Gabe awoke, groggy, confused, and his entire body in pain, to the sound of the front door opening. He squinted uncomprehending into darkness, then squeezed his eyes shut when the lights flicked on. He remembered he had painkillers in his pocket and started patting around for them before he even remembered where he was.

“I found somewhere for you to stay,” Gabe’s dad announced proudly, as though the idea of them living in the same house for a short time had been a crisis in desperate need of resolving.

Gabe located the painkillers and made a face as he very carefully got to his feet. Every movement seemed to strain against his stitches.

“They even have some kids around your age, so that’ll be good,” Gabe’s dad continued.

“Great,” Gabe muttered. Because that’d worked out so well with Adam.

“So, are you ready to go?”

Gabe washed the painkillers down with a mouthful of water from the kitchen sink and then shot a look in his dad’s direction that he hoped communicated how done with all this he was. He’d only just woken up. Did he look ready?

But… he didn’t actually want to stay here and deal with his dad’s shit, either. He wasn’t ready for a new place and new people and everything involved with that, but he wouldn’t become ready for it by sitting around here. If this was happening, it might as well happen now. “Yeah. Okay.”

It wasn’t a very long drive, but Gabe still managed to fall into an uncomfortable half-sleep in the car. He wasn’t conscious enough for coherent thought, but he did have enough awareness to be very careful of his back every time the car made a turn.

He was an exhausted wreck by the time his dad pulled up in front of a house on a quiet suburban street, but he honestly didn’t care at this point. All he wanted was to get through the next however long it ended up being before he could go back to sleep.

He changed his mind about not caring what he looked like when he stepped out of the car and locked eyes with a guy around his own age. The guy was standing with one hand on the low gate in front of the house and the other holding the leash of a small, geriatric looking dog.

And, he had to admit, the initial reason for his sudden concern about his appearance was just hormones. The guy had wavy brown hair around ear length that was honestly a mess, but somehow it was working for him. It was impossible to tell if he knew exactly what he was doing or if he was just badly in need of a haircut and was only incidentally making it work because he had good bone structure.

But attraction quickly gave way to a far more rational emotion: fear. This guy was taller than him and definitely in better shape than him. He held intense, unfriendly eye contact with Gabe for several long, awkward seconds before turning his back and leading his dog towards the house. 

He must have heard Gabe’s dad open the gate behind him, but he didn’t turn back around and he shut the door to the house after letting himself in. Gabe’s dad knocked.

The house was sort of old and not in the greatest condition, but it wasn’t run down either. The fence was well overdue for a repaint, but it wasn’t missing any pickets and the lawn had been mown recently. 

Gabe would have had to have stood back to back with the woman who answered the door to figure out which one of them was shorter, but she felt bigger than him. Well, technically she was in terms of stockiness.

She gave Gabe a sad smile in lieu of a greeting. “You look tired.”

Well, at least everyone in this household wasn’t quietly menacing. 

“I am tired, yes. Also Gabe. That’s my name.”

She stepped aside to let them in. “Welcome to my home, Gabe. I’m Alice.”

“Sorry again for the short notice,” Gabe’s dad said. “Like I told you before, he normally lives with my ex, but he’s not been getting on with her son lately, so they need a bit of a break.”

Lately. As though they’d ever gotten on.

“You still haven’t told me how long you expect this break to be,” Alice said.

“I still don’t know, but hopefully not long. She’s stressed out about it right now, so I don’t want to push, but I think once she’s had some time to think she’ll realise it’s not a big deal. Boys fight. It’s normal.”

“Well, it’s not normal in this house.” She looked Gabe firmly in the eye. “Okay?”

For a moment he just looked back at her, giving her a chance to really take in just how non-threatening he was. “Good.”

She frowned and for a moment she just looked at him, suddenly uncertain. Which was fair. He’d sounded more annoyed than he’d intended, but he hoped she’d gotten his message: he had not, and would not, start any fights.

She shot a quick look at Gabe’s dad before she turned back to Gabe and forced a smile onto her face. “Okay. How about I show you around?”

All he wanted was sleep just then, but it seemed rude to decline. He nodded around a yawn.

“You can help yourself to anything in the kitchen,” Alice said as she led them through a combined kitchen and living room space. Not fancy by any means, but clean enough and homely in a way Gabe wasn’t used to. They had fun magnets on their fridge that they’d used to hold up pictures of smiling people. 

The only thing that had been on the fridge at Sally’s house was one of those magnetic calendars from a real estate company that you get in the mail sometimes. It had been there for three years and none of them had ever actually used it.

Alice put a cushion that had fallen onto the floor back on the couch and tossed a ball into a box of dog toys in the corner. “Did you meet Trist on the way in?”

“The boy with the dog?” Gabe’s dad asked.

“That’s the one. Did he say hello?” She collected a stray mug from the coffee table and took it over to the sink. 

The coffee table was made of wood, Gabe was relieved to see. He was never going to feel safe around a horizontal glass surface again. He’d even started looking at windows with new found unease.

“He did not do that, no,” Gabe told her.

She sighed as she rinsed out one of the mugs and put it on the drying rack. “I thought he seemed like he was in a bit of a mood. I don’t know why. I asked him if he was okay with this and he said it was fine, so I don’t know why he’s being sulky about it.”

“That’s teenagers, I guess,” Gabe’s dad said as though he had any experience whatsoever with dealing with teenagers. “Listen, I’d better head off. I’ll just get that money for you.”

Of course she was being paid to take him in. Well, good. She deserved compensation more than his dad deserved to keep any amount of his money for himself. Still, Gabe deliberately didn’t look while the money changed hands. He didn’t want to know what putting up with him was worth.

