Chapter Text
“So,” Leo begins, “how do I look?”
Jason pulls himself away from his work to peer over at his roommate. Leo’s leaning casually against the bed, grinning rakishly. His green sweater is rumpled, and the dress shirt underneath hasn’t seen an iron in millennia. His collar sticks up, and the tie underneath is loose, dangling from his neck. Pomade doesn’t rein in his curls, which spill from his head like waves of chocolate, glossy from the gel’s attempt to lock it in place.
As usual, he’s a mess. A charming mess, but Jason doesn’t tell him that. “Depends - what’s the occasion?”
“Cal invited me to one of her games,” Leo replies idly, blowing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes.
“In that case, maybe wear a suit and tie,” Jason jokes. His eyes burn holes through his theater lines – he usually hates practicing like this, cowering over his desk instead of reciting them aloud, but if the wrong friend were to come in, he wouldn’t be able to brush his papers aside and pretend he was doing trigonometry instead.
Besides, it’s easier to turn his head away, to focus on something else instead of Leo’s unkept appearance. Still, the parts he’s highlighted smear together in his vision, and he yanks off his glasses, blinking feverishly.
“Rude,” Leo remarks in a posh accent. “I’ll have you know I look my best when I’m not trying.”
I know, Jason thinks, but he breathes out a laugh and tries to return to his lines, all highlighted in smears of yellow that hurt to look at. Not more than it hurts to look at Leo, though, who studies himself in a mirror, adjusting the whimsy curls of his hair, scrutinizing over every imperfect detail. Jason’s never seen him so fidgety, so worried about his appearance when he’d once been so confident.
He still is, but it’s the same kind of flimsy confidence Jason’s seen some of his other friends wear, a bit like chain-mail armor. Full of strong iron links. Full of holes.
“Alright!” Leo pipes up, shoving his hands in his pockets. “See you later?”
“Yeah,” Jason manages. His smile wavers like the tide, waning in and out. Just before Leo leaves, he gathers every bit of genuinity he can muster and adds, “Have fun!”
Leo flashes a dazzling grin, which eases Jason, if only for a moment.
The door shuts, and the moment ends. The sun slinks behind the clouds. Weak threads of light filter through the dusty windows, cold against his skin. He hopes Leo didn’t notice the downturn of his lip, sinking like a lonely bucket in a bottomless well. He hopes Leo didn’t notice how his shoulders dipped, or how he had to pretend the name Cal didn’t feel like a rotten stench, pushing him out of the room, vying for space.
But it doesn’t matter what he hopes, not really. Leo is in the thralls of young love, and he isn’t going to notice all the little things Jason notices about him.
He peers down at his hands again, uncovering the packet for the play. A surge of delight, however muted, fills him briefly, like a spring breeze. He has something to focus on, to pour himself into, and for now, that’s enough.
Puck, he thinks, searching for the next line. He finds his character, in bold, saying: Lord, what fools these mortals be!
The game is, frankly, tedious.
That doesn’t stop Leo from cheering like a maniac whenever points are scored, or hollering at the top of his lungs with the crowd, just because he can. He has to admit, there’s a certain thrill to it – the combination of random yelling and the sugar high he’s getting from his soda push him through the boring parts, and whenever things stall, his eyes find their way to the myriad of preppy cheerleaders until he sees her.
She’s dressed in the standard uniform – the white turtleneck underneath a v-neck sweater with red trim, her skirt poofy as dandelion fluff. Twin pom-poms sway in time with the marching band beat, and her caramel-colored hair glides down her back in a gleaming coil, moving wildly with each twist of her toned limbs like a whip. Unlike the other girls, who smile prettily throughout their routines, her jaw is locked, lips pursed with concentration.
She looks as serious as an executioner, but that’s Calypso, Leo supposes. Always sincere about her passions. She wouldn’t be caught dead fake-smiling even once.
Leo doesn’t realize the game is over until people start pouring from the bleachers. It’s only when he goes to greet Cal by the edge of the field that he realizes that his breath probably smells like cherry soda, and that his teeth could be stained with it, and that his hair was definitely blown into a million separate strands by the wind (that one he’s not too upset with. He never could’ve pulled off a gel-helmet, anyway.)
