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“Don’t ask me how I know,” Jason started as he sat down next to Leo, “but happy birthday, dude.” A cupcake slid in front of Leo’s journal, a single unlit candle waiting innocently.
Leo didn’t skip a beat. “It’s not my birthday,” he pushed the cupcake back to Jason and continued scribbling whatever he was doing. Jason raised an eyebrow and pushed the plate back in front of his friend. “Dude,” Leo shoved it away. Jason moved it back. Leo put down his pencil and exhaled sharply. “Dude.” The plate scraped against the table again.
Now with the cupcake in front of him, Jason sighed and folded his arms on the table. “I don’t get it. If it’s not your birthday, then we have a problem.”
“Oh yeah?” Leo mumbled. He dropped his elbow on the table, his left one, which Jason was next to, and propped his cheek on his fist. With him turned away, Jason could barely see what was so crucial that Leo was writing and instead saw the swirl of Leo’s hair and lint on his shirt. “I bet.”
“A really bad problem,” Jason continued. “Like a monster intruder problem. They’re messing with our heads and interfering with our dreams.”
“Festus would never let that happen.”
“I don’t know. It already happened.”
“Then good luck.”
Jason gave it a second to register. Then Leo popped his head up and turned to Jason fully, going, “what are you talking about, man? There’s no way a monster got past my security system. Are you saying I’m not good at what I do? I’ll have you know, I’m very good at what I do.”
“I know that,” Jason pushed Leo’s pencil point away from his face. He nodded to the cupcake. “Are you going to be very good at eating that cupcake?”
Leo looked at it as if it was the first time he’s seen it. “Is that for me?”
“Yeah, look, I made sure it’s your favorite color,” Jason pointed out the red frosting, pushing the plate to Leo a final time. His best friend gingerly pulled out the candle and licked his thumb. Leo bit into it hesitantly. Jason dropped his arms on the table again. “Hope you don’t mind confetti batter.”
“Fun,” Leo swallowed. “Shoot, man, is it really my birthday?”
“Um, yeah,” Jason said. “At least I hope so.”
“What’s today?”
“The seventh.” Jason watched Leo finish the cupcake and lick his fingers. It was hard to see, but from what it looked like, Leo was working around blueprints. Jason saw the words SPIDER WEIGHT, VELOCITY, and PIT. “Of July.”
Rolling his eyes, Leo closed his journal around his pencil. “I know what month it is, genius. The seventh already?” The son of Vulcan winced, gazing at the walls of the lounge where Camp Half-Blood’s busy day was starting to wind down. It was already nighttime for them, but being in here, Jason could see why it was easy to lose track of time. Leo balled up his cupcake wrapper. “So it’s been seven days already.”
“Seven days since…?”
“Tartarus.” At the word, Jason couldn’t resist shivering. Call it demigod instinct. Ever since he watched Annabeth and Percy get dragged into the pit, Jason’s had nightmares of it happening to him. Of course, he’s glad it didn’t, but he also didn’t wish Tartarus onto anyone else.
Jason nodded. “We’re only a few days away from the Doors of Death. Hazel and Nico are creating a plan while Frank and Hedge are doing more monster checks. Because we don’t have Percy keeping an eye on the ocean, he’s been turning into a dolphin to warn any fish we might be bothering.”
“I thought I was hallucinating the talking shark,” Leo mumbled.
“No, that would be Frank coming back from a shift,” Jason laughed. “Piper’s been running around to make sure morale is up while I’ve been trying to double down on the air front and keeping up with the communications Annabeth had been handling before her quest. The Romans don’t know about Percy and Annabeth yet but—”
“They’ll find out. And things would go bad.”
“Right-o.”
Leo groaned and dropped his head on the table. “So everyone’s been busy helping each other, and I’ve been moping around for a week? Great. Another score for the hammer kid.”
Jason brushed his arm against Leo’s shoulder. “You’ve been fixing the ship non-stop without help. How do you think we’re getting anywhere?”
“Why do you think we’re in this situation?” Leo sat up. His hands stayed uncharacteristically still in his lap, and he focused his gaze on the walls. “Hazel told you guys about the fortune cookie, didn’t she? I opened it, and now they’re in hell.” He turned his head to Jason. “You think that’s a coincidence? There’s no coincidences with us.”
