Ezekiel Addams (Ezio) + Lee Addams (Leonardo)
PG-13 (Minor warning for some mental health issues) | COMPLETE
Lee had never been the most mentally sound of people. Or, at least, not many believed that of him. The last ten years had been a strong attempt to curb his more enthusiastic ways, for the sake of other people, and adopting kids. Queer couples got enough scrutiny, but he knew they had stood little to no chance if there was a history of mental illness added onto the fact that he was gay. So, then came the therapists, and natural medications, a routine, structure… All the things that were fairly foreign to someone like Lee.
Ez had known him for long enough to have seen it all, from no sleeping for a week to following up a big project with two full days of sleep, to getting so inspired he dropped whatever he was doing and disappeared for hours at a time (sometimes days, back when they were young). Realistically, he knew it wasn’t healthy.
But recently, things had been good. He’d curbed a lot of that overextended enthusiasm and put it towards family life. That was until weird shit started happening.
The sunroom was an addition he’d built onto their house after they bought it, and “his” area - though the girls were happy to frequent it and he was happy to set up little art stations for them. Normally it was cluttered, but just full of whatever project he was working on at the time. Now? It was in complete disarray. The girls were at a sleepover, and Ez was working late again, so he just sat in silence, papers, drawings, sketches and even trash surrounding him. A newspaper article he was handed the week before had started it all, but he had sketches of the rainbow rain, and highlighted comments of the comas in addition. Not to mention the portrait sketches he’d drawn everyday this week after he woke from fitful sleep. Portraits of people he didn’t recognize, but yet they were burned into his brain.
To say it was a depressed chaos was an understatement.
Ez liked to think he knew Lee better than he knew most people. Hilariously, he probably knew him better than he knew himself, since self-reflection hadn’t always been high on his priority list. He’d gotten better the last few years, in much the same way and for the same reasons Lee had worked on his issues. And normally, he might have seen this particular storm coming a little faster than he did. But weird dreams and Lee’s inconsistent sleeping meant Ez was sleeping terrible as well. The stress of just having taken the detective exam and waiting for the results was the cherry on top of a stress sundae.
But he did recognize something was wrong. As he entered the house and ditched parts of his uniform in the downstairs safe, he felt the charge in the air that he’d failed to put his finger on the last couple of days. He unbuttoned the front of his uniform shirt on the way to the sunroom. The mess he found there stopped his movements, though. Where he might usually have leaned a shoulder against the door frame and watched his husband create something, Ez frowned instead, and took a few cautious steps into the chaos.
“Lee? What--” His eyes darted over the sketches. “Caro, when was your last break?”
In a flash, Lee was broken out of the moment and snapped into action, starting to tidy his mess up. He glanced behind him to his husband, and forced a smile on his face. “Ez-” It was on the tip of his tongue to finish that name with something other than the norm, and that made him click his tongue back in place to hide it. “You’re home early. It-” Okay, so time had definitely gotten away from him more than he thought it did. Lee frowned at the mess around him and continued stacking neatly.
“Not that long, I swear. I just got lost in time, looking at some older sketches.” Not a lie, he had been looking at sketches that were older. Going over old work to see if there was any connection to the newer things that looked like they belonged in a historical museum. He’d been good, for him, about not looking like a Cryptid Conspiracy Theorist in front of the girls and Ez most of the time, breaking that now might make things worse.
Ez wasn’t early at all, but Lee losing track of time wasn’t especially worrying. It was the scattered and jumpy that brought Ez further into the room with a nosy goal. He finished unbuttoned his uniform and tugged it out from his belt, so at least he was one step closer to casual. A cop looming over Lee’s shoulder and trying to catch a peek at his work wasn’t the right approach.
“It’s considerably later than I’d hoped to be home tonight. Remind me to tell you about the paranoid Mr. Fletcher later.” Ez hummed and gave Lee’s back a gentle scritch, leaning a hip against the table Lee had been abruptly cleaning up. “So, what’s the plan? Do you mean to redo some old work?...Some of these I don’t even recognize,” he frowned.
“Ha ha-” Oh god, even his laugh sounded fake. Lee was terrible at lying, especially to his husband. Husband. The fact that he even had to remind himself of that fact was worrying, but it didn’t stop him from trying to subtly shuffle the newspaper under some of the sketches. Ez already knew about it, and it had been done and gone a week before, just something to laugh at. Now it was worrying, and a clue.
