#luke and bell and their inability to deal with personal space

[bellysoupset]

Jonah was fast asleep, dreaming even, when he heard a little noise, that sounded like a cry. He frowned in his sleep, until the mewl turned into a voice and he heard a sleepy, whiny "Jon. Jonah, wake up-" he forced his eyes open, rubbing at them, still dizzy with sleep.

"Ange-" Jonah looked around the room. It was the middle of the night, and their shared hotel room was dark still. Angie was sitting up in the bed opposite to him, a pink silk bonnet on top of her head, and a frown between her brows, "what..."

"Your phone is ringing nonstop," she yawned, settling back down against the pillows and closing her eyes, "turn it off."

Jon was suddenly much more awake.

He had been trying, and failing, not to be clingy. Twenty four hours without hearing from Leo was fine, right? Since they had this huge time difference between them...? Sure, Leo had been ignoring even his texts, but it was just 24 hours-

Jonah's mood tanked as he grabbed his phone and saw four missed calls, but not from Leo. Lucas.

He was Luke's emergency contact, had been most of his life, and Jonah felt a wave of nausea wash over him. He sat up in bed, squinting at the too bright screen. It was 4:34 AM, so a little past 10 PM for Luke. Not a social call.

Jon hit the return call button and got up, walking to the bathroom in order not to wake up Angie with his voice, shutting the door behind him.

It rang and rang, then Bella picked it up, "hi, Jon," she sounded very awake, "I'm gonna get Luke for you, just a minute."

Straight to the point, he loved that about Bell.

"He's okay?"

"Luke? Yeah, he's fine," Bella sounded distracted and Jonah pulled back the phone, clicking the camera icon and rubbing at his face. Bella picked it up and Jon immediately frowned.

She was inside Luke's car, he could tell by the ceiling and the beige details, her hair up in a messy mop of curls and she was wearing one of her husband's old team hoodies, their university letters brightly displayed against her chest. It was the middle of the night, like he predicted and there was a bright light coming from outside the window-

"Where are you? What's going on, Bella?"

"Outside the grocery store," Bella yawned, "we're heading to your place. Wendy called me, about... An hour ago? Something happened with Leo, I don't know- HE'S OKAY," she exclaimed, probably seeing the way Jonah paled and how he nearly dropped the phone, "he's okay. He's home, but something happened and I don't know what, just that you need to come home. That's why Luke was calling."

"Did- Did Wendy tell Lucas?" Jonah was more than a little confused. He was Wendy's best friend, why didn't she just...call him? About Leo? Why call Luke- That sounded convoluted and messy.

There was a noise, the rain getting louder, paper bags and then the door closing, then Luke appeared on the screen, rain running down his hair, "hi-hi Jon-" his teeth chattered and Bella passed him the phone, moving away from the screen, probably to turn on the heater, "We-Wendy ca-ca-"

"Why did she call you and not me? Luke, what's going on, I'm freaking out-"

"She-she said Leo made her promise not to call you," Luke planted the phone in the car's dashboard, rubbing his hands vigorously to warm them up, "but that he needs you ho-home. Something to do with his mom...?"

Jonah felt sick. His head was spinning, the words he needs you home turning and turning in his head.

"His mom...? I thought- What? His mom? Are you sure you heard that right?" He leaned heavily against the door and heard as Luke repeated his words.

"I'm sure," Lucas' voice was calmer now that he wasn't trembling, "she needed to leave for her hospital shift and asked us to go over to your place. Said Leo shouldn't be alone."

Fuck.

If nothing had scared him yet, this certainly would. This meant Wendy was putting Leo under watch... That she thought he was a danger to himself?

"Jonah, hey," Bella's voice cut through the ringing noise in his ears, "nothing is going to happen with him. We're going over, we're not gonna let him out of our sight and you'll be here soon. I promise you, we got this."

"Yeah," Lucas agreed, "You're still in Amsterdam, right?"

"Yes-" How did Luke even know- Angie. He probably was keeping contact with Angelina, she had mentioned they texted.

"There's a flight leaving from Schiphol in two hours, I got you two tickets," Lucas was in his full project manager role, "tell Angie to text me, I'll figure out her staying over situation."

"She can-" he was about to say she can stay with me, before he realized Luke was very purposefully making it clear she couldn't, "okay. I'll talk with her. I- Fuck," his voice trembled and Jonah let go off his phone on top of the sink, bracing against it as he took measured breaths.

There was a deafening silence, safe for his heart beating like crazy. Jonah's head was spinning and he forced the air slowly out of his mouth, swallowing forcefully when the motion nearly turned into a gag.

He coughed and heard Luke cursing, his voice muffled since the phone was on top of a towel. Jonah cleared his throat, swallowing down and splashing some cool water. Lucas and Bell wouldn't be calling that calmly if Leo was in real danger. Nope.

"You get there and you keep me updated. I'm serious, I want every fucking detail, I wanna know what socks he's wearing," Jonah bossed, picking up the phone once more. Bella offered him a tight smile, while Luke nodded, not even questioning it.

"Absolutely. Have a safe flight."

-------------------------------------

Leo knew Wendy had called Bella, which meat she had called Lucas, which meant Vince knew, which meant Jonah either already knew by now or was going to very soon.

He glanced at clock in the microwave. 11 PM. It was 5 AM in Amsterdam, hopefully none of his friends had decided to wake up Jon in a panic in the middle of the night. Hopefully.