“You can’t seriously think that.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Leo said. “That’s fate for you.”
“Leo,” Jason straightened and grabbed his shoulders. “Look at me. You can’t blame yourself over a cookie. We all thought we could’ve done something different, but the results were still the same—”
“You don’t get it, though,” Leo scowled. “Nemesis gave me that and told me how it’s this big thing, and I wasted it on that stupid sphere, and now our friends could be—”
“Nico could’ve run faster. Piper could’ve shouted when she saw the web. Hazel could’ve used her powers. Frank could’ve turned into a cheetah. I could’ve flown over there and grabbed them,” Jason sighed and dropped his hands. “We’re all thinking the same thing, Leo. So stop beating yourself up over it.”
Leo grew silent, thinking it over. Jason figured his words weren’t going to be a complete change for his friend, but maybe it would start something. Leo had the same line of thinking as he did back on their first quest when Festus was malfunctioning. Did Jason ever tell him that it wasn’t Leo’s fault? Sure, Leo knew it now, and it doesn’t even matter, but did Jason say it?
Percy and Annabeth were alive. Jason wasn’t sure how he knew it, but he knew it, or maybe some part of him was hoping so much that someone could hear his wish and make it happen. But, if Jason had been in that situation, would he blame the rest of his friends? And if he—they—died… would Jason die with regrets and anger, or would he die thinking his friends did everything they could?
It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Jason was sure of that, at least.
Swallowing, Jason rolled out his shoulders, saying, “it’s not your fault, Leo. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you can’t blame yourself. It’s... not your fault.”
From the way Leo’s face changed from a look of contemplation to a face of uncertainty, Jason wondered how often Leo heard that. He waited to see if Leo would protest or laugh Jason off the way he usually did, but instead, Leo pressed his lips together and leaned back in his chair.
They sat there together for a while. Jason could only guess at the time frame from the way the campers portrayed on the walls. The hearth at the center of Camp Half-Blood blazed softly in its sections of megapixels as a few Hermes campers snuck out and ran to the Amphitheater.
“So, how’d you know it was my birthday?”
“Hm?”
“The cupcake, the candle,” Leo’s fingers tapped the plate. “I sure didn’t tell you or even remember. So how’d you know?”
Jason shrugged. “I saw it in a dream.”
Leo paused and then choked back a snicker. “Like that’s not creepy at all.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “And what happened in this birthday dream? Was it a party or my gravestone? Gods, did I die, and this is your way of telling me that? Happy Death Day kind of thing?”
“You have so much birthday cheer,” Jason tossed at him. Leo’s change of subject didn’t go unnoticed, though. Jason’s frustration stayed internal- he’d have to talk about this later then. So he rolls with the conversation, trying not to fumble the details. “It was one of those future prophetic dreams. And no, you were not dead.”
“Yet,” Leo added.
Jason scoffed. “How can you look at Nico and call him death when you say stuff like this?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” Leo grinned. “Okay, so future dream, and it’s my birthday. Oh gross—,” Leo bemoaned, “this isn’t that weird grandpa story you told Piper, is it? Dude, who told you to say that?”
“Piper told you?” Jason blushed. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Oh, it so was.” Leo started to cackle. He clasped his hands together and made kissy noises in the air. “Piper!” His expression of Jason was far from perfect, but Jason couldn’t resist laughing out loud. “We’re gonna get married and have lots of babies who have even more babies, and we’ll sit in rocking chairs and yell at each other until our hair disappears, and we’re sitting in our own toilets!”
“Alright, I get it. It wasn’t my finest moment.” Jason’s shoulders were still shaking. “In my defense, that’s what I thought she wanted to hear!”
“No one wants to hear that, dude.” Leo snickered. “Even if I had your good looks, people would still think I was ridiculous for saying something like that.”
“If you told me something like that, I’d believe it!” Jason assured him. “I think it’s nice.”
“Gods,” Leo gazed up at him, and Jason thought he looked really happy right now. Jason was probably dumb for thinking it but, when Leo made fun of him and made him laugh like this, it was akin to flying. “You’re such a sucker.” Their laughing fading left Jason with such a warm feeling. Leo rolled the candle underneath his fingertips and off-handedly said: “Piper’s really lucky to have you.”
