“I can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”
“Leo…” Jason sighed. “I’m not abandoning you, I’m just swapping to French.”
“Instead of Spanish, which is your ONLY class with me.”
“I don’t have ANY classes with Piper,” Jason pointed out.
“You two are in the same tutor group and you always abandon me and go on dates instead of remembering the third wheel- I’m sorry, best friend.” Leo muttered grumpily. He never got to see Piper outside of Maths in school, and now he wasn’t going to see Jason at all because they always spent break and lunch together without him.
Don’t get him wrong, he was happy they were happy, but would it kill them to spend some time with him once in a while? They were his best friends… his only friends.
And if nothing else, Jason had to catch up on 3 months’ worth of French, and Leo now had no one to write scripts with in Spanish. They had exactly 14 students in the class, so everyone was in pairs, except now there were 13, so Leo would either have to join another group (and he’d rather not, thanks, he didn’t know any of them very well) or do it on his own- and that would be boring.
Jason just sighed. There would be no talking to Leo now that he was in that kind of mood.
“I’m sorry, man, it’s just…”
It’s just that I’m in love and happy but none of your relationships ever work out. Khione had used him and tossed him aside like an old doll. She’d been Leo’s first love, and he had loved her so much, and his heart had been shattered. It had been weeks before Leo even came out of his little shed/workshop behind his and Piper’s house (Piper’s dad had fostered him a while back when he found out that Leo was Piper’s friend), and just when Jason thought he was getting it back together, he got together with the new girl, Calypso. He’d loved her, too, but he’d been a little more wary, and in the end she couldn’t deal with him being clingy and antisocial in turn.
Leo had never recovered from that, either, not really. Jason hated it, and that’s why he’d taken Spanish in the first place, but he didn’t know how to help, and he preferred French, so he’d reluctantly switched back.
Jason was worried about Leo, dammit, but Leo just smiled that stupid fake smile all the time and Jason didn’t have the heart to call him out on it.
Jason turned and left, frown still marring his expression.
*
“What’s going on?”
A bunch of people in the year had been in and out of class all morning in various states of distress, so Leo felt the need to ask one of the girls who shared both English and Spanish with him as they walked to the latter class. He thought her name was Rachel or something.
She gave him a funny look. “Didn’t you hear? Katie Gardener’s dad died yesterday and she’s moving in with her grandparents, and not coming back to school. Everyone who knew him and a lot of the people who knows Katie really well are very upset.”
“Oh.” He felt bad for her. He remembered when his mother died, and what a wreck he’d been. If she was even half as upset as he was, he doubted she’d be going to school for a while.
He mentally shook his head. Don’t dwell on things. Don’t stay in one place too long. That was how he kept ahead of loneliness and sadness, and humour was a good way to hide the pain.
*
Spanish was quiet that day, but the teacher still asked them to write a script about their current topic- food.
Leo just looked around awkwardly as people got into pairs, but then noticed that one person wasn’t. Leo didn’t know his name, but Leo knew that he always worked with Katie and that he struggled with the language.
Seeing as writing a script all by his lonesome would be rather boring, Leo decided that maybe he should go sit by the guy. Only the guy sat right at the front, and Leo sat right at the back, and he didn’t want to wade through the other students to get there and possibly get rejected.
The teacher didn’t even look up. “Valdez, di Angelo, work together.”
The guy- di Angelo (wasn’t that Italian?)- turned around in his seat, and Leo had to force himself not to shudder. He looked like he’d been created from angst and pain and double-dipped in psycho-sprinkles. Creepy. But then again, his hair flicked up like baby bat wings, and that idea was kind of cute, so he wasn’t terrifying.
Leo waved sheepishly, and di Angelo sighed and got up, tucking his chair under the desk and threading through the throng of students.
“Hola,” Leo said as the other guy sat down.
“Hola,” he mumbled back. He didn’t seem very social.
“So, uh, you wanna start the script?”
“What do you think, genius?”
“Well then, Lieutentant Sarcasm, what are you going to say first?”
*
They’d finished the script and read it out to the class three lessons later, and the teacher smiled. “You work well together.”
