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Leo woke up to the sensation of a storm churning in the pit of his stomach. One of the weird perks of being a Hephaestus kid was the ability to calibrate anything, and that included the weather. The seasons never changed at Camp Half-Blood, but that didn’t stop the air pressure of the surrounding area from impacting them, and if Leo had to guess, a major front had just moved in. And that meant just one thing.
So, Leo put on his best puppy dog eyes and pleaded with Nyssa until she agreed to take over counselor responsibilities for the day in exchange for… something. He wasn’t really listening. It didn’t matter. What did matter was that Leo was now free as a bird and able to perform his most sacred and secret of duties.
He was on the hunt, prowling around the training arena when he spotted his prey. Jason was standing there, talking to Nico, vision unfocused and bleary. He reached up and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and middle finger, knocking his glasses askew, and Leo knew it was time to act.
Nico turned to head into the arena, and Jason was going to follow him but he stumbled slightly. Nico’s eyes widened, and he reached out a hand like he was going to help, but Leo beat him to it. He had plastered himself to Jason’s chest, feet planted so firmly that even Jason’s gigantor body couldn’t knock him over, and he gave Jason his cheesiest, most obnoxious smile. “Hey, Superman!” He glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Nico. “Bat Boy.”
Jason blinked a couple times like he was trying to connect the dots, but he still reached a hand up and stroked Leo’s hair. “Hey, Leo.”
“Whatcha up to?”
“Um.” Jason paused and rubbed at his furrowed brow like he was struggling to remember. “I think we were about to, uh…”
“Sparring,” Nico supplied. He was watching Jason very carefully like he was just now realizing that something was wrong. “Last time Thalia visited, she taught him a technique that he was going to show me.”
Leo blew a raspberry. He knew that technique. It involved a lot of exercise and being thrown on the ground. Very bad. “Boo, no, that’s boring. It’s Boyfriend Time, actually. I already arranged it with Nyssa. You’re going to spend all day with me.”
Jason looked to Nico for help, so Leo made very firm eye contact. Don’t you dare blow this for me diAngelo. Fortunately, Nico was very good at taking hints and just shrugged. “Fine by me. Just means I get to go bother Will in the Infirmary. Enjoy your pyrotechnic leech.”
Leo flipped him off but secretly mouthed thank you, but Jason just frowned. “But you said–”
Nico cut him off by putting up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not going to be the one to ruin the sanctity of Boyfriend Time. Find someone else for that.”
“You really don’t mind?”
Nico shook his head. “We’re good. You two have fun, alright?”
When Jason nodded, Nico trotted off, so he returned his attention right back where it belonged: on Leo. “So, what, exactly, does Boyfriend Time entail?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Leo chirped. “I haven’t had breakfast yet, so we’re doing that first. Have you eaten?”
Jason turned a little green at the thought of eating and shook his head. “Not hungry.”
That was to be expected. Jason and food weren’t exactly on the best of terms when he had a migraine, but it was still good to check. The fact that Jason had deliberately skipped breakfast meant that he’d woken up with this here migraine and still decided to go about his day. Dumbass. Leo didn’t say any of that, though, he just laced his fingers with Jason’s and gently tugged him towards the dining pavilion. He made sure to stay within reach, and he silently shouldered a lot more of Jason’s weight than Jason probably meant to give him.
When they found their seats at the Zeus table, Leo cuddled up to his side in a way that was designed to look affectionate, but was a tactical move more than anything, making sure he could keep Jason propped up. When Leo reached for the magic plate to order his breakfast, he asked for plain toast and a cup of ginger ale. He felt Jason’s confusion weigh heavy on his shoulders so he shrugged. “My stomach was feeling kinda off, so I figured I should probably stick to lighter foods.”
Jason’s confusion sharpened into concern. “You’re sick?”
“Maybe a little,” Leo lied, trying to sound sheepish. “That’s kinda why I wanted to do Boyfriend