runs onto the lake. His shoes slip and he falls, but he grabs his notebook.

"LEON!" he hears again, but he's panicking because he can hear the ice cracking underneath him. Luke is on the bank now, he can see him, and he kneels to slide over onto the ice. He pulls Leon up into his arms, telling him that it's okay, and slowly slides on his knees back over to the bank. They're almost there when Leon hears the ice crack again, and Luke all but throws him onto the bank. Leon turns, and catches Luke's eye.

"Run," he tells Leon and then the ice breaks beneath him, and he disappears under the water.

Leon bolts, as Dr Dumas would call it. He runs home, and he ignores the angry drivers as he sprints across the road. I haven't been run over, he thinks, because bad things don't happen to me on Friday 13th, only the people I love.

When he gets to the door, he rings the bell three times, and then he shouts. Aramis opens it instantly and pulls Leon into a hug with his arms crossed, but Leon keeps on shouting.

"Luke is in the lake! Luke! In! Lake! Luke! Lake!" Luke and lake become one word.

Porthos is out of the door in seconds.

Celeste has her phone in her hand, and calls an ambulance to the park under Aramis' instructions, though he's still trying to stop Leon's meltdown. When Leon is calm, Aramis sits him down on the sofa, and tells Celeste to run downstairs and ask the neighbours to come and sit with her and the other children. They've babysat for him before; they know how to help Leon should he panic again.

He grabs his coat and runs out of the door as soon as the neighbours arrive.

When Porthos gets to the park, Luke is spasming with the cold- from waist down, he's still in the water. Porthos lies flat on his stomach on the edge of the bank, and pulls Luke to him, out of the water. He has to have been in there for twenty minutes- enough time for hypothermia to set in.

When Aramis gets to the park, Porthos is sprinting to the ambulance with Luke bundled in his arms. Luke looks tiny and he is soaking wet, and his lips are a more than worrying shade of blue. Porthos helps lie Luke down onto the bed, and the ambulance doctors' work quickly in taking off his coat, hat, scarf, gloves, jumper and jeans and then wrapping him in layers and layers of blankets.

Aramis sits next to Luke as they drive to the hospital, cupping his pale cheek with his hand. Porthos sits close to Aramis, taking off his own wet coat. He holds Aramis close, who is whispering his prayers in Spanish, pressing his cross to his lips.

"He's going to be okay," Porthos promises, kissing Aramis' temple.