#para:thekissthatmissed

[becclaw]

THE KISS THAT MISSED → BECLEO

TAGGING → Becca Goldstein & Leo Spinnet (@lionleos)

TIMELINE → Tuesday, December 27, 2026

SETTING → The Spinnet House

SUMMARY → Becca tries to act like all is well by following through on her plan to kiss Leo ‘for science’.

With the news she'd gotten this morning, ​Becca​ probably should have stayed home and given herself time to process, maybe even to grieve. Instead, though, she'd grabbed her coat, wrapped it tightly around herself, and left the house, continuing on with her pre-made plans as usual. If she acted like her parents marital woes didn't exist, maybe they'd simply go away - or maybe it was the strain of Jules and Becca being home that was making them say they were taking such crazy measures, and if she stayed out of the house, they'd have the privacy to fix their issues. Burying those thoughts as far back in her mind as she could, Becca hopped off the bus and strode the familiar path to Leo's house, her lips pressed together in a tight smile that she hoped would fool Leo or at the very least, his mother. All it took was a quick knock and a warm greeting from Alicia before Becca was pointed in the direction of Leo's room, where she rapped on his door, jokingly calling out, "Your favorite pop tart has arrived, lazy!"

Leo had just been clicking through harmonica toutorials online trying to figure out what the fastest way to master the small instrument by the time school started back up, when he heard Becca knocking on his door. After quickly closing the browser window in favor of seeming like he was just naturally brilliant later, Leo ran to open the door. "Hello to you too." Leo greeted with a snicker before giving his friend a hug. "Want anything to eat or drink? Mum says it would be polite if I started asking that."

Becca was surprised by how easy it was to feel natural as soon as she saw Leo; as long as she didn't let on that anything was wrong, this could be just like any other day, with no worries looming over her at all. Still, she held onto the hug a bit longer than she usually might have before reluctantly pulling back. "Alicia's raised you to be such a gentleman," Becca teased, reaching up to tug on his ear playfully. "You could be a regular hero out of a Jane Austen novel someday, if she keeps up the good work." Becca couldn't even remember if she'd had anything to eat since their meal with their parents had been interrupted last night, but she wasn't feeling very hungry. "No, thank you, but don't let me stop you from pigging out. I've seen what your appetite is like!"

Leo laughed at the compliment and put on his best impression of a gentlemanly pose. "Mr Darcy ought to watch his back then because I'm definitely cooler than he is." Leo joked, before sticking his tongue out at the whole idea. "I ate before you got here so I'm good too!" He said, stepping out of Becca's way so that she could actually come into his room. "And now that the manners are out of the way, come on in. Mi casa es su casa, or whatever. "

Becca would have wrinkled her nose if he'd even jokingly knocked Jane Austen yesterday, but she was starting to wonder if the true love that was always found in her books was even real at all. That was a dangerous line of thinking, though, and instead she took Leo's invitation, bouncing through the door of his room and flopping on the edge of his bed. "You know, you actually had that part right before you added the 'or whatever'," Becca pointed out, shaking her head. "You'll fit right in if I ever drag you off to an exciting vacation in Spain. Oh! But you have to promise not to do something silly like run with the bulls, that seems like the worst part of traveling there, no matter what Hemingway has to say about it." Becca patted the spot next to her, craving closeness to someone right now, even if she didn't feel like explaining why. "I'm adding that to my travel journal notes, make sure you don't wear Gryffindor colors so I won't have to see you run down by a big stinky animal."

Leo raised his eyebrows, somewhat surprised that he'd actually gotten the phrase right. "Sounds good to me, but I don't think I'd want to do that anyway. Unless I got to fly my broom during it, being gored by one of those things doesn't even slightly sound entertaining. But what does Hemingway say about travelling there? Was he a big fan of the bulls?" Leo asked as he plopped down next to Becca like she wanted him to, wrinkling his nose as he visualized being run through by an enormous horn."

Becca bumped her shoulder against Leo's, appreciative of the way he always seemed to take an interest in her rambling. Today, though, she didn't have her normal never-ending supply of words; instead, she answered succinctly, "He's quite famous for romanticizing bull fights; it's the subject of ​The Sun Also Rises​, and millions of people go to Pamplona now to see the bulls because of him." Becca shrugged, nearly mentioning that she was much more interested in his memoirs about Paris, but it was a sore topic now, asking, "Um, if I were making a list, where would be the first place you'd want to visit, anyway? I have my book tour of the world all planned out, but it would be nice to have friends with me, too."