“Cal!” he calls out, breathless in the sharp cold. She meets his gaze, hands her friend her pom-poms, and walks over to him with slow, leisurely strides, her long braid swinging behind her.
“Leo,” she says, her mouth quirking upwards. “I’m glad you came. Did you like the game?”
“Uh, yeah! It was...very riveting.” If he’s being honest, football just doesn’t get him excited, mostly because he was bred and raised on soccer. But saying his crush’s literal patron sport is dull breaks every rule in Flattery 101, so he ends his sentence there.
“Riveting,” she repeats, lowering her eyelashes in that judgmental way she does when she knows he’s lying. He thinks it’s meant to make him confess the truth, but he can’t help but instead notice her sparkly red eyeliner, its bold shade of scarlet accompanying her sharp eyes. “I see. And how’s school been?”
He shrugs. “Fine.” Math and physics and engineering - he can talk about those subjects for hours. If he starts raving about it now, though, Cal – whose interests lie elsewhere, particularly in cheerleading and literature – will probably cut him off, so he flashes an easygoing smile and asks her about cheer practice instead.
“Oh, it’s been great,” she gushes. “The captain is graduating soon, which means there’ll be a vacancy. I hope they choose me to take it up.”
“Of course they will,” he reassures. “I mean, you’re, like, the best one on the team. You always give it your all.”
She frowns, twirling a stray lock of burnished hair around her finger. “Maybe, but so do the other girls. They might choose Arethusa instead since she has more experience than I...”
“Ari’s got nothing on you,” he tells her, dimly recalling that she was one of Cal’s distant step-sisters, with shiny dark ringlets and eyes a startling shade of gold. “Besides, isn’t she a transfer? She’ll be moving back to your dad’s estate soon. They’ll want someone more permanent.”
“Maybe,” she repeats. Her gaze is wistful, mottled brown like cracked amber. Her small fingers unfurl like flower petals reaching for the grace of the sun, reaching for the rays of her dream. It’s with those fingers that she once held his hand, when they met at a house party hosted by a shared friend. She’d been radiant, then. Drunk on sour punch, her hair tumbling loose from its braid, her cheeks flushed like blooming roses.
They’d sat on the stairway steps near the door, pretending that the thin railing would separate them from the life of the party and give them some semblance of privacy. She’d been holding a bottle of wine by the neck, stolen somewhere from the pantry, and they’d shared sips while talking about everything and anything. How she wished her father didn’t isolate her so much from the rest of her family, how he wished his was around at all. Schoolwork and friendship woes. Secrets, piling high between them like dry wood, the wine a match that lit it all aflame.
When she held his hand, they shared a breath of amusement, their gazes filtered with shoddy lights and the stench of grapes. And when he kissed her, they laughed then, like it was all some fun joke that they would forget when the sun rose. Her little fingers, callused from gardening and from exercise, fitting into his big hands, each of his burnished digits scarred from metalworking accidents; from straying too close to open fires.
Her palm was loose in his, like it could slip away at any time.
“So,” he says, trying to pull himself out of the revel of past times. She perks up at the sound of his voice, but her face seems alien. Still beautiful, but not the carved with the same wildness that she’d had when they were on the steps, knees pressed together, the bottle passing between them. “Want to go out later? Get something to eat?”
Her lips press together, so cold and silent. “I have practice,” she says.
It’s the same thing she tells him every time he suggests they hang out. When she has games, he comes to show his support, but she simply can’t go anywhere with him. He thinks that maybe she doesn’t want to be seen with him, but they’re standing here right now, aren’t they?
“I get it,” he replies. “See you?”
Cal nods. She walks back to her team, who chatter happily as they stream into their bus, and her mouth opens wide and loud and she laughs with them, her eyes alit. She disappears into the mass, grinning to her friends.There, for a moment, Leo can see a glimpse of the girl at the party, all fire and bliss.
But with him, the fire seems to die out, leaving only trails of smoke, the dregs of a crushed-out cigar.