A clue to what? He had no idea. But he knew it was something. His brain wouldn’t let up that something weird was going on, but he didn’t have answers and he also had no guarantee that Ez would understand. They had issues enough without his paranoia getting in the way. “I’m not sure. These are-- Eh, Just some really late night sketches, when I can’t sleep. Reference materials.”
Lee’s awkward laugh made Ez squint. His husband’s inability to lie well had been a point of amusement when they were younger. It still stirred fondness, but it also caused worry. They weren’t in the habit of lying to each other. Not when so many lives were on the line—
Where that thought came from was a complete and utter mystery. Sure, their children were obviously lives, but the feeling behind that thought had been broader. Ez swallowed and turned his eyes back to the sketches, though he wasn’t particularly looking at them in the moment. “Reference for what? Why are you so tense, Lee?” The question came with a glance that was more serious, more demanding even, though his touch to Lee’s shoulder was gentle. “Did something happen?”
“I don’t know,” the reply was quiet and defeated, as Lee’s shoulders slumped. This was usually one of the issues he came to when it was something like this. Get so absorbed he ignores everything else - until he’s confronted, then slink back into the shadows, defeated. He did the same enough times with his art, as well, with the same enthusiasm and ending with a forlorn face when things didn’t go his way.
He didn’t like lying to Ez, though. He didn’t like keeping secrets or doing things on the sly without cluing in the person he trusted the most. Even if that meant Ez would privately think he was losing it.
Lee uncovered the newspaper article, and spread everything back out. “I’ve been dreaming this week. And … just seeing flashes of things. Italy - Florence, Rome. But not how they were when we visited them. How they were hundreds of years ago.” He smoothed a hand over a sketch of his Vitruvian Man. “I’ve been seeing this a lot. Remembering it. I can’t find anything about it online, though, but it’s--” A shrug. “Important.”
“Remembering it?” Ez gave the drawing a confused frown. It felt familiar in an odd way. Like Lee’s style but not, at all. He focused on the rest of what Lee had said, and gave Lee’s shoulder a comforting squeeze while he mulled. “It’s…odd. I’ve been having dreams about old Italy too. Running along rooftops and—“
Seeing as Ez couldn’t think of a non-creepy way of saying hunting people, he just squinted at the drawing again and moved his hand from Lee’s shoulder to fan the other drawings out as well. “Have you been seeing all these people in your dreams?”
Lee’s eyes flashed with surprise as he looked over at Ez with that realization. His husband admitting to dreams and memories was oddly comforting, but also just as baffling. It did help confirm he wasn’t going insane, sure, but gave him no real answers to why they were both dealing with this.
“Maybe it’s drugs in the water.” Lee murmured, that having been already on his list of possibilities, and now just moved up a little bit. “This one,” he pointed to the sketch of a smirking woman, “Has been in both my dreams and a flash of just… something. This one-” Another sketch of what looked to be an arm gauntlet, with a knife inside. “I’ve seen it and more - guns, large cannons, crossbows, other weaponry. Which is odd in itself, since it’s me.” Finally, a tiny smile blossomed. “You’re a little old to be doing parkour, too.”
The surprise didn’t go unnoticed. Ez raised his eyebrows, eyes going soft and understanding. That Lee feared for his own sanity was clear, and his history with obsessiveness no doubt played its part. It made an ache form in Ez’s chest. He resisted the urge to pull Lee into his arms, but still pressed in close to his husband’s side as he listened to him speak.
“There must be something in the water, for you to think I’m too old for anything at all,” he deadpanned. His eyes dropped back to the drawings. The woman sparked something like déjà vu in the back of his skull, but he would swear he’d never seen her before in his life. The gauntlet though. His breath caught as he slid the drawing out of the pile with his fingertips. “Lee…,” he whispered. “This—“ He held the drawing up, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “I wore this. In my dream. Could I have told you about it? Or talked in my sleep? I can tell you're worried but--I mean, you pick up so many details and store them away in that mind of yours, caro.”
