Chapter Text
(Leo’s POV)
I walked back into the house feeling… different. The cold, hard knot of dread in my stomach had been replaced by a strange, fluttering warmth. It wasn’t confidence, not exactly. It was more like… resolve. I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want the cold, silent emptiness of my apartment. I didn’t want to be alone. And that knowledge, as terrifying as it was, gave me a strange sense of purpose.
I found Rofi in the kitchen, ostensibly helping Artemis prepare lunch. But he wasn’t really helping. He was just standing there, leaning against the counter, watching Artemis chop vegetables with a detached, distant look in his eyes. He looked as miserable as I felt.
The sight of him, so close and yet so far away, made the fluttering warmth in my chest ignite into a small, hot flame of frustration. This was stupid. This silence, this distance—it was a self-inflicted wound. And I was tired of bleeding.
“Can I talk to you?” I asked, my voice coming out stronger, clearer than it had in days. Both he and Artemis looked up, surprised.
Rofi’s eyes widened slightly. “Uh, yeah. Sure. What’s up?” He tried for a casual smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Alone,” I said, my gaze steady. I was done with hiding. I was done with being scared.
Artemis raised an eyebrow, wiped his knife on a towel, and made a show of leaving the kitchen. “Don’t mind me,” he said dryly. “I’ll just be in the living room, enjoying the distinct lack of emotional turmoil.” He walked out, leaving us alone in the suddenly very quiet room.
I took a deep breath. “Why are you avoiding me?”
The question was blunt, direct. It was not my usual style. But I was tired of my usual style. My usual style was what had gotten me into this mess.
Rofi flinched, his ears drooping slightly. “I’m not avoiding you,” he lied, and the lie was so obvious, so transparent, it was almost insulting.
“Yes, you are,” I insisted, taking a step closer. The flame in my chest was growing hotter. “Ever since last night. Ever since Ollie asked that… that stupid question. You’ve been treating me like… like I have the plague. What did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Leo,” he said, his voice low. He wouldn’t look at me. He was staring at the floor, at the space between my paws.
“Then what is it?” I pressed, my voice rising. “Are you tired of me? Are you sick of dealing with my… my issues? Was this all just some… some charity project for you? ‘Help the sad, pathetic snow leopard until the snow melts’? Is that it?”
“No!” he said, finally looking up at me. And the look in his eyes wasn’t annoyance. It wasn’t pity. It was… pain. He looked as hurt as I felt. “No, Leo, it’s not that at all. It’s the opposite.”
“Then what is it?” I almost shouted the words. “Talk to me, Rofi! For once in your life, just… just be straight with me!”
(Rofi’s POV)
His words hit me like a physical blow. “Be straight with me.” Me. The one who was always accused of being too open, too honest, too much. And he was accusing me of hiding. The irony was so bitter it almost made me laugh.
But he was right. I was hiding. I was trying to be noble. I was trying to be the “good guy,” the supporting character who selflessly steps aside. I was trying to give him space. And in doing so, I had created a chasm between us. I had hurt him. The one thing I had been trying to avoid.
“I… I was trying to give you space,” I stammered, my carefully constructed resolve from last night crumbling into dust. “I thought I was… pushing you. I thought I was being too much. I didn’t want to scare you away.”
“Scare me away?” he asked, his voice incredulous. He let out a short, harsh laugh that had no humor in it. “By being my friend? By being the only person who has made me feel… anything… in years? That’s what you think is scaring me away?”
“I don’t know what to think, Leo!” I said, my own frustration boiling over. “You’re… you’re impossible to read! One minute, you’re leaning into me, you’re telling me I’m amazing. The next, you look at me like I’m a monster. You’re hot and you’re cold, you’re here and you’re gone. I don’t know what you want from me!”
“I want you to be my friend!” he yelled, his voice cracking with an emotion he could no longer contain. “I want you to be my Rofi! The one I remember! The one who doesn’t just… give up!”
“I’m not giving up!” I yelled back, my own volume matching his. “I’m trying to protect you! And me! This is… it’s complicated, Leo! It’s not like it was when we were kids!”
“I know that!” he said, his eyes shining with unshed tears. And then he said the words that shattered my entire world.
“I’m in love with you, you idiot.”
(Leo’s POV)
The words were out. They were just… out. Hanging in the air between us, terrifying and undeniable. I hadn’t meant to say them. They had just… escaped. A desperate, frantic confession from the deepest, most guarded part of my heart.
I stared at him, my chest heaving, my heart pounding in my ears. I had done it. I had finally, irrevocably, ruined everything.
Rofi’s face was a mask of pure, unadulterated shock. His jaw was slack, his eyes wide, his ears frozen in a state of high alert. He looked like he had been struck by lightning.
We stood there for an eternity, frozen in a tableau of raw, exposed emotion. The silence was deafening, broken only by the sound of our own ragged breathing and the steady, indifferent drip-drip-drip from outside.
Then, slowly, agonizingly, his expression began to change. The shock melted away, replaced by a wave of emotion so intense, so complex, I couldn’t begin to decipher it. There was pain in his eyes, yes. But there was also… relief. And hope. And a terrifying, overwhelming tenderness.
He took a step towards me. And another. Until he was standing right in front of me, so close I could feel the heat radiating off his body. He raised a paw, his movements slow, hesitant, as if he was afraid I might bolt. He gently, so gently, cupped my cheek. His paw was warm and slightly trembling.
“Leo,” he whispered, his voice thick with a thousand unspoken things.
And then he did the one thing I was not expecting. He closed the small distance between us and he kissed me.
It wasn’t a gentle kiss. It was clumsy, and desperate, and messy. It was the kiss of two people who had been starving for something they didn’t even know they were allowed to want. It was a kiss full of a decade of missed chances and unspoken feelings and the raw, terrifying, beautiful hope of a new beginning.
When he finally pulled back, we were both breathless. He rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closed. I could feel his heart hammering against his chest, a frantic rhythm that matched my own.
“I’m in love with you, too,” he whispered, and the words were not a confession. They were a promise. A vow. A truth that settled deep in my bones and chased away the last of the cold.
The fight was over. The silence was broken. And in the quiet, messy, beautiful aftermath, something new was beginning to grow.
