I LOVE U ALL ANYWAY HERE IS CHAPTER 5

...

"Hey, guys," Leo greeted his friends Monday morning. Homeroom class hadn't started yet, so all the students were mingling before the day could begin. "How was movie night?"

"Fine," Piper said curtly, focusing on Leo's mannerisms to gage whether something suspicious was going on. "I wish you were there. Wasn't the same with just me and Jason." Piper sighed, slouching in her chair awkwardly and fingering the flip phone in her pocket.

"Oh, you two had a movie night? How fun!" Drew popped her head into their conversation. She seemed to materialize out of thin air whenever she felt like it.

Finally, Drew had another personality trait other than complaining.

"Fuck off," Piper shooed off Drew, but she relented and took Leo's seat before he could. Piper, Leo, and Jason collectively sighed. They were starting their Monday morning with a conversation with Drew, whether they wanted to or not.

"Hey!" Leo cried out, trying to force Drew out of his seat. She glared at Leo and shoved him out of the way. He rolled his eyes and plopped himself on Jason's lap instead. Jason didn't even flinch, wrapping his arms around Leo's torso and sighing defeatedly instead. Leo's warmth brought comfort.

Drew raised an eyebrow at their proximity but said nothing. "Oh, sure. How was your 'movie night'? If that's what everyone's calling it now." Drew leaned into Jason desperately, invading his personal bubble tremendously.

"It wasn't like that, Drew." Jason scooted away from her in his chair.

"I should hope not. Not if you still wanna come to the party," Drew said, drawing out the last syllable. "Jason, you're still coming, right?"

"That's the plan," he said stiffly.

"Yeah, all three of us will be attending, Drew," Piper spat. "So butt out now." Piper folded her arms over her midriff.

"Jeez! It's someone's time of the month." Piper opened her mouth to retort but closed it and opted to take a deep breath instead. "Toodles!" Drew waved girlishly, finally removing herself from Leo's seat and going to sit with Dawn.

Piper exhaled. "Okay, we're definitely going to that stupid ass party," Piper smiled, forgetting her suspicions towards Leo at the moment. "It'll piss her off more."

"Fine by me." Leo slumped into his chair and out of Jason's lap, uninterested. As long as he still got to go to the party, he was golden. If Piper needed some weird backhanded justification for attending, so be it.

...

Leo thought about what Nico had said to him last Friday during work that day - thankfully, Mondays were the only day he had a shift without Nico. The guilt was chewing him from the inside-out. Leo tapped a pattern on the counter glumly. Morse code. He wished more than anything to be able to ask his mother for advice. Help me, he tapped out fruitlessly.

Unfortunately, that's not how contacting the dead worked, and Leo was forced to solve his problems by himself. He felt almost like he wanted to make it up to Nico. They didn't have work the following day, so maybe he could think of something to do then. Leo wanted Nico to give him another chance, another chance to relent his hatred of Leo.

Why do I care so much? A question reverberated throughout his head, echoing off the walls and overpowering other passing thoughts.

Leo couldn't answer that question directly, but he could imagine Nico in his mind's eye, skulking off alone and moving through the shadows with the slumpy posture and quick pace of someone who didn't have anyone else to wait for. There was a glint in his eyes, a shine of sadness Leo could pinpoint with ease. He made his decision swiftly.

A plan formed in Leo's head. He smiled, tapping rapidly on the countertop and swiveling in his chair. He wasn't going to be the asshole, not this time. He wasn't just going to run off from his problems; he was going to fucking fix them.

"Excuse me, Tabitha?" A customer.

Leo had gotten used to the fact that his nametag read 'Tabitha.' It was a blessing in disguise- whenever someone reported him to his boss, they would claim 'Tabitha' had done something wrong, not Leo. "Sorry, I'll be right with!" Leo sprang to action, scanning things up, and giving his routine candy sales pitch, thoughts lingering on his plan.

…

Leo clicked his tongue. Okay, step one, find Nico di Angelo…

Leo scanned the parking lot. Nico drove a bog-standard 1992 Toyota Corolla (Leo's brain could keep track of irrelevant details like that). When Nico had given him a ride last Friday, his car was parked in the back, so Leo assumed his parking patterns would be similar. Nico seemed like a routine-y person.

Leo found Nico's car soon, parked casually under a tree. The vehicle itself had nothing fancy going on inside of it, just his Blockbuster uniform in the backseat and an old McDonald's cup in the front. Leo sat on the curb, trying not to look creepy (but probably failing). He didn't have anything to make himself look busy, so he opted to observe his surroundings.

