Chapter Text
i
Leo loved Piper and Jason a lot more than he loved himself. They were his bestest friends in the entire world, and they were absolutely inseparable. You couldn’t go too far looking for one and not find the others.
Leo = Piper = Jason. Leo + Piper + Jason. It’s just that simple.
Leo loved Piper like a sister. Who was he without her? They were like twins joined at the hip as soon as they were born. There was nothing that could separate them, there was nothing that could keep them from being apart.
Leo loved Jason. Jason. Jason. Jason. Jason. Jason with his stupid blue eyes, tiny lip scar, dumb blond hair. Leo and Jason were the best bros ever, though. And Leo was okay with that. Totally okay with that.
They were absolutely inseparable. Three peas in a pod. Three sardines in a can. Three was absolutely not a crowd.
And then Jason had stayed up all night and was in a three-hour call about how he and Piper had the most romantic of all kisses up on the roof of the school.
Leo’s fingers curl up into a fist, pulling his blanket into a bunched up mess. His breathing slows, and his heart does a million acrobatic flips. He hadn’t known his heart could do that, but it can. It's not pleasant.
“So then what happens, dude?” He asks.
Jason sighs on the other side of the phone. “Well, you know how there was a full moon? Everything was perfect and when Piper was cold, we cuddled.”
Leo pretends he cares because that what he’s supposed to do as a best friend. “And this was all after the most amazing make-out of the century?”
“I mean,” Jason sighs again in that sick, lovingly way. Leo get it- he feels sick too. “It was pretty sweet. You know what I’m saying?”
No. Leo has never kissed anyone. Or at least romantically.
“Yeah. Totally.”
Jason shuffles around, and he grunts. “Piper’s a really good kisser.”
Leo’s fingernails rip through his blanket like it's nothing. “Gross. You do remember you’re talking to her protective best friend here.”
“Heh,” Jason swallows. “But she’s really good. What if I’m not good enough?”
“I think you’re probably good.” Leo rolls over on his bed until he’s on his back and staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. He can feel tiny butterflies flitting around painfully inside of him. His throat constricts. “Any kiss with the Jason Grace is probably great, Jay. No homo and whatever.”
He wonders if he doesn’t say the right thing because Jason doesn’t respond. Leo has to stare at the phone because he’s not sure whether the blond had hung up on him. He hadn’t.
A few minutes of silence and Leo’s panicked heartbeats, and then Jason’s voice comes crackling back.
“Sorry, what was that? I had to put my books away.” Jason sounds honest enough.
Leo swallows the gigantic lump in his throat. Laughing, he assures the guy: “It’s nothing. Just hope that now you and Pipes won’t be kissing up a storm whenever I’m around.”
Jason laughs too. “I think I’m too freaked to even see her again. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to do that?”
No. No No. No. Nonono-
“How long?” Leo bites his knuckle. He’s known Jason first, a total of seven years now. He only introduced Piper to the blond a few years ago, maybe five? six? Either way, Leo was first.
“Bro, for the longest?” Jason sounds so tired. “Maybe since I first laid eyes on her. I think even when I was twelve I liked her.”
“Ow, fuck-” Leo winces as he pulls his hand from his mouth, a thin trail of pink-tinted saliva dripping. He hadn’t meant to bite so hard, but now that he’s done it, he doesn’t mind the sting.
“Are you okay? Leo?”
“That’s great, Jay.” Leo dismisses him. “I hope you and Piper get it going.”
Jason sighs. “Yeah, me too.” Jason hesitates, and Leo waits. “... Um. Leo.”
“What?”
“Is this weird for you?” Jason sounds nervous. Good. “Because if you like Piper, than I'll back off-”
“Man, shut up,” Leo groans. “This is very not weird. The opposite of weird. Totally not fucked up at all. I definitely won't cry about this tonight.”
“... Dude.”
“Kidding, Jason. I'm the jokes guy.” Leo bites his knuckle again, unsure if that was the right thing. When Jason doesn't say anything, he sighs, because of course, this was now on him. “Piper's been like, crushing over your skinny ass for years, Jay. I'm happy for y'all. Seriously. But already sick of talking about this now, so I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”
“You always have a way of words. See you, man.”
