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“You need to be more confident,” Jason tossed to Leo, arms folded as he watched.
The son of Hephaestus tried again, stabbing his sword into the straw dummy again. Leo’s sword barely made a dent, and the stupid dummy looked like Leo’s efforts fixed its once awkward slouch.
“Jason, tell me the truth,” Leo groaned, dropping his sword arm. “I’m gonna flunk the Grace school of weirdos, right? Just give me the failing grade now, and you can owe Piper the 5 bucks or whatever it took to make you do this.”
“Hey,” Jason’s arms dropped, and he hopped over the railing. “I wanted to help you. Can’t have my best friend dying out there because nobody bothered to teach him how to use a weapon.”
“I have a weapon,” Leo pointed out. He rapped his knuckles against his noggin. “This bad boy has kept us safe every time, and stuffing more nonsense inside might short circuit my brains, man.”
Jason rolled his eyes and patted the straw dummy. Leo groaned loud enough for Jason to understand that he so didn’t want to do this as he dragged his feet into the taught stance. Moving back, Leo twitched, thinking about the eyes watching him.
In the Sword Fighting arena, there was only a couple of kids training. A mixed class of cabins fifteen and eighteen were sticking to their side of the arena, watching their head counselors duke it out.
Leo’s own cabin was in Arts & Crafts with Cabin Seven, and Leo had been amongst them (which was a rare sight since the ship construction went underway) until Jason swooped in with a dazzling smile asking Austin if they could be excused for a quick “training sesh.”
A few other demigods milled around in the seating area, enjoying the sunny rays and talking amongst themselves. Leo was familiar with most of their faces, but names were another issue.
None of those eyes really mattered to Leo anyway. He was not used to attention, but when he was given it, there was a fifty-fifty chance he’d embrace it wholly or would shy away. Right now, the only attention that was focused on him was the bright electric blue eyes of his best friend, and that made Leo so nervous he was honestly surprised his sword wasn’t on fire. Which was a really cool idea, but not cool if Leo stayed this lousy at sword fighting.
“Here,” Jason moved closer. He hesitated, reaching out. “Can I adjust you, or do you want to fall over again?”
“Or do you want to fall over again,” Leo mocked in a high-pitched sniveling tone. Then he gave Jason the kindest biggest puppy dog eyes he could muster. “Please, Professor Grace, I don’t want to go to summer school.”
Jason thought that was funny as he stepped behind Leo, grabbing his shoulders. “There,” Jason’s hands were big and sturdy. He had callouses, Leo noted while thinking of his own. They did different work, but both of them understood persistence and diligence.
Jason’s foot pushed at the inside of Leo’s ankle, sliding his feet farther apart. “Your sense of balance needs to be lower.” He grabbed Leo’s waist and set him lower. His words sent small breaths shivering down Leo’s nape. “Pay attention to where your feet and body are. You won’t have armor every time you fight, so you need to remember where your organs are.”
“Jason,” Leo said slowly, his chest feeling hot. “I can confidently say I know where my organs are.”
“Duh,” Jason laughed, and his fingers tickled at Leo’s side for a second, causing him to squirm. “It’s just something I was reminded of as a kid. I was pretty close to getting sliced open a couple of times growing up.”
“I’ll try to avoid that.”
Jason pinched Leo’s side again, and his hands slid up to Leo’s shoulders again, then in a quick motion, down his arms. His fingers curled around Leo’s gripping hands, not being too big to completely encapsulate them, but still big enough. His hands were cool, at least in comparison to Leo’s.
“Your grip is pretty loose,” Jason’s words fell in Leo’s ear. His breath felt hot here. Leo’s toes curled.
“You try holding a sword with some dude hanging all over you,” Leo gritted out, but he relaxed his fingers some more to let Jason adjust them again. He stared at a fixed point in the ground until Jason deemed Leo to be in the perfect form for the weapons section of Demigod Weekly.
“Okay,” Jason stepped back and passed in front of Leo. He had his own gladius in his hand, the gold glimmering. Sliding into a mirrored stance in a mere second, Jason nodded at Leo. “Okay, now come at me.”
“What the—” Leo dropped his stance. “What do you mean ‘come at me? I could barely dent the dummy!”
Jason shrugged, but his smirk said everything. “I figured you might need a more active approach.”
“That’s bull!” Leo whined. “You just wanna kick me when I’m down.”
Jason chuckled again. “You’ll be fine, Leo. You’re a demigod too, remember? It’ll come naturally to you.”
Leo hesitantly stepped back in place. Shoot. He messed up all those adjustments Jason had made. Leo’s face burned at the thought of going through that again. He’d just have to wing it like usual, Valdez style.
“Alright,” Leo grinned, despite preparing an obituary in his head. “Come and get it then, Grace.”
Jason’s grin was equally as wide. “Oh really?” He launched himself forward with a wide swing.
Leo swerved under the blade and rolled to the side. Jason told him he should work more on his defense. He was small and quick, which would make him better at evading. To Leo, that really just sounded like Jason was calling him some skinny punk who ran away at a fight, but Jason assured him it was a strength to be used.
Leo jumped to his feet and thrust himself forward. Their swords clattered against each other. Jason moved back, calling out, “there’s a rhythm to this! Think of it as dancing!”
“Jason!” Leo sidestepped as Jason’s sword came at his head. “You know I don’t like dancing!”
Jason laughed and jutted his weapon again. Leo backed up, hitting the railing. His mind flickered over the scene. Slowly approaching, Jason was showing off by spinning his sword. Leo would’ve made fun of him if it wasn’t for the fact that Jason could probably kick him down before a single word came out.
He counted the seconds, Jason coming closer, then darted forward. Jason moved instinctually in surprise, but Leo dove down. Behind Jason, he kicked out and rolled out the way as Jason tumbled. He flipped over the other demigod and pinned his arms down.