And, if Leo’s being honest, he feels more like an ashtray than anything else.
“’Her hair is gold as the sun, smile brighter than its rays...’” Percy recites, “’...and when she speaks, the world shines silver, for it cannot be brighter than her ways.’”
A moment of silence, then: “Percy, did you only write two lines?”
“And I poured my entire heart into them!” he protests. His expression then turns sheepish. “Also, I had about five pages of trig problems to do, so...speaking of that, Frank, was your poem about Hazel?”
Frank blushes, his shoulders coming up to his ears. “Well, no-”
“Oh, come on, man,” Leo chimes in. “’She who draws the world to life’? No way that isn’t about her. You should tell her how you feel.”
Frank scratches the back of his neck. “I can’t - I mean, I wrote a poem about her. What would she think of that?”
“Cheesy,” Leo points out.
“If you leave out the bit where we read them in a cave by the firelight, it’ll almost be romantic,” Percy teases, and the other boys shake with silent laughter.
Leo leans back, crossing his legs. It’s strange, how sitting in a cramped, dank cave surrounded by his friends is the closest he’s ever felt to feeling at home. Revitalizing the Society wasn’t his idea, but he was glad they’d chosen to do so anyways. Reading sappy, homemade poetry was oddly fun, and the meetings always brought a spot of color into grey school days.
Next to him, Jason flips through his script for the upcoming play he’s auditioned for. Squinting in the dim light of the fire, he tries to make out the faint print of words. Even during a supposed moment of recluse, he’s still living in another world. His electric blue eyes glint behind the thin frames of his glasses. His nose scrunches up in that cute way it does whenever he’s trying his hardest to focus, but that lingering gaze wanders past the crinkled pages of his little world whenever there’s a particularly boisterous laugh, or when someone says a line that he wants to savor for a second.
“Jase?” Percy tosses in another curl of woodchip, grinning. “Got anything for us?”
It takes Jason a moment to resurface from his script. He blinks cautiously, noticing the others staring at him. “Oh. Uh, sorry, guys. I haven’t really written anything.”
The others fall into dramatic groans and complaints, which then send them all into another round of laughter. Nico, who tends to stay quiet during their meetings, suggests that Jason try improvisation, and everyone is quick to agree.
“If you need a muse, I’m available,” Percy says with a wink, and Nico rolls his eyes, settling back into his spot farthest from the flame.
Jason looks unsure, but with so many expectant eyes on him, he can’t push himself to say no. Leo’s about to step him and remind him that he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to, but the hesitance has fallen from his face. He clutches his script with the same determination he’s been living off of these days – ever since their new English teacher filled them with notions of freedom and love and whimsy, as if their lives weren’t controlled by their parents, and therefore fate.
Leo wants to hear him speak now, more than ever. He wants to watch his friend flourish in this gilded cage they’re all in. If he can feel free, even for a little bit, then he’ll hold onto that memory forever, no matter what stupid career his father forces him into.
“Where should I start?” he mumbles, staring at the flames. “Oh - um – ‘a living lovely flame she is, full with passion and spark...every beating heart she holds, it turns to grit and char...in all dangerous places she leaves an etch, and yet she seems so far.’”
“Bravo!” Percy cheers, his own clapping echoed by the others. “That was real good, Jason.”
“It was,” agrees Nico. A subtle, sly smile spreads across his face. “Is it about someone?”
Jason blushes. “Uh - no, it’s just a few lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream that I remembered.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Percy chastises. “But you wouldn’t say those lines without having someone in mind, right?”
“Is it about that girl you were talking to last week?” Frank asks, poking at the dying fire with a stick. “Piper?”
The name sends a jolt of nostalgia through Leo. It’s been a while since he’s last talked to her, ever since his grandmother stuck him in this ridiculous prep school because he needed to “flesh out his potential.” She had been the third link in their constellation of friends, the triad that had once dominated their old middle school. Once they hit the ninth grade, though, she was off to Ridgeway, and him and Jason to Welton Prep. They still met whenever they got the chance at the diner in town, sharing baskets of greasy fries and foamy milkshakes as they joked about school.