Leo thought Becca's answer sounded a little shorter than normal but didn't bother asking more, assuming that Becca just didn't care much about the subject matter. "New York, for sure! That's supposed to be the fun place to be in america and I want to see what all the hype is all about. Where's your first book stop going to be? Is there a world's biggest library anywhere? "

"Washington, D.C.," ​Becca​ replied instantly, when Leo asked her about the world's largest library. "It's not too far a train ride from New York City, if we felt like all going and doing things the Muggle way. The most fascinating library in the world burned down thousands of years ago, though - rest in peace, Library of Alexandria, wonder of the world!" Becca folded her hands in her lap, looking down at them as she thought. "My first stop was going to be Paris, but I don't really know anymore. Maybe I'll have changed my mind by the time I graduate, you know?"

Leo thought momentarily about doing things the muggle way in America and nudged Becca's shoulder with his own. "If we go, we've got to do things the American muggle way. It'll be like an extra little adventure then!" He said enthusiastically, before looking at Becca's posture as she folded her hands into her lap with mild concern. "What changed your mind on Paris, right now? You think something shady might happen in the next three years?"

Becca had never been good at hiding her feelings; she tended to wear her heart on her sleeve, but she did her best to smile brightly at Leo as she shook her head, blonde hair falling out from where it had been tucked behind her ears. "Oh, no, I'm sure it'll be fine, but we were talking about going at Easter, as a family, maybe - we'd be better off starting somewhere where no one's been!" Becca chirped. "Besides, you saw how weird our friends all got about a little mistletoe for Christmas, can you imagine them in the city of looooooove?"

Leo took Becca's explaination at her word and laughed at the idea of their friends in a city known for love. "Merlin, the idea is already giving me hives." Leo said with a laugh before he remembered the last time he and Becca talked about mistletoe. "Speaking of that plant," Leo started, leaning over to grab the headband he'd gotten from Becca for Christmas that had almost conveniently been stashed under his bed. "You still interested in having your kissing critiqued?" He asked, putting the headband on in a careful way that wouldn't mess up his hair.

Becca found herself laughing, and the sensation wasn't even forced. Around Leo it was easy to forget what was going on elsewhere, and she rolled her eyes. "Well then we definitely have to avoid Paris, those hives would knock you down to at least a 7." Her eyes widened when Leo reached for the mistletoe headband she'd gotten for him; she'd been a little surprised when he'd volunteered himself for the kissing critique, but her friendship with Zac hadn't changed one bit after the Great Mistletoe Disaster of 2024, and she and Leo were much closer than even Zac and Becca. "I totally should have given that to you early to wear around Winter Wonderland!" she teased, reaching up to pinch his cheeks. "Who could say no to that face when you look so cute in the headband?"

Leo rolled his eyes as Becca pinched his cheeks. "I feel like ​so many​ girls would be able to say no to this. If I'd been outside today and let my hair get messed with in the wind, I think this headband would have knocked me down to at least a..6.9." Leo said struggling to assign himself a number so low since he didn't think it was possible for his looks to go down that low, but ultimately his desire to make a point won out.

Becca raised a hand to cover her mouth, a last ditch effort not to snort. "Ew, who would ever want to kiss a lowly 6.9?" Becca joked, licking her lips unthinkingly. They tasted of cinnamon sugar, one of her trademark flavors, but she was shocked she'd even remembered to put it on today with the hurry she'd been in to get away from her family. "Windblown hair always seems so sexy when they talk about it in the books, I'm sure you're just worrying too much," she assured, scooting closer to him and ruffling his hair where she could reach it. "You remember your rule, right? No making me your Mandy Moore?"

Leo made a face as if to say 'I know right' in response to Becca's joke, before his eyes dropped momentarily to her lips as she licked them. Even though Leo truly didn't believe in the hype about kissing someone, for half a second he started to second guess his decision to volunteer his mouth to critique Becca's kissing, but the doubt gave way to mild horror as Becca ruffled his hair. "Of course, I remember it. Find some chill, Pop tart. Kissing you isn't going to make me fall in love." He replied, ruffling Becca's hair right back, purposely doing a lot more damage than she'd done.