Gabe’s dad didn’t bother saying anything to him before he left, and he certainly didn’t bother hugging him or… whatever normal fathers did to show parental affection, Gabe wasn’t sure. Not that a hug was something he would have enjoyed with his back in the state it was.

There was an awkward moment after his dad left where Gabe was certain Alice was about to try to talk to him. She was looking at him and he was pretending to look at a painting on the wall and he was sure she was about to ask… something. She just had that caring mum feel about her, though Gabe wasn’t sure she was actually a mother. Trist had looked around Gabe’s age, and Alice was probably no more than thirty. It was technically possible, but they didn’t even look very alike.

“Hun…” Alice said, and Gabe turned to look at her, bracing himself. She gave him a forced smile. “You’d like to go to bed, wouldn’t you?”

Gabe felt his shoulders relax. “Yes please.”

“Okay, follow me,” she said as she led him through a doorway that led to a hallway. “The bathroom’s on the left, then the girl’s room is next to that. They’re out at a movie right now, but you’ll meet them tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Gabe said. He felt more comfortable about sharing a house with girls than he did other guys. Girls had never hurt him. Though, maybe that was because he went to an all boys school and literally did not know any girls his own age.

“And this is Trist’s room.” She rapped her knuckles on a door near the end of the hall. “He has bunk beds, so you’ll be sharing with him.”

“Oh,” Gabe said as neutrally as possible as a wave of apprehension flooded through him.

Within two weeks of moving in with Sally when he’d been just seven years old, she’d been convinced of his need for a lock on his door. Adam had already put a cockroach on his face and shoved a fistful of ice into his underpants while he was sleeping. He’d been a light and anxious sleeper ever since.

Gabe didn’t know Trist, but he did know that he was bigger than Adam, stronger than Adam, and frankly gave off a more openly hostile vibe than Adam. As fucked up as he was, he would at least say hi and try to talk to you about his interests before inevitably deciding he wanted to do something terrible to you for no good reason.

When there was no response from inside, Alice opened the door.

Trist was laying on his side on the top bunk, facing the wall. He twisted his head to look at them when the door opened before returning to whatever he was doing without further acknowledging them. His dog was laying on a dog bed in the corner, eviscerating a teddy bear. There was stuffing everywhere.

“Well, that’s Trist,” Alice said, picking a bit of the stray stuffing up off the floor. “He doesn’t talk much, but you don’t seem to either, so maybe you’ll be a good match.”

“Sorry,” Gabe said. “I’m tired.”

“I know, love. Here’s your bed now, so you can go to sleep whenever you want. I’m sure Trist won’t mind having an early night or coming out into the living room.” She stared at Trist’s back for a moment, but he didn’t respond. “Do you mind the bottom bunk? Trist normally has that one, but he looks like he’s decided to relocate.”

“Yeah, bottom’s good,” Gabe said. Bottom was great, especially considering there didn’t appear to be a ladder to get up to the top bunk and Gabe was short and injured. He wasn’t sure he was actually physically capable of hauling himself up there just then.

“Well, I’ll leave you two to it, then,” she said. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Gabe murmured as she left the room. He really did mean it. His dad may have been paying her, but he doubted being nice to him had been a requirement. She was just someone his dad could dump his kid on so that he could spend the bare minimum amount of time with him.

Trist rolled over and gracefully dropped himself down to the floor.

Gabe tensed, expecting a confrontation, but Trist headed to the other side of the room instead.

“You can put your stuff in here.” Trist gave the door of a cupboard a couple of taps as he walked past, not bothering to actually look at Gabe. He opened the door of the cupboard next to it, gave Gabe a quick glance over, and then stretched up to tuck the spiral bound book he was holding on a shelf that would be out of Gabe’s reach. “This is my stuff. Don’t touch my stuff.”

Right. Well, that had seemed almost slightly friendly for a few seconds there. “Okay, I won’t.”

Trist didn’t bother to further acknowledge him before leaving the room and shutting the door behind himself.

Gabe let out a long breath. He was probably going to get murdered in his sleep.

The dog, oblivious to the tension, kicked up her legs as she got comfortable sprawled out almost obscenely on her back. Gabe wished he could sleep on his back.

Gabe took his jeans off but kept his shirt on. He didn’t know much about what kind of person Trist was, but he knew that if he’d left his vulnerable, stitch covered back exposed to Adam, he wouldn’t have made it through the night without being fucked with in some way. Plus he just… didn’t really want anyone to see it.

The pain killers had kicked in about as well as they ever would. They toned the pain down enough that it was tolerable as long as he didn’t move at all.

He turned the lights off, lay down, and stared at the wall, exhausted yet also the widest awake he’d been since the coffee table incident. He wanted to go home where at least he knew when he was and wasn’t safe, even if not being safe was something that happened a lot of the time.

A few minutes later, Gabe heard a scratching sound at the edge of the bed. He squinted into the darkness at the little dog who was trying, and failing, to get her feeble old body up onto the bed.

Gabe got out of bed and leant down to help her up, which wasn’t a great time for his back. He didn’t even know if she was allowed in the bed, but she seemed to think she was and that was good enough for him.

The bed was definitely not made more comfortable by the addition of a dog laying on his legs and licking itself, but it did make him feel safer. Not because he expected an elderly dog to defend him against her owner if shit went down, but because he assumed Trist wouldn’t want his dog in the middle of any drama. Of course he didn’t know if that was true or not, but believing it allowed his mind to start to go foggy and finally sink down into sleep.