He watched a squirrel clamber up a tree, twiddling his thumbs and bouncing his leg.. Seconds were excruciatingly long- that's ADHD for you. Leo passed the time in any way he could, tapping in morse code and peeling off black nail polish Piper had painted on last week and staring at the passenger door of Nico's car.

After five minutes of painful waiting, Leo saw Nico approach his car (and by extension, Leo).

"Hey, Nico, I wanted to talk to you." Leo kept his voice small. It was his real voice, timid and unguarded and rough. No false confidence or exclamations. Just Leo. Nico noticed his voice inflection change.

"Look, I know you're mad at me, and I know I was a dick. I just don't want it to be that way, man." Nico looked up at Leo. His dark eyes bored into Leo's.

"Okay, if we're gonna work in the same place, I don't want you to hate me. So I'm gonna extend an olive branch or whatever. Do you wanna hang out with me? I know you're not on shift today, so…" Leo's voice trailed off as he awaited Nico's response. Nico's eyes were intimidating in the light, looking pitch black and sharp-looking.

Nico was silent for a second, lips tightening and hands twitching. After a moment, he slowly nodded. "Sure." It looked like the word took some effort to speak. Leo grinned at him slightly forcefully.

"Cool!" His voice was back to his usual boisterousness, something Nico didn't miss. "Can I drive? I have a license," he added, seeing Nico's face contort into concern. Nico tossed his keys over to Leo, who caught them swiftly. He settled into the driver's seat.

"Jeez, you have the seat all the way back here," Leo commented, adjusting the seat to be closer to the wheel.

Nico smirked. "Yeah, because I'm not short."

"Low blow." Leo clicked his tongue. "I didn't want to be born five-foot-six."

Leo was actually pretty good at driving for someone who couldn't afford a car. He pulled out perfectly and followed all basic traffic laws. He even drove better than Nico, who had a speeding problem.

"...Where are we going?" Nico asked, running a hand through his hair. It was too shaggy in the back, making it stick up like little baby bat wings. It was kind of endearing, Leo found himself thinking.

"We're going to get an early dinner, then go to the mall as normal kids would after school," Leo answered, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. His eyes sparkled. He loved cars. A shame Nico probably wouldn't let him work under the hood of this one.

Driving was fun as well and came naturally to him; he could read every component faster than he could read a book. However, a Goodwill skateboard was cheaper than a car, so Leo made do. Still, he wished he could drive more often. It was relaxing to him, coasting along the road.

When he got into a relationship, he'd go on road trips all the time. Leo found himself daydreaming about having someone else in the passenger seat, someone he could fight over the radio with or protect with his arm when they made a particularly sharp turn.

"So you're apologizing to me by using up all my gas," Nico finally replied after a beat, staring out the window. "Fun."

Unfortunately, Leo was stuck with a grumpy coworker, not a smoking hot significant other. Leo was sure that if he tried to protect Nico during a sharp turn, Nico would throw himself out the window out of pure spite.

"I was gonna fill it up on the way home, anyway." Nico's sarcasm didn't phase Leo. It proved Nico sort of had a sense of humor, anyway, and that was comforting.

They drove in silence for a while, Leo getting lost in the act of driving. He considered controlling the radio, but it would likely just lead to a fight (and not like the romanticized play-fighting in his daydreams). The rumble of the road kept him entertained well enough.

Surprisingly, Nico was the one to break the silence. "Can we stop off at Burger King? 'M hungry," he mumbled his words like he was afraid of being judged for eating.

"Oh shit, same." He hummed to the song the radio played. "Hey, what language did you take? French or Spanish?"

"...I'm in AP German," he answered, not knowing where Leo was going with that. Leo liked to bounce from topic-to-topic faster than Nico could keep up.

Leo whistled. "Wow. I'm in French 2, and it's kicking my ass. Ergo, why I got a thirteen on the last test." He chuckled like he was proud of himself for it. "I'm fluent in Spanish, but I wanted to try something new. Stupid."

Nico laughed - he actually laughed at Leo's joke! Leo's felt the corners of his mouth go up, his grin so hard it made his cheeks hurt. Nico's laugh was the night-time wind and high tide and clicking pens. It was so unexpected, but something about it made Leo wish it could last forever.

Leo liked making Nico laugh. The sound felt foreign coming out of Nico's mouth, almost inexperienced, like Nico never laughed enough to practice it. "Thirteen? Jesus Christ," Nico said. His laughter died, but there was still a little smile on his face, a ghost of his previous amusement.

