How Do You Know?

Beginnings Arc

Chapter 2: A Good Friend

Aeris continued to stare at Leo for a few seconds, trying to figure out what he meant when he told her to "vent", until it slowly came to her. The realization made Aeris' eyes open wide with surprise and her mouth dropped down a bit.

"No." She shook her head to emphasize the word. "No, I'm not gonna do that Leo."

Leo got a smug look on his face. It seemed she had finally figured it out.

"Come on, you'll feel better."

"Hitting you will NOT make me feel any better."

"You've done it before. Why not now?"

"This is different." She crossed her arms then, as if to assert her defiance to the idea.

Leo face-palmed and grunted in frustration. He was trying to help her, and she was saying no. Not only that, but he offering to let her beat him up, something she had done tons of times in the past. But now she was acting as if it were some ungodly crime.

…Why couldn't woman just be simple?

There was only one way to get her to open up and let her emotions out, and Leo knew just how to do it.

He had to call her out.

"Don't be such a baby. Sheesh." Leo's voice was sly and condescending. It needed to be if his plan was going to work. He just hopped he wouldn't go too far and make Aeris want to kill him.

Aeris turned her head away from Leo and gave a blank stare to no one in general.

"I'm not hurting you Leo."

Her words grinded on him. She was making things harder than they needed to be by being so damn stubborn. Leo decided he had to crank it up a notch. He let his arms fall to his sides and he slouched his back slightly to give him a slightly gangly appearance. His head tilted fully to the left and he brought upon his face the stupidest smile he could muster. Aeris didn't seem to notice any of it.

"Come on Aeris, I'm makin it easy!" Leo knew that talking to Aeris in this way would surely send her over the edge soon, he just had to be careful as to how far he pushed her. "I won't tell anyone. Not my parents, not Tommy, nobody. Swear on it."

Aeris continued to stare off into the distance without a word, looking as though she hadn't heard anything of what Leo said. It was time for him to pull out the big guns.

Straightening out his back, Leo walked back over to Aeris. He stepped directly in front of her and stuck his paws in his pockets and shook his head at her, smiling. She responded in turn by giving him a dark look, compromised of her mouth forming a small line and her right eyebrow moving lower to her eye, both of which were glaring at Leo evilly. Normally he would tremble with fear by seeing Aeris look at him like that, but right now, all Leo could feel was a giddy excitement rise from within. His plan was working.

Taking a step towards Aeris, Leo threw his arm around her shoulders and leaned over on her on one leg, making both of them tilt slightly towards the ground. Leo heard Aeris grumble quietly, without a doubt irritated by his actions, and he see's a small vein on her temple begin to stick out. All he could do was smile.

"Y'know Aeris, when you think about it, letting loose a bit is kinda like Cheeze Whiz." Leo paused for a second and brought his mouth within close proximity of Aeris' ear, knowing that speaking into it at such a short distance would startle her, and in turn, fuel her rage. "You know you waaaaant it."

Aeris jumped sharply as Leo spoke into her ear and let out a small yelp. He hadn't spoken loudly, but he had made sure to make his voice sound as low as possible. In a strange way it had made it sound loud when it really wasn't, if that makes any sense. Aeris clenched her fists tightly after being scared by Leo and her arms became ridged. She's getting angry now.

Leo noticed all of this and couldn't help but continue to smile a smartass smile. He pushed forward with his teasing of Aeris, now having too much fun to remember that he had to watch himself.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I scare you?" Leo asked rhetorically, trying to sound as innocent as he could, even going so far that he pulled his smile down into an apologetic frown and stood up from leaning down on Aeris but still kept his arm around her. She growled slightly and grinded her teeth as she forcefully shook it off and started walking forward, not looking at Leo at all.

"Where's you're car?" She was definitely annoyed now. It resonated in her voice.

Leo shrugged his shoulders and whipped out a stupid sounding "I dunno" as he began to walk alongside Aeris. She let out an agitated sigh and turned to face her friend.

"Leo, you know damn well where you're car is, so just tell me so we can get out of here." Aeris was quickly losing patients as Leo was gaining ground.

Leo smirked wickedly in response. "Not until you hit me."

Aeris sighed again, although the sound she made couldn't really be called a sigh, more like a low pitch extended growl.

"I'm not hitting you for the LAST. TIME."

"Then I guess we aren't going anywhere." Leo finished by sticking his hands in his pockets and continued to walk beside Aeris.

She stopped walking suddenly and quickly grabbed Leo by the collar of the shirt. Even though he should have been expecting the aggressive motion, it didn't stop Leo from letting slip a sharp yelp when Aeris pulled his face within only a few centimeters of her own.

