Page 50 of Office of the Lost

Happiness.

He was so used to his day-to-day routines, feeling satisfied when he accomplished all his tasks at work.Feeling content when Minkis snuggled up next to him at night.Feeling… all sorts of things that were a pleasing color, more peach or brown or warm gray than black.Or white.But not like this.

Thiswas the brilliant yellow of a fresh-bloomed sunflower.The shocking fuchsia pink of a sand flamingo from Oobert Prime.The deep, vibrant blue of the waters around a tropical isle on Earth.It suffused him with pure joy.

“So, what do you think?”Leo was staring at him with those puppy-dog eyes.But somehow they weren’t so much puppy-dog as… well… somehow he had become moreLeo, more certain, taller?

“What?”

“I said, where do we go first?”Leo frowned.“Did you hit your head on something?Or did that kiss screw with your brain?It did with mine.”

Crispin blinked.“I don’t know.Maybe if we….”

“Um… Crispy?”This time, it was Leo’s eyes that went wide.

What now?He turned to follow Leo’s gaze, fixed at a point over Crispin’s left shoulder.Another Leo stood there, just like the first, but… different.His clothes were a mishmash of Leo’s, bits of the various outfits he had worn.“Don’t go.We miss you.”

We?“I’m so sorry, but we have important things to do.”Crispin spoke primly despite the fact that he was kind of unnerved.

Another Leo had appeared next to the first, this one with antlers.“Don’t go.We miss you.”The two mouthed it in almost perfect unison, but there was a slight dissonance in the voices.

“Leo, what’s happening?”He turned back to Leo…hisLeo—what a wonderful thing that was to think, even in these strange circumstances—who shook his head, his mouth open.

Three more of the strange apparitions appeared behind Leo, one with wings.The third one, strangely, had slitted cat eyes.“Don’t go.We miss you.”

The walls of the room billowed outward, as if pushed by a stray breeze.As if they were no more solid or real than fog.Or tinsel.

More and more of the Leos appeared, each one different from the next, each one pushing out the walls.Suddenly there were ten.No, twenty… no, a hundred of them now, each muttering his own version of “Don’t go.We miss you.”

And then he noticed his Leo.“You’re… melting!”

Leo stared at him for a second before looking down at his own body.

It was, well, not so much melting as evaporating, like a thin layer of snow on the branches of Crispin’s home tree when the spring came.Wisps of Leo’s clothing were trailing up into the air, disappearing into it like so many tendrils of smoke.

“It’s….I can feel them.They want me back.”Leo didn’t sound scared.

Why aren’t you scared?

“Don’t go.We miss you.Don’t miss.Go.We you.”

The words were jumbling together in a chaotic way, which totally made sense, or at least he would have thought it did if he hadn’t been overcome by a sudden panic.I’m losing him.

“Leo, you have to fight it!”He reached out to touch his charge’s… his friend’s… his lover’s face, but his hand passed through it as if it were made of air.

Leo’s gaze flickered to him, his eyes widening in recognition for just an instant.“It… feels so good.They want me to come home.”

Maybe I should let him go.Leo was back where he belonged.Thiswashis home.To the seventeen hells of Arcturus with what everyone else wanted.

Only he wouldn’t be Leo anymore.He would just be another strand of Chaos.Not the charming, bumbling, unaware of how handsome he was human who Crispin had gotten to know.To care for.To….

“Leo, I love you!”Where did that come from?Only, as soon as he said it, he knew it was true.It had burst out of him from the depths of his soul, fully formed, something that had been growing there for days.

The room went deadly silent.

“You… love me?”Leo stared at him, his tone flat, and Crispin’s heart fell to the ground with a wet, squishy thump.

He doesn’t love me back.He must have imagined it all.The stolen glances, the kisses—no, those had been real, he was sure of it.But Leo wasn’t like him.Leo was a literal force of nature.Who was Crispin to think he could hold on to Chaos?Even such a handsome and confounding piece of it as Leo?I’m such a fool.

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