He supposes they’re more a constellation than ever before, because now there’s distance – at least, between them and her. He’s stopped thinking of their triad as “Jason and Piper and Leo.” He and Jason share too many things now - jokes and sweaters and the same window view. Sometimes warmth, too, when Leo curls up next to him on nights when he’s just had a phone call with his father and holds him until the coldness of rejection fades away.
To know that Piper might have inspired the poem fills him with a sick sort of envy, which is stupid. Jason should be able to have whomever he likes, even if it’s Piper, and Leo should be happy about that, because it’s his two best friends. He reminds himself of this while the guys shove Jason back and forth, demanding answers. Piper and Jason. Jason and Piper.
He tries to get used to the idea of “them and I” as he walks back to the dorm.
Jason’s father is not distinctive in many ways – he owns a company, like many other men. He has a faithful wife, though Jason knows that the suite he keeps for ‘important clients’ is less than faithful. He has dark hair and wears posh suits when it isn’t necessary, to assert his monetary superiority. He lives in a lush manor with Greek-style columns and trim gardens and countless rooms Jason’s never seen because he’s only visited three times in his entire life.
But, in some ways, Jason’s father is unique. His timelessness, how he seems a figure carved from stone. His sharp blue eyes, the only shared trait people seem to comment on when they see them together: Oh, you have your father’s eyes.
Most of all, his voice, which has the sole ability to, above any other noise, make Jason want to curl up and die.
He stands in front of the dorm phone – there's two, one at each end of the hall. He holds the receiver with a slick, sweat-laden hand. A trembling finger dials his father’s business line, the rotary wheel spinning with each turn – click, click, click.
The cold receiver wails in his ear. He waits, wanting to sink down against the wall for support, but his father picks up before he can.
“Jason.” Silence. “How is school?”
“Good,” he replies. He keeps his voice as deep as possible, and tries to smooth out the warble of anxiousness in it. “The new English teacher keeps us on our toes.” By that, he let us rip out the preamble to ‘Introduction of Poetry’ on our first day.
He manages a weak smile. These days, he’s been hearing that sarcastic inner voice more. He’d wondered if theater had brought it out, but Leo assures him that it’s always been there, waiting for a chance.
A chance, he thinks. His script is still in his room hidden in the mess of papers Leo likes to pass as organized. The thought almost makes him laugh, but Zeus’s voice brings him back to the call. “I should hope so. We paid good money to get you into that school, boy.”
Boy. Always Jason or boy. Sometimes son, in front of guests. “I know, father. I’m thankful.”
To this, his father says nothing. Then, “the school sent your marks, Jason. They’ve been less satisfactory than usual.”
“Oh?” It’s so quiet, so weak-willed.
“Oh?” His father echoes. The rage comes from nowhere. “Oh? Don’t think you can fool me, Jason. You think you can play with your future like this? How do you expect to get into Yale at this rate when you’re slacking off?”
“I’m not slacking off,” he says, but bites his tongue the minute those words leave it. His voice broke, and his father surely heard it. He’s so keen on seeing every crack.
“Really?” There’s a sound like static over the line. Jason knows his father must have hit something – his desk. He flinches. “You would lie to me?”
“I-”
“Did you quit the newspaper club?” His father asks. “As I told you to?”
Jason clutches the wire tight. “Yes, father, I did. You can ask the headmaster.”
“Let’s think about dropping another extracurricular.”
The wire is hot in his hand, and the dorm hall feels tight. There’s no room to move. The table against his door falls, crushed by overwhelming pressure. The vase of flowers shatter, cracks skittering across the carpeted floor. His lungs are made of lead, filling with tar.
He swallows hard, wiping sweaty hands onto his pants, but the receiver threatens to slip out of his grasp. Can he not hold anything without it getting away?
Every part of him wants to scream, but he lets the anger die. The play. He still has one thing, and if his father doesn’t know about it, he can’t take it away. “Yes, father. I’ll see about art.”
“Good. I do not want to see your grades fall like this again, Jason. You need to focus on school, or our effort will have been for nothing. When you’re older, with your own family, you will understand.”