"Leo," She growled through clenched teeth and her words were fast. "Tell. Me. Where. The car. Is. NOW."

Leo stared back at Aeris wide-eyed. He could still feel the slight thrill of excitement that he had earlier, but it was quickly being replaced with the fear he should have felt earlier.

…At least the plan was working!

"N-not until you hit me!" Leo tried to make his voice sound as defiant as he could.

"LEO!"

"Come on Aeris, just do it! You've done it enough times that I don't give a shit anymore, so just do it!"

Aeris starred at him with disbelief.

"HIT ME YA CRAZY WOMAN!"

Leo was yelling the words of his sentence, but they contained no aggression. Instead, they were coated with a playful atmosphere that didn't fit the situation at all.

Aeris tightened her grip on Leo's shirt. He didn't care that he was probably going to get a bright shiner across his cheek for being such a smartass. He knew that it had to be done if Aeris was going to feel better. In a way, it kind of made Leo happy.

That happiness all but died when he saw just how far back Aeris pulled back her paw.

Oh fuck! She's gonna knock me out!

It seemed that in an ironic twist of fate, Leo's plan had worked out to well.

Aeris had pulled her paw back a good distance behind her head, and now the limb was hovering tight and solid with the back of it facing directly towards Leo. She was bearing her fangs and her eyes looked madder than they had been in a long time. Now Leo was definitely afraid.

Shit shit SHIT!

"Last chance!" Aeris yelled.

Leo's mouth seemed to be dead, because no words came from it in the short time Aeris gave him to answer.

Leo saw, in what looked like slow motion, the back of Aeris' hand speed towards his face. He knew it was going to hurt like a bitch, so Leo closed his eyes tight and prepared for the inevitable. He knew that it was only for about a fraction of a second as Aeris' hand sped towards the side of his face, but for Leo it felt like hours.

He waited for the burn to rip across his cheek, eyes still clenched shut, but it never came.

What the fuck? Leo slowly opened his eyes, slightly unsure if doing so was very wise, and felt his heart start to race.

Where was the pain? Where was the sound of his cheek and her paw smacking against each other? What was going on?

As Leo fully opened his eyes, he saw it.

Aeris' hand was only a few centimeters from his cheek.

WHAT THE FUCK! DID SHE FREZE OR SOMETHING! Leo wasn't completely sure that what he was seeing was real.

What he heard next only served to further his confusion.

It was the sound of feminine laughing.

Leo's eyes instantly shot wide open and he saw the most shocking thing ever. Aeris was looking down at him and laughing, her paw still just a short distance from his cheek. Leo stared at her with the most confused face he ever wore. He couldn't figure out what was so funny.

As he continued to stare at her with puzzlement, Leo saw Aeris' paw move away slightly, causing him to again prepare for a scorching pain to rip across his face. Instead, it simply tapped the side of his face softly, giving off a small "smack". Aeris laughed again, brought the paw to the opposite cheek, tapped it in the same manner, and then repeated the motion a third time on the original.

If Leo had been confused earlier, his current state of mind had no name. He had made Aeris mad. REALLY MAD. ON PURPOSE. And he wasn't feeling any sort of pain whatsoever. Instead, she was laughing as if he had told her a really good joke, not in the sarcastic tone that she usually used. Leo's unnamable emotion seemed to reflect on his face, because when Aeris opened her eyes to look at him, her laughing grew louder and more intense.

When her laughter died down a bit, Aeris looked back down at Leo, who was still staring at her blankly, and smiled affectionately at him before letting go of his shirt and letting him briefly fall towards the ground before Leo caught himself.

"Will you tell me where you're car is now?" Aeris' smile didn't leave her face as she spoke.

Leo didn't seem to hear her because he continued to stare back at her with both his eyebrows pulled down at an odd angle with his eyes focusing intently on her.

"Hello, earth to Leo. You there?" Aeris snapped her fingers in front of Leo's face a few times in an attempt to snap him out of his apparent trance.

Leo blinked a few times and shook his head quickly from side to side.

"Uh, yeah. Sorry." Leo voice sounded a little dazed, as if he hadn't been fully freed from his trance.

"It's okay." Aeris said reassuringly. "So where's you're car?"

Leo gave Aeris a sarcastic look. "Hmph. You didn't hit me, so I'm not telling." Though still confused beyond belief, Leo's voice was as sarcastic as the expression on his face.

"Well," Aeris began. "You didn't specify exactly how hard I had to hit you to get you to talk, so I guess you're wrong about that." Aeris paused for a moment and cracked a mischievous smile across her furred lips. "As usual."

