Disclaimer: Nothing's mine, but you already know it.
A/N: Hello, dear Readers, if there are any of you left. I regret to inform you that this is not a new update of ItRoC. The good news is that it isn't a note about me abandoning this story, either. ;) This is a small New Year's gift (?) from me for your hungry Leyna souls, as I know I have been making you wait too long, but there is nothing I can do about it. I haven't had much time to give my all to writing, nor have I had the appropriate mood for a fanfic as bright and light-hearted as I consider this one to be. And it would be unforgivable to push myself just to add something completely bullshit to my precious child of writing. I will try my best to find the right flow again and finish the part of the actual chapter 15 I have yet started to give birth to. For now, please enjoy a few snippets I have written in hopes they would cure my writer's block and/or just on basic human whims. Enjoy! :)
[whims]
(09.10.2016)
"Would you come to my funeral?"
The question is so random and so out of place that she freezes for a second, taking an unexpected break from trashing the soft locks of his hair, halting the slow, inconsiderate pace of her fingers on his scalp. Reyna doesn't realize it, but she is frowning ever so slightly, however still more bewildered than worried for her best friend in a form of a very relaxed young Mexican American laying by her side on the couch, his head stubborn in its placing in the comfort of her lap. His big, shiny eyes search her face from below, and by now she has learnt perfectly well to tell if he is joking or not.
"Where did that one come from?" she answers in a form of a question, and he only shrugs clumsily, as skillfully as the current position of his only allows. The room is bright and warm, cheerful rays of Californian sun playing with the glass bells on the wall across from them and in the metal skin of two automaton dogs napping on the carpet. She has no idea why he insists on asking such a serious question on a lazy Saturday afternoon like today.
"I dunno, really…" Leo mutters, reaching for the tip of her messy braid and twisting one streak of hair quickly between his fingers, "I was just wondering that if I died today, would there be anybody mourning for me..?" he trails off, and though she doesn't ever break their eye contact, she can see that his sight has gone somewhere a lot more distant than the world of theirs, who knows if in the direction of future or maybe past...
The soft caress of her hand on his cheek brings him back to her, and she is given a shy look of surprise to which she only smiles.
"Of course I would go, how could I not?" Reyna assures him, settling for a more grave look just a moment later to playfully scold, "I would go there and curse the Hades out of you for dying and leaving me like that, then I would cry just a bit to smear your cheap funeral makeup before punching your unthankful, smirking face into the fire!"
Leo laughs and it makes her heart swell with warmth.
"But you'd have to admit, I'd be the sexiest corpse you've seen!" he teases, making her scoff and shake her head in mock offence. She is so not going to let him come on top this time!
(25.11.2016)
They have crashed down on her couch and Reyna is munching on the jellybeans he brought her in a form of a visit gift or a bribe, he can never be sure with the Roman queen – or rather, Leo can't always simply assume she has as much patience left after a harsh day to deal with his ridiculousness as well, on top of it all.
"You know," she starts after a longer pause of a thought, "It really is so easy to fake a smile for me… Check it out." Getting back to ideal posture seems effortless and the spotless mask he has learnt to look through is on her face again, as if she has never even taken it off – not many would be able to as much as sense that there was anything insincere about those regal features smoothed out in a friendly, approachable invitation. Reyna is beautiful and composed, the exact perfection her beloved Legion needs.
Leo likes her most when the facade cracks. He fears he is beginning to fall for the human.
Any effort he could try means nothing - he can't possibly stop himself from flying right into the flame.
"Do you…" his mouth opens on its own, before he can think of what he has been craving to say for so long. He is not ready. Reyna has heard him and is waiting for the question that cannot pass his throat and get out. Not yet. He has to think of something else. "Do you always fake it when you smile..?"
Her eyes don't leave his and for a moment, it almost feels like she has read through the lie. Then she looks away like it all never happened, folding her hands in her lap and staring away into the rain dribbling its silent melody on the living room windows. She is confused, trying to quickly come up with wise strategy.
Leo watches her lips part slightly and he knows she is hesitating to say the words, but they come anyway, "Not when I'm with you…"
And he is more than painfully aware that he shouldn't, that this could be the end of everything and it would be his fault again, and his only. He leans in and grabs her lips with his nevertheless, awkward but passionate in case it were to be the first and the last time, and he is the most sincere he has ever been in his entire life.
Reyna pulls him close in response and Leo can tell that she is, too.
(18.12.2016)
When they had first met, he had been nothing but that one thing to her – dangerous. The one that had launched vicious fire upon her beloved city, the traitor of peace craving to burn the only place she had ever loved to ashes. Even after the real culprit had come into light, it took Reyna long enough to get rid of that unjust prejudice against him and start really treating
the Greek troublemaker like an ally he actually was.
First, she learned everything about his genius creations and grew to respect his intelligence and the skills of his hands, fine combination of a clever mind and raw physical struggle that could, really, make something out of anything everybody would have long rejected. Along with that, it didn't escape her attention just how stubborn that scrawny young man was in never giving up on his goal – were it repairing her running tap or saving an immortal goddess from her miserable banishment.
(It was one of the reasons he had fought so hard to make her stay, even when it had already been obvious that wounds as deep could only lead for the two of them to die and vanish…)
Slowly, she was also beginning to look into the one thing he had never been all too eager to show – the depths of that pure heart made of scratched steel. There, Reyna discovered
a selfless, honorable human who loved his friends more than his own dear life, all hidden behind that mask of his, every silly joke he made and the seeming complete disregard for any reasonable rules, which both had almost driven her insane a few times.
By the time it took her to sense the real threat, she had started to get to know about his weaknesses, the demons that haunted his soul. It made it so much easier to be drawn right into the flame that grew so much stronger in her eyes when she knew how much it took him to keep it warm…
Before she knew it, she was long lost again, making the one mistake she had promised herself not to ever repeat. Only this time, it terrified her so much how the thought of fulfilled prophecy deprived her of breath, waking her up at night in tears and cold sweat.
Everything inside of her screamed to run away right away, rip herself off the misery before it devoured her whole, leaving not even a single limb left to bleed when she finally forced herself to do it. At the same time, there was not a part of herself that wouldn't grab greedily onto his shoulders, his back, when Leo reached out for her face in the dark and started kissing her mouth, all of a sudden.
She had learnt once again just how great of a danger that demigod was. With the last bits of reason, she tried to push him off her, but her arms, the tough, strong weapons of a Roman soldier, had never been as weak. His own arm wrapped itself gently around her waist while his forehead rested on hers. He was breathing heavily but Reyna didn't quite know if it were because of the thick air in the room or was he really in the similar state of panic as she was right in that one moment.
Leo opened his eyes and they were boring into her eyes, helpless and pleading.
"Nemo potest persõnam diu ferre…"the words escaped his parted lips in a whisper before he pressed them against her own once again, vulnerable and sweet.
From author:
There you go, I hope I have made at least one smile come onto somebody's face. That'd be so nice. :)
Which one did you like best and why? Maybe you hated them all, that could be the case, too? Hearing from you makes me, as well as every other fanfiction writer, double the motivated to stay on track and work their hardest!