There were too many levels of irony in that statement alone for Jason to unravel, but he sucks in a shallow breath and tells him he understands. Then the line cuts off abruptly.
He releases a deep sigh that resonates throughout his body. A shaky hand puts the receiver back in its cusp. Loose legs carry him back into the dorm. He glances towards his stuffed-away script, but doesn’t have the energy to make-believe, to pretend he’s in any other world than the one he’s stuck with. He sits on the bed and wraps himself up in the coarse blankets, socks and glasses still on. The pillow is suffocating. He can hardly breath, but it doesn’t matter. He just needs to fall asleep.
The door to the dorm opens, and a cheerful whistle floats into his ear. It dwindles. Slow steps walk towards the bed.
“Jason?” Leo whispers.
“Mm.”
“You good? Do – do you want some tea or something?”
Jason almost laughs at the idea of tea. Does Leo even know how to make tea? Nearly everyone in the dorm ran on black coffee. “No, thanks.”
The mattress sinks with Leo’s added weight. Jason’s palm lays flat on his pillow, fingers curled up. Leo fits his own fingers there, keys in a lock, twisting and turning Jason’s heart in that wicked way Leo doesn’t even know he does. His hand is warm, scar tissue rippling up knobby knuckles.
This is where it starts, Jason thinks. This strange thing that unfolds in steps, but how does madness unfold so softly, so reverently? First Leo holds his hand. Tenderly, like velvet. Then he peels back the comforter, just a little. The cold snakes up Jason’s back, and he shivers. But then he feels something – a warmth pressing against him, and the blanket falling back into place. Hands that wrap around his waist. All the while, Leo murmurs - “Is this okay?”
No, no, no, of course it isn’t okay, but Jason wants it anyways. He wants it all, and it makes him sick, this overwhelming want. He never knew he could want so much. That it was allowed.
They don’t face each other. Leo is behind, supporting him and shattering him at once. Jason melts away into the pathetic thing his father despises more than anything. He feels like a boy, this giddy childishness building in his sternum, the impulse to do something unprovoked.
Leo’s thumb brushes against the swath of skin by his waist. His shirt is hitched up. Leo’s buried his face in the crook of Jason’s neck. His curls brush against Jason’s face, soft and smelling of sharp oil and the flowers that Leo buys for his mother’s grave – fresh, sweet poppies. The scent lulls him to sleep, makes him forget all of his fear.
When he wakes, he feels like a flower anew, pushing out of the ground. He carefully pulls Leo’s arms off and slowly crawls off the bed. It’s night, now. He can hear the muffled commotion of the common room. Silver moonlight spills through the window, and stars prick holes into the film of dust on the glass.
He turns behind him, where Leo still lays guilelessly, tangled up in the sheets. His curls spread across the pillow. His eyelashes brush against his cheek, dark and thick like ink-strokes on his skin. Jason thinks he might wake any moment, but he remains peacefully in sleep.
‘A living lovely flame he is’, Jason thinks, before quietly slipping out of the room.
“Okay,” Piper says around the funnel of her straw, “spit it out already, Leo!”
“Dunno what you’re talking about, Pipes,” he replies, fiddling with a saltshaker. She gently pries it from his hands and places it back on the condiments tray. Leo makes an attempt to hide behind the wide glass of their shared chocolate milkshake, but it’s a fruitless endeavor.
“Oh, please.” She gestures dramatically with her hands, drawing a few odd looks from the other customers at the diner. “It’s only been a week, and here you are, sighing like a girl in a romantic flick!” She squints, her eyes glinting like opals. “Does this have something to do with Calypso?”
“No? Yes?”
“You have to pick one,” she says dryly, scooping up a dollop of whipped cream from the lip of the glass. “I told you – forget about her. She’s not interested, and all she does is lead you on.”
“She isn’t leading me on! I mean, she invites me to games-”
“-That you have zero interest in. And whenever you want to invite her anywhere, she’s ‘too busy.’” The last part Piper says with a high falsetto, and Leo has to choke down a snort.
“I guess,” he admits. “But this isn’t about her.”