"Leo!" ​Becca​ shrieked in horror, her hands grabbing helplessly at his as she tried to get them away from her hair. Once she was sure the attack was over, she reached up with one hand to smooth it so that Leo's first kiss wasn't with a girl who looked like she'd lost a fight with a tree or something, and then poked him gently in the side. "Just making sure, waffle iron," Becca told him, sticking her tongue out. She'd always thought kisses were supposed to be saved for the first person she had real feelings for, too, but that had gone out the window with Zac at age 13, and well... if recent developments had taught her anything, it was that maybe first loves weren't forever anyway, even if she had waited for that.

Leo laughed hard watching Becca attempt to fix her hair after what he did to it. "You started it." He said with a shrug, as he adjusted the basically nonexistent damage that Becca had inflicted on his hair. "So how are we going to do this? Do I lean down, do you lean up or do we meet in the middle? Also how long are kissed supposed to last when you're trying to get an accurate perspective of how good the other person's skills are?" Leo asked in a sudden rush of questions since he figured it would be rude to just lean in and kiss his friend with absolutely no idea about what was going to happen.

Becca blushed slightly at Leo's line of questioning; she'd acted like she was a bit of an expert, but one kiss at age 13 hardly meant she knew what she was doing. "Meeting in the middle works, but you're supposed to move slowly so you don't do something silly like bump noses," she decided, trying to recall how it had worked with Zac. "And hmmm, if it's over ​too​ fast your brain might not have time to catch up and know if it feels nice, so I'd say we have to wait at least a few seconds. Ten?" Becca supposed. Too long and she'd start to feel self conscious about if her hands were supposed to go to his shoulder or his cheek or just stay at her sides, which made her brows furrow. She wished her body would just do those things automatically, but she didn't know if it would or not. "What do you think?" She asked him quickly, before she could second guess her answers.

Leo listened carefully to Becca's every word just to make sure that he didn't screw up the kiss in some way by mistake. "Sounds like a plan to me. Let's do this. " He agreed with a shrug as he straightened out his posture a little bit before moving in slowly towards Becca to go in for the kiss.

Becca giggled just a little at how matter of fact Leo was about the whole thing; she would have felt guilty if this had been anyone else, but with him, a strange situation was comfortable - and even distracting, which was what Becca thought she needed right now. She leaned forward ever so slightly, tilting her head to make sure she didn't accidentally beak him, and let her eyes flutter closed as her lips gently pressed against his.

Leo closed his eyes too just before Becca's lips were fully against his. As Leo mentally counted down from ten in his head as he kissed Becca he tried his best to stay really chill about the whole thing, ignore the obvious weirdness that came from kissing his girl best friend and just be as natural as possible. When the ten seconds were finally up, Leo pulled back slightly and opened his eyes to study Becca's face in order to get a full reaction from her. "So was that okay?" He asked with an uncharacteristic sheepishness in his tone.

All things considered, ​Becca​ was sure that Leo was a fairly good kisser. The way their lips fit together was much more comfortable than kissing Zac two years ago had been, and if there hadn't been a million other things going on in her mind, she might even have enjoyed it -- in a totally platonic kissing experiment kind of way, of course, she reminded herself. As she pulled back, though, she found herself swallowing down a lump that had formed in her throat. Something about the kiss and the silly mistletoe headband had started to remind her of home, of all the times she'd caught her parents snogging thanks to the decorations she'd sprinkled around the house, and now... Now she'd never see that again, apparently. She tries to focus on Leo, but she was sure her eyes were starting to water as she tried to tease "Certainly not horrible" only to find her wavering voice betraying her.

Leo had never once in a million years expected his first kiss to end in the girl starting to cry. Even though he was new at it, he couldn't have ever guessed that he would've been that bad. "Are you sure about that? " Leo asked, absolutely horrified and ashamed for apparently making his best friend CRY. "I'm sorry, Becks. I didn't know it was going to be that bad for you!"

Becca had hoped that she'd just be able to blink her tears away and pretend that reality hadn't ​just​ sunk in now, at the worst time possible, but Leo's reaction to her wet eyes and watery voice only made her cry harder. "No, no, it's not you, you're so sweet, oh my gosh," Becca tried to apologize, although the choked sobs in between words surely made her hard to understand. "If anything I'm the bad kisser, I'm the one who started crying, you're fine!" She was still sniffling, but she tried to steady her own breaths, not sure yet if she wanted to talk to Leo about what was really going on or if she'd prefer to keep her parents situation a secret just a little longer.

