Simon's P.O.V.
The first time I saw Lachlan flinch was when Josh clapped his hand onto the youngers shoulder and he jumped about a foot into the air. It was the day after he arrived from Australia and was still extremely jet lagged and tired and for that day I put it down to tiredness, even though he was close to having a panic attack.
The second time was when he was sitting on the lawn reading a book, immersed in the world of the pages in front of him. I clambered up onto the lawn beside him and he didn't notice until I was right beside him because he startled violently and dropped his book, his pupils blowing wide and his hands started trembling. I knew he wasn't tired, he had had a solid 10 hours of sleep so that was the point when I started to get worried.
The third time.... the third time was the worst. The two of us were heading down the stairs when the front door was busted open and Harry and Ethan ran through it, yelling and screaming. Lachlan immediately fell to his knees on the stairs and bowed his head, his hands firmly over his ears. He was letting out a high pitched keening noise and it was very painful sounding.
I crouched down beside him and pulled his head into my chest, glaring down at Ethan and Harry to shut it. The keening noise eventually slowed as the yelling stopped and it was then that I noticed him shaking, his nails digging into the soft skin of his hand and his short, sharp and pained breathing.
"Lachlan?" I kept my voice low and quiet, reassuring him that everything was okay. "You're okay, you're okay, everything's okay."
I took him back upstairs and he refused to come down until the next morning. He lay in my arms and didn't want to open his eyes until everything was completely silent and even then he didn't speak, his anxiety levels obviously through the roof.
It was a week later when he finally broke down and told me everything. It might have been my fault because I had finally gathered the courage to ask him what had happened and why he reacted in such a way but the reaction was immediate.
He froze up and refused to look me in the eyes. And then everything came out, all at once in a river of words that he couldn't stop. He was crying.
He told me about how his parents divorced when he was 8, how he lived from house to house each week as his dad never seemed to have a permanent address. He told me about the drinking, the beer bottles scattered on the floor, the yelling and eventually physical abuse that came with the alcohol.
He told me about how he missed weeks of school every term because of the bruises, how he lost count of how many broken bones he had had in his life, how he almost dropped out of school at 14, how he ran away from home at 15.
He told me how he was forced back by the authorities, even though he didn't want to go back. He told me about how he had his first boyfriend at 16 and how his dad found out and the physical abuse got worse because he was a faggot.
He told me about being sexually assaulted by his dad at 17 and how he tried to take his own life.
He told me about the police finding out and arresting him. About the trial, the conviction and his fathers eventual murder in prison.
He told me about the depression, anxiety and PTSD. He told me about how he couldn't sleep through the night for months at a time. He told me about how he didn't think he could go on.
And then his voice choked up and he just cried in my arms as I held him tightly and whispered to him that everything was okay. I was mostly in shock, it took many minutes before his story finally sunk in and I realised that, holy hell, he had been through so much.
"Lachlan.... why didn't you tell anyone?" He choked on his tears, shaking his head. I could tell that he wasn't going to talk, he wasn't physically able to talk, so I just held him in my arms as we lay on the floor of my bedroom in the morning light.
It took at least 20 minutes before he started to calm down and his heaving sobs turning into little hiccupping cries.
"You're okay Lachy, you're okay." He shook his head.
"I- I couldn't..." He hiccupped, the tears forming in his eyes again. "I couldn't... tell-" He could barely force the words from his mouth. "Tell... anyone- I was... so- scared..."
He pushed himself up from my chest and rubbed his eyes with his fists like a toddler. He was barely able to hold himself upright and was still hiccupping violently every few seconds so I just pulled him into me and let him cling to me.
"That's okay Lachlan, I understand that you're scared, I understand that, and it's okay. It's okay to be scared, it's okay to react in the way you do, especially because you've been through so goddamn much." He sniffed, pressing his nose into my neck. "It's okay. Everything is okay."
I started rubbing my hand up and down his back gently, hoping that he could calm down for a little bit. He was curled up tightly but was happy to let me move him a little so both of us were in a more comfortable position, myself leaning up against my bed and Lachlan with his head on my neck and laid out on his side, our legs entangled.
"Do you want to sleep Lachy?" He shook his head.
"Can't." I carded my hand through his hair, sighing to myself silently.
"Nightmares?" He nodded. "Do you want to sleep in my bed with me tonight?" Another slow but shy nod and I smiled to myself.
Lachlan was incredibly shy. Like, painfully and unbelievably shy to the point where he could barely look someone in the eyes when he first met them. I smiled to myself when I remembered the day that I first met Lachlan a fair few years earlier.
Vikk had picked him from the airport and I didn't actually see him until the next morning because he was so tired and had actually fallen asleep in the car on the ride home. When I did finally get to meet him he couldn't look me in the eyes and Vikk actually had to coax him to look up.
We had only talked to each other over Skype in one massive group chat and I had only ever seen photos of him, so when we did meet each other it was the first time we'd seen each other or heard each other's voices. Well... sort of.
He didn't speak in front of me until the next day and even then it was so quiet that I didn't know exactly what he said and it took another few days before he would look me in the eyes without looking away at once. It was sweet to know when he started to trust me and eventually he started talking too.
Knowing why he acted like that was unsettling and everything suddenly made sense to me, but I felt like crying. Why did all of that have to happen to him?
I gently stood up, bringing Lachlan up with me and helping him onto my bed. He stumbled as I pulled him onto my feet and I wrapped one of my arms around his waist to steady him, but my to my surprise, he flinched.
It wasn't a sudden movement, in fact I was incredibly careful to go slowly, but my heart sank. I wanted him to trust me and although I knew he wasn't in control over the movement, it still made me sad to think that way in the back of his mind, he still thought that I could hurt him.
"Hey, hey, you okay?" He nodded miserably, attempting to steer himself over to the bed. I helped him, letting him curl up beside me and I pulled a pillow down so he could rest his head on it.
It wasn't long before he started dropping off against me and I smiled to myself, whispering into his ear gentle words.
"I love you Lachy." I saw his lips crack into a shy smile. "Everything is okay."
