The house was dark. Not a single sparkling Christmas light or even a hint of a lamp behind drawn curtains. Snow laid several teeth deep on the path up to the column- entrance. The lack of footprints revealed the lack of life in the house. No one was home.

That's what the kind policemen had told Robin a few weeks ago after he reported his mother and they went to try to find her for questioning. But it was different to see the emptiness with his own eyes.

His mother really wasn't there anymore. Where she was, he didn't know. The car was still in the driveway but Liza Erie had vanished without a trace. Not a footprint in the snow or a note to her son to say goodbye.

Robin brushed off a pile of snow from the tin mailbox, which encased his fingers in coldness despite his fluffy alpaca wool mittens--knitted by Des--and with some effort, he opened the frozen-shut contraption to slide a small card inside.

The front of the card was decorated by a lonely red robin bird surrounded by glittering snowflakes.

The backside read, "Merry Christmas Mom."

Maybe it was weird. Maybe it was unhealthy. But he couldn't help but still feel a small amount of affection toward her.

She was his mother and this was his first Christmas without her. Not that their Christmases together had been very happy. But it was what he was used to. He didn't know anything but cold stares of disapproval as he in vain wrote down a Lego castle on his wishlist. Even long after he was too old for such toys.

The card was a way to honor that odd feeling of missing her.

Under the greeting he'd signed the car, "From Robin", in neat handwriting, and underneath, with much less polished penmanship, "and Tyler" was written.

Because, of course, Ty's name belonged on the card as well. They were an unbreakable unit. Robin wanted his mother to know that if she somehow read the card. He wanted to make absolutely sure she didn't see it as a sign that he'd decided to change his ways.

The card wasn't a peace offering, but rather a farewell.

"So this is where you grew up?" Tyler had slowly, on account of not being accustomed to his new leg yet and the ground being slick, made his way around the car to join Robin. "It's a nice house but it looks a bit...spooky." His eyes traced the gothic facade and bare trees surrounding it. It was the first time Robin took his boyfriend with him back to his hometown.

"It is... spooky," Robin agreed, although ghosts were not what haunted him while growing up. "It's weird being back."

A mitten-clad hand wrapped around his and a soft shoulder nudged him gently as they together took in the sight of the building. So much of Robin's life had taken place within those walls but yet, he felt no hesitation about walking away from his former prison, without looking back.

"Do you want to go inside?" Tyler asked. "You still have the keys, right? We could pick up some of your stuff in there maybe."

Robin shook his head. Just the thought of going inside made him feel nauseous. "I don't need any of that stuff," he said. "I can make do without it."

He still didn't have a new laptop but he was saving up for one by working in the movie theater. Mr. Royce had told Robin he could get a good offer on one through the company, and also offered to pay for such a purchase. Which Robin had declined, as he didn't want to rely on his father's former business partner too much. It was more than enough that Mr. Royce would let Robin move into his house after the holidays.

Currently, Robin used the library computers at the university or borrowed Tyler's laptop. It was a bit of a hassle, but it made him so much happier to be independent of his mother and instead buy his own things with his own money.

A warm kiss made a slobbery imprint on his cheek. "If that's what you want, cutie." Tyler wrapped his arms close around Robin from the side. "I'm freezing," he complained, apparently trying to steal whatever warmth Robin still possessed.

"You should have worn a hat," Robin suggested. He pulled a hand through wild blond curls and placed a kiss on a cold forehead.

"That would mess up my hair though," Tyler countered. "I have to look good for the Christmas party!"

"You always look good," Robin assured him. Because it was true. He couldn't remember a time when Tyler hadn't looked like the most handsome man on the planet. Not even when he'd managed to spill spaghetti sauce all over himself. Somehow, that actually made him hotter. "But let's get going. Des' parents' house is just around the corner."

The annual Gardener Christmas party, always held on the 21st of December, was the real reason they were back in Robin's hometown, to attend the annual Christmas Party at the Gardener family home. Robin hadn't officially attended before, as his mother had no interest in such frivolous things, but he'd been smuggled in on several occasions to keep Des company.

***

Tyler was nowhere to be found.

During many hours, they'd mingled, cheered, and rejoiced. Tyler, social butterfly as he was, had constantly been by Robin's side, prepared to hold his hand or fill in a sentence when Robin's awkwardness took over. Which it did much less frequently these days.

But, as Robin had got captured by Des to listen to one of her lengthy spiels on alpaca wool maintenance, Tyler had excused himself for a moment. Robin had figured his boyfriend had just popped to the restroom but now, about thirty minutes and many alpaca facts later, he had still not returned.

Robin had surveyed the big hall, decked in glitter, stars, and candles, several times without a glimpse of golden curls.

So, he ventured out into the hallway. The house was spacious, but luckily, he knew the turns from frequent visits during his childhood. Des' house had always been his refuge from the coldness of his home, a warm harbor to take shelter in.

A light sob caught his attention. The sound came from one of the guest rooms.