“Oh my gosh,” Piper says, “has Leo Valdez finally moved on?”
“Ha-ha. And...not exactly. I don’t really know yet.” He fiddles with the bumps on his straw. Outside, snow begins to drift over the cobblestone road, caking it like icing. The diner is toasty, though, with people sprinkled throughout the small establishment seeking shelter from the winter chill. “Er, how about you?”
Piper has a french fry between two fingers, holding it like a wayward cigar. “Not much.” Now she looks a little uncomfortable. She lowers her hand. “Hey - um, Leo? Can I tell you something?”
He meets her gaze. “Yeah. Yeah, of course you can. What’s up?"
She sighs. “Can you promise me something?”
Leo raises an eyebrow, but he reaches for her hand across the table. Her wobbly smile melts into something genuine. “Anything.”
“Promise you won’t...no, I can’t say that. Just...don’t tell anyone this, okay? Only Jason knows – I told him a few days ago when I found him in town.”
He nods. “I won’t say a word.” He mimes locking his mouth with a key and winks at her.
She squeezes his hand. “Well, one of my friends from art invited me to come clubbing with her in the city during break. We went to this one bar...I think it was called The Midtown. And – I didn’t know it, but inside...girls danced with girls, and guys danced with guys. We didn’t say anything about it. I just found someone to dance with, this other girl. And it was really, really nice, Leo. And later – later, we were sitting and drinking something, I don’t remember what.” She’s blushing now, but her eyes look a little sad, too. “I don’t know what happened, exactly, but we – we kissed. I kissed her. And I liked it.”
Leo moves the shake aside so he can see her clearly. She’s wearing high-waisted jeans and a pink blouse, her velvet swing coat sliding off her shoulders. The outfit is almost elegant, but her expression shatters the image.
Piper’s never been scared of anything. Leo simply can’t remember her ever looking that way. It was always him and her dragging Jason into all sorts of crazy situations, and through it all she’d had a wicked grin. See, I told you it would be fun!
Her eyes are scared now, and he realizes he’s been quiet too long. “Oh!” he says, then curses himself. Seriously, man? “Oh - um, what does that mean for you, then?”
Piper tilts her head. “Well, I don’t really know. I didn’t know I was queer until then, but I found out a lot of my friends are, too. You know Annabeth?” Leo nods – Percy's girlfriend, and one of his friends, too. “She likes girls and boys, too. So does Percy.”
“Wait, really? I didn’t know.” He flushes with embarrassment. “Not - not that I expected them to advertise it or anything, considering...”
Piper smiles wistfully. She releases his hand and sips the remainder of their milkshake. “Yeah, it’s not really safe to be saying it out loud. I haven’t even told my dad yet. Just you and Jason. I feel like I have to tell him, but I’m also really scared. I’ve heard the stories, and...I don’t get enough of my dad anyways. I don’t want him to hate me during whatever time we get.”
“Pipes,” Leo says gently, “I don’t think your dad will hate you. He might not get it, but he loves you a lot. He wouldn’t...” his voice peters out.
She sighs. “It’s times like these that I wish I knew what he’d do. But for now, I think I’m fine. My best friends know, and that’s enough for me.” She grinned. “You should’ve seen the club, Leo. The dancing was fun, but there was one part where the lights blinked on and off, and everyone switched partners. I got this guy named Shane, and then the police came in and he danced with me like we’d been dancing the whole time.”
Leo’s eyes widen. “The police?”
“Mhm - and they looked around, but everyone had switched partners. And then they left and we switched back. It was scary at first, but everyone looked used to it. It was kind of exhilarating.”
“Are you going to go back?”
She hums, pink in her cheeks. “Maybe. Unless there are some bars around here.” She beams wickedly. “You should come.”
“Me? But-” then he pauses. Something dawns on him, but it isn’t a light realization. It feels like the time he had sat up too fast in his mom’s workshop and hit his head on a shelf, and then all the things on said shelf had hit him, one by one in quick succession. His head rattles just as much as it did back then.
“Leo?”
“Y-yeah?”
