Never quite the same...

"Why would I not want to go home...?" Justin said, raising an eyebrow. "It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that I haven't been since um..." He trailed off, looking away as he frowned.

"You haven't been since your paw..." Heath replied, nuzzling Justin's neck.

Justin gave a small nod, hugging Heath close as he wrapped his arms around the ginger's neck. "Ma asked me to last month but I-I couldn't..." He mumbled.

"Why couldn't you?" Heath asked, "There had to be a real reason you couldn't. You forget, we haven't talked in...ah...a while..."

"I kind of lost count of how long it was," Justin said. "I just know it was too long."

He paused and went quiet for a minute, running a hand through his dark hair as he slowly looked away. "I just haven't been able to since we lost him." He said quietly, hanging his head.

"We need to get you home," Heath said, his mind made up when he heard that.

Justin gave a small smile, nodding slowly. "I'm sure my mother would be happy to see me." He said quietly, missing his home despite having been avoiding it.

"I suppose...if he wanted...Wade could come with us..." Heath sighed.

"Probably not a good idea..." Justin said quietly. "I'd rather not be around him so much right now." He added, looking away.

"He...he didn't force himself on you did he?" Heath asked softly.

Justin slowly shook his head. "No...I just don't want to risk doing something stupid again. He asked me after I'd gotten upset over things that had been done to him..." He said quietly, sighing.

"Things that had been done to him?" Heath asked, raising an eyebrow.

"He..." Justin started, hesitating before continuing. "His back's covered in scars..." He said quietly, frowning.

Heath frowned, suddenly feeling bad. "His back's covered in scars? Wh...what happened to him?" As much as he hated Wade for having fooled around with Justin behind his back, there was still some loyalty to his friend.

"He didn't say exactly," Justin sighed, biting his lip afterwords to try and avoid getting upset. "He...he just said what caused some of them."

"And I treated him like shit..." Heath said, feeling terrible about himself.

"Neither of us were that nice to him since he came back," Justin pointed out. "We always made fun of him when he wasn't around, because we didn't know."

"Maybe we should speak to him..." Heath said softly.

"About what exactly...?" Justin asked curiously, shifting slightly before looking over at the puppy, worried about being around Wade after earlier.

"Why he's been so different since Manchester," Heath replied as he picked up the puppy.

"Right..." Justin said slowly. "Assuming you can get him to talk about it. He didn't seem to like talking about it, even when he was showing me the scars."

Heath replied with a nod, "Maybe we can get him to talk about it at dinner. We could do something nice for him."

"Maybe," Justin replied, though he looked doubtful. "Something nice? Like what exactly?" He asked afterwards, raising an eyebrow, assuming that nothing they could think of would be able to convince Wade to talk.

"I dunno, make him dinner or something," shrugged Heath, "I was kinda an ass to him after all..."

"You had a reason for that..." Justin mumbled. "But I guess we could do it; it would have to be something pretty special if it's going to work though."