"Hey, it's not my fault. It's Mr. Smith's fault. He's jealous of me for having an interesting last name." Nico laughed again, in that same tentatively, breathy way.

The air around them cleared up a little bit, and the ride to Burger King was a little bit more tolerable than it had been before.

…

"Here's your food, guys." A cinnamon-haired employee set down their tray. He and Nico had decided to split the cost of the food. Not like it was a lot, being a mere burger joint and not a candlelit dinner.

"Thanks...Calypso." Leo read off from her badge stiltedly.

"It's Callie. Enjoy your food!" She beamed and walked away from the pair.

Nico wordlessly bit into his burger, Leo following suit. Nico took small, bird-like bites. Poised and careful and too on-edge, even when eating. "So...enjoying your Burger King?" Leo didn't know what to say. It was easy to keep up a conversation with Jason and Piper, but that was because he knew them inside-out. Leo wasn't great with people.

His information on People was formulaic: he'd make a joke, which would make them laugh, which would make them friendly towards him: cause and effect. When the result didn't match his formula, Leo would abandon the mess he made. He'd pack up and run, metaphorically or physically.

"Yeah." Nico's simple response grounded Leo back to reality.

"Why did you get a kid's meal, anyway?" Leo asked, eyeing his small portions. Nico's eyes flickered away, the tips of his ears turning noticeably pink, a tulip among a forest of black curls.

He was quick to defend himself. "No reason." Leo thought for a minute and grinned.

"You wanted the sick Burger King toy, right?" Nico glared at Leo, who snagged Nico's bag and pulled out the toy. Leo ripped open the plastic hastily.

"Hey!" Nico blurted, making a grab to snatch it back. Leo held it up in the air, but Nico's six-foot self was able to grab it back with ease. "That's mine."

"Sorry, jeez. I didn't think you would care about the Pokemon toy," Leo scoffed, taking a sip of his milkshake. Nico's blush had spread to his cheeks, a beautifully bloomed field of tulips.

"I don't. It's just a stupid Cubone, anyway," Nico said, but he still put the keychain on his lanyard. "Motherfucker only has a base 90 attack stat." Leo snickered.

"It's okay to like Pokemon," Leo said.

"I don't like Pokemon," Nico insisted, hiding his rosy face with a napkin.

"Oh yeah? Then how come you could identify that it was a Cubone? That's a pretty unpopular one," Leo pointed out. "And I don't think non-Pokemon fans can tell you the base attack stat of an unpopular Pokemon, Nico." He gave Nico a Look, like 'c'mon, man.'

Nico sighed defeatedly. "Okay, fine. But don't tell anyone, or I'll tell Sarah you keep eating candy on the job." Leo gasped.

"You knew?"

Nico smirked, biting into his cheeseburger. "Yeah. You suck at being secretive."

"Oh, whatever, Pokemon boy," Leo waved off. "And for your information, Pokemon is badass as fuck. As I said, it's okay to like it."

To prove his point, Leo rooted around in his pockets and produced a battered blue Gameboy pocket. He ejected his copy of Pokemon Red and waved it in Nico's face for emphasis. "See? Even bad boys like me play Pokemon."

Nico snorted, but he smiled upon seeing Leo's Gameboy. "Bad boy," he parroted. "Sure." Reluctantly, Nico took out his own clear purple Gameboy Color. Leo whistled.

"Fancy! I found mine on the bus at the end of my freshman year," Leo admitted. "I had to buy the game myself. But I haven't beat it yet."

"Seriously," Nico said. "You need to!"

Leo put up his hands defensively. "Okay, okay, but I'm too lazy to train up my team. I keep on dying to my rival's overpowered team."

Nico nodded sympathetically. "His Pokemon are on steroids."

"What? Unfair." Leo shook his head. "I guess I could evolve Kadabra, but I don't know how. I trained it up, but it won't evolve."

"You need to trade it, dumbass!" Leo almost found it funny that Nico was schooling him in Pokemon. He wasn't nearly as passionate when he was training Leo up for a Blockbuster position. "Do you have a link cable?"

"No, but we can get one… Are you done eating?" Nico nodded. "Then let's head to the mall!"

…

"Do you think the rumors about Pokemon 2 are true?" Nico asked as Leo admired the different colors of Gameboys that were on display. Leo hummed.

"Probably. I mean, there was that rainbow bird in the first episode of the anime," Leo mused. Nico nodded, picking up a link cable. He looked much smaller when he was surrounded with Pokemon merchandise, a grin on his face as he looked at the different Pokemon-related items.

