"Leo, you idiot, you shouldn't be in here. You're just going to get sick too."

The Nightray boy was sitting up in his bed, where his sister Vanessa had confined him when he started running a fever over 102. He wore his usual irritated expression, but his usually-sharp eyes were glazed and tired, diminishing its intimidating effect. Leo was lying on his front at the end of the bed, looking over at the older boy with his chin in his hands. "I know," he said. "But I'd rather not go out there."

Elliot looked puzzled. "Why?"

"Because you're not out there," Leo told him, honestly, without blinking. "And you're the only one that I really know here. So I feel safest when I'm with you."

Elliot looked away, but Leo could still see the sympathy in his eyes. "...Okay," said Elliot finally. "Don't worry, then, you can stay here if you want. I'll keep you company." Just then, he broke off into a fit of coughing. Leo got up and rubbed his back to try and ease his breathing. Once Elliot's coughing subsided, Leo handed him the glass of water that was sitting on his bedside table.

"Thanks," Elliot panted, and took a sip.

"You should get some rest," Leo suggested. "I'll read a book. You need to sleep if you want to get any better."

"I'm fine, Leo," Elliot said sharply.

Leo raised his eyebrows. "Go to bed, Elliot." He picked up a book from Elliot's bedside table and went back to the end of the bed. "I'm going to read now, so you may as well sleep."

"Fine. Asshole," Elliot muttered and lay back down. Leo had known him long enough to know that his insults were empty, and fairly affectionate. The dark-haired boy smirked as he stared into the pages of Holy Knight XVI.

A few hours later, Leo had finished re-reading both XVI and the first half of XVII. Elliot was still asleep, his chest rising and falling peacefully. Leo glanced over at him over the rims of his glasses. There was no such thing as reading a book too many times, but Holy Knight was Elliot's favourite series, not Leo's, and the boy wanted something else to read. With a quick, "I'll be back soon," to Elliot, the bespectacled boy got up off of the bed and headed out of the room.

The halls of the Nightray Manor were fairly empty, as usual. Leo closed Elliot's bedroom door after him and headed toward the library. On his way, he walked past a couple of other Nightray servants, one man and one woman. They were standing together against the wall, presumably on their break. When Leo passed them, the woman pursed her lips in what he assumed was supposed to be an awkward smile. The boy paused for a moment, as what he'd said to Elliot earlier came back to him.

"You're the only one that I really know here. So I feel safest when I'm with you."

He'd been Elliot's valet and lived in the Nightray manor for almost two years, and yet Elliot was the only one there he felt comfortable with. The thought of trying to start a conversation with the two servants struck a chord of anxiety into Leo, but he took a deep breath, trying not to think of all the books he could be reading instead.

"Hello," he began, shuffling his feet uncomfortably.

"Hi," the man replied. A sidelong glance at the woman showed Leo that they were perturbed, and a bit amused, by him. Leo tried not to let it daunt him.

"So you guys are servants too, right? What do you do?" Leo asked.

"Oh, well, I'm one of the maids," the woman informed him. "I clean the manor."

"I'm a cook," the man added. "You're the little Nightray's valet, aren't you?"

The little Nightray? Leo cracked a smile; he'd have to remember that one to tell Elliot once he was feeling better. "Elliot, yeah."

"And you're Leo, right?" the maid asked. When Leo nodded, she continued. "You've lived here for years, but I don't think we've ever spoken."

"Well, the little Nightray keeps me pretty busy," joked Leo.

They both laughed. Just then, something popped up on the man's coat. There were two flaps that stretched from his shoulder up to the collar, one on each side. One was fastened with a button, and the other one looked like it had been hastily stitched together. As Leo watched, the stitches ripped and the flap opened, sticking straight up. The man clicked his tongue in exasperation. "Damn. I'll have to get out the sewing kit again."

"Second time this week," laughed the maid.

Leo felt frozen. It's unbalanced, whispered the dark little voice inside his mind. It felt wrong. One was up, and one was down. He looked away, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. The voice inside his head was his own, but paranoid, even more paranoid than Leo already was. Unbalanced, it said again. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

"Hey, kid, you okay?" the man asked. "You look a bit pale. The little Nightray's pretty sick, isn't he? Think you might've caught whatever he has?"

"No, no," Leo said quickly. "Not that. It's just… I have to go." With that, he rushed away from them, toward the library. His heart was slowing back down, but his brain still felt fried. As he got further away from them, he heard the man say,

"Weirdo."

Leo's stomach clenched. It wasn't the first time someone had called him weird, and it wouldn't be the last. He'd learned not to care. But for some reason, he'd thought that it was going well with those two servants. He'd almost seemed… normal to them.

