"If I talk to you, are you just going to repeat it to Maggie?" Nathan asked carefully.

Ian was likely pissed at him, but Nathan didn't want to turn the house on its head. Nathan hadn't decided what to do about anything yet, but he really didn't want to leave that decision up to Julian.

"I don't talk to Maggie. Maggie talks to me." There was a pointed look from Julian that indicated his dislike for her, but Nathan had stepped on enough toes to not want to push that.

"Well." Nathan took a deep breath. "Ian can get... pushy, and he was all over me. I thought he wasn't going to stop, so I..."

"Damaged the family jewels?" Julian asked with a wide smirk, and Nathan ran his hand over his face with a heavy sigh. "You shouldn't worry so much. I'd make that prick a eunuch before he got near me. Just tell Maggie," Julian said, rolling on his back with another yawn.

"What would that do?" Really, Nathan didn't know how telling Maggie would fix anything. The woman had hence far said she didn't want any more problems, and snitching on men who had already proven they could easily manhandle him seemed like a poor plan at best.

"Are you joking?" Julian rolled onto his stomach on the bed, leaning his head on his hands. "Maggie's cold as a fish. You tell her Ian touched you and she'll throw him in solitary so long that by the time he gets out, he won't even remember your name."

Solitary...

"You don't like the idea?" Julian asked. "You shouldn't feel guilty about throwing that pervert in a cell. It's where he belongs anyway."

Julian saying things like that about Ian upset him, and he turned away from him, trying to hide aggravation that he didn't even understand. Ian was too forward, but he was also nice to him, which no one else really was in the house. Donovan was fun to spend time with, but he hid in his room every second he was in the house. If he was hungry, Ian fed him, when he was upset, Ian just sat with him in silence, and he really had been helping him a ton on his room so that he could have his own space.

"You like Ian," Julian said with surprise as he hopped off the bed to sit by Nathan's side again. Leaning in toward Nathan, Julian looked concerned, but Nathan turned to the side as an annoyed and embarrassed blush crept onto his cheeks.

"I don't like like him," Nathan stuttered out.

"No, I know. That wasn't what I meant. Well, I suppose it's up to you then. If you don't want him crawling into your room at night, you can always hang telling Maggie about the incident over his head. Threatening one of the guys downstairs with Maggie's punishment is quite effective in deterring them from approaching you."

It wasn't like he wanted to do that either. At some point tonight, he had to sleep, and he didn't see it going well no matter what he did. Sleeping in the living room seemed like just as bad of an idea as going back into Ian's room, and it wasn't like the guy couldn't get to him if he slept on the carpet in his own room. Somehow he had to resolve this. Maybe he was an idiot and should just throw Ian to the wolves, but that just wasn't like him.

A hand on his head jolted him from his thoughts, and he looked over to Julian patting him gently as if he were a child.

"Stop that." Nathan shook him off embarrassed, but Julian just smirked and pushed him over. Squeaking, Nathan tumbled onto his back, and Julian planted himself comfortably on his chest with his head on his hands.

"Stop what?"

"I don't need to be coddled," Nathan complained, but that made Julian laugh so hard that his face fell on his chest.

"Yes you do. It's easy to see you're naïve and way too kind. I feel bad for you."

"I don't need your pity," Nathan insisted.

"Yes, you do. If you're this easy with me, I really do pity how Ian must take advantage of you. You have to leave soon by the way. Curfew," Julian said, hopping to his feet and heading to his drawers. "Here, put this on. I don't wear it, so Maggie won't notice it's mine if you bump into her."

It was a dark T-shirt, and Nathan was ecstatic to have something over his bare chest. It was cool as it rolled over his skin and a bit tighter than he was used to, but it was better than hanging around naked. As Julian headed to his window and opened it, Nathan eyed him.

"How exactly am I supposed to leave?" Nathan asked, not liking where this was going.

"It's a bad idea to let Maggie know you were up here. She thinks I'm a baby mouse that's needs to be protected and will not be thrilled if she finds out you came in here. Without explaining to her that you were running from Ian, you will have no way of avoiding some sort of negative consequence."

"If I jump out the window, I'll be dead," Nathan said as Julian leaned out and surveyed the area.

"Don't be ridiculous, you might live with a fractured spine or something." Julian laughed and Nathan tightened his face into an annoyed glare. "Seriously though, there are no windows on the side of the house with mine on it and no exterior doors. Please sneak down the vines. I do it all the time. They are safe and quite quiet."

"Do I want to know why you have vines thick enough to the ground to hold a person?"

"Vines were already here before I was, and it's more of the handholds between the bricks that hold you up. I hide them behind the vines, but if you slip, you can grab the vines and they'll support part of you. I wouldn't trust them for full body weight."

Julian expected him to climb down three stories out his window?

"First time's the hardest," Julian said, yanking him to the window. "You need to get in before Donovan starts walking on this block or he'll see you.

"You're sure this is safe?" Nathan asked as a shiver ran down his form from a cool gust of air from the window.

"Yes. I go out all the time. Grab here first, the rest of the handholds are easy to find and evenly spaced, though you can only see them if your face is in the vines." Julian tugged on the first vine and helped Nathan slide out the window. It was more of Nathan clinging to the tiny kid and the window sill as he eased his feet down until her found an indent for his foot.

