"Like I said before my mom died when I was sixteen," he said simply. "Cancer. Quick and brutal. One day she was fine, the next day she was gone, and suddenly I was alone with nothing but a garage apartment above her friend's house and about three hundred dollars to my name."

The air seemed to grow heavier around them.

“What about your dad?” Remi asked softly.

“Never met him. Mom raised me on her own, and she was...” Theodore's voice caught slightly. “She was everything. Funny and tough and she made everything feel possible, you know? When she died, it was like the world just went gray.”

Ash set his wine glass down, giving Theodore his full attention.

"The first year was the worst," Theodore continued. "I was trying to finish high school and work enough hours to keep a roof over my head, and I was so angry and desperate that I made some really stupid choices." He ran a hand through his hair. "I got involved with people I shouldn't have trusted. Did things I'm not proud of."

"What kind of things?" Ash asked, and there was no judgment in his voice, only genuine curiosity.

Theodore was quiet again, wrestling with how much to reveal. "Nothing violent," he said finally. "Nothing that hurt anyone directly. But I was sixteen and scared and these older guys promised they'd take care of me if I helped them with some... business ventures."

"Drug dealing?" Remi guessed.

"Among other things." Theodore's jaw was tight. "They'd have me run packages, make deliveries. Young kid on a bike doesn't attract attention, you know? They paid me enough to keep the lights on and buy groceries, and for a while that felt like everything."

"What happened?" Ash asked.

"They screwed me over," Theodore said with a bitter laugh. "Shocking, I know. Set me up to take the fall for something bigger than I realized I was involved in. I got lucky – a cop who knew my mom gave me a heads up before they came looking for me. I had about two hours to disappear."

Remi's eyes were wide. "So what did you do?"

"Ran. Left everything behind and started over in a different state. Spent the next year working construction jobs, sleeping in my car, trying to figure out how to build a life from nothing." Theodore's voice grew stronger. "Eventually I found work with a restoration company. Turns out I was good with my hands, good at making old things beautiful again."

"A big time Mechanic " Ash added.

Theodore nodded. "Yup, something I never knew would come in handy from the little I learned from my mom but it did. I love it. There's something satisfying about taking something that's been abandoned or broken and making it whole again."

The metaphor wasn't lost on any of them.

"Those guys ever find you?" Remi asked.

"No," Theodore said. "And even if they did, I'm not that scared sixteen-year-old anymore. I've got too much to lose now."

His eyes moved between Ash and Remi as he said it, and the implication hung in the air between them.

"I'm sorry," Ash said quietly. "About your mom. About all of it."

"Don't be," Theodore replied. "It made me who I am. And who I am led me to both of you, so I can't really complain about the path I took to get here."

Remi was looking at Theodore with such open affection that it made Ash's chest warm rather than tight with jealousy. "I'm glad you had the courage to tell us.” Remi said.

“Yeah,” Theodore said. "I'm glad I was able to ’cause old habits die hard. Not when you've spent years keeping secrets, it becomes second nature."

"What changed?" Ash asked. "Why tell us now?"

Theodore was quiet for a moment, his fingers tracing patterns on the arm of his chair. "Because I realized I was doing the same thing I did back then – trying to survive on my own, not trusting anyone else to stick around when things got complicated." He looked up at them. "But I don't want to survive anymore. I want to live. And living means trusting people with the parts of you that are ugly or broken or scared."

The words hung in the air, heavy with meaning.

"We all have ugly parts," Remi said softly. "I also have something to tell."

Theo looked at him, waiting. Ash just nodded.

Remi tucked his legs up under him, suddenly looking much younger than his years. "You already knew that I grew up in foster care, but I never really explained what that was like."

Ash's hand found his back, rubbing gentle circles.

"The family I was placed with when I was eight," Remi started, his voice small, "they weren't... kind people. They took in foster kids for the money, not because they wanted to help children. There were six of us in a three-bedroom house, and we were more like unpaid labor than family."

