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Leo swore he’d never let himself fall for Jason again. But when he’s standing there, his skin gleaming like moonlight under the flickering lights of the basement, his golden eyebrows scrunched in worry and exhaustion, his chin trembling with barely contained rage and fear, Leo feels like a fool. How could he have ever thought he could stand against Jason’s gravity?
But with love comes rage, and Leo is letting it flood his system, if only to try to ease the burn of desire in his chest.
“Let me go,” he demands. “It’s me he wants, Jason. I can negotiate with him. I know how the Undercity works.”
“But you don’t know my father,” Jason spits back. “You don’t know what kind of game he wants to play. You give him the anecdote to shimmer, and then what? Chances are he’s going to use it to get even more control of the Undercity, make even more profit off of it.” Jason leans closer, his blue eyes blazing like lightning. “He’s going to profit off you.”
Leo’s not sure whether he should feel embarrassed or infuriated, knowing that Jason thinks he doesn’t already know that. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? You spend five years on Topside and suddenly you think you’re smarter than me.” He jabs a finger at Jason’s chest. “Don’t forget who got you up there.”
At his words, Jason’s eyes sizzle with dangerous electricity. Before Leo can comprehend what’s happening, Jason’s fury forces him forward. His hands collide with Leo’s shoulders, his frustration sparking between his fingers, and shoves him back. Leo stumbles on his feet for a bare second, surprise overtaking him, before he’s sturdy again and hits Jason in the chest. Jason barely moves, but the flinch in his eyes sends a wave of satisfaction over Leo. At least he can still fight back.
“Oh, now you’re angry?” Leo laughs mirthlessly. “Did I finally push your buttons enough?”
“Why are you so fucking stubborn?” Jason’s fingers are digging so deep into Leo’s shoulders he’s convinced he’s about to reach bone. “Why are you so scared of me just wanting to make sure you’re safe?”
“You think I need some knight in shining armor? How pathetic do you think I am?”
Jason opens his mouth to speak, but Leo slices his words away with his own. “You think that just because you decided to pop your pretty head back into the Undercity I’m going to drop everything for you? You think I can’t handle myself? You think these past five years I’ve let people fuck with me, I’ve just been wishing you would come in and save me? Is that how desperate you think I am? Do you think I’m some fucking coward?”
Coward. The word hangs in the air, dangles over the mere inches of space between them. It shudders with the gusts of rage coming off both of them.
In the heavy silence, Jason’s grip loosens on Leo’s shoulders and he straightens his spine. His gaze is vacant and full at the same time, a sort of black hole, seething with an emotion Leo has never seen before, much less one he can name. The anger behind his eyes looks renewed. Reincarnated.
“You’re not a coward?” Jason asks, his voice a low, thrumming venom that sinks into Leo’s nerves. “Tell me again who’s the one running now. Tell me again who’s the one rejecting the future we could have in favor of protecting his heart. Explain that.”
“That’s different,” Leo says, but his voice is quiet now, quivering in a newfound fear. “That’s not what we’re talking about.”
“Isn’t it?” Jason asks. Exhaustion floods into his eyes, completely drowns out the rage, and his shoulders expand as he takes a deep breath. “There’s a difference between being cautious and being a coward, Leo. You’re straddling the line.”
“I am very capable of knowing the difference. But here you are, thinking I can’t even manage to take care of myself in front of some big, pathetic old man who depends on innocent kids to do his bidding.” Leo steps back, tilts his head to look up at Jason. “That makes you the coward. And selfish, might I add.” He sucks in a breath, trying to calm the tide of frustration that has washed over him. In a quieter voice, he warns, “You don’t own me, Jason. I can make my own decisions.”
A ghost of a smile haunts Jason’s lips, and Leo hates the relief he feels at seeing it, like the haze of anger over them has lifted slightly. “You’re right. I am being selfish,” he agrees. “But can you blame me? I mean, it’s like everything you do… everything you’ve done since I’ve come back, at least… it’s like you’re purposefully putting yourself in harm’s way just to get away from me.”
Leo swallows. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Well, I’m tired of skirting around this. Around you.”
“I don’t know how many more times I have to tell you.” Leo makes a point of staring him down, sinking his claws into Jason’s own gaze. “We’re never going to have what we had.”