He literally never wants to see Jason ever again.
The light on his phone flickers off, and he screams into his pillow. He doesn’t want to scream too loud, because he knows the walls are thick but not exactly soundproof, and Nyssa is sleeping next door. It feels pretty stupid anyway, so he rolls over and stares at the ceiling.
Piper. PiperPiperPiperPiperPiperPiper.
He jumps from his window, ignoring the brisk wind, and runs across the yard. He wishes that he and Piper weren’t neighbors so he would have more time to think about what he’s doing. Piper’s light is on, but her window is shut.
Leo throws a rock at her window, and the next thing he knows he had climbed the tree and is sitting on her bed. Piper’s hair is wrapped up in a towel because she just took a shower, and her laptop is playing some Disney movie that Leo doesn’t care about.
“No fucking way. I heard you and Jason did the nasty. You're so sick.” Leo finds himself saying. Piper rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are flushed pink.
“As if. We only kissed.” Her cheeks darken even more, and her fingers drift up to touch her lips as if re-imagining the feeling. “But it was good.”
“Like, totes, give me all the details, girl.” Leo gives his most valliest of valley girl speak, but it only sounds half-hearted to his own ears. Piper doesn’t notice or doesn’t bring it up.
“Well,” Piper fiddles with a string on her flannel pajamas, “Jason’s really good. Maybe even a bit too good? Can you be too good at kissing?”
“Don’t ask me.” Leo crosses his legs, Indian style. “The only make-outs I participate in are in my dreams, lady.” His dreams are either the result of super hormones or the darkest and most bizarre nightmares. It’s not hard for him to prefer one over the other.
“Gross, Leo.” Piper scrunches up her face. “I didn’t need to know what goes on across my window at night."
Leo shrugs. Piper didn’t know everything about him. He wonders if he told her that he is absolutely in love with Jason, then would she give Leo a chance? Would she not pursue Jason? Would she even care?
Of course she would, he shuns the thought instantly. This was his best friend.
“I can’t believe you made out with the dreamiest of all the princes in the land,” Leo’s mouth is dry. “And all you have left to say for it is that the kissing was ‘good.’”
Piper pauses the movie playing on her laptop. It’s no accident that it stops just as the princess is about to kiss the prince. Leo snaps it shut. “Well, it was good. It’s like one of those things, you know?”
Leo takes the moment to stare at Piper. Piper in all her feminine beauty and soft edges. They had the same kind of features, not really, both dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-skinned, but Leo was Leo, and Piper was Piper, and that mattered. She takes down her towel, wringing out her hair. Piper’s eyes swirl with stars.
“What things?”
Piper sighs breathlessly, dropping the towel with a grin. “You just had to experience it yourself.”
Due to the fact that Piper’s sister is the town gossip, Drew, the news spread faster than the flu. By Monday, literally everyone and their mother knew. It’s not an exaggeration- Leo’s town probably has a population of maybe 5100 people, with only two high schools and one movie theater that was always a few weeks late with releases. Leo's idea of fun growing up was riding his bike around town and trying to piss off as many people as possible.
“Dude,” Jason pokes Leo’s face with his pen. “Where have you been all weekend? I texted you quite possibly a million times.”
“I was busy.” Leo rubs his eyes. He had no interest in whatever tiny font poem is swimming in front of him.
Jason highlights something neatly on his paper. “Busy with what? I thought the arcade was closed this weekend.”
“Babysitting. Harley’s friend’s birthday party was canceled because the arcade closed. Everyone else was busy so I got stuck with him.”
It's not a total lie- the party was canceled, except the birthday kid had a sleepover instead. Everyone else was busy, leaving him alone to sleep in and play some really shitty game on his really shitty phone. He had seen and ignored all eight of Jason’s messages and then threw his phone across the room to sleep some more.
Jason clicks his tongue. The blond only has one sibling, an older sister in the military who sends letters every so often. “I could've helped you out! What’d you and Harley do, then?”