"I'm sorry, I really have to go, but they should be here in ten minutes," Wendy's voice drifted down the hallway and Leo looked away from his Tostitos turning around in the microwave, "are you gonna be okay? I-Just say the word-"

"Wendy," Leo leveled her with a fond, but exasperated look, "go. You're already late."

She frowned, crossing her arms to her chest and Leo stared back at her, not intimidated in the least. He turned so his body was facing her, "I'm not gonna jump out of the balcony in the ten minutes it'll take Luke and Bell to get here. I promise, pinky promise."

"Good," Wendy squinted at him, "would be a dick move to jump, you'd probably land right on top of their car."

Leo let out a snort at the dark humor and Wendy's eyes softened a little bit. She was wearing borrowed clothes from his closet, not having let him out of her sight since last night and she looked ridiculous. His sweater was basically a dress on her, even if she was using her heels.

He wanted to say this was all incredibly unnecessary, that he didn't need a nanny, was a grown man and sure, it had been a shock, but he was fine- But Leo knew better than that. He had spent a grand total of forty minutes on his own while showering and those forty minutes had been all his brain needed to go down a very dark spiraling route.

Amelia's confused face as she asked "I'm sorry, have we met?"

He couldn't get that out of his mind, coming back like a splash of acid in his throat whenever he breathed in too deeply. Edward's Leo?

"Sweetheart," Wendy was suddenly much closer and Leo blinked quickly, shaking his head.

"I'm okay, go on, your supervisor will be upset if you're even more late," behind him the microwave stopped humming gently and started beeping. Wendy was frowning, looking terribly worried, but she nodded, walking at a snail pace to the door.

He wanted to thank her, but Leo instead just stared at the empty spot where she had been standing. Everything felt... Hard. Like he was moving through molasses, like he was that scared kid back home who used to sit in his bedroom floor and struggle to breathe against that sharp pain in the center of his chest.

JD meowed at him and Leo frowned as she got on her hindlegs and pawed at his knee. Another meow.

"What?"

She blinked those huge blue eyes, seeming annoyed and he crunched down to pet her, then didn't have any energy to get back up and decided to rest against the kitchen cabinets. His cat shoved her head against his chin, rubbing and meowing.

She wanted something, he just wasn't sure what. When he tried to pet her again, JD bit him. Not hard enough to break skin, just to let him know something was wrong and for him to stop.

Leo pouted, "what?" he repeated and only then he heard the knocking on the front door. Ah, she probably wanted him to make it stop.

"Leo?!" Luke's voice was strikingly clear through the door and Leo wondered how he hadn't heard until now. He unlocked the door and before he could say much more, Bella's arms were around his neck and she was pulling him down into a tight hug.

He stiffened for a second, before Bella yanked at him, not even accepting him pulling back and Leo melted into the hug. He buried his face in her curls and then let out a little muffled groan as he felt Lucas envelop them both into his arms.

"What happened?" Bella asked, when they finally pulled back, crouching down to pick up JD from the floor and plant a kiss between her ears, as Luke brought the frankly worryingly amount of groceries inside. Were they planning to stay the week or did they just assume Leo didn't know how to stock a fridge?

"Where do I start?"

"From the beginning," Bella shut the door, leaning against it.

Not much longer they were all in the living room, Leo as curled up in the couch as he could, with JD snuggled against his stomach, and a knot pressing against his throat as he finished up the short tale of what had been that encounter. He hoped Luke was enough of a gossip he'd pass it down in details to Vince, because Leo could not fathom saying it a fourth time, assuming he'd have to tell Jon as well.

"How are you?" Luke asked, squeezing Leo's ankle. He was sitting by his foot and moving closer inch by inch, "honestly."

"A mess?" Leo snorted, burying his feet under Luke's thigh, "I'm not sad or angry, I just feel... Defeated. Empty."

Raw.

It was an insanely familiar feeling and it had taken Leo a minute to place it, it was exactly what he felt at his father's funeral. A mix of relief and anger and sadness that churned up in a feeling so overwhelming it numbed everything else. Grief.

He had hated that man so much, wished his dad was dead many times, and when it happened, he felt guilty and scared for and of himself. Who wished for the death of a parent? Who felt relief when it happened? And there was the love too. Those little, tiny moments he had cherished next to Edward, that had gotten far and more sparse as the years passed. The anger, because how dare his father end it like that. The lack of thought of it all, about who'd find him - his seventeen year old son -, about the trauma he was about to inflict... And more guilt, because how dare Leo be so self absorbed to make Edward's death about himself.

It was overwhelming.

"Jonah's coming," Bella's voice was loud and clear, silver bells pulling Leo from his dark thoughts. He looked up, noticing how she had moved from the opposite couch, to sit in the coffee table, as close as she could without climbing on the couch him and Luke were currently occupying, "and we're not going anywhere. And-" she cut herself short, looking at Luke, asking him to put into words what she couldn't.

Luke was looking at him intently, as he said in a measured voice, "it wasn't your fault she left. You were a kid, there was nothing you could've done."

Leo's chest jostled with a sob, then another, then another and he folded in the middle as Luke addressed word by word a fear that was longer than their friendship, an insecurity so deep it was etched in his bones: that he wasn't good enough. That if they got close enough, stuck around for long enough, they'd see what Amelia and Edward did, whatever rotten thing it was that made one of them run, the other decide to end it all.

Lucas moved, getting down from the couch and scooting closer on the rug, until he could touch his forehead with his, pressing in "hey," he whispered, "we got you. We love you."