Without skipping a beat, Jason goes, “I’m lucky to have you.”
The candle under Leo’s finger snapped, but Leo didn’t seem to notice, his mouth opening and the shutting closed. Jason quickly amended his statement, face burning red, “H-here, I mean. I’m lucky you’re one of the Seven with me. You’re my best friend. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.”
“... Yeah,” Leo’s face grew red too, and he made a strange face. “So this dream.”
“Yes, that,” Jason ran a hand through his hair. “We were older, maybe a few years? And I remember that we were sitting and talking—”
“Like this?”
“Yeah. We were just sitting on some steps, and we were talking about things. All I really remember was you mentioning it was your birthday, and I said, ‘Happy Birthday,’ Jason peeked at Leo from the corner of his eye. “You looked happy there.”
Leo, for once, gave Jason a small smile. It wasn’t exactly the happiest thing Jason’s ever seen, but it also wasn’t fake. “That sounds nice.”
“It was. Or it will be.”
Leo bit his lip. “Jason, you talk a lot. But you don’t really say things.” He pushed the candle on top of the plate with the wrapper and pushed it in front of Jason. “You’re a weird dude, but you can tell me what you’re thinking, man.”
There wasn’t much to say. Jason wasn’t thinking about anything but Leo. Even with all that was happening on the ship, most of Jason’s thoughts were, how is Leo dealing? I haven’t seen him all day. Then, of course, there were thoughts about everything else, but it was more like his mind had filled up space with his best friend and through the cracks came whatever else there was.
So getting a dream like that, a few years in the future, where they sat and talked like they used to—or now do—at least Jason knew they would be fine. Even if it was simply small talk or a simple Happy Birthday, Jason knew that he would be happy in the future.
It was a scary feeling, somehow.
“What are you thinking right now?” Leo tried slowly. He hesitantly reached out, and his hand brushed Jason’s on the table.
“I am thinking…,” Jason murmured. He smiled at Leo, thumb rubbing Leo’s hand. “Happy Birthday. I can’t wait to celebrate the next one with you.”
Leo’s eyes never left Jason’s face, but he grinned back. “Yeah,” he nodded, slowly, then agreeing. “Sounds like a plan. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
“For, uh, the, um,” Leo started to trip over his own words, but somehow, Jason got it.
“No need to thank me,” Jason told him. “You’re…” he lacks the right word, so Jason settled, “my best friend. I chose that. If anything,” Jason shrugged, “You’re my fault. Not something I would do differently… us being together is not a coincidence,” he added for extra protection.
Almost instantaneously, did Leo’s hair catch on fire. “Hades, Jason, you really need to think about what you say. You are,” he hastily patted it out, face flickering through so many emotions, his ears still smoking. “Awful. The worst. No one to blame but myself for dealing with a dummy like you.”
Jason grinned, yawning. “That is your fault.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Leo seemed more like himself than when Jason had first sat down. Jason’s stomach rolled around happily, and he is once again reminded of what it’s like to free-fall through the sky. “I guess I can toss out my plans to replace you with Festus.”
“Could Festus bake you a cupcake?”
Leo raised an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”
“For you to make a dragon head a master baker? Probably not.” Jason got up and pushed his chair in. “I’m heading out to switch watch shifts with Piper. You should get to sleep soon; you’ve been at this table for hours.” Leo waved him off but stretched widely, audibly cracking his spine. Jason watched, amused, “You never made a wish, by the way. Didn’t even light the candle.”
Leo stood up too like he was going to leave, but Jason knew better. The moment Jason left, Leo would probably go back to what he was doing before Jason came. Instead, Jason was pleasantly surprised by Leo pushing in the chairs and tucking his notebook under his armpit, balancing the plate in one hand. “Don’t worry about it,” Leo said casually, hitting Jason’s shoulder as he walked by. “Already got all I could wish for right now. Thanks, man.”
That could mean anything, and it most likely wasn’t even true, but it made Jason grin to himself like he was floating, and if Jason didn’t know better, he was sure that was why Leo had said it in the first place.