Leo responded in turn with a heavily sarcastic laugh as he pointed out the direction of the Jeep. As he and Aeris began to walk to where it was parked, Leo tried his best to figure out why Aeris hadn't hurt him. He ran over his mental checklist of things that got under her skin twice before he concluded that he hadn't the slightest idea as to why he was perfectly fine. Wanting an answer to his question, Leo decided that he might as well ask Aeris since he couldn't come up with one on his own.

"Uh, Aeris?"

"Yeah Leo?"

"…Why? Why didn't you knock me senseless back there? Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but it's…not really like you." Leo trailed off with his thoughts, now unsure of what to say.

"Leo, I didn't hurt you… because you didn't deserve it."

Aeris' words surprised Leo greatly. "What do you mean, 'I didn't deserve it'? I would have kicked my own ass back there!"

Aeris giggled quietly at the small joke Leo made. "You didn't deserve it because I know you were just trying to help me cool off a bit." A slight pause. "Right?"

Leo scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, yeah. I didn't like seeing you like that Aeris…"

"Exactly. Even though you were purposefully trying to piss me off, you were doing it for me. THAT'S why I didn't slap you harder Leo, because you were being a good friend." She stopped walking and brought her arms around Leo's torso, hugging him in a similar manner as he did her a few minutes ago. "Thank you."

Leo felt a small amount of heat enter his cheeks. Aeris usually thanked him for doing favors for her, but this was something different entirely. Still, it would be rude, plain and simple, if he didn't do something to show his own gratitude towards her.

"You're welcome," A genuinely thankful smile was on Leo's face as her returned the friendly embrace to Aeris, but after only a few seconds, the authenticity of the smile corrupted into a devilishly sly grin.

"Heh, y'know a smooch would be a nice follow up, eh?"

Leo swore he could feel the air get thicker as Aeris' smile quickly turned into an unamused frown. She quickly pushed him away from her and resumed walking towards the jeep, now at a much faster pace then before.

"Only you could kill a moment like that."

Leo grinned and ran to catch up with Aeris. "I don't know about that, I mean, Ronny's pretty good at that kinda thing."

At the mention of Ronny's name, Leo's face became instantly straight.

What time was it? He pulled out his phone and glanced at the clock on it.

It read 9:45.

He had left the mall at 9:15.

Ronny, Shawn and Ashley were all still waiting for him at the mall.

"Fuck!" Leo shouted. Aeris turned around, probably to scold him for swearing so loud in a public place, but she didn't get a word out before Leo ran forward, grabbed her by the arm, and full on sprinted to the jeep.

"Leo! What the hell?" Being grabbed so suddenly then being dragged forward definitely didn't make Aeris happy.

"Sorry, but I forgot that everyone was still at the mall!" Leo didn't stop running, he just kept moving as fast as he could.

Dammit, everyone's gonna be pissed! I shouldn't have taken so long. Where's the car? Where, where…there!

Leo spotted the brown jeep and quite nearly pulled Aeris off her feet when he dashed towards it. Coming up to the vehicle, Leo let go of Aeris, much to her relief, and more or less threw the door open as he hoped into the driver's seat. Aeris, not in such a rush as Leo, slowly regained her balance and, from Leo's point of view, took her sweet time walking over to the passenger side of the vehicle and hoped in alongside him, all while Leo was frantically telling her to hurry up.

"Holy shit, calm down Leo. I'm sure they don't care that much."

"Aeris, it's quarter to ten. My curfew's ten thirty, and you know how long it takes to drop everyone off."

Leo was right. It usually took a good twenty minutes for him to bring all of his friends home with average traffic. That wasn't counting the time it would take to drive to the mall and find everyone. Then he would have to drive himself and Aeris home, probably arriving somewhere in the vicinity of ten forty-five.

That was too late for Leo.

Aeris, realizing that he would probably wind up breaking his curfew, buckled her seat-belt, got a firm grip on the arms of the seat, took in a deep dramatic breath, and told Leo to step on it. He didn't seem to need telling twice, because in an instant, Leo told her to "hold on tight", and threw the jeep in reverse. Nearly face planting into the dashboard, Aeris quickly regretted her words as she held onto the arms of the chair in preparation for what would be one of the most chaotic drives of her life.