Leo hates the way his voice cracks at the end, hates the way it stings his tongue. It makes him sound vulnerable, weak, and he knows that if anyone outside of this moment were to hear him, they’d use that vulnerability like a blade, strike him through the heart.
But Jason’s worse. Because he’s not going to strike him through the heart with it; that would be too direct, too messy.
Leo remembers once when they were children, shivering underneath a torrent of rain that had suddenly come crashing down. They were too far from home, stuck in an empty, dark alleyway coming back from their job with the pawn shop owner. Jason looked at him with those big blue eyes, brimming with anxiety, and asked, “What are we going to do?”
So Leo grinned at him and said, “Come with me. I have an idea.”
“I hate when you have ideas.” But even then, Jason followed him as they ran through the alley, raced up the balconies, and up to a door. Panting, out of breath from their run, Leo whispered in Jason’s ears, “I’m going to teach you how to pick a lock.”
It took practice, and that first time Leo was still the one to open it. But after that, each new lock they picked, each new door they opened, Jason improved, until they got to the point Jason could crack almost as fast as Leo could.
That’s how Jason will use Leo’s vulnerability. He’ll take it, meld it into a key, click open the lock of Leo’s heart and steal everything inside. No blood, no violence. Nothing incriminating.
And the worst part is Leo is the one that taught him how to.
“I’m not asking to get back what we once had,” Jason insists, drawing Leo back into the present. “I’m asking for a new future. A new us.”
“And I’m telling you we can’t.”
“Why? What are you so afraid of?”
Leo’s voice comes out brittle, crumbling as it parts from his lips. “You left me once, Jason. Who’s to say you won’t do it again?”
Jason stiffens, the shock electrocuting him from head to toe. Leo’s almost embarrassed to witness the utter shame pooling in his eyes, draining into his face.
“Okay,” Jason finally says, his voice weak, defeated. “Okay. That’s fair.” He closes his eyes and drops his head. “I hurt you. Badly. I know.”
Leo’s eyebrows rise. “Do you? Because you’ve known this since the moment you stepped foot into this house, and yet, even allegedly knowing how badly you hurt me, you’ve done nothing but try to convince me of why we should make something new.”
“I do know. You’ve made it very clear.”
“Then why do you keep insisting?”
Jason is quiet for a long time, simply letting the eternal silence squeeze around them. It holds them in its grip, sucks the air out of their lungs. Just when Leo feels himself start to suffocate, Jason speaks, and the silence slithers away.
“I know I hurt you,” Jason says. “I made a mistake leaving you and Thalia and Piper. I should have given more warning. There’s nothing I can say or do to erase that mistake, and I know I don’t deserve to be forgiven.” Jason’s eyes focus on Leo like a camera focusing its lens, making his picture clearer. Like he’s the only thing in Jason’s view.
“When I was up there,” he continues, and now his voice is thinner, coming out in threads, “on Topside, there wasn’t a moment I wasn’t thinking of you. When I got the rare chance to go onto my roof, and I saw the skies - did you know you can see the stars on Topside? They’re beautiful, Leo.” Jason’s lips quiver as he draws in a shaky breath. “When I was up there, I could see the world. And all I wanted to do was to bring you up there and bottle it up and put it in your hands.”
Leo’s heart shudders violently in his chest. His body feels like a volcano, rumbling with the heat of anger and hatred and desperation and desire, all of it bubbling up, licking against the edges of his throat. He hates the way his cheeks are flushing at Jason’s words, the way his tears are pushing against his eyes. He doesn’t want to give Jason any satisfaction.
“You think all these pretty words are going to convince me of anything?” he growls. “You think poetry is going to save you here? I’m a scientist, Jason. I see the world for what it is. And I see you for what you are, too.”
“And what’s that?”
Now it’s Leo’s turn to stare at Jason, his eyes screwing in like a gun aiming at its target. He’s quiet for a moment, giving Jason a chance to squirm under his gaze. It sends a ripple of gratification up Leo’s spine; he likes knowing he can still make him nervous.
“It’s funny,” Leo murmurs, tilting his head. “Since you came back, all I could think about was how much you’ve changed. You have the look of a man, the look of someone who’s seen ages of exhaustion and pain and maybe even love, and I guess for a while you had me convinced you were one.” Then he shakes his head. “But you think the world isn’t fair, that things just have simple answers, that it should bend to your will. You’re no man, Jason. You’re just a boy.”