“Gods,” Leo breathed heavily. “I am really out of shape.”
Jason snickered, looking up at him. “I still have my sword in my hand.”
“Then let go of it.”
Jason released his grip, and the sword dropped to the ground. Leo brought Jason’s arms up over his head, pinning him in a better form. Jason shook his head, smirking up to Leo. “You know your enemy wouldn’t just drop their weapon, right?”
“Yeah, they would,” Leo said. “I’m charming.”
“Sure,” Jason’s smile was easy-going. “But I can easily flip you.”
Leo felt pretty firm where he was. “I’d like to see you try—” Then the wind got knocked out of him, and suddenly he was staring up at the blue sky. Jason’s head bobbed in front of him, Leo’s wrists now pinned under his hands. “Oh, okay.”
Jason gave him a cheeky grin. “Told you, Leo.”
“That you did, Sparky.” Leo tried to lean up, but Jason’s grip was pretty strong, so he dropped back. While Leo was used to looking up to Jason, figuratively and literally, being underneath the guy was definitely a new perspective.
With the sun behind Jason’s head, his blond hair gave him a shimmering halo effect. Jason sat on his abdomen, careful not to press too hard. Leo’s only had this sight from far away: watching Jason pin down monsters before bludgeoning them in the head. Leo was safe from that fate, assumedly, but as the one being under Jason, he can firmly say, with sweaty palms and the growing need to start incessantly chattering about everything but, that watching Jason take someone down and being taken down were very, very different things. Leo felt ridiculous in many ways.
Someone started to giggle. Leo craned his neck to the side to find Aphrodite kids passing by, laughing at him, seeing something Leo could not see. Cheeks coloring, Leo quickly dropped his gaze, only to find Jason watching him.
“So, how was I, señor?” Leo thanked the gods his voice didn’t squeak. “An expert swordsman, if I do say so myself.”
Jason laughed. “We can keep trying.” He squeezed his grip on Leo’s wrists. “If you want... I know you have to get back to building the Argo again.” He sounded a little defeated, like Jason knew his time with Leo was limited.
Which was a little true. Leo wanted to finish his ship as soon as he could to help Jason get back to his other home, but right now, Leo couldn’t bring himself to move away.
“My baby can wait,” Leo drawled, “Festus probably likes the free time in the bunker anyway. He’s like a dog who never gets his daily walks in there. Once I caught him chasing his own tail.”
“Only you can fix a dragon-dog.”
“Damn straight.” Jason shifted, but his thigh pressed into Leo’s kidney. Leo exhaled. “So, uh, are you going to get off of me to attempt to maim me again or…?”
Jason blinked as if only now remembering that he was on top of Leo. He moved off, offering Leo a hand up. Leo took it, feeling the calluses. “Do you want to try again?”
Leo shrugged. “Well, I am pretty sucky at this. Don’t try to deny it. You and I both know I’m better off running around throwing breath mints.”
“You’re not that bad,” Jason says, sounding earnest enough. Leo’s stomach felt like it was on a rollercoaster. His eyes darted back to where the class of demigods learning how to fight were ending their lesson. Jason picked up their swords, offering Leo’s sword to him by the hilt. “It just takes practice. You pick up things easily, so you’ll be fine.” Jason’s grin went askew. “Maybe not as good as me but good enough to not die at your next fight—”
“Not dying is a goal of mine.”
“—But I’m not going to hurt you, Leo,” Jason said more seriously. “I would never hurt you.”
He said it with such conviction that Leo had no choice but to have his hair go into flames and back away. Sure, Leo knew that Jason wouldn’t put him at harm’s risk, but hearing out loud coming from the guy who said some of the dumbest things Leo’s heard, with Jason saying like it was a swear on the Styx— what could Leo do?
“Of course I know that,” Leo’s voice chose just then to squeak, and his hair fire burned brighter. He began patting out his head out. “Maybe I should get us lightsabers instead. Do you think there’s demigod lightsabers— never mind, don’t answer that, it’ll be a Valdez original—” Leo gets cut off by Jason knocking him down again. “What the f—”
“Sorry, couldn’t resist,” Jason offered him a hand again. “You should pay more attention to your surroundings. Just a tip from, um, Professor Grace.”
As if Leo could keep Jason out of his sight for long. He grumbled to himself, face still warm, and took Jason’s hand. He was pulled up, stumbled forward and fell into Jason’s chest. Jason’s hands automatically dropped to catch him, fingers digging into Leo’s waist in a way that wasn’t quite unsimilar from earlier, where Jason was fixing Leo’s form. The rollercoaster in Leo’s stomach practically took a nosedive and crashed into the Underworld.
“Hi,” Jason said.
“Hi,” Leo said back.
They weren’t even standing there anymore, but Leo could hear the Aphrodite kids laughing at him in his mind. Leo felt like Festus running around chasing something that was always going to be there. Then, finally, Jason pushed away, face pink, bending to pick up the swords again.
“So,” Jason stayed at sword distance away, flushed. “You want to try again?”
He tossed Leo his practice sword again, Leo barely catching it.
“Sure,” Leo said, if only to keep him from thinking about literally anything else but Jason and his own hair threatening to reignite. Jason seemed to be doing the same. Both were blushing and doing nothing about it, outside of exchanging lingering glances. “But go easy on me. I’m serious. This body can only take so much damage in one hour.”
“No serious body harm I can promise,” Jason swung his sword, forcing Leo into a quick defense position. “But easy? For my favorite student? Never.” Jason’s sword came dangerously close to snipping off a few strands of hair.
Leo skitted to the side. “Favorite student? Piper’s gonna be so jealous. If I don’t die, of course.”
“Of course,” Jason laughed, and began charging again.