"I like you, Nathan. Please come visit again. I won't dice you, I promise." Julian's smile was pleasant. It was much kinder than the men downstairs. Julian was clearly young, but not naïve like Nathan was.

"Sure," Nathan answered as he eased himself down.

The hand holds went in pretty deep before curving down, so they were sturdy to hold. Who had made them? It seemed like something someone would start at the bottom and work up doing, but Julian was up here. Julian watched him for the first part of the way, gesturing toward which side the handhold was on, and he was on the ground in no time.

It was really unnerving, knowing even Julian crawled out of the house, but there had been no issues that had come to the house at least. The window was closed as silently as it had been opened, and Nathan took a deep breath before calming himself in the simple hand movements that Julian had showed him earlier. No amount of calming breathing was really going to prepare him for this, but he would take what he could get.

It took him hours. At first he crawled up to the living room and watched TV, though he wasn't much into it. The entire time, he expected Ian to crawl down into the living room and snap his neck. Instead he sat alone. Donovan came in and sat with him for a few minutes, but he was never much for hanging around, especially when Rick came home. Drunk out of his mind, the guy took one look at him and stole away upstairs as well.

The last person in was Tanner for once, and he had Nathan wanting to hide behind a couch as he stormed in, dropped his jacket on the hooks, and went upstairs two at a time. No one was having a good day, and by the time he turned off the TV and headed up the stairs himself, he was wondering if it wouldn't be best to just sleep on the couch.

What if Ian figured out that he wasn't going to come back to the room and got angrier? There was no right choice here, and he stood outside the door with a churning, empty stomach. Out of fear and half because he didn't want to throw anything up, he hadn't eaten tonight. Delaying wouldn't make it any better, and he opened the door and slid into the room.

The first place his eyes went to was Ian's bed, which was occupied, but the man had his back to him and was facing the wall in much the same position Nathan had left him. If Nathan went to sleep, the man might get up in the middle of the night and accost him, but if he bothered him, it might be the same.

"Ian," Nathan said his name tentatively.

"What?" Ian said to the wall, and by his low tone, Nathan could tell that he was in a poor mood.

Frozen where he was standing a few feet from Ian's bed, he held his breath as the man moved, but he only turned around on the bed. In the dim light of only his reading lamp, Ian's blue eyes were dark, but Nathan couldn't decipher what he was feeling.

"I don't want to fight with you," Nathan said, and he wished his voice was stronger than his terrified whisper.

"I wasn't going to rape you," Ian growled, and Nathan couldn't stop the way his expression pinched in in nausea at the thought.

"I wouldn't say you made that very clear, holding me down to the bed with your hand on my mouth." Nathan was walking on eggshells, but he'd be doing it holding a weapon if he had to.

"Nat, if I was going to rape you, I'd have you on your stomach. Easier to shove your face into the pillows and keep you silent."

"It wouldn't have been hard for you to flip me over." Nathan crossed his arms more to keep them from trembling than to look closed off.

"No, I guess not." Ian dropped his eyes from his with a sigh. "I got carried away again. I shouldn't have kissed you," Ian said the words, but there was zero remorse to them.

"Are you going to let me go to sleep?" Nathan asked, and Ian cracked a smile that turned into a trickle of laughter.

"Sure. Come into my bed, and I'll let you sleep real nice."

Nathan groaned and collapsed onto the floor where he just curled up on his side and gave up. There was no good outcome here. If he ran, Ian would chase him, if he went into his bed, Ian would follow, and going to Ian was just worse than everything else. All he could do was wait for whatever the man decided and suff– Nathan jumped as something touched him, and he tensed every muscle in his body until he recognized Ian's comforter.

The man slid to the floor and sat on the carpet with a look of frustration, and he had a book in his hands, but he wasn't reading it. Instead, he was wringing the poor paperback like it was a wet towel that needed drying.

"I got upset, all right," Ian said and Nathan turned to at least look at him. "I'm not great at talking to people or expression my emotions because I was too busy pretending to be someone else and avoiding social interactions my entire life. I just... felt like I was losing you, and I didn't like it. I wanted you... closer."

"Losing me?" Nathan said, and Ian grit his teeth and turned away from him. "I'm moving one door to the left."

"Yeah well, you won't be forced to interact with me anymore. It was... pleasant while it lasted." Ian dropped his book between his legs, and Nathan sat himself up.

"I'll still do things with you," Nathan said, but Ian didn't lift his eyes from the floor. "If you don't molest me, you can hang out in my room. I'd like to be your friend, Ian, all your failures to control your impulses aside."

"Tell that to my testicles. I'll be lucky if I can piss tonight," Ian said with a sigh that eased a chuckle out of Nathan.

Nathan tried to cover his mouth before it slipped from his lips, but it was too late, and Ian pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes. It didn't last long, and Ian laughed with him.

"Fuck, kid," Ian leaned forward so quickly that Nathan had no ability to back up, but all he did was gently thread his hand through his hair. "Go get some sleep on your bed. I won't be the reason you're on the floor."

Word count: 2302 -- Edited July 12th, 2020