Leo should have felt a little relief when Becca tried to assure him that it wasn't his fault that she'd immediately started crying, but considering her sobs had only gotten worse as she did so, Leo was more concerned with whatever was actually wrong with Becca than anything else. "Then will you please just tell me what's wrong?" Leo begged, pulling Becca in for another hug in an attempt to calm her down a little but giving her enough space so she also had room to be able to clearly say what was going on with her if that's she decided to do.

"Aside from the fact that I just ruined your first kiss?" ​Becca​ asked him miserably. She bit down on her lip, trying to stop it from wobbling; the comfort of Leo's hugs had helped her to steady herself enough to talk, but she knew she was liable to start crying again any second. "I, um..." she had intended to say she didn't want to talk about it, but this was ​Leo​. The only thing harder was keeping a secret from Kelsey, and though it scared her to say the words aloud, she did, barely a whisper. "My parents just told us they're getting divorced."

Leo couldn't help but roll his eyes a little at Becca's response. As if he still gave a damn about his first kiss while his best friend was clearly hurting. When Becca told him that her parents were getting divorced, a million questions popped into his head, and he was just about to ask all of them in one go before common sense kicked in and silenced him. Instead Leo just hugged Becca a little tighter and longer before asking something actually thought out this time. "Do you want to talk about it at all or can I point out that you wasted absolutely no time crying on me, what's it been.. four days since we talked about that?”

Becca would have flushed with e mbarrassment if her whole face weren't already blotchy and hot from crying. "Apparently I said a lot of stuff that jinxed myself," she admitted, thinking in particular of how she and Kelsey had just talked about their parents and how they couldn't see them ever splitting up. "I don't even know how long they've been unhappy," Becca whispered, resting her head on Leo's shoulder. "Dad said they wanted to give us one last holiday as a family, but... but maybe if I just hadn't kept asking them things, talking about the future, putting pressure on it - maybe they would have had more time to try to work it out, you know? What if I just made things worse?"

Leo ​basically petted ​stroked Becca's hair comfortingly as he just listened to her talk about what was going on. Only momentarily stopping when she started blaming herself for things. "I'm sure you didn't make things worse, Becca. People don't come to that kind of conclusion just because their kid had questions about the future. Did they say how long they'd been having problems when they told you about the divorce?"

Becca squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think. She'd been in such a hurry to get away from her living nightmare, to go back to her room and be alone, that not all of the details had stuck... and she hadn't noticed, had she? She couldn't pinpoint the root of their unhappiness or pick out a moment in time where she'd first started to notice something was off, and for someone who liked to know everything all the time, that frustrated her. "I don't... I don't know, I don't know anything except that they started shouting, and then Jules told me to get my coat, and when we got back, mum was all packed up and they were waiting to tell us." Becca pulled back just enough to hang her head. "This is the worst Chrismukkah ever."

Leo felt so awful for Becca, he couldn't imagine how awful it must have felt to have something like that just suddenly sprung up on her in general, and the fact that it was in the middle of the holidays made the whole thing sound even worse. Which is why just seconds later Leo came up with an idea that probably wouldn't completely erase the label of worst from Becca's description of that years Chrismukkah, but he hoped it would at least brighten it up a bit. "How about we make it a little better then. What's something you've always wanted to do that could be finished in one day and possibly wouldn't require leaving the county? Because I'm like 100% certain that if I told her how sad you are right now, she'd be okay with us doing whatever if it meant making sure that you have a good rest of chrismukkah." Leo offered, more grateful than usual that out of all of his friends, he'd been blessed wifh the "cool mom" who'd be up for anything if it meant making Leo and his friends happier.