It was almost comedic. Nico looked scary most of the time, with that shaggy black hair and those intense eyes. But he was also just a teenager, just like Leo. It was easy to forget that.

"Oh, yeah. There are so many theories on it. There's this thing called 'Pikablu' that might be in the new games. It's hella cute. And some others look fake and some that are super convincing."

"That's sick. I can't wait until the release of the game," Leo said. "Let's check-out, then we can trade our Pokemon, and after that, we can go to Toys 'R Us and maybe buy something."

Nico watched Leo's face contort into a small, genuine smile. It was soft and subtle and so unlike the nervous grins that he would give after delivering a punchline. Leo looked so vulnerable, so happy. Nico liked seeing Leo happy.

...

They headed into the Toys 'R Us after trading their 'Mons. Stares followed them as they walked into the toy store together. People did a double-take when they saw Nico's six-foot, emo-looking ass walking into a toy store with Leo's short, energetic self.

Pokemon was front and center. Since Pokemon was a worldwide phenomenon, stores were trying to make as much money off of it as they could before the craze died down. "What's your favorite Pokemon?" Leo asked, running his hand through the fluff of a Pikachu plush. "Mine's Charmander."

"Well, I really like Dratini, but Sandshrew and Gengar are also so cool. But then, Nidoking is way stronger than the others, so -" Nico stopped himself mid-sentence.

"Sorry, I know I'm talking too much about stupid things." Nico had never had anyone to share his Pokemon experience with, so he was dumping information on Leo and was likely annoying him in the process.

Leo shook his head. "Don't be afraid to talk about things you like. I like you more when you aren't brooding."

"I don't brood," Nico grumbled, his expression looking suspiciously brood-y.

"You do. A lot," Leo teased.

"Well, I like you more when you aren't hiding behind dumb jokes and fake laughs, Leo." Leo's jaw dropped. You could see his soul physically leave his body.

Nico was observant.

"Whoa." Leo's breath caught. "You didn't have to come for my entire existence, Neeks."

He laughed. "Someone had to do it." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I think my favorite is actually Clefairy." Leo clicked his tongue.

"I would have thought it would've been something spooky. Like you," Leo added, picking up a Charmander plush and choosing to buy it.

"Oh, whatever," Nico said. "At least I didn't name my Kadabra 'Pigpen'. What kind of a name is that?" He held up a Clefairy plush and smiled at the details.

"Hey, I didn't name my Machoke 'Ares,' like a nerd," Leo shot back playfully.

"It's an iconic name," Nico protested Leo tossed a Squirtle plush at Nico. Nico glared back, throwing a Bulbasaur at Leo.

"Oh," Leo laughed. "It's on now." He launched an Abra at Nico, beaning the side of his head. Soon, they dissolved into laughter, lobbing plush after plush at each other.

"Give it up, Leo!" Nico said, tossing two Magikarps with one hand. "Oof," he said, doubling over when Leo threw a Geodude into his stomach. He tossed back another plushie. Leo stepped forward, slipping on an Ekans.

"Shit," he laughed, pulling on Nico's ankle and knocking Nico on his ass.

Laughter rang out, Nico's breathy chuckles mixing with Leo's boisterous guffaws. "Excuse me, sirs," an employee said, clearing his throat. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Nico got to his feet immediately, slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry," he said, but he was still grinning. Leo stood up, pulling Nico out of the store by the forearm.

Leo stared at Nico, looking at his right dimple. Nico looked up, noticing Leo's stare. "Let's go home now?"

"Yeah, home," Leo said, short of breath.

…

"Well, that was a fruitful trip," Leo laughed as they finished being escorted out of the mall.

"I'll say. Too bad we couldn't buy anything," Nico said, fiddling with the belt loops on his jeans.

"Who said we had to buy anything?" Leo pulled a Clefairy and a Charmander plush out of his pockets with a toothy grin.

Nico's jaw dropped. "Oh my god...Thanks," he said shortly, grabbing the Clefairy and smiling.

"No problem. So," Leo began as they entered Nico's car. "Still hate me?"

Nico shook his hand. "Ehhh, it's fifty-fifty?"

"I'll take it!"

...

i PROMISE this is the last of the Short Chapters... every chapter after this will be at least 4k ish i promise but things ar at first!

thank you guys so fucking much for the support. seriously. fridays are ALSO the highlights of my weeks just because i love replying to comments, online school sucks ass but these r the best parts of my week. even if you've just CLICKED on this, thank you, it really means so much :)

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