Around seven minutes later, Leo's jeep pulled into the mall's parking lot and quickly found a free space. As if to mimic his vehicle's speedy (and chaotic) movements a few moments earlier, Leo opened his door and rushed out, slamming it shut a fraction of a second later as he pulled out his cell phone. Aeris, on the other hand, simply hobbled out of the passenger door, her eyes wide and the fur on her tail spiking upwards in the air. She would undoubtedly be having nightmares relating to the events of the past ten minutes for days. As she leaned up against the door in an effort to slow her racing heart, Leo paced back and forth as he dialed Ronny's number with an anxious look on his face.

He stopped his pacing as he pressed the phone against his ear, tapping his foot at a rapid rate instead. The phone rang once, twice, a third time as Leo quickly lost what little patients he had to begin with.

"Come on Ron, pick uuuuup…"

Leo began to lose hope for his yellow friend when a click came from the other line.

"And just where have you been young man?"

Ronny hadn't been happy earlier, that much was obvious to Leo and the rest of his friends when he left. But it seemed that in the short time he had been gone, the anger Ronny felt over Aeris' situation seemed to have faded away, being replaced with his sarcastic sense of humor.

"RON! Thank god! Listen I'm sorry for taking so long. Aeris was a little-"

"And you should be." Ronny interrupted. "Have you any idea how worried we were? We were about to send a search party!"

Leo face-palmed. Why oh WHY did he call Ronny?

"Yeah yeah. Listen, I need you guys to come out and meet us at the jeep. We're gonna have to gun it home. I might miss my curfew."

"Hmm I'm not sure we can do you that little favor Leo. You had us terribly worried."

"Ron come on! Quit fuckin around!" Leo wished he had phoned Ashley, or at least gotten Aeris to talk to Ronny. Things would be much easier that way.

"Haha, yeah okay ya freaken spaz. We'll be right out. Which exit?"

Leo breathed out a relived sigh. "Number 8. Please hurry Ron. I really can't be late tonight." He pleaded.

"Heh, you're parents still mad about last time?" Leo told him "yes" in an overly-enthusiastic matter which made his friend laugh before telling Leo that he, Shawn and Ashley would see him in around three minutes time. Leo quickly thanked him and hung up. He stuck his phone back in his pocket, being sure to take a quick glance at the digital clock while doing so. It read 9:53. Despite the late time, Leo held onto the small hope that he would make it on time tonight.

Leo walked back to his car to wait for his friends. Aeris, who had finally managed to bring her heart rate down to a normal level, continued to lean against the passenger door with her arms crossed over her chest. When she saw Leo lean up against the front of the jeep, she gave a quiet scowl and glared over at him.

"You drive like a fucking lunatic."

Leo grinned and snickered. "Sorry, I just really can't afford to be late. My parents will kill me."

Aeris stood up from her lean and stepped over to Leo. She gave him a quizzical look, trying to figure out why he was so worried about being late.

"Why is it such a big deal anyways?" She asked him. "I mean, it's not like you're parents are hard asses, so why all of a sudden is it imperative that you're on time?"

Leo laughed nervously. He could trust Aeris, right? Of course! She wouldn't tell anyone at school…

"Weeeell, last weekend me and the guys decided to…try something different for fun…" As he said this, Aeris face-palmed and groaned in annoyance, not over Leo, but over herself for not knowing Leo would be in trouble for doing something stupid with Shawn and Ronny.

"What did you do?" She asked flatly.

A large troll-smile graced Leo's lips. He brought back the memory with a great fondness.

"You remember how on Monday you were saying that you're dad came home and he was kinda pissed?" Aeris slowly nodded her head yes, apparently oblivious as to where Leo was going with the story.

"Well, long story short, we found an old shopping cart, brought it over to the harbor, went up a hill, and rode it off a dock into the lake."

As Leo concluded the short version of his tale of mischief and teenage stupidity, Aeris buried her face deeper into her paw. He finished by telling her that her dad had been called because an elderly woman had seen what they were doing and called the police. The only reason the trio hadn't been arrested was because her father, Daniel Cole, knew that the three would never steal and instead let them off with a warning.

"But oh MAN, you shoulda seen how pissed Ashley was!" Leo exclaimed, spreading his arms wide to assert the statement. "I've never seen her so mad Aeris! It was crazy! She was all like 'how could you do something so stupid? You could've DIED!'. It's like she was saying we didn't know how to swim."

"Wait, how did Ashley find out?"

"Shawn was a dumbass and told her! Then Ronny got pissed at Shawn, and Ash got pissed at Ronny, then some freaken cranky grampa started yelling at us to shut up! It was just one big crazy mess."

Aeris brought her face out of her paw then, and gave Leo the most disapproving look she could give, shaking her head back and forth all the while.

"I swear, when you three get together, a small piece of hell breaks loose."

