heartless || leo & spencer

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

leo pierce.

Spencer is easy. Well, that much was obvious but I don't mean it in the way he chases pleasure like he's a junkie three weeks past his last fix. He's the path of least resistance, there's no danger of complications when we're both dead weight during free fall. Accelerating in anticipation of impact and I've always wondered how rock bottom will feel. I don't think I've ever loved and he recoils at the mere thought of it.

So he's easy. I don't have to worry about what happens if we end because neither of us care enough to get there.

Sure I care about him, maybe - sometimes? If only because he takes up space; gives me a place to put my hands and an excuse not to think.

Small talk kills. It wastes time and tongues, both of which should be put to better use. He knocks at the door and I think I breathed a greeting somewhere in between kisses, too preoccupied with slipping hands under shirt hems to take note. There's no time to kick the door shut before I've backed him against the wall, not hard enough to leave him winded because I'm not an asshole.

I don't mind bruises and broken skin but only if they ask nicely.

It's always frantic, like we're doing something wrong and if we stop for a second we'll finally realize that. My shirt's halfway over my head before it hits me. The acrid scent of the smoke that's currently seeping through a gap in the ceiling and-

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Lower than a growl, irritable as I run my hand over my face and take a few too many steps away. "I'm going to kill them." The elderly couple that lives above me have had it coming, anyway.

"it's friendly fire and sunlight"

♪

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

SPENCER
SALEM

It was always just... simple. Spencer running to catch up with Leo in the hallway and mumbling a quick, "You busy later?" and if he was busy, he found someone who wasn't. If he wasn't busy, he made sure to stop off at a convenience store bathroom on his way over to brush his teeth. And there was no thought to it, like breathing, or scratching an itch.

He smiled against Leo's lips. It was always simple, but it was also always passionate. About as close to romantic intimacy as he could handle, caught breaths and bitten lips and fistfuls of cheap bedsheets. Leo pushed him against the wall and instinct took over. Routine found within the primal. He pushed the both of them onto Leo's bed as he began to undo his belt and-

He hesitated, hand on Leo's chest to keep him on his back while he pulled away.

"Is something burning?"

Recognition flooded the other boy, and Spencer followed his gaze to the open, uncovered window, where he could just see smoke from the floor above them. Nothing too bad: he guessed from the stench that it was food left on the stove too long. Just as Leo stood and began speaking, a fire alarm pierced through the air, loud enough to make Spencer flinch and loud enough to completely kill the mood.

"Fuck. We gotta evacuate?"

A brief moment passed where Spencer considered doing something stupid, like grabbing for Leo's hand, or wiping a strand of hair from his forehead but, instead, he busied his hands with undoing all their hard work and putting the clothes he'd shed back on.

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

leo pierce.

I'm still half caught in a daze as I roll onto my side and watch Spencer get dressed. Finding myself just a bit spellbound, safe through the haze of thickening smoke to appreciate the way he moves. I don't think about him often, there's a reason for that.

Cause it's not until I'm choking on the fumes of a failed dinner that I overcome the urge to pull him back to bed and ask if he'd like to burn down with me.

"No shit we gotta evacuate," I lean into irritability because it's safer, busy scrubbing off the traces of him with a fresh shirt and fingers pulled through tangled hair. I've got rules, lines I can't cross 'cause I'm pretty sure that's all that's keeping me alive.

No strings cause those tangle into nooses and I hang myself on one of the only good things I've ever had.

So we're done here. We're together until it's inconvenient and geriatric incompetence sure is inconvenient. I'll tell him to get lost and he'll find another bed to warm. Maybe I'll go on a bender and start a bar fight or two. It's fun playing nice, but Spencer's probably the only one I don't bother pretending for. He'll come back anyway. He always does.

But I look over my shoulder at him and I realize I can't stand the thought of watching him go. Not today.

I don't think on it. What's one broken rule between friends?

Our hands are too close walking side-by-side so I shove mine into my pocket, gently pushing him in front of me and into the hall among a few other disgruntled tenants. I lean in as we follow the hall, until my lips rest right beside his ear "So my place is a bust, your turn to suggest a venue."

"it's friendly fire and sunlight"

♪

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

SPENCER
SALEM

He was going to be honest, hearing that question from Leo was, if only a bit, off-putting. He was usually so quick to abandon hope after the slightest inconvenience. He couldn't be sure, but Spencer thought he remembered a time when Leo had climbed out the bathroom window at school and walked all the way home to avoid taking a biology test. It wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. Leo knew what he wanted and had no idea what he was capable of if he ever set his mind to getting it.

Spencer wouldn't have ever, even possibly, been one of the things he wanted. And Spencer was selfish when it came to this. To release. No one did it better and in some weird, twisted, fucked up way, Spencer knew that something bigger than this lurked beneath the surface. That would sink further and further until it drowned if Leo wasn't so damn lazy, so, yeah. It made him a bad person, but Spencer reveled in the flaws of his friends because he couldn't shake the idea that their flaws were the only reason they tolerated being near him.

"Depends," he said, biting his bottom lip and leaning almost close enough to kiss the other boy, "How willing to be arrested for indecent exposure are you?"

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

leo pierce.

