Leo takes pity on Elliot after the third week.

It's partially curiosity. The other boy has been a regular visitor day after day, inconsistent in what he buys but so punctual with his arrival Leo could set a clock by him. Even if he's giving most of the flowers away, he can't possibly have enough recipients for nearly a month's worth of bouquets, and Leo is interested just in knowing where he's putting all the flowers he buys.

The rest of it is personal interest, though Leo has no intention of letting Elliot know that. It's hard to resist the hazy devotion so unselfconsciously clear in the other's expression, difficult to fight off some measure of reciprocation just out of gratitude, and it's not like Elliot isn't attractive in his own right. It's his hands that catch and hold Leo's attention, long fingers agile and elegant even when he's idly tapping them against the counter or making a fist when Leo can needle him out of infatuation and into an argument. His face isn't bad either, all gold lashes and hot eyes, open and too honest for the world to be anything but harsh with him.

Leo can understand what it is to be too honest. It makes him smile, first when his back is turned and later to Elliot's face, offering wordless encouragement only as it becomes true. By the time he capitulates to Elliot's incessant invitation to dinner, the other's smile says he knows he will get agreement, his flickering gaze reading response right off Leo's face without the words to give it form.

Elliot insists on carrying Leo's bag, takes it from him without saying anything and snaps "I've got it," when Leo tries to take it back. The cut-short interaction sets the mood for the rest of the walk, turns the silence between them heavy and sulking while Leo forms insults in his head about snobby university students who don't know when their help is unwelcome.

Leo finds the flowers the moment Elliot opens the front door. It's impossible to miss them; the air is tangled with their perfume and their color is bleeding into every corner of the room. It's clear from looking that Elliot gave none of them away, or at least so few as to make the lack unidentifiable, and his apartment is nothing like large enough to hold the quantity of blossoms in the enclosed space. A few are in vases, around the overlarge piano in the corner of the room, but most are not, balanced in water glasses and coffee mugs and a few in what look like mismatched champagne flutes.

"Christ," Leo says, stepping in without waiting for a gesture from Elliot. He reaches out to touch the petals of a blossom, trailing the familiar softness over his fingers. "What are you drinking out of?"

"The faucet," Elliot says from behind him. "I ran out of vases."

"I see why." Leo takes stock of the room again, careful to look past the explosion of flowers all around him. There's not much furniture, really: a chair shoved back in the corner, a pair of low tables at different points in the room, a rug to keep the floor from looking completely barren. And the piano, of course, oversized and dominating the room, clearly too large for the space and less a centerpiece than an obvious obsession. The bench is tilted out from the last use, the tray for music notably empty, and it's not a question when Leo says, "You compose."

Elliot clears his throat from the doorway. When Leo turns back he's still stalled in the entrance, staring at the other boy like he's not even seeing the surroundings. "Sometimes," he admits. "I've been working on a new piece the last few weeks."

Leo doesn't have to ask the topic. The proof is all around him, written in the flowers in cups on the floor and shining clear in the attention in Elliot's eyes. He wants to scoff, wants to huff rejection and laugh off the affection all over the other's face. They hardly know each other, after all, and he's been barely civil on his good days since he met Elliot.

He neither laughs nor sneers. What he does do is turn around, come back to the doorway where Elliot is still standing, still clinging to Leo's bag with his fingers twisted tight on the strap. When Leo reaches up to brush his fingers against the other's flyaway hair Elliot's eyes flutter, his breath rushing out of him like he's been hit all over again.

"You really are an idiot," Leo says, and leans in to press his lips against Elliot's.

He can feel the huff of shock from the other boy, can hear the thump of his bag falling from fingers gone suddenly careless. For a moment he wants to pull away, wants to voice protest at this abuse of his things, but those pianist's hands are shoving into his hair, pushing the shadows back from his face and pulling him in closer, and Elliot is kissing him like he's dying, like Leo's mouth is water and he's been lost in a desert. It's intoxicating, to be kissed like that, it's the kind of devotion that's enough to reset all the magnetism in the world, and Leo can all but feel the compass of his life recalibrating as he slides his hands down against Elliot's neck and draws the other in as close as they can get.

Leo doesn't know what force brought them together. It doesn't matter. Now, there's nothing that will be able to keep them apart.