On the tiles with Leon - Part 3

Leon has no idea where his shirt might be and the bouncers refuse to let us back in the club for his jacket so I lend him mine.

I flag down a taxi and, as it pulls up, he burps and yaks up a lump of something large, and wet, and orange - orange! – and the taxi pulls away again without stopping.

“Cheers,” I tell him. He stands there, swaying, looking me with bleary, blinking eyes.

“What?” he says, lacking any kind of comprehension.

I shake my head and continue looking for a cab. Leon wobbles over to me and starts touching my face. I swat his hands away and do my best to hold my temper.

"What the fuck have you taken?" I ask him. He just laughs, like the very question is the most hilarious thing he's ever heard.

By the time I manage to attract another cab Leon is babbling incessantly in no language I recognise, and I am grateful that he is, at least, doing it quietly. I may actually be able to get him home without freaking out the driver.

It’s as I get him to his door that he turns his head to me and says, “I don’t have my key,” with a sudden level of lucidity that is remarkable.

I prop him against the wall and work my magic on the lock. Then, with a firm push, the door swings open and I turn to Leon and tell him, “it’s just as well you’ve got a Yale. I only know how to do that on a Yale.”

Without another word he weaves his way into the dark house. There comes a crash from deep in the shadows and I sigh wearily, kick the front door closed behind me, and follow him in, my fingers tracing the walls looking for light switches.

I find him in the living room where he's clearly managed to pull a bookcase over and, more from luck than any judgement, managed to avoid it crushing him. Now he's slumped sideways on the couch, head lolling back, speaking in tongues again.

I wander through to the kitchen, cross to the fridge in the uncertain flicker of a dying strip light, and find a couple of beers. I take one - it's the least Leon can do - and head back to the living room, popping the ring pull as I go.

I settle into an armchair and watch him. He continues to mumble to himself, occasionally writhing around. At one point he struggles out of my coat and flings it away. I just sit and drink and listen to the rhythms of his jabbering, rising and falling like waves.

Soothed, I start to drift off.

My eyelids droop.

My head lolls.

Then I snap back awake again. Something that Leon has said has punched through the gathering fog and hit me squarely in the chest. A name. A name that I haven't heard for years.

I'm across the room in the blink of an eye, before the abandoned beer can even hit the carpet, and I'm shaking Leon by the shoulder, asking him to say it again, screaming in his face to repeat himself. But he doesn't stir. Eyes open but glazed, focused on nothing. Mouth opening and closing silently now. The scratches down Leon's torso are still oozing slightly but now they look less like scrapes and more like shapes, figures, characters in some lost language.

Fear cracks my ribcage and grabs my heart, squeezes it tight.

I can't think straight. Too much booze makes my head swim.

I have to leave. Leon will be fine. I put the waste basket by his feet, in case he's sick later in the night, then I grab my coat and hurry out the door, back into the chill of the night.