Leo laughed loud and unhindered. It was true. Whenever he, Ronny and Shawn had free time on their hands and were temporarily bored of video gaming, they could be found around Toronto causing all sorts of trouble. They never did anything illegal, but that fact didn't keep the police from hounding their every move. Luckily they had an "inside man" in the form of Aeris' father, who was fairly fond of the three boys, often times vouching for them when they were brought into the station or were faced with the possibility of arrest. However, he seemed to getting low on patients when it came to getting them out of trouble, because when he was being called out to Toronto due to the three boys boredom, he called each of their parents and informed them all that while their sons weren't being arrested, the police had been called because of the ruckus they had caused. While the Blues and Shawn's father Mike weren't terribly mad at either of their children, Karen and Leo Leonardo were heavily disappointed in Leo for causing so much trouble for Daniel Cole, issuing him a strict 10:30 curfew that applied to all days of the week with no exceptions.

It didn't bother Leo that much, knowing full well that everything could have gone over much worse had it not been for Mr. Cole. It was the reason that he made a point of always trying to either make it home early or on time, as to not test his parent's patients any further. So far he had been doing a good job, but tonight, if he failed to make it home on time, he couldn't even begin to imagine what sort of punishment he would receive.

"Well, just be lucky that you're parents were cool enough to not completely ground you." Aeris stepped forward and took a position next to Leo on the front of the jeep. "If that had been me," She brought her paw up to her neck and dragged her thumb across it in a straight line. Leo knew what she meant with the gesture, mentally agreeing with her.

A few minutes of silence passed as the two cats waited for their friends to arrive. After anxiously waiting on the front of Leo's jeep, they saw Ronny, Ashley and Shawn walk out the door in front of them and signaled them over to where they were. They waved to them in response and quickly made their way over to the jeep.

"Yo Leo! Aeris! What keptcha, guys?" Shawn ran ahead of the other two cats and jumped in between Leo and Aeris, wrapping both his arms around the shoulders of his two friends in a friendly manner.

Leo couldn't help but smile. He was stressed, but it was nearly impossible not to feel happy whenever Shawn was around. The guy radiated positivity. Aeris responded in the same manner, wrapping her own arm around the top of the black cat.

"Leo felt it necessary to have me hit him." Aeris informed him.

"So didja?" Shawn asked.

"Yeah, but not very hard." Aeris replied with a smirk.

"Whaaat! Come on Aeris! Be mean girl! Smack this bitch around a bit!" Shawn spoke loudly as he brought the arm around Leo back towards him and quickly smacked Leo twice across the face in a similar fashion as Aeris had earlier, only much harder, an audible "smack" coming from his friend's face with each contact made.

"OW! Dick!" Leo hadn't been expecting the twin smacks, and responded in turn by hitting the back of Shawn's head.

Ronny and Ashley now made their way to the jeep, and questioned Leo and Aeris as to why they had took so long in the same manner as Shawn, with them giving the same answers, before Ashley turned to Aeris and gave her a concerned look.

"You okay Aeris? You're not feeling to bad about the date, are you?"

Aeris got a blank look on her face for a split second before she looked over at Leo. She smiled then and turned back to Ashley, telling her that she was fine. She responded in turn with an evil smile.

"Good" was all she said before she opened the door and stepped into the jeep.

"Good? Why good?" Aeris asked, confused.

Ronny grinned wickedly as he stepped past Aeris into the back of the jeep and sat on the opposite side of Ashley.

"We got a plan for revenge tomorrow." He replied, his voice heavy with evil mischief.

Shawn sat between the two cats in the back and brought his arm around Ashley, all the while snickering madly.

"It'll be good." Ronny told Aeris.

She eyed him suspiciously for a second before smiling and taking her seat at the front of the jeep.

"Make sure of that, kay?"

Ronny smiled wide, baring all his fangs in response to Aeris' request and nodded his head. Then shifted a bit in his seat and called out to Leo, still standing outside of the vehicle looking in at his friends.

"Yo Leo! I thought we were in a hurry!"

Leo immediately snapped too and threw himself into the driver's seat, slamming the door behind him. He threw on his seatbelt and started the engine.

"Hang one everyone! It's gonna be a bumpy ride!" He informed his friends.

Aeris' eyes grew wide as she franticly hurried to tie her own seat belt. Everyone else was too slow, and Leo quickly threw the jeep into drive, speeding out of the mall parking lot and heading towards the main highway, ignoring the shout of bewilderment from his friends in the back.

He needed to get home before 10:30.

If he didn't, he was a dead man.

It was going to be one crazy drive…