Chapter Text
Jason couldn’t exactly pinpoint the exact moment he fell in love with Leo.
His love for him wasn’t an instant moment. It came in waves, softly washing over him until the realization hit him.
It was a quiet Monday night. Leo was sleeping on their couch, wearing one of Jason’s sweatshirts. He had an old throw blanket over him, barely reaching his thighs.
Jason shook his head to himself, immediately searching for a longer blanket. He didn’t want Leo to get cold, after all.
He found a blanket that Piper had gotten for them when they had signed a lease together. It was a picture of the three of them, standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon. Piper had suggested the trip six months ago, and they packed up the car the next day and began to drive. Shel was with them, serving as de facto leader of the trip since she is native to Arizona.
When they got to the Grand Canyon, the fresh air hit Jason in a way he had never experienced. He felt grounded, present in the moment. Looking back, it seems as though he had been living in a trance for a long time, and it was only recently that he became present in his life.
He watched Piper and Leo mess around, laughing through winded stomachs as they made silly faces and took ridiculous selfies. He pulled out his phone, wanting to capture this moment forever. The three of them stood on the edge, wind through their hair and bright smiles. For Christmas that year, she had presented him with that picture on a blanket.
Tears had fallen down Jason’s face. He had never been given such a thoughtful gift, nevertheless had someone he could consider a best friend. He looked at that blanket and it represented hope for new memories and love for the old ones.
As he draped the blanket over Leo, he leaned down to give Leo a kiss, and his brain whispered “I love you”. Jason stood up abruptly, confused at his sudden realization. He had never experienced love before, not of his own accord. The love that Hera had given him towards Piper didn’t count; those were fake memories and a painful attempt at trying.
This love was pure, as wonderful and deep as love was supposed to be. Jason supposed that he had been in love with Leo this entire time, but didn’t realize it until now.
Apparently Leo was a lighter sleeper than he thought, because that soft kiss woke him up. Jason looked down to see Leo stirring, rubbing his eyes and wondering where he was. He sat up slowly, looking confused as he felt a blanket on him.
“Either my memory is gone or I’ve discovered new blanket summoning powers, since I don’t remember falling asleep with this on me.”, Leo said quietly.
He patted the couch, motioning for Jason to sit next to him.
To be honest, he was scared shitless. After this realization, he wasn’t sure what would become of his relationship with Leo. The thought of loving Leo forever and never telling him sounded like Hell, but the idea of losing Leo forever was even worse.
While they weren’t exactly just friends, their relationship was undefined. They cuddled in bed together, but had separate bedrooms for those nights apart. They cooked together, experimenting with recipes as Leo attempted to introduce Jason to his culture. THey held each other during nightmares of the war, when the darkness of that reality threatened to consume the other. When Jason finally confided in someone about how useless he felt during Percy and Annabeth’s absence. How he felt so conflicted in his identity until the House of Hades.
Leo described death to Jason. How his last thought was that he never got to tell him “goodbye”. How a picture of Jason was the last memory to cross his mind. How it felt like his body was splitting into a thousand different pieces, and all he felt was intense pain. Pain that had left permanent scars on and in Leo.
They told each other everything. They were each other’s soulmate, each other’s tether to reality. Whether that was romantic or not was left to be discovered, but right now, Jason wasn’t interested in ruining what they had.
“..Jason?”, Leo asked softly. Jason hadn’t even realized that he was lost in thought for that long.
“Sorry about that. What were you saying?”Jason responded.
“Are you ok?”Leo asked, grabbing Jason’s hand and rubbing it with his thumb. He did that when he suspected Jason was anxious, which happened more often that he would like to admit.
It was those little things that made Jason love him. And it was those exact same things that he couldn’t stand to lose.
“I’m fine”, Jason said, giving Leo a small smile to reassure him. He put his arm around him, bringing Leo close and wrapping the blanket around the both of them. He wasn’t actually fine, but like he said, he wasn’t interested in changing anything.
Jason made the decision to love Leo in every way except out loud. He promised himself that Leo would never have to doubt that Jason was here for him, that his heart was his in every sense of the word. Jason wanted to give all of himself to Leo, wanted him to hold his heart in his warm hands and keep it for the rest of his life.
The emotions were so intense, Jason started tearing up. Leo had started to drift off in his lap, Jason instinctually rubbing his back like he always did. Leo’s quiet snores filled the room, filling Jason with a sense of peace. Sleep was so hard some nights, so every night he was able to fall asleep was a victory.
Eventually Jason drifted into dreamless sleep.