Leo sighs and drops his pencil. “Listen, man, I’m really tired from the weekend, and I just took a Stats test not even fifteen minutes ago. Really not in the mood for interrogations with Detective Grace.”
Jason gives a small laugh but doesn’t push. It sends Leo into a silent bliss for the rest of their shared English class. He stares out the window, daydreaming about... nothing really. Just thinking, but his mind was pretty blank.
He’s happy his next class is Spanish. He had originally taken French for his first two years of high school but then realized that he literally wouldn’t have to slave away if he took his native language (which was really English, not that it really matters). He could coast by with a low B if he slept through every class. Maybe. Leo wasn't really good with the schooling part of school.
Which is why he was the only senior in Spanish 2, which is filled with tiny tot freshman and sophomores. It's one of the only fresh breaths he could take from the upperclassmen's life. At first, it seemed annoying, but now he has a break from all the foggy gossip surrounding his friends.
Lunch is okay.
When he sits with Jason and Piper, they act like everything's okay, and nothing is going to hell. Okay, to be, fair nothing is, but something should be different, shouldn't it?
But Jason still is doing homework in between bites of poorly made pizza, just so he doesn’t have to do it when he comes home from whatever sport of the season is in. And Piper’s still prodding around her salad as she listens to music. Leo still pokes jokes at ill-dressed teachers and spouts whatever funny joke he’s seen on TV recently.
No one really sits at their table, but everyone does know who they are. JasonPiperLeo. No spaces in between, because why separate them?
Jason's sitting next to Piper today, though. That was normal sometimes, they liked to switch it around- keep it fresh. Tomorrow Leo would probably be sitting next to him anyway.
Leo’s okay with this. He can deal with this.
The week goes by so slowly and so quickly at the same time. Every day is the same.
Some things are different: Jason and Piper hold hands when they think Leo isn't looking, and maybe their gazes linger a bit too long, and also Jason and Piper whisper too much. But it's fine. Leo still steals shotgun whenever he can, he's never ignored, and when one of them come back from the vending machine there's still 3 drinks there.
On Friday, it’s practically a ritual to spend the night at someone’s house. The only reason why they didn’t do it last week was because Leo needed to finish an essay. The one day he’s gone is the one day when the Earth stops spinning, and Jason and Piper have their magical movie kiss of the century. Figures. He's always had shit luck.
They settle in Piper’s room because Jason has been lacking in his cleanliness and doesn’t want the other two to see, and Leo doesn’t want to imagine having his two best friends snuggling next to him in his very own sacred room. He tells them Nyssa didn’t do the wash and his clothes smell like gross socks, which actually leads him to texting Nyssa to do the wash, so his room doesn't smell like gross socks.
She tells him to do it himself, but he knows tomorrow, there will be fresh laundry on his bed.
Leo sleeps on Piper’s bed because he won rock-paper-scissors. Jason and Piper pull up a couple of blankets to lay down on the floor next to the bed. Piper pulls the pillow right out from under Leo’s head.
“Good night Leo,” Piper yawns.
He turns over, so he can see the very faint outline of his best friends' bodies. The faint light from the stars and one of the nearby street lamps float through the open curtains. He can see Piper’s the person closest to him, with the blanket snugly against the curve of her hip. Jason’s wide chest is noticeable as it goes up and down slowly. “Night, Jay.”
“Good night, Piper. Good night, Leo.” Jason mumbles and turns in his half-awake state.
Leo mutters a Buenos Noches but doesn’t go to sleep. He has too much energy to go to sleep. His body aches for something. He stares at the other two.
They’re like a married couple. It’s disgustingly sweet. Jason and Piper are facing each other, and their hands kind of touch slightly. Piper’s all curled in just so, and in one move, Jason could probably hug her to his body. They don't, but that doesn't make it any better.
It’s not fair.
Leo sits up, listening to Piper’s mumbling. Her sleep talk is less comprehensible than it was as a child. Jason’s snores are a bit louder than it was years ago. Things keep changing. It's all the same as it was before, but it's different.
It’s not fair.
Leo doesn’t look back when he jumps out the window and runs down the street.
It's not fair.