Jason raises a brow. “And you’re so mature yourself?”
“I never said that. I know how stubborn I am; I don’t need to be told.”
“You don’t see a problem with that?”
“Sure I do,” Leo says. “I would even go so far as to say it’s less about stubbornness and about pride.”
Jason’s gaze oozes exasperation, and a part of Leo wants to laugh at it — but that’s the sixteen-year-old part of him, the part that would steal Jason’s T-shirts and hide them between the floorboards; the part that would laugh at Jason for still sleeping with a teddy bear and then proceed to sleep with the same one; the part that would trick Jason into standing in front of front of his newest stink bombs. The part that saw at Jason’s exasperation at its face level, and relished the hidden love behind it.
But they’re not sixteen now. And Jason’s exasperation isn’t funny or endearing anymore. It just makes Leo’s heart hurt.
“You would let your pride get in the way of your desires?” asks Jason.
“What desires are you referring to, exactly?”
He means the question to sound jarring, maybe even lethal to Jason’s own pride, because he knows exactly what desires he’s referring to. But Jason’s never been the arrogant type, and Leo knows that he would never refer to himself as Leo’s desires if it weren’t true. Because Jason knows Leo, even after so many years. And Leo hates that he’s let him in this deep.
Jason crosses his arms, and his bottom lip disappears as he worries on it. His eyes are flickering, coming in and out of focus, roiling with thoughts so loud Leo can swear he’s screaming even when he’s not making a sound. A desperation fills his eyes, deep and urgent, and all Leo wants to do is submit to whatever it is Jason wants to say, if it’ll make him stop looking completely lost and terrified.
“I’m sorry,” Jason whispers, his voice so fragile that it shatters by the last syllable. The shards of his pain burrow deep into Leo’s heart, and a new dread floods his chest, cold and jarring, bringing all his nerves to attention. Jason’s voice sounds like it’s at the edge of a cliff, toes flirting with the finality of the drop, and Leo can do nothing but watch as he moves ever closer.
You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Just come back to me. Just pretend you never left. “For what?”
“You’ve made your mind, and I’ve been pushing you for too long. I’m sorry.”
I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you. “Okay.”
Jason takes a deep breath, his chest quaking with the effort, and Leo’s fingers ache to calm it, to hold Jason’s heart and let it pulse in his hand. Instead, he pushes his fingers into his palm and pretends he’s squeezing his own heart to a stop.
“I don’t believe that you don’t love me,” Jason says. “I don’t believe that you’re willing to throw all of this away just for the sake of preserving your heart. I know there’s a part of you that wants this, wants us . I’ve seen it - glimpses, really, but it’s there. It was there when you kissed me last night. It was there when you let me hold you this morning.” Jason’s eyes freeze over, determination and finality solidifying the liquid hope of his irises. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll stop trying to reach that part of you.”
A sharp sting erupts in Leo’s bottom lip, and he realizes that he’s been chewing on it harder with every syllable that came out of Jason’s mouth. But he can’t ignore the desperation in his eyes, the plea, as if he’s begging Leo to not say it.
Leo looks Jason in the eyes. Opens his mouth. Feels the words aching in his throat, heavy, painful.
But then he realizes the ache in his throat aren’t words, they’re tears. Leo’s nails carve deep into his palms if only to give himself a new pain to distract from the old. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth again, claws himself out of the pool of regret in his throat, and pushes the words out:
“I don’t love you.”
But his gaze has slipped to the ground.
A pressure builds against his shoulders. Jason’s hands. “In the fucking eyes, Leo.” His voice is boulders rolling down his tongue, rumbling heavily, crushing Leo’s heart.
“I don’t love you,” he tries again.
But his eyes have closed.
“I don’t," Leo insists. Each syllable is spiked with a sob, turning his words into jagged shards and particles, unmendable, unsensible. The tears have forced their way out, no longer prisoners. "I can’t.”
A deafening silence erupts around them, so quiet that Leo can hear Jason’s breathing, angry and red and bubbling.
The pressure in his shoulders eases. He opens his eyes.
“Right.” Jason’s nod is a subtle jerk, controlled but only barely. A beat of silence passes, and then he turns, his hand resting on the door knob. “When you realize that there are things worth more than your pride, I’ll be waiting.”
The door slams shut.