When Leo went to sleep, he dreamt of Jason.
More specifically, he dreamt about their wedding. About the possibility of the two of them having a future together. About children and storytelling and a normal life.
They had a daughter, a son. Two gold wedding rings and a house to call their own. A mechanic shop as well as Jason’s job at some unnamed university. He dreamt of the two of them getting the future he had read about in books.
This was a couple weeks ago, but for the past three days, it was all he could think about. Jason was all he could think about; more specifically, how much Leo loved him.
The realization that Leo loved Jason came one night two months ago. It was one of those nights when they found themselves in bed together, with Jason surrounding Leo with his arms, as if protecting him from the outside world. Jason was lying there silently, listening to Leo recount another repressed memory from foster care, crying as he remembered just how horrible that period of his life had been.
He had been settling down, his breathing becoming more normal and his heart rate going down. Leo looked up and saw Jason’s eye fluttering, him obviously fighting sleep to stay awake for Leo. He chuckled to himself, the words “I love you” flashing in his brain. Leo was stunned in his tracks as he mentally processed what had just happened.
But honestly? He had felt his love for Jason for a while. Whenever he cooks for Jason, and watches him take a bite of his dish and issue a thumbs up, Leo’s heart flutters. Whenever Jason was having car troubles, and Leo took it upon himself to go and fix his car so that he could get to school on time, he felt pride in being able to provide for Jason. On those nights where they lay in bed together, holding each other silently, Leo was enthralled by how much he paid attention to Jason’s breathing. He had loved him for a while, just hadn’t realized it yet.
Tonight he was sleeping alone, Jason quietly sleeping in his room across the hall. Leo felt a longing for Jason’s presence. He carefully got up, putting on his slippers and walking towards Jason’s room when he saw the light in the kitchen turn on. Still believing that Jason was asleep, Leo ran back into his room, grabbed the first sharp object that he saw, and ran towards the kitchen. Inside the kitchen was a human getting some water. He held his weapon, which he realized was a broken lamp, above his head before the human turned around, and it was Jason, tired and disoriented. At the sight of Leo with the broken lamp, he dropped his glass of water,
The glass shattered on the ground, the noise waking them up permanently. They both looked down in shock, blood starting the pool on the ground. Leo was confused at this sight, before he saw that Jason was barefooted, and the glass had shattered right on his feet.
All Jason felt was a lot of pain. He was frozen to the spot he was, with his feet throbbing in pain, and all he could think was “ouch.” He was losing blood very quickly, and he vaguely remembered Leo scrambling around with a broom before he lost consciousness. He fainted on the floor, feeling glass shards scrape his face through the sound of Leo’s screams. He fell to the ground with a thud, his eyes immediately closing.
When Jason woke up, he was in the hospital. And his friends were there. Apparently Leo had called Piper and Shel, leaving 20 frantic voicemails asking them to come over as soon as they could. After 5 minutes of no response, Leo had decided to call the ambulance, since he had taken enough Health courses in PE to know not to move someone with a head trauma. The EMTs had come inside with the stretcher and taken Jason to the ambulance, where they assessed him as Leo quickly tried to clean up the glass. Leo had overheard talks of “permanent brain damage”, and his fear had caused him to call everyone he knew cared about Jason. Hearing this part touched Jason to the core. In his final moments, Leo had wanted to make sure he got to say goodbye to his family.
Along with Piper and Shel, Frank, Hazel, Reyna, and Thalia were in the room. He definitely knew that this many people weren't allowed to be in someone’s hospital room, but as Jason looked around, he could see Hazel concentrating in manipulating the Mist so that some went unnoticed.
Jason looked over to the nearest clock, the time reading 3:47 am. It was late at night, yet his friends had come all this way to make sure that he was ok. Jason wasn’t too big on outward shows of affection (that habit had been disciplined out of him during his time at Wolf House) but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t start to tear up a bit.
Thalia walked towards the bed, putting her face on Jason’s head and looking him in the eyes. He hadn’t noticed it before, but they looked more alike than other people claimed.
“How are you feeling, Jason?”, she said softly.
Jason attempted to open his mouth, but his head was pounding. He felt Leo walk about and grab his hand.
“The doctor said he’s going to have some head pain for a while, since he’s severely concussed. It’s probably best if he doesn’t try and carry a conversation right now.”, Leo explained, while rubbing his thumb across the back of Jason’s hand.
Jason was grateful for the out. He really didn’t want them to leave, but he didn’t really want to talk either.
Frank and Hazel came up to the bed as well.