Becca knitted her eyebrows together in confusion. She'd expected Leo to be nice, but he didn't need to go above and beyond like this; it was too much, especially after the way she'd wrecked his first kiss and cried all over him. "Leo, you don't need to do anything, I could just... I don't know, get on a bus to Bath and go down and see Kelsey, and go to the Jane Austen house or something. It's Christmas break, you should be having fun!" she insisted, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear then twirling the ends of it. "I mean, daddy's usually taken me to all the special things I want to see, like the Madd Hatter Cafe... or there are things I literally can't do, like fly a broomstick over Big Ben and pretend I'm going to Neverland." Becca's face fell, realizing that she didn't know ​what​ could actually cheer her up, besides time and surrounding herself with her friends. "Or, um -- " An idea popped in her head, one that Jules and her dad and her mum had always forcefully told her no about in the past. "What about exploring Knockturn Alley? I'm always so curious about what's down there, even if it is dodgy - I mean, Jade lives there, how bad can it really be?"

Leo 's eyes widened in surprise when Becca finally came up with exploring Knockturn alley. He really had just been expecting something really tame from Becca that didn’t involve exploring such a hotbed of dark magic. On any other day Leo probably would've said 'no' without even the smallest trace of hesitation, but because this was all about cheering Becca up, denying her the one thing she'd asked for, was out of the question. "Uh..I don't think my mom would be exactly on board with that one." Leo said cautiously, so that Becca's hopes didn't go all the way up. "But I think I can get her to just drop us off in Diagon Alley and not tell her where we're actually going, I guess?"

Becca chewed on the inside of her cheek, Leo's words giving her pause. She may be mad at her parents right now, but Leo's mum had never been anything but nice to her... and then there was Jules. Jules hadn't been lying for months like her dad. Jules wasn't leaving like her mum. There was no need to disappoint her sister like that, so instead She shook her head, sure her indecision was starting to make her seem crazy. "We could just go to Flora's for ice cream first and then see where we end up? I just feel kind of...lost, I guess. Wandering aimlessly fits that, right?"

Leo couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief as Becca kind of changed her mind about going to Knockturn Alley, since he already knew lying to his mom even by omission was going to haunt him later. "Sounds good to me. Ice cream is supposed to be the ultimate cheer up snack and I'm sure there will be plenty of interesting things we could see just wandering around where it's safe."

Becca nodded; she'd walked through Diagon Alley dozens of times, obviously, but she'd nearly always had her family there with her. They'd be doing less and less things together now - Becca honestly wasn't quite sure how things would work from now on at all, so she looped her arm through Leo's, sure that if she sat still much longer, she'd think too much and start crying again. "Sounds good to me! Look, I didn't even manage to mess up your shirt, so you don't have to change before we go or anything," Becca told him brightly, her voice for a moment almost back to its normal happy tone.

Leo laughed at Becca's comment and fixed some of the hair he'd messed up earlier that Becca hadn't quite managed to reach herself. "Thanks for that, I quite like this shirt and I would've been really sad if it had been ruined by Becca boogies." He said standing up, pulling Becca up with him due to their looped arms. "Let's go find my mum so we can get a move on then. Oh! And while we're getting Ice Cream I can tell you about how creepy I think that Cinder book is so far! "

Becca stuck her tongue out again just for the briefest of seconds. "I'd fix your shirt, dummy - although you'd miss me when I got myself expelled from Hogwarts on your behalf." Letting Leo tug her up, Becca leaned into his side for support, pretending to gasp at his statement. "Creepy? It's such a good book, how can you think it's creepy?"

Leo rolled his eyes at Becca playfully. "If you'd ruined my shirt here, I could've just asked my mum to wash it. So if you'd gotten yourself expelled for it, that would've been your own fault, dummy." Leo pointed out, scanning his eyes across his room as he tried to remember where he left his coat last time. "That doctor guy that realizes Cinder is immune to the plague. Is he a pedo or not? He creeps me out and why do people dislike cyborgs? They're practically inspector gadget!"

Becca pouted at Leo, knowing that he was right and she'd have to accept defeat this time around. "Okay, well - you're right, I can't get myself expelled unless I make sure Kelsey and I are getting expelled as a team, anyway." Becca followed Leo's lead, finding her coat exactly where Alicia had put it for her, and tapping her foot as she waited for Leo to follow suit. "People are jealous of cyborgs, I think? Or they feel threatened by them," Becca informed him, imagining how inferior she'd feel to someone with a legitimate computer in their brain. She already didn't even think she was the smartest in their year, and that was just with normal brains. "And Dr. Erland's not a pedophile, he's -- ugh, do you really want spoilers? You know how bad I am at stopping my rambling once you get me started, so this is your one warning," Becca informed him as she spotted his jacket first, grabbing it and passing it to him.