Theodore's hands clenched into fists, but he stayed quiet.

"They were big on verbal discipline," Remi continued, making air quotes around the words. "Nothing was ever good enough. We were stupid, worthless, burdens they were generous enough to tolerate. For years, I believed them."

"Remi," Ash said quietly.

"It got worse as I got older. When I started showing signs of being... different. Feminine. They didn't like that I preferred books to sports, or that I cried easily, or that I was more interested in helping their daughter with her makeup than playing football with their son."

Remi's voice was steady, but his hands were trembling slightly.

"The verbal stuff I could handle, eventually. I learned to tune it out, to focus on school and getting good grades so I could get out. But when I was seventeen, it started getting physical."

Ash's hand stilled on Remi's back.

"Nothing that would leave marks where teachers could see them," Remi said matter-of-factly. "They were careful about that. But it was enough to make me realize that if I stayed until I aged out at eighteen, I might not make it out at all."

"So you ran away?" Theodore asked, his voice rough.

"Three months before my eighteenth birthday. I had a friend, Liyah, who knew what was happening. Her parents let me stay with them while I finished high school." Remi's face softened at the memory. "Liyah was my best friend. My sister, really. She's the one who convinced me to study dermatology, who helped me apply for scholarships, who made me believe I could have a real life."

"She sounds amazing," Theodore said.

"She was," Remi replied, and the past tense made both men's hearts clench. "She died in a car accident three years ago. Drunk driver ran a red light."

The silence that followed was heavy with grief.

"I still keep in touch with her parents," Remi continued, wiping at his eyes. "They're my family now. Real family. They call me their son, and they mean it. They're the ones who taught me what love actually looks like."

Ash pulled Remi closer, pressing a kiss to his temple.

"After Liyah died, I didn't think I'd ever feel that kind of unconditional love again," Remi said, looking between them. "But you two... you make me feel safe in a way I never thought possible."

Theodore stood up abruptly, pacing to the edge of the rooftop. His shoulders were tense, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

"Theo?" Remi called softly.

"I'm okay," Theodore said, but his voice was thick. "I just... I hate that any of that happened to you. Both of you. It makes me want to find those people and—"

"Hey," Ash interrupted, standing and walking over to Theodore. "That's not your job. And it's not what we need from you."

Theodore turned, and there were tears in his eyes. "Then what do you need from me?"

"Just this," Ash said simply. "Being here. Listening. Caring enough to get angry on our behalf."

"You make us feel like we matter," Remi added from the couch. "Like we're worth fighting for. That's not something either of us has had much of."

Theodore scrubbed a hand over his face. "You both matter so much it scares me sometimes."

"Good scared or bad scared?" Ash asked.

"Good scared," Theodore said without hesitation. "The kind that makes you want to be better than you are. The kind that makes you want to stick around and see what happens next."

Remi stood and joined them at the railing, the three of them looking out over the city lights.

"So what happens next?" Remi asked.

"I don't know," Ash admitted. "This is all new territory for me. For all of us."

"We figure it out as we go," Theodore said. "Together."

The word hung between them like a promise.

They stayed like that for a long time, shoulders touching, breathing in sync, each lost in their own thoughts but anchored by the presence of the others. The night air was cool, but there was warmth radiating between them that had nothing to do with temperature.

"Thank you," Remi said eventually. "For tonight. For listening. For not running when we told you all our broken pieces."

"Everyone has broken pieces," Theodore said. "The trick is finding people who don't mind helping you put them back together."

"Is that what we're doing?" Ash asked. "Putting each other back together?"

"Maybe," Theodore replied. "Or maybe we're building something entirely new."

As they finally gathered their things to leave, none of them wanted the night to end. The vulnerability they'd shared had created something fragile and precious between them, something that felt too important to risk by rushing.

But as they walked to the elevator, Remi slipped his hand into Theodore's on one side and Ash's on the other, and for the first time in any of their lives, holding on didn't feel scary.

It felt like coming home.