Leo and di Angelo (he still didn’t know his first name, and he didn’t think di Angelo knew his) exchanged a sidelong glance. It had mostly been di Angelo deciding on the conversation and Leo translating it- easiest class he’d ever take, Spanish, considering he grew up speaking both English and Spanish.
It didn’t surprise Leo when di Angelo sat next to him at the back of the class next lesson- they mostly learnt in class by writing scripts, so it was likely that they were going to have to write another that lesson.
They did, this time about meeting people for the first time and describing their family and stuff like that. Leo wondered why that hadn’t been the first thing they did.
He didn’t even glance at the help sheet once while rapidly translating the conversation di Angelo outlined into Spanish, occasionally correcting his spelling, but generally Nico (as Leo then found out his name was) was pretty good, only stumbling with translating itself.
Later on, after the lesson, Leo wondered if it was because Nico’s family was Italian, as he’d revealed in the script.
*
Leo wasn’t sure when they became friends, exactly, but he soon found himself spending his break times with Nico, who wasn’t as scary as he first imagined. In fact, Nico was a bit of a nerd, admitting that he played the Mythomagic card game. Leo had never managed to get into Mythomagic, but he thought he still had his old Yugioh deck somewhere, and wondered if Nico had ever played it.
In fact, they started spending time together outside of school, too, Leo inviting Nico over to put his money where his mouth was and see if he could teach Leo to be decent at Mythomagic.
Piper had popped in to tell Leo that she was going to be out for a bit (going on a date with Jason to the movies or something, probably), and had stopped short upon seeing Nico. “Nice to see you’re getting out again,” she observed, shutting the door in time to hear the thump of the pillow Leo had thrown.
Nico raised his eyebrows, but didn’t look up from his hand of cards.
“Stupid Piper…” Leo mumbled, then explained: “She worries that I spend too much time in my workshop and not enough time with people and getting social interaction,” he made a face.
“It’s nice to have someone worry about you,” Nico said, and Leo suddenly remembered the death of both Nico’s mother and his elder sister. Nico had found out about his younger half-sister, but no matter how much he loved Hazel, she just wasn’t the same as Bianca. He didn’t think he wanted her to be, either.
“It is,” Leo agreed, “but she acts like I’m made of glass sometimes. I’m not delicate.”
“But you are breakable,” Nico countered.
Maybe Leo shouldn’t have told him about Khione and Calypso, but friends talked about stuff like that, didn’t they?
“And in a way, you are delicate. Like seriously, who gets eyebrows so thin and neat naturally?”
Leo didn’t really have anything to say to that, so he kept quiet, eyes glued to his own hand. Piper had never been the kind of girl that got her eyebrows plucked, but he remembered that Khione had often asked him how he got his eyebrows like that, and he’d ended up plucking her eyebrows for her a lot.
There must have been a grimace on his face or something, because Nico’s voice was suddenly a lot quieter and more careful. “Sorry.” Leo didn’t think he’d ever mentioned that he used to pluck Khione’s eyebrows, so maybe Nico thought he’d gotten flack for his own or something.
“I’m not so easily hurt, dammit, di Angelo!” he growled, slamming his hand of cards on the ground, and Nico jumped slightly, then stuffed his hand in his pocket.
“I never said you were.”
“Then why do you always seem to tread on tiptoes around me? It’s not like I’m gonna kill anyone if you so much as look at me funny!”
Nico looked down, didn’t say anything, the picture of regret. He hadn’t meant to make Leo feel like crap, and that’s what it sounded like.
“It’s just- ¡es muy estupido!” And with that Leo surged forward, grabbing Nico by the shoulders, and kissed him soundly on the mouth.
He broke it off, panting. Nico was flushed bright red, blinking rapidly, and one hand rose, shaking, to touch his lips.
Neither of them said anything for almost two minutes, then Nico smiled softly, almost cheekily. “If you wanted to ask me to the Sadie Hawkins dance in two weeks, Valdez, you could have just asked.”
Leo just gaped at him and squawked; “I identify as male, thank you very much!”
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