"Ty?" Robin asked cautiously through the door. He wanted to be sure it wasn't another party guest with sniffles.

"I'm here," a familiar voice replied. "You can come in, Robby."

Robin opened the door to find his boyfriend sitting on the bed with his face covered in his hands. Tyler's breathing was labored and he was rocking back and forth. "I just needed to get away for a little bit," Tyler explained without looking up. "So I went in here to rest. I figured I would be back before you noticed."

Robin bent down on the floor beside Tyler, to try to catch a glimpse of his covered eyes. "Is it your leg?" he asked, trying to discern the reason for his boyfriend's discomfort.

Tyler nodded and pulled up his pant leg slightly. "I've walked around on it for too long. I knew I shouldn't have been standing so much but I didn't want to... feel disabled."

"I should have told you to sit down." Robin felt guilty he hadn't realized Tyler was exerting himself.

"It's not your fault, Robby," Tyler assured him. "But it feels like the prosthetic is cutting into the flesh. It's like walking around with a shoe that doesn't fit." He sighed, which turned into a muted sob. "And then it started zapping too."

Zapping was what Tyler called his recurring phantom pains, which he described as electric jolts traveling down the leg that no longer existed.

In an attempt to alleviate the pain, Robin softly rubbed Tyler's thigh, right above the prosthetic. Sometimes, a light massage seemed to help. But this was probably way beyond that point. Tyler whimpered at the touch but didn't tell him to stop.

"Should I get your crutches in the car?" Robin asked. "It will probably feel better if you're off the prosthetic."

Vehemently, Tyler shook his blonde curls, almost hitting Robin in the eye with flinging hair. "I can't..." he mumbled. "I can't walk in there on crutches. Everyone will look at me. Like, most of them don't even know I'm disabled. They might just think I walk funny." He covered his face in his hands again. "I just want to be normal. Or at least seem like it."

"I know," Robin stroked the unruly blonde curls out of Tyler's face so he could place a kiss on a sweaty forehead. "But you can't be in pain all night. You know it will just get worse if you keep walking around."

Tyler nodded faintly with a defeated look on his face.

"Perhaps we should just head home," Robin suggested. "We've been here a couple of hours already and we have a long drive home. I'm sure no one would mind if we leave now. I can just tell everyone that I don't want to drive in the dark."

Another nod from Tyler was followed by a relieved sigh. "Maybe... that's for the best," he stuttered as his face turned into a grimace from another jolt of pain.

"Do you think your aunt will be fine with me driving her car home?" Robin asked, suddenly realizing Tyler had driven there and that they had borrowed Aunt Donna's bright yellow Toyota for the journey.

Tyler looked up with a crooked smile. "I'm sure she won't mind. You're a better driver than me, Robby. I mean, you never drove off a bridge..."

"That was an accident," Robin mumbled into his boyfriend's curls. "You know that."

"I still don't think Donna will mind you driving," Tyler countered and leaned in for a brief kiss. Robin stood up and reached his hand out to help his boyfriend rise as well.

***

"Arghhhh," Tyler groaned as he sat down in the car and closed the door behind him. With no one but Robin around, he could finally express his distress fully. He'd held in all signs of pain as they walked around the party and said their goodbyes.

"Take the leg off," Robin urged him. "No one will see you now."

Tyler nodded and bent down to press the button which released the vacuum seal that held the implement in place. He gave out a relieved sigh as the pressure on the leg immediately lessened and leaned forward to remove the socket from his residual leg.

"Let's put this guy in the back," he said. He turned around and placed the prosthetic on the seat in the back, even making sure the leg had a seat belt secured around it. Prosthetic legs were after all very expensive. Afterward, Tyler leaned back and took a deep breath while he gently rubbed the area where the prosthetic had been attached.

"Grrrr," he murmured and gritted his teeth as the muscles spasmed under his touch.

"Still zapping?" Robin asked.

Tyler nodded.

"You want some of your pills?" Robin bent forward to rummage through the glove compartment where he knew Tyler had stashed the pain pills that had been given to him by his doctor to use in this kind of situation.

"You know I don't like those," Tyler protested meekly. "They make my head all blurry and I get super sleepy."

"Well, you can sleep while I drive," Robin countered. "We're going to be on the road for 2 hours anyway. Hopefully, once we get home you feel better."

Reluctantly, and with a grunt, Tyler obliged and popped the lid off the pill bottle. He chugged two pills into his mouth and swallowed them down with a swig of Gatorade from a bottle he'd left in the car earlier.

The drive home was quiet and calm. Robin drove and listened to Christmas tunes on the radio while the blonde boy by his side snored away peacefully. In his hurry to get Tyler home, Robin didn't even glance at the looming dark house next door as he drove out of his hometown.

Author's Note: Not sure if I'll be able to publish chapters during Christmas but the remaining chapters will probably be published sometime between Christmas and New Year. I am also considering adding a New Years chapter but I haven't quite plotted that yet.