The next few hours seemed both fleeting and an eternity to Brody. He and Leo slipped in and out of sleep as they lay entwined in blankets and each other. For a time, Brody watched Leo sleep, long eyelashes brushing the angel's pink-flushed cheeks, looking heartbreakingly innocent as he breathed deeply and slowly. Brody curled up against the angel's smooth chest; slept, and was awoken some time later by Leo stroking his hair. They dozed again, and came to groggily, holding each other close. For Brody it felt even sweeter for the knowledge that it couldn't last. He wanted to spend a lifetime here in the angel's arms. He tried to memorise every detail so that he would always remember what it felt like to be truly happy and at peace.
*
Brody's apartment, the early hours of the morning. Both men had cleaned themselves up as best they could, although they could do nothing about the possessive marks they had left on each other, as if to brand the other man as their own. They stood sadly in the bedroom, weighed down by their reluctant return to real life. They didn't speak. Brody stared at the floor.
Then Leo reached out and took his hand, caught his eye. Gave that same goofy, vulnerable grin. And it was enough. Brody smiled back; they embraced, and then Leo orbed out.
*
Several days later, Brody and Paige were walking up the stairs to Brody's apartment. It was late evening, and Paige was a little tipsy.
"It was real nice of Piper and Leo to have us over tonight wasn't it?" she said, slurring her words slightly.
Brody gave a noncommittal "Mmm" and carried on walking.
"Yeah, I was talking to her in the kitchen after dinner, and she was saying how she didn't know what I'd said to you to make you get over that whole Avatar thing, but that whatever it was it must have been good. She said you seemed like a different man recently. And you're getting on so well with Leo."
Brody tried to concentrate hard on finding his keys and unlocking his front door. He turned his head away from Paige so that she couldn't see his burning cheeks.
"And what else did she say?" an oblivious Paige continued.
"Oh yeah. She said she was glad that the two of you had finally decided to play nice. Isn't that funny?"
But Brody had stopped listening. He was thinking about Leo stroking his leg under the dinner table. He was thinking about their secret, stolen glances, which were so intense that he felt as though he were staring into the other man's soul. And he was thinking about the sweet promise held within the one flushed and giddy kiss they had risked while the sisters giggled in another room. The promise to meet soon, and to play, certainly, but although many powerful urges and emotions rose up in him at the thought of this, the one word that could never do justice to any of them was "nice".