Almost.

The library was empty, which Leo liked. He grabbed an armful of books off of the shelf and was just sitting down to look at them when he caught sight of the two servants walking by outside. They were laughing about something. Or someone. Leo watched them pass, then gathered up the books and headed back toward Elliot's room.

The sandy-haired boy was still asleep when Leo went in. He put the stack of books down on the bedside table, and knelt down on the ground, resting his arms and chin on the side of the bed. "Elliot," he whispered. "Are you awake?"

Elliot didn't react at all. Leo reached over and gently shook him. "Hey. Elliot."

The Nightray boy stirred a bit. "Leo, you asshole," he muttered hoarsely.

Leo smiled. He found Elliot's insults oddly comforting. The other boy never called him weird. Jerk, asshole, idiot, whatever came to his mind… but never weird.

"How are you feeling?" Leo asked.

"Meh," Elliot said. "Have you been reading all this time? I guess that's a stupid question, though, isn't it."

"Actually, I went out and tried to talk to some of the other servants," Leo told him.

"Oh, yeah?" Elliot sat up, looking impressed. "How did that go?"

The smile faded off of Leo's face. "Not as planned. I don't think they liked me much. They, ah, they called me a weirdo."

"They what?" Instantly, Elliot's face was filled with rage. "Who called you that? Which servants?"

"It was a cook and a maid, I don't know their names, but-"

"I'll find them. I swear, when I get my hands on them-!"

"E-Elliot, it's okay, I-" Leo tried to calm him down, but Elliot was already swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He didn't look like the same sick boy that had been asleep just moments before. He looked like the normal, healthy Elliot that fought for what- and who- he thought was right. Normally, Leo found it charming, but he didn't want Elliot exerting himself while he was so sick.

Elliot stormed out of the room, and Leo followed him. "Stop!" Leo cried out. "Elliot, stop, it doesn't matter!"

Elliot ignored him completely. "Hey!" he hollered down the hallway. "Where are the assholes who were making fun of my valet?" However, raising his voice made him break off into a fit of coughing. Leo immediately stepped forward to place a protective hand on Elliot's back. At the end of the hallway, he could see the same two servants from before. They looked paralyzed with fear; apparently, Elliot's words had found their targets.

"You okay?" Leo asked once Elliot was able to catch his breath. The two servants darted off, muttering amongst themselves.

"F-Fine…" Elliot said, but he reached up to grab Leo's shoulder for support.

"I'm taking you back to bed now," Leo told him.

Elliot glared at his valet, but he looked drained. "Don't you tell me what to do," he growled. However, he didn't protest when Leo led him back into his room and sat him down on the bed. The sandy-haired boy crawled back under the covers, looking bitter.

"If I weren't feeling so shitty… I'd find those jerks and kick their asses," he said.

"Elliot, it's fine," Leo responded.

"It's not fine. I don't want anyone calling you that," hissed Elliot. "It's something you call yourself, so I know it bothers you."

Leo was silent. Elliot had him pegged. As he chewed anxiously on the inside of his lip, Elliot's expression softened. He reached out and took Leo's hand. "You're not weird, Leo. You're not, okay? Those guys are the weirdos for not thinking you're great. A pain in the ass, but great nonetheless."
A small smile spread across Leo's face. "Thank you," he said, and climbed up onto the bed. Looking satisfied, Elliot lay back.

Leo looked over at the other boy, and a mischievous glint entered his dark eyes. "Hey, Elliot?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what the cook called you?"

Elliot raised his head up, looking disgruntled. "What?"

"The little Nightray," Leo told him, grinning. He watched, amused, as Elliot's eyes widened, and his face went beet-red.

"WHAAAAT?" shouted Elliot. "What's that supposed to mean!?"

"Well, presumably, it's because you're a Nightray, and you're little."

"Oh, shut up. I'm taller than you."

Leo laughed quietly. Who needs other friends when you have Elliot? he thought. After all, Elliot was so unpredictable that it became predictable, in that you could always count on not knowing how he'd react to things. Leo had picked up on some of his patterns, though, and he found comfort in that consistency.

Elliot was his statice. Like the song, and like the flower, too. Something that never changes.

And that's exactly how Leo liked it.

end

AN: So! First fanfiction of 2016! Happy new year, everyone. All right, so let me just say that Leo's experience in this fanfiction is based off of an experience I had. I have OCD, and when things aren't balanced (like the loops on the cook's coat) it makes me very anxious. So I don't want any reviews on this saying how 'unrealistic' Leo's reaction was, because the same thing happened to me. I wrote this as a bit of an exploratory piece into my own mind. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. You can never have enough Elleo.