Drop a Heart, Break a Name

Summary:

Always sleeping in and sleeping for the wrong team-- a tale told time and time again. (Dreams and lies continue to be synonymous.)

Notes:

There are some ships that you curl up to, some ships that you sing along with on the radio. And then there are some ships that knock you down, beat you up, and take your lunch money no matter how hard you beg them for fluff.

---

I'd stop writing trashy Romadon if I could. I have scientifically determined that the only way to do this is if I evicted both West and Romeo from this ship altogether. 

On some days, West burns for the want of him.

On some days he peers around each locker-corner, watching with a futile hope to see the flicker of a wing, dove-pink, the corner of a sweeping train, the edge of a too-blue eye. On some days he catches a glimpse, a fleeting vision, and relishes the way it kindles in his breast, the thud of his heart, I'm alive. On some days he would bleed for the sight of him, so elusive that he West does not doubt it-- he is being toyed with, avoided on purpose.

But on some days, it is Romeo who comes to him first, seeking him out through the halls and towers and gables. More oft than not, he is in need of some service West can provide at that discount which is his alone-- a moment's time is all the payment required, a word of offhanded, empty praise. That is enough, he thinks, for when it is Romeo who speaks, the very sound is better than gold.

(West likes to think he recognizes it for its worth.)

He's on the roof, that day, when Romeo finds him-- the same roof, always, for though West casts about himself runes of concealment, illusions of invisibility, there is a part of him that hopes to be found. He pins a half-written essay down with a paperweight and turns his eyes wholly upon gilded shoulders, an unclothed chest.

"Do you need something?" he asks-- voice even, expression flat. He must not betray the stilted leap of his heart. "If it's Debate class homework you're after, I'm working on it now."

"Already?" Romeo feigns surprise, as if he doesn't know that his homework is always, always moved to the front of the queue. "It's not due ‘til next Thursday, babe."

"I would prefer to get it out of the way," West answers. Silently, he finishes the thought-- so I do not have to look at it, and yearn for you. "I... do not presently have anything else to do, regardless."

That Cupid's-bow lip wears a wicked grin entirely too well. "A shame you've got so much extra time on your hands, sweetheart. Maybe, just to keep you from getting bored... I should give you something else to do."

The innuendo is unmistakable. West trembles, swallows his nerves. "If you're referring to your General Villainy homework, I finished that yesterday."

"Sounds like you're on top of things, sweetheart," he coos, toying with the end of West's hat just to watch him squirm. "Clever boy."

"What did you come here for?" West's words come out sharper, more defensively than he means them. Adrenaline, lovesick terror, races through his vulnerable veins.

(He can't risk pulling his hat further over his face, not when Romeo's fiddling with it like that-- he does not know if he'll survive it, if their hands brush.)

There is no answer but a low, dark chuckle and a coy smirk.

"I know you didn't come for the company," West frowns, attempting to seem sterner than he feels.

"Wait for it, love," Romeo replies with a smug little wink. Like an unspoken command, he turns his predator's smile in the direction of Book End and West's eyes follow.

There is silence, for a moment. Then-- a small dot, red and blue flashing in alternation, the ward-softened wail of an advancing siren.

"Ah," West says. No further explanation is necessary. "Yes, it's fine if you hide here for a while."

"I don't need your permission, babe," Romeo snorts, leaning against the wind vane.

"If I am removed from this spot, all of my concealment charms will cease to work," West corrects evenly. "So I think you will find that you require my cooperation, at least, if not my permission."

"Whatever," Romeo's wings flicker carelessly in the breeze, as if waving away those minutiae. "Cooperation, permission, same thing."

"Try not to smudge my chalk outlines, at least," West snorts, settling back down with one of his research tomes.

"Or else what?"

"Or else the illusions will stop working, and you'll be found."

Romeo glances down at his feet, and casually adjusts his stance. "Maybe I want them to find me. Maybe I wanna let them wear themselves down searching... and let 'em just try to chase me down."

West's eyes flicker upwards, briefly. "As if you could not outrun them at their full aptitude."

"Maybe there'll be more of 'em than usual," his expression draws darkly. "Maybe I've done something especially bad this time."

"Well," West answers, as flatly as ever. "As you said, you don't need my permission... and that extends to when you choose to leave."

"What? Not going to ask me what I did this time?" a sly smirk, "Or who I did this time?"

"... did you want me to ask?"

"Hah," Romeo scoffs, crossing his arms. "Believe it or not, this time, I didn't do a damn thing. I'm being framed."

"Of course," West snorts back. "And I'm the Fairy Queen Lurline."

"Grab a set of wings, sweetheart, because I'm telling the truth this time," Romeo simpers with an acrid sweetness. "I'm being accused of stabbing the Three Billy Goats Gruff for the goats' blood in some magic ritual I've never even heard of. Someone planted one of my daggers at the scene. Somehow knew that I'd be casting a ghost summoner last night... still haven't cleaned my room."

"Oh," West furrows his brows briefly. He adds, "I cleaned your room already. Will that complicate anything?"

"What-- who the hell gave you permission to clean my room?"

"Your roommate," West shrugged, staring down at his lap. "During Study Ball. He also asked me to exorcise the ghost because he was having company tonight."

"What a wimp... he's just being a scaredy-cat about my little friends," Romeo pushes himself off the wall and storms over, "You better not have exorcised Spectra, or I'll have a hell of a lot to explain."

"Why would I bother? The interplanetary tethering spell wears off in another fourteen hours, anyways," West pulls his hat down as if a flimsy first line of defense. "I cleansed the circle-- which you messed up, by the way-- to give her free reign of the school until the summon expires."

"Who says I wasn't trying to keep her in our room to piss off Percy?"

"Spectra, actually," West chuckles faintly. "Somehow, I got the impression she was upset."

He arches his eyebrow, "Ghosts aren't immune to lying."

"Neither are cherubs, or so I'm told," West deadpans. "Either way, your room is clean, whether you want it to be or not."

"Oh, no, my savior," Romeo bats his eyelashes coquettishly. With a too-innocent croon, "You just might get me acquitted for the crime."

"Do you still hold that you were framed for it, then?"

"What, sweetheart, don't you trust me?" Romeo gasps, pressing a hand to his heart in mock outrage. "And here I thought you loved me, babe."

"You say that like those things are mutually exclusive," West turns his face away, making up his mind to at least pretend to be reading. "And... if the Hero Police were only sent for a few minutes ago, your clothes would still be bloody if you had committed the crime."

"Maybe I dumped my used clothes in the trash incinerator," his fingers slip against West's cheek, unreasonably seductive. "Maybe I changed into clean ones... maybe I don't mind stripping out of 'em again, if need be."

West cannot stifle his flinch. "If you had, you would've noticed your room was already clean when you went to change."

"Damn," comes forth from that grin, sharp as a fang. "And here I was thinking I'd committed the crime and forgotten about it. Tell me, babe, if you're such a sleuth, then who do you think framed me?"

West presses his lips together. "If I had to guess, I suppose the jilted lover of one of your conquests. Is that suitably dramatic enough for you?"

"Mmmm..." Romeo rolls his head onto West's shoulder, making that noise by far too obscenely. "It'll do."

West's every muscle tightens, on edge even from so casual a touch. He questions stiffly, "What are you doing?"

"I'm not exactly dying to get interrogated by the Hero Police," Romeo's lips curl upwards, entertained by West's discomfort. "And I was up pretty late last night, if you catch my drift. I could use a little afternoon pick-me-up... especially when there's such a comfortable pillow so conveniently available."

The sharp and bony edges of West's clavicle are actually digging into his cheek, but it is worth it, for Romeo can almost smell the way anxiety curls into his pulse, lingering over his skin. His misery is delicious.

"If my shoulder is what you consider comfortable, it's no wonder you've been sleeping poorly," West tries to muster an edge in that rebuff, but flattery from Romeo's lips can buy what no amount of gold can-- a softness that lingers too-long in his heart.

"Are you offering something else?" Romeo purrs, low and soft, as his hand trails down a chest, his finger dipping against every fragile bone ridge.

It would be too easy for him to crush so thin a rib-cage, to break the heart held within. Both of them know it.

"I strongly doubt there's anything else I can offer," West averts his eyes, but makes no move to back away from the contact.

Romeo's fingers wander down further until they flick out against the expanse of a thigh, "What about this?"

West swallows. With shaking hands, he sets his book down to the side.

"I would be... amenable to that."

Romeo almost laughs at how willingly he concedes, how easily he flusters. He folds down his wings until they are nothing more than tattoos, instead, and rests his head against a bony lap.

(He's almost insulted that nothing extra pokes him in the cheek, but it's not the first time he finds he's underestimated West's self control.)

"You feel so good, babe," he sighs with an exaggeratedly sexual note, stretching his arms above his head so that his thorned bracelets dig into the flesh of West's side.

"I'm sure you say that to all of your convenient pillows," West mumbles, trying to tug his hat over his eyes as if it would somehow shield him from how weak that sight makes him feel.

"What can I say?" with a vindictive flick of his wrist, he knocks the hat back. He smirks, "I've got a lot of experience with pillow talk."

"I suppose so," West's voice goes soft, too-soft. Then, nearly too-quiet to hear, "You sort of struck me as someone who kicks people out right after... that."

"Thinking of what I'm like in bed? How flattering," he winks with a too-blue eye. "Why don't you find out for yourself, hm?"

West's cheeks burn. He can do nothing but avoid an answer altogether. "I thought you wanted to nap."

"There's more than one kind of afternoon pick-me-up, sweetheart," comes the coy reply. "One of them's something along the lines of a pin-'em-down."

He neither confirms nor denies how badly he wants it, how deeply he burns to be closer... but merely says this: "Do you want me to wake you when the police leave?"

Romeo can taste the agony on those words more than he can hear them. He smiles with a sort of lazy pride at how masterfully he's taken West to pieces. "How generous of you to offer, babe. Yes."

"Okay," West exhales in turn, and tries, as best as he can, to make what scarce lap he has as comfortable as possible.

He watches as Romeo falls into a light doze, the half-set sun casting eyelash-shadows over an unblemished cheek. The skin there looks dove-soft, and, with light fingers-- gentle, gentle-- West cannot stop himself from confirming that curiosity, skimming over that cheekbone as if the whisper of a breeze. It's intimate, unnervingly intimate, and shame wells within West's throat, prevents him from doing anything further. Those tender things are not his to take.

It would be... foolish... to pretend that this is anything more than a business transaction, an exchange of goods for the service of making him feel. Like this, West thinks, like this he is almost believable. Like this, with his head pillowed on West's meager lap, it's too easy to pretend that something more hovers between them-- and that blurring of fiction and reality is dangerous.

He knows that.

But West has never been very good at staying away from fire, when it is fire he twists between his fingers, fire which carries him away in a whisking smoke, fire which cleanses his skin and clothes in lieu of water-- and o, he has burned for many boys before, but never, never as brightly. If the other boys were bonfires, Romeo is the all-consuming sun, and West's entire world is aflame, West's entire world is alight.

He has never felt closer to death. He has never felt closer to life. 

He knows the hope is doomed, he knows it to be foolish-- he knows what people say, has heard the whispers back in Oz. Wicked witches deserve their ends, and those who are sentenced to death do not have time to love. West knows it, too, but how his heart bleeds for the chance, how dearly he would pay for even the illusion of it.

Just a moment, he tells himself, I'll only pretend for a moment. 

West's fingers touch upon that slumber-softened brow, emerald against ivory so thoroughly jarring that it steals his breath. He falls deeper in love with a Cupid's bow lip, deeper in love with a tender cheek, and eyes, shut, with lashes like shadows fanned down to his face. He falls, and in that moment, he realizes-- I'm doomed.

And, where his head rests on West's lap, Romeo's lip quirks upward knowingly.

(He's always been an excellent actor.)