I'm fearless, I tell myself, hoping Spencer's too close to see my expression soften before I kiss him. Mid-step, mid-breath, reminding myself of Greer as I collapse beneath the weight of how much I wanted this. It's all about proving a point. I know well the bitter taste of a lie, but I pretend to believe them because it's an easier alternative.

It's all about easy. I call them my friends because they don't mind being kept at arm's length. I drag them down with me and in exchange they get free booze and a safe place to sleep. I don't care. About how my fingers play with the hair on the nape of his neck, pulling him closer because it's all about the performance.

I've never had a way with words. Must get it from my dad because I don't think he's ever said one thing to me.

There's one of those toxic thoughts, sneaking in alongside the neon lights that always flash behind my eyes when Spencer comes over. I actually wince when I pull away, the last of my common sense screaming at me to run. I think I almost do.

"That's how willing." And then I keep walking, setting a pace that's just a little too quick. We step outside, the sunlight aggravating a hangover I didn't know I was nursing. Being alone with him outside four walls feels so wrong that I almost wonder if this was some kind of test. Maybe I've walked myself onto a ledge just to give Spencer an excuse to bail instead.

I'd probably deserve that.

"it's friendly fire and sunlight"

♪

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

SPENCER
SALEM

He could feel the exact moment things stopped being black and white and ventured off into some gray area, Leo's fingers in his hair and the smell of his minty gum outweighing even the smoke and the desperation of the situation. The moment where this, potentially, became something more than it was. Changed. Spencer Salem was terrified of any change he didn't consciously choose for himself.

He recoiled to the door, opening it without breaking his line of sight with Leo, as if looking away might reveal that there was some fragment of his busted-ass moral compass telling him that he wanted it. But uncertainty lies in the jump of the thing, not in the moments before, when you're standing in a high place and craving the feeling of the butterflies in your stomach. Jumping always meant one of two things: flying, or crashing.

He didn't feel particularly light yet, so he let his eyes say what his mouth couldn't, unsaid apology, before nodding to the door.

"I know a spot."

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

leo pierce.

There's rocks between my teeth, clenched so hard my jaw's begun to ache. I'm starting to crave oblivion, split lips and rotten iron running down my throat. Pain is grounding when my head starts spinning, losing itself in the stormfront I've been running from since I moved into my apartment.

He's supposed to make it better. The bits of color that bleed into grayscale, reprieve only when I want it. When I need to forget that things are real, I feel his lips on my skin and sink into a storybook.

But now there's a headache building behind my eyes the longer I look at him and I can't shake the feeling something is about to go terribly wrong. What's that saying? When there's smoke, there's fire.

We both saw the smoke.

I can't do this, can't trust him. Sometimes I worry I've given him too much of me and I've got to steal it back with a stranger from a bar whose name I don't have to know. Tomorrow is going to be one of those nights.

"Cool." Talking's like pulling teeth, walking next to Spencer in spite of my better judgement. "Today's just-" My head falls back onto my shoulders, searching the sky for answers I don't have, "A one time thing. Nothing better to do right?"

"it's friendly fire and sunlight"

♪

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

SPENCER
SALEM

"Fuck, I hope not," he smirked, leaning his head up so that the sunlight could catch it, "The wrestling mats they store in the auditorium are pretty soft."

He opened his eyes and found Leo's. He winked.

He was already walking toward the park that marked the halfway point between his own house and Greer's. Park was a generous word for it, though. It was little more than a couple acres of petrified trees, some rocky walking paths, and a few convenient hiding spaces.

He remembered telling Ripley that he went cruising there sometimes and she'd squinted a quick, that's a cruising spot? and he had smiled and said, is when I'm there.

"Unless you're scared of getting caught by Mrs. Sutton."

Something about walking around with Leo in a not-platonic way felt strange. Scary, but also strangely exhilarating. As they joined the crowd, all eyes peering up at the smoke billowing out of the window, they were no one. He felt like he was free to do all the things he was afraid of: wrap his arms around Leo's waist, whisper in his ear, cup his cheeks and tell him he'd always thought his eyes were so beautiful and so full of sadness. But he didn't.

"They got this," he said, "Let's go."

[maverick hale 🌧️ d5 [nyte]]

leo pierce.

Fuck, I hope not. He says it like it's the most natural thing in the world. Wind presses down on me from all sides, smelling of earth and something sweeter. I'm choking, trapped, trying to avoid his gaze but it still finds me and that stupid wink has me shuffling my feet to keep my balance. So I sneer at him in response and clear my throat to keep from saying whatever words lodged themselves there.

"Guess I kind of assumed you wouldn't wanna be seen with me." It's different when we're all together. A group of shitty teenagers raising hell isn't... whatever this is. Alone but not, walking too close together to be mistaken for friendly. Wandering eyes make assumptions and there's enough wagging tongues as is.

It sounds stupid when I say it out loud, like either of us have reputations to uphold. "I wouldn't want to be seen with me." I laugh to make it a joke because that's easier. I think I'm about to sling an arm around his shoulder so I clasp my fingers behind my neck, glaring up at the smoldering apartment for just a second longer.

It's all their fault things turned out like this, if you think about it.

"That sounds a lot like a fucking challenge, Spence." These are our streets, after all, I might not know exactly where we're going but the threat of danger is anything but a deterrent. "Or are you the one who's worried we'll get caught?"

"it's friendly fire and sunlight"

♪