She frowns. “Are you okay? If you don’t like bars-”
“It’s not that.” He makes a face. “Well, I don’t like bars, actually. But...I just realized something.”
“That you’ve forgotten to do all your homework?”
“Excuse you, I’m a responsible gentleman,” he snaps, but there’s no heat to it. “Not that, though. Just that maybe, dancing swing with a guy is something I might be interested in.”
Her eyes twinkle. “Oh?”
“But not just some guy. A guy.”
She leans in. “A guy,” she repeats under her breath.
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, a guy.”
“Oh my god.”
He lets out a small, hysterical laugh. “God, I’m a mess. How did I just now realize this?”
“Because, Valdez, you’re an expert in shoving everything down to deal with at a nonexistent date,” she scolds, but she’s still smiling. In a conspiratorial whisper, she murmurs, “welcome to the club,” and he chuckles despite himself. A part of him is still recoiling, not having yet snapped back into place. He’s not sure if that part of him ever will.
“Wait, so-” Piper furrows her brows. “What about Cal?”
“I don’t...I don’t really know, honestly.” He runs a hand through his hair. His heart feels as though it’s falling apart, but it isn’t heartbreak necessarily, just poor maintenance. He’s never really made it a priority. And he’s never explored sexuality, either. The world just hadn’t pushed it – everything was preconditioned. If he blushed around girls in middle school, it was natural. Another part of growing up, sonny, one of his teacher’s had told him.
In flicks, there were different shades of the usual grey-and-white picturesque couples. The same kinds of women and men, putting on different clothing and attitudes for every movie. He never saw himself in those men – all bravado and charisma – but he liked to emulate, anyway. He flirted and dazzled and presented himself like a neat card trick, a joker nobody had expected in the deck.
But it was always girls. He wonders, if only a little, what twelve-year-old Leo would have thought if he had told his teacher he was blushing around boys, and the teacher had said, another part of growing up, sonny.
And Cal – what does he think of her? Another girl that he feels like he has to woo? But that isn’t it. He isn’t perusing her for a kiss. He just wants to get to know her, but as it turns out, alcohol is the only thing that loosens her tongue. That night, he thinks she must have thought he was someone else. Some savior who would listen to her woes. He had thought that, too.
But that was all it was. Maybe she wanted to forget she’d told someone those things.
Starting now, Leo will let her. “I think I’m going to forget about Calypso.”
Piper smirks. “Atta boy.”
It’s pitch-black outside when Jason sneaks into the commons room for a hot chocolate.
He quietly slinks down the stairs, squinting and cursing himself for not having the mind to bring his glasses before leaving on Mission Impulsive. He was on his bed, Leo asleep in his own after a tiring day of school, studying his script. He had been hoping to sleep after a final review of his lines, but his limbs are jittery and his nerves shot, like that one time he mistakenly drank whiskey at one his mother’s dinner parties.
Hot chocolate is a special thing to him. Mostly he drinks coffee – black and bitter, to keep him awake while researching or doing assignments. Once, during a winter event in fifth grade, the girl next to him took his pathetic cup of milk, broke off some of her chocolate, and stuck it in. “Here,” she’d said. “So it tastes better.”
Her name was Reyna, and that was how they became best friends.
It became tradition to drink some whenever they were together. At Reyna’s house, she would bring the milk to boil on the stove. Then she would find chocolate – not the stuff in packets, but real, big chunks of chocolate – and chop off little shards with a knife, sticking them into their mugs like bartenders stuck sugared lemon peels into martinis. Then she would pour the milk, mix, and hand him a mug.
His small hands wrapped around it eagerly, like shivering bodies crowd around a hearth. The taste was creamy and thick, unlike the watery drink he was used to. They leaned against the countertop and sipped, losing themselves in the rich scent. The flavor was a healing salve on his memories, something to make him forget how he could sit here with Reyna on the cold tiles all evening, drinking chocolate, and his mother would never care to check.
But then Reyna lifted her head of dark hair and smiled at him over the foamy lip of her mug, so he figured that maybe, as long as he had this, it was okay.
