One of the things we had loved to do, was going to the big grocery store on our days off. It was like a ritual. But it was becoming harder and harder for Dion to go there. People were looking at him weird. I noticed it too, so it wasn't just him thinking it. It wasn't in his head.

"That woman wiped off that bottle I just held," Dion muttered and frowned.

"What?" I growled and turned around, looking for the woman.

"She wiped it off. She works here."

I growled and pushed the trolley forward. I wanted to go the fuck home.

"I'm... Not dirty," Dion muttered.

I took his hand in mine and stopped. I brought it up to my mouth and kissed it. "No, you are not dirty. They're ignorant and dumb."

He nodded, his eyes shiny. He blinked and a tear unhooked itself, running down his cheek. He quickly dried it off with his sleeve.

"You wanna go?" I asked softly.

"No, we need these things. These people do not get to have this power over us." He squeezed my hand and we pressed on.

As we loaded the groceries in the car, I looked up at him. "I've been thinking."

"About what?" Dion put the last bag in the boot and stepped back as I closed it.

"I want to ask more about your childhood. But I don't wanna ask dumb questions."

He softened and stretched up and I bent down so he could kiss my cheek. "How about I show you where I grew up before I lived on the streets?"

"Okay, let's go."

We stopped in front of a large house with high walls around it. Dion stepped out of the car and I followed.

"This was my home for the first ten years of my life." He looked very serious, frowning. He kept his hand in mine as we looked at the orphanage. There was a plaque on the wall too.

Artemis Lost Children's Orphanage.

"I wonder if Artemis knows kids gets kicked out after they're ten," Dion said. "If she knows what her name is used for."

"How was it to live there?"

He clenched his jaw. "Horrible. We were fifteen kids in each room, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. We didn't get a lot of food, so sometimes we'd run away and steal food from street vendors. Or find it in bins."

I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him to me. "Do you wanna go in?"

"Do you think we can?"

"Dunno, but let's try." I walked towards the gates and pulled on the handle. The gate opened and we stepped inside the yard. It was unkept and honestly the whole thing looked abandoned. It looked like it was supposed to be classic Greek architecture, but all the shutters had fallen off and the pillars were basically gone. Every inch of the concrete was filled with cracks.

I grabbed the handle on the front door, but it was locked. I glanced back at Dion before yanking hard on it, breaking the lock.

I opened the door and he headed inside. It didn't look much better there either. It was definitely abandoned. There was no furniture besides an overturned chair in the hall. Wallpaper was peeling off the walls and all the light fixtures had no lights attached to them.

"Bedrooms were upstairs," Dion said, his voice echoing of all the walls. "And the kitchen was that way." He nodded towards the left. We walked through a big room that Dion said was the dining room and ended up in the kitchen. There was still an old fridge there. "They'd put a lock on the fridge so we couldn't steal food." He ran his fingers over the dusty metal surface and sighed.

"The workers tried their best with what they had. I realise that now but back then I saw them as the evil people refusing to give us food." He smiled a sad smile and turned back towards me. "I wish I could meet one of them now and tell them, I know they tried their best."

"I don't think they'd blame you. You were just a kid," I tried and took his hand in mine again.

He nodded a little and we carried on upstairs. He stopped by one room on the left side of the hallway.

"This was my room. Cal and I shared a mattress." He opened the door, making it creak loudly. There were still a couple of mattresses in there and a bunch of graffiti on the walls. "Come on," he said softly and led me to the windowsill. Dion's name was scratched into the wood.

"We carved our names into this so the place wouldn't forget us. And because we were little shits," he chuckled and ran his fingers over the wood. He dug out his phone and took a picture of it. Lots of names were scratched to it. I found Cal's name too.

"I wonder how many of these are still alive," he murmured more to himself than me.

"How many did you stay in contact with after you left?" I asked.

"Mostly just Cal. The others I saw around. Then I stopped seeing them gradually. Maybe they moved away, or maybe they were killed. Maybe they died of hunger. Maybe they went to prison." He shrugged and sighed deeply.

We left the room and went downstairs again. Dion walked out the door and then looked back at the house.

"They did their best here and I acknowledge that. But I hated this place." He met my gaze and held his hand out towards me. I stepped in beside him and fitted my fingers in between his.

"Thank you for showing me this."

"Next time you'll show me your childhood home." He glanced up at me and I looked down at him.

"Okay, I promise."

After seeing Dion's childhood home a lot of things made sense about him for me. It wasn't that he hadn't made sense before, but it was like I had found another piece of the puzzle that was Dion. And it felt like we were closer than ever. He had let me in. Further in than anyone he had ever known, I think. And with every piece he offered, he seemed to get more comfortable. As if the more he told me, the more he could let himself fall in love with our little home. He wanted scented candles, so we went on a hunt for some he liked. And we bought some new pillows for the sofa that were a bit brighter blue than the fabric.

He left an impression on the apartment. Little traces of Dion everywhere. He loved trinkets so obviously they'd appear on the shelves in between my books. He especially liked little glass birds.

Sometimes I caught him sitting in the sofa, looking around the living room and just... Looking. Smiling. My guess was, that he was finally feeling at home.

"You need any help?" he asked and put his hand on my lower back.

I was in the middle of cooking us dinner. We couldn't live off of fast food forever, so I had taken up cooking. I wasn't very good, but Dion ate it all without complaints. So it couldn't be that bad. I hoped.

"You wanna set the table? Or do you wanna eat in front of the TV?"

"TV," he murmured and leaned his face against my arm. "What are you making?"

"A lamb stew. I think. Or at least that's what I'm trying to make."

"As long as it has garlic, I'm sure it'll be good."

I chuckled. "Of course it does, what do you take me for?"

Dion laughed and kissed my arm before he found plates and glasses for us. We hunkered down in front of the TV and dug in. It was okay. The meat was a little dry.

Dion changed the channel to the news and leaned back. Lots of new demonstration and clashes between demonstrators and the police.

"I hope they're all okay," Dion said without taking his eyes off the TV.

"Me too. I wish they'd find another way because they're the ones who ends up getting hurt."

Dion nodded and the scene shifted back to the studio.

"Due to the demonstrations and the violence in the streets, the mayor has now put down a curfew for all citizens with invalid statuses. Between 8 am and 9 pm will be the allowed time to leave your designated home address. After that, if you are found on the street you could face prosecution."

"What about the fucking homeless?" Dion growled. "You twats! You're not thinking of the actual homeless people who have no addresses."

"I gotta call Achilleus about this," I said and dug out my phone, finding his number.

"Hey Arlo." His voice sounded rough.

"What do we do about the curfew?" I asked, dropping the formalities.

"We stay open with workers during the day and then everyone who doesn't have an invalid status must take nights. We need to get people's papers. How's Dion's status looking?"

"Invalid but with a full-blooded benefactor. So he's not as bad off, but the curfew hits him still, I think." I glanced at Dion and he met my gaze.

"I'll find out online," he said and rose to his feet, finding the laptop and came back to the sofa.

"Okay, I can actually still go out if my benefactor is with me," he said loudly enough for Achilleus to hear.

"Okay, that's good news. We'll have to reschedule your duo appointments with Nikon for now and then figure out what to do. I'm gonna call everyone in tomorrow." And with that he just hung up.

I sighed deeply and put my phone on the table. "Four more months."

"Yeah," Dion said and ran his hand up my back, ending up on my neck. He massaged it softly and I exhaled loudly. "And then we're gone from here. To Mykonos."

I nodded. "Yes. And we'll have normal jobs. Live normal lives. Three kids."

Dion smiled widely and nodded. "Yeah."