“You’re not too old for some things,” with the serious debate going on, he really shouldn’t have been flirting. But Ez always made it so easy to do so, especially with his mind put at ease through such simple conversation. It helped that Ez was ridiculously attractive in his uniform half undone. He even gave a sly smile, though it turned serious as he took the drawing of the gauntlet from Ez.
“You only mumble about sex and work in your sleep,” Lee replied, off handedly. He used to mumble about more depressing things, like his family, but that had eased with time and comfort. “I suppose it’s possible you did and I retained it through my own dreams, but… I don’t know.” He spread out the sketches, all with varying level of detail, from the mysterious women to a portrait of Jesus and various other gadget sketches crowded onto one page. “Do you recognize anything else?”
Ez smirked, both at the flirting and the topics he apparently focused on while asleep. That work was included was both unsurprising and annoying. As much as he tried to leave most of his work at the station, he knew it was impossible. He placed a hand at the base of Lee’s spine, even as a distracted frown pinched his features.
“Ah...well, he looks a little familiar,” Ez joked, pointing at the Jesus drawing. Sobering quickly enough, he gestured at the smirking woman. “This one,” he said quietly. “I swear I’ve never met her, and yet...I feel like I know her.” A rare awkwardness made him rub at his face, as if he could wipe the feeling away. “...Intimately.”
Lee didn’t do jealousy often. Or at least he rarely did, up until recently. Now there was a small current of doubt in his brain, even if he knew it was ridiculous. The woman looked like she was from the Renaissance period, not High School, and yet here he was frowning at the drawing all of a sudden. Maybe because it looked like she was mocking him back, like she knew something.
Trust had always been big between them, honesty in the forefront of their relationship. The fact that Ez had offered up the information willingly said a lot. But he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something, that they were missing something. “Oh,” was all he went with, trying not to spiral again with crazy theories, even if all of this was strange. He immediately wished he had just gone with the Jesus joke, and rubbed a hand at the back of his neck.
Ez hated that oh. Or rather, he hated making Lee feel bad when it was clearly already on edge, and he didn’t particularly love feeling guilty for something he was sure he didn’t do. Reasonably sure, anyway. He grimaced and dropped his hand away from Lee’s back to pinch his nose between his fingertips.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why it feels that way. Maybe we are just overworked and tired. We could have seen a movie with some of these details or even a commercial…” It wasn’t right, he knew it wasn’t, but the truth was a nebulous thing still out of reach. “Whatever ever it is, we’re in it together, alright? Don’t lock yourself away in here and fret by yourself, please.”
It would be easy just to agree, that maybe it was a strange coincidence, and they were stressed. But Lee never did anything the easy way. He knew he was distancing himself, and he knew he was being unfair to Ez, but Lee couldn’t help it as his face wrinkled up. Not having answers for himself was always a pet peeve of his, and this was particularly maddening.
“I’m keeping it away from the girls,” was all he went with, shuffling the sketches back into a neat-ish stack on the table. “They don’t need to--” He shook his head, miserably. “Deal with any of this.” He was reasonably certain Abby would at least be forthright if she was having dreams or weird things were happening, at least. In this, he was a little mature, knowing that he had other frustrations and grievances he should have brought up, while they were alone and already having a serious conversation. But fatigue was seeping in, and Lee hated confrontation enough that making things worse was not high on his list.
“Deal with any of this...” Ez frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. He felt a little defensive for some reason. It sounded sordid. That this. Like they were bad parents for having weird dreams and memories they couldn’t explain. Honestly, they could probably have both used a therapist. Between work and marriage and adopting two girls, they’d had a lot on their plates for years. Ez sighed and made himself drop his hands back to his side. It wouldn’t do to close off, no matter what they did about this.
“If you don’t want to talk to them about it, that’s fine. It’s one more reason not to lock yourself away in here. They’ll notice eventually, even if you only do it at night.” Ez glanced toward the drawings again, grimaced, and then turned towards the door. “Just...take a break. Okay?” he said. “Come eat something.”
Observant kids they were, and even adopted had several of their own qualities, he knew Ez was right and it was probably a futile attempt, but for now, there was no need for them to have a front and center. And Lee knew that was selfish, it only lent itself to being even more annoyed at the whole situation.
With a sigh, he turned to watch Ez walk towards the door, a frown creeping up his face. “Alright.” He didn’t have much of an appetite, but he could always cook. “I got the stuff to make a taco casserole.”