I’ll have to make do with packet stuff, he thinks as he walks down the stairs. Forgive me, Rey.
To Jason’s surprise, there’s the long shadow of a person in the commons room when he arrives. They stand by the window, sipping from a small cup.
“Nico?”
The boy turns. His silky hair is disheveled, strands blowing every which way. “Jason? What are you doing up?”
“I should be asking you that,” Jason says with a chuckle. He meets Nico by the window, peering at the cup he’s holding. “What’s that?”
Nico offers him some. As soon as it hits his tongue, he chokes. It’s hot chocolate, but thicker, creamier than Jason is used to. And delicious. “This is – this is really good. It’s hot chocolate, right?”
Nico nods. His dark eyes are trained on the snowy fields outside. “Cioccolata calda. It’s typically thicker because there’s cornstarch or heavy cream.”
“I don’t suppose you have any more?” When Nico shakes his head, Jason sighs. “Do they even have any hot chocolate packets?”
“I think so,” says Nico. He grimaces. “But I wouldn’t drink that if you paid me. Hot chocolate with water? Not even milk? I don’t get it.”
“I’m desperate.”
“Stressed?” he asks, setting his cup down with a faint clink.
“Very.”
“You’ll be great,” Nico reassures him. “You’ve been practicing forever. I’m half convinced you’ve been copying down your lines while writing essays.”
Jason blanches. “I hope not. My grades can’t sink any further, or...”
Nico understands, even with the tailing thought. It’s one of the things Jason likes most about him – that he’s perceptive, knowing things without them being said aloud. “Your father’s been giving you trouble again.”
“Yeah.” He rips open a packet. “I kind of want the production to be over, just so I won’t have to keep hiding this massive secret that I feel is going to blow any moment. That’s the real stressful part. That, and...”
Nico lifts one thick eyebrow. “And?”
“Something else. It’s nothing, really.”
“In my experience, things that are nothing are usually everything.”
“You forgot to quote the original speaker of that brilliant line.”
“Ha-ha,” Nico drawls. “I will say this, Jason. Whatever this ‘nothing’ is, you’d best get it off your back now. Because when opening night comes, it could distract you in ways you might not expect.”
“It’s just –” he reaches for a spoon, stirring the powder into the water as quietly as he can. “You remember that thing you told me? A long time ago, when you met Will?”
Nico looks confused for a moment. Then a spark of realization lights up his dark eyes. “Oh. Oh, Jason.”
He lets out a long, heavy sigh. “Yeah.”
“For starters, that’s not nothing.”
“It might as well be,” Jason says bitterly. “He’s not going to reciprocate, and what would that even mean?”
“Is it someone I know?”
Jason nods. Nico closes his eyes briefly. Then, “It’s Leo, isn’t it?”
His heart ricochets. “Am I that obvious?”
An amused hum sounds. “No, I just know where you’re coming from. You should tell him.”
“But-”
“And before you say a word,” Nico’s voice grows stern, “I’m just going to remind you that all the advice I’m giving you is what you gave me, and it turned out well for Will and I.”
“But that’s different,” he insists.
Nico remains annoyingly persistent, which, Jason realizes, is how he must have been when Nico came to him, blithering on about the oh-so-handsome pharmacist’s assistant he’d met in town. “Is it, though? I’m not going to pretend like I know Leo better than you, Jason, but I do know Leo could never hate you for something like this. He’s your friend.”
“I’ve had a lot of ‘friends,’ Nico.”
“And who’s stuck around?” He regards Jason’s stiffness and his dark eyes soften. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell him anything until you’re comfortable enough.”
Jason manages a dry smile. “What happened to being pushy?”
“Not my style.” He tilts his head in amusement. “But give it some thought. Leo could surprise you.”
He bites his tongue, nodding to Nico as the latter says he’s off to get some sleep. He vanishes up the stairs, disappearing into the veil of shadows. Jason sits for a little, sipping his cold chocolate, thinking of how Reyna would detest him for it.
The thought brings a smile to his face. He pours the rest of his drink down the sink – another thing Reyna would hate him for – and returns to his room, hopeful for the first time in a long, long while.