“Jason, man, I’m so glad you’re ok.”, Frank said, slightly tearing up.
Hazel nodded in agreement.
“I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t here. We have got to see each other more.”
Jason chuckled a little, immediately regretting it due to the pain that reverberated in his head. He didn’t want them to think he hadn’t been listening, so he gave a small thumbs up, hoping they could see. Hazel noticed it first, pointing it out to Frank, which elicited a small smile from him. After everything that had happened for those two, together and individually, Jason was so proud to see them come out on the other side. Frank was definitely right when he said that they should get together more often. They put their hand on Jason’s free hand, before letting the group know that they had to get out and continue preparing for Senate meetings they had in the morning. Reyna and Thalia also had to leave; Artemis had granted them only a small amount of leave, and they were leaving for a big hunt the next morning.
At long last, it was Leo, Piper, and Shel left in the room. At this point, Jason considered them his best friends. They all sat there as the doctor came in and gave them an update on Jason’s prognosis (not after a little bit of Charmspeak to convince the doctor that they were Jason’s family) and that he would be fine, that he just needed some bed rest. A doctor gave them a letter to send to Jason’s professors at school, as well as Leo since he was acting as caretaker. Shel and Piper bid them goodbye, leaving to go back to their apartment.
Leo stood by Jason’s bed, having never let go of his hand. He looked lost in thought, as if pondering a very important decision.
After Shel and Piper left, it was just the two of them. Leo would be lying if he said that this didn’t make him incredibly nervous. The entire night, Leo had been one piece of bad news away from a nervous breakdown. He blamed himself for everything that happened tonight; if he hadn’t snuck up on Jason, he never would’ve dropped the glass, and he never would’ve been in the hospital. Now they were both missing school because of his mistake.
It was events like these that kept Leo from telling Jason that he loved him. He kept messing up Jason’s life, one way or another. He was a nuisance, a bother, a burden that Jason had yet to shake off. There was no way telling him this information wouldn’t ruin his life. So Leo decided to bottle it up, keep it buried deep inside him to protect Jason. While the thought of loving without loving him out loud made Leo want to scream, the thought of ruining Jason’s life caused Leo’s heart to shred into pieces.
After a two day hospital stay, Leo finally brought Jason home. He had petitioned Apollo to do something about the medical bills, but he could only get them reduced to $5000. Leo was going to have to drop out of school and work to pay the bill, at risk of losing their apartment. The idea of this stressed him out, but it was what he had to do for Jason. To remedy the state he put Jason in.
When Jason was asleep, he called their university. The Dean of Engineering answered.
“Hello, Dean Smith speaking. How may I help you?”
“Hi, this is Leo. Leo Valdez.”, he said quietly, trying to keep Jason from waking up.
“Why hello Leo! How are you doing?”
“I’m well, thank you. I’m actually calling to let you know that I’m going to be submitting the paperwork for a withdrawal from the next semester.”
“But, Leo, you’re one of the most promising students in the Engineering Department, and you only have one semester left. I have it on good authority that there are at least five companies looking to hire you after you graduate. Why would you decide to stop when you’re almost done?”
Leo was silent for a second. A voice in the back of his brain told him that this was rash, that he shouldn’t quit when he was so close. But as he heard Jason snoring across the hall, he reminded himself that it was his fault that Jason was in this state. So he decided to come clean.
“I can’t afford to pay tuition and medical bills. I have to pay these bills so I don’t get kicked out of my house. I can’t get kicked out because then my roommate and I will have nowhere to go. So I’m leaving school to get a job.”
“Leo, have you applied for scholarships? Financial aid? Student loans?”
Leo hadn’t considered this when making this decision. Maybe he should’ve taken the time to ponder his options before just dropping out of school.
“Based on your silence, I can tell that the answer is not yet. Leo, before you decide to leave, let me send you some options. If I can take off the stress of school, maybe you can get a job solely to pay these bills. But you’re one of the smartest students I know. Please don’t throw all your hard work away.”
Leo was still 90% sure he was going to quit, but he didn’t want to disregard the advice of one of his favorite mentors.
“Sure.”
“I’ll have those to you by tomorrow morning. Have a nice day.”
“You too.”
After the phone clicked off, Leo started walking towards his room, when he heard Jason call his name.
“Leo?”, Jason whispered softly.
“Yes?”, Leo said as he walked in. He saw Jason there, slightly pale, looking very tired. He was holding open the blanket, patting the space next to him.
“Come lie here.”, Jason said. “Please?”
There was no way Leo could say no to that, so he got in bed next to Jason and they drifted off to sleep.