#also i'm glad you liked the leon pov post-kiss scene! ty for the nice message about it <3

[msmargaretmurry]

Further ratnovel questions (I hope you don't feel pressure to respond to all these, but if you're still enjoying talking about it, I'm very much enjoying hearing about it!) - what is going through Leon's head at the ASG? Before/during/after the hookup? And does he ever learn what happened with Matthew after he kicked him out of the room? Poor both of them! Talk about rock bottom

oooh this is a fun question! i got some comments being mad at leon for that part, which is fair! but imo he deserved a chance to act out a little after everything he'd been through 😂

eta: i just realized i didn't answer the second part of your question! added a bit about that at the end of the post ❤

obviously he has been avoiding matthew so much for the whole all star weekend. he's still heartbroken, he's still sad and mad about it, but he'd had time to steel himself for it and he's determined to still have a good weekend. in his mind, it's over. him and matthew are over. matthew made his choice, and leon knows he can't handle being with matthew if he keeps that wall up, so it's over and they both just have to deal with it.

so he is DEEPLY unhappy when he winds up in an elevator with matthew, but he's like, okay it's just for like thirty second, it'll be fine. but then matthew tries to talk to him. says he misses him. and leon's pissed about it, but he still cares about matthew, and matthew sounds so genuinely hurt and confused, so leon's like — fuck it. it's too hard to say no when matthew's right in front of him.

the thing is, he really is thinking in the moment that maybe hooking up again will fix it. matthew lets leon kiss him, he clutches at leon like he really did miss him; maybe they can do this and go back to — not how things were, but maybe they can go back to being together, understanding what they want a little better, and it'll all be good enough. but he's still so sad and mad about how matthew treated him before, and he just can't shake that feeling. when he gets back up after sucking matthew off and they're kissing again, he just abruptly can't stand the thought of letting matthew make him vulnerable again, and he doesn't want matthew to touch him, and both of those feelings grip him so suddenly that he feels almost panicked about it, and that's when he pulls away and kicks matthew out.

he knows he's being a dick. he tells himself, while he's doing it, that he doesn't care that he's being a dick. it has to happen. he's allowed to choose himself. matthew always chooses himself. so matthew leaves. and leon feels so shitty about it, so guilty about it, because he knows matthew probably isn't going to handle it well, and he doesn't even feel any better having done it, but he just keeps telling himself that it had to happen. matthew wants leon to fuck him, but he doesn't want leon, so it had to happen. he's allowed to choose himself.

re: does he ever learn what happened with matthew after he kicked him out of the room — yes, mostly! matthew never like, gives him a play-by-play, but they do talk about matthew coming out to brady afterward, and matthew definitely mentions that he was really fucked up about it. i don't have an exact timeline for this conversation but it probably comes out a little bit in their phone conversations through the rest of the season, and then is also something they talk about on their vacation that summer.