Title: just a tad bit nostalgic

Summary: She smokes to remember, he drinks to forget.

A/N: there is barely anything in this fic to support the above summary, but if you squint you can find it (and i assure you that i put it there). c:

also: my first crack at piper/leo friendship. ha. i tried before but it turned into ignite whoops

- this was originally intended to be part of "bits and pieces" but nah this gem deserves to be a oneshot don't you think -

plus i've been dying to use this title for AGES

enjoy o3o

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just a tad bit nostalgic

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"She smokes to remember; he drinks to forget."

"Give me your hand."

The words were rough and ragged, like the rickety-rack of the train that passed overhead on elevated tracks. He opened his eyes to see a cloud of smoke hovering in the air before him. Leo coughed, his chest heaving and falling as he breathed staggered breaths, his glassy eyes trained on the water-stained ceiling. He felt her move against him, like silk against his skin, and his heartbeat pounded in his head like a drum.

Pump pump, pump pump. In a flurry of movement, Piper appeared over him with an annoyed expression and an early-morning cigarette dangling from her lips.

"What, you're that out of it?" She inquired with a frown, poking him in the chest to have a lazy groan escape his lips. Damn, his head hurt, and Piper's shaking him wasn't making it any better.

She reached out to touch him, and he smacked her hand away. "Ugh - stop, okay?" He winced as a headache hit him hard. "Oi - I have a headache."

"So?" Piper made a face as she reached over him. In some crazy way, he knew that it translated to Are you okay?. "I asked you for your hand, Valdez. What does that have to do with your head?" Piper reached out and grabbed his calloused palm in hers, examining it with great interest as he turned to bury his face in the depths of his pillow, shutting out her and other noises that fluttered in through the bedroom window. "How does this thing work, anyway? Do I just pull a thumb, or - "

"Shut up, Pipes," he snapped, and she pursed her lips as the hammering in his head let down some. She watched him smother himself in the bedsheets before turning her attention back to his hand.

Piper turned it over in her palm a number of times, but soon sighed and let it go, allowing his arm to fall to her lap.

"Leo, could you please help me out here?"

He grunted in disapproval before a small flame danced across the tip of his index finger. At this, she smiled widely.

"Thank you." Piper lit her cigarette with a smug grin.

Leo pushed himself up to glare at her as a trail of smoke escaped from her smiling lips. "You need to quit smoking."

She turned to raise an eyebrow at him, her eyes flickering to the beer cans and tall, empty bottles littering the nightstand and carpet. Piper made a face. "That's funny coming from the guy with a drinking problem."

Leo made a face that mirrored hers, scratching his stubble. "Uh...that's different. Besides, it won't kill me as fast."

She peered doubtfully at him through a puff of smoke. "Uh huh."

"Okay, fine. Not as tragically."

She snorted at him, and he rolled his eyes. "Damnit Pipes, if I wasn't having a hangover right now - "

"Then I wouldn't be here to help you, would I?"

Leo glared at her. "That's not what I was going to say."

Piper snorted. She glanced across the dark room, her eyes skimming over dark curtains and pooled shadows, fluttering over countless beer cans and remnants of bad times in Leo town. Her heart beated frantically in her chest. Gods, she thought to herself as she puffed out another stream of smoke. What happened to us?

Leo had been drinking last night.

She hadn't been there to play babysitter and restrict him from drinking too much. Every week, she'd come and check on him, and every week, he'd overdue it, going off on some slurred tangent about the stupid gods and all of the crazy messes they were always getting into. Every time, she'd go home and beat herself up over how bad of a friend she was for allowing Leo to let himself go, and she'd open up another pack of cigarettes and let it loose. It was a cycle. A bad one. One that both of them knew was out of their power to end, even if they tried.

The muffled noise of a train slicing through early-morning fog interrupted her thoughts.

Her head snapped to Leo when he rested a hand on her leg. It was warm, just as the rest of him was.

Her looked up at her with bloodshot eyes. "You should go back to Jason's. He's probably worried about you. I'll be fine on my own, Beauty Queen. Trust me."

She wanted to not believe him. Leo had lied to her so many times, and she to him, well, she couldn't really tell the truth anymore. But she knew that he was telling the truth. He would be fine. He really didn't need her help anymore.

She pulled her coat closer around her, bringing her knees to her chest as she stared at the faded floral pattern of Leo's bedsheets. "You sure you'll be okay?"

He snorted with a flash of his old, trademarked smile. "Sure, I'm sure. I meant what I said."

Piper looked at his hand on her thigh. It was really, really warm. Like cigarettes, she thought. Like smoke. Like fire. Like him.

She took his hand in hers. "Okay."

Leo entwined his fingers through hers, knitting their hands together for the first time in a long while. "Okay? That's all I get?"

"Bye," she replied further with a wry smile. She squeezed his hand in hers, and she felt him surge with warmth. "Clean this place up, okay? And stop drinking, for Zeus' sake. I don't want to come back to two messes."

"Goodbye, Piper." Leo said as he rolled his eyes. The charmspeak barely affected him. Leo proceeded to enforce his farewell by shoving her off of the bed.

Piper fell back onto the floor with wide eyes. "Hey!"

Leo peered down at her with that stupid, goofy smile of his as she glared up at him. "Say hi to Jason for me, will you?"

She stood, grumbling all the while as Leo smirked at her. Piper strode across the room, kicking cans across the floor as she did. She turned the doorknob of his bedroom door, and began to walk out when Leo spoke up, having one last thing to say.

"Oh, and, uh, Pipes?"

She turned back to face Leo, zipping up her jacket with one hand. He sat upright, looking at her with a sober, melancholic look.

"Yeah, Repair Boy?"

He smiled a small, tender, and caring smile at her. "Stop smoking, will ya?"

She smiled back. "I'll try."

Piper walked into the hall with a sense of finality, knowing with a smile that she wouldn't be coming back to check on Leo for a long, long time.

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