It's Just Acting

Sixteen In Which He Revisits His Demons

(Yes, I am perfectly aware that this is another 'He' chapter but using she didn't work in any way, and no, the chapter isn't as dark it as it seems, enjoy!)

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Leon abruptly pulled away, but he kept Francesca in his grip. He knew that he should stop kissing her, but he couldn't bring himself to push her away from him, to lose that warmth that she naturally gave him.

Francesca could give him a warm feeling, deep in the pit of his stomach whenever she was near him, or touched him—including slight brushes.

Francesca Caviglia honestly was something else.

"Wow," Francesca whispers.

"I wish that was our first kiss," Leon says, his lips twitching at the corners.

"But the first kiss was fake, Leon, this didn't feel fake," Francesca tells him.

Good god, he understood that.

He felt the same way. The kiss they shared before, was merely for the paparazzi. Leon didn't even know it was her first kiss. This kiss, this kiss meant something to him. He wanted to tell her that he wasn't sure of his feelings, but he knew there were no longer hate or dislike. But it wasn't quite like or love.

He supposed it was somewhere in between.

"Francesca, I'm not good enough for you," Leon murmurs, and Francesca scoffs.

"Don't say that! And plus, what's so unworthy about you?" Francesca asks, and he sighs.

Leon hated visiting his past. They were dark times. Leon had no idea what to do with his life, what his role in this game called life was, and who he really was. Leon wished he could say he was always the charming actor that is today, but he knew that it wasn't like that.

Sometimes it was like he didn't even know what he was doing, but he did it. Like the line between right and wrong blurred, and he always found himself stumbling on the latter. He had spent so long in this pit of shadows, that he almost never got out.

That was why Pablo and Diego were so important to him, and why his parents had somehow and probably unknowingly steered their way out of his life, and being people he cared about. He couldn't look at his parents the same way, because they meant almost nothing to him compared to the high respect he had for Pablo.

"You say you know me right?" Leon asks, his hands in his lap.

"Yeah, an actor who has the world at his hands, but is too stuck up and fake, to realise it," Francesca answers, a smile tracing her lips.

"Well, that's not even the half of it," Leon eventually says.

He tells her that it started when he was fourteen. His parents had started caring more about work, and so he found himself alone. Butlers and maids weren't parents, they were people hired by his parents to look after him, to do their job because they didn't really care what happened.

He somehow found himself eyeballs deep in drugs. He took some, but didn't find it so satisfying. Leon had always been wealthy, though at that time it was specifically his parents' wealth. But, because of Leon's knack for picking things up, after reading books and watching television, he decided to steal his father's credit card, after watching his father out the pin in, conveniently not checking his surroundings.

His father had an abundance of money, so when dollars were disappearing, he didn't even notice. Neither did his personal assistant for that matter either. So it was easy. He bought drugs from the back of a Chinese Restaurant. The back door led to a dodgy, and extremely filthy alley, where eighteen to twenty two year olds would trade drugs.

'You got Heroin, how 'bout we switch and ya' gimme it and I'll give some Marijuana'

It wasn't hard, and Leon found her myself stumbling along that road. He was only fourteen, but because of his abandonment issues, he knew nothing better.

So he became a drug dealer at fifteen. Leon had always been fit, so he looked seventeen at the least. He sold them at low prices, because he had no knowledge of making a profit. His homeschooling was always slow.

Sometimes he wasn't even sure how Pablo found him, and how Pablo knew that acting would the right thing for him. It was like Pablo literally picked him up from the streets and made him famous.

When Pablo found Leon, he had this odd sense that he just had to protect the kid. Leon may have done a lot, way more than most people at his age, but it didn't change the fact that he was a kids. Kids needed guidance, and Pablo thought he was the right person—despite not having kids of his own.

Diego had still been living here at the time, and found himself looking after Leon. Leon was shy, embarrassed at first, he didn't even understand why somebody like Diego who had never done anything wrong in his entire life would suddenly want t be form a cousin bond with him.

Pablo and Diego were miracle workers. Pablo had somehow managed to get any evidence that Leon was dealing drugs—to disappear, there were no traces. And Diego had made Leon into a better person. A gentleman almost. But Leon had always been one for sarcasm.

"I guess that's why I'm closed off, why the only people close to me are Diego and Pablo. Fran, I've done things that I'm ashamed of. Really ashamed of. But I can't take it back, these bad choices are part of who I am. And I don't want to you be associated with it. You are such a good person, you shouldn't have your innocence tainted by somebody with a stone cold heart," Leon finishes.

"Leon, you don't have to worry. I'm here for you," Francesca says, placing her hand on his upper arm.

"Would it make you feel any better if I told you that I might actually have feelings for you?" Francesca asks, moving closer to him.

"It would make it a little worse," Leon starts.

"But it makes me want to kiss you even more,"

"Then kiss me," Francesca smirks.

"Not gonna say no to that,"

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Hey! So I will admit that this may have been a little boring, or maybe  interesting. Idk. Sorry there was hardly any dialogue, or Leonesca, but Leon's past plays a huge role.

And it's not even fully developed just yet. So stay tuned for the next few chapters! Thank you for reading 🙈 sorry for any errors 💚

~Lexy 😈