the afflicted

So Jeffrey did have an… unconventional taste in videos. That was very interesting indeed. Leo made a mental note and wondered what the best way to find out what other sorts of videos he would be willing to watch and enjoy. It wouldn’t do at all to scare his foster son off. Things like that tended to get reported to the state, and the last thing Leo wanted was the state breathing down his neck.

Of course Leo knew Jeffrey was joking. He wasn’t stupid after all; he just wanted to poke fun at his foster child, but it had failed. In the future, he would have to watch others, so he could learn to imitate them and pass as a normal person. “Oh. Of course. But aren’t you a little old for those movies now? I thought teenagers preferred other types of film.” He smirked to himself. Jeffrey always got so awkward whenever Leo mentioned sex. That was something they would have to work on, if Jeffrey would ever be able to follow Leo’s line of work. But that would be in the future, and it could wait. “the other guests here are hysterical fools, and I’m sure you could tell that just by looking at them. I hope you don’t believe everything you hear.”

Besides, Leo didn't seem like he'd meant the first part. Or maybe he had, and he was just trying to smooth it over with the second comment, soften the blow. Either way it didn't matter. Leo's opinion of him only mattered in that it decided whether or not Jeffrey got to live with him on the Island. As long as Leo thought that Jeffrey was worth keeping overall, then it was fine.

He sighed a little and shook his head. The kid could probably take care of himself better than most grown men could. Sometimes, Leo wondered if it just would have been easier to adopt a younger boy, or even an infant from the foster system. But no. Young children could not take care of themselves, were loud and messy and needy, and Leo doubted he could deal with one without snapping its scrawny little neck.

Still, for someone so tough and with such a dark past, and Leo was sure Jeffrey had to have a dark past, because otherwise he wouldn’t be so self-reliant and closed off, Jeffrey still could act like a much younger child at times. Apparently he, like nearly every boy, like Leo when he was young and had not grown into his mind, enjoyed watching things get destroyed. “Haven’t you ever watched demolition videos on the Internet? It’s actually pretty easy to take a bridge out. It’s not like they are military bases or anything. and when you have an old bridge?” Leo shrugged and put his hand on his foster son’s shoulder. It was meant to be a fatherly gesture, but like everything to do with Jeffrey, it felt forced and uncomfortable.

He had, in fact, watched demolition videos on youtube before. Who hadn't? Back in middle school all his friends "Yeah, but in those videos there's usually explosives and stuff on bridges in those videos. I didn't know wind could do the same thing." Or, in reality, he'd never really thought about it? But either way, the result was the same- he'd been more than a little surprised to see the bridge tumble down into the water. "Obviously it can though," he added, with a small laugh. 

Still, Leo pulled his cellphone out to text his young charge. There was no reception. Of course there wasn’t any. “Fuck.” If small children were around, Leo couldn’t be bothered. Just to be safe, he checked. No, no small children in the near vicinity, just hysterical townspeople and tourists fretting about travel plans and getting money back for plane tickets and oh lord how will the children ever get to school. Leo had more realistic worries, like how there would be enough food and water for everyone if and when rescue never came, if there were police officers on the island and who they were, whether corpses floated if they had been dismembered, and where his foster son had gone.

With a sigh, Leo found a chair and sat down. An older lady glared at him, but he pretended not to notice. His legs were just as tired as anybody else’s, and why did she deserve special treatment just because she had managed to live longer than him?

A dark haired boy bobbed and weaved in the crowd. Only one sullen teenager walked like that, avoiding eye contact, flinching whenever anyone touched him. Rolling his eyes, Leo got up and started to push through the crowd towards Jeff. Maybe he stepped on a couple feet on the way, and maybe he almost knocked a toddler over, but they were not important, mere peasants to him. Jeff was heading in the opposite direction, and for a second, Leo thought he had lost him in the crowd. But then he popped up again, just a few feet away. With a well-placed hip check to one of the more pudgy guests, he managed to get a hand on the kid’s shoulder.

His guardian had a habit of sneaking up on him, somehow always managing to move too quietly to detect. It was something Jeff had gotten used to while living with Leo. One thing he hadn't gotten used to was Leo's habit of calling Jeffrey "son". Son was usually reserved for kids you planned on keeping. From time to time Jeffrey wondered if he should start calling Leo dad. It would probably make the other man feel better about their relationship, and ensure that Jeffrey managed to stay in one place until he turned eighteen. But that thought never lasted long. Something about the word 'dad' stuck in his throat when he tried to apply it to any of his foster parents. They were all transient homes, and this one wasn't any different, even if he'd already been here for a few years.

"Sorry. I wanted to see what was going on down here," Jeffrey said, with a shrug. "I wasn't sure if you were still sleeping or anything," he added, hoping that would be enough to erase any hard feelings Leo might have about Jeffrey wandering downstairs in the middle of a crisis and disappearing. In Jeffrey's defense, he hadn't known it was a crisis when he'd left his room, and when the bridge had collapsed, his first thought hadn't been to run back upstairs and check in with Leo. He'd spent too long relying on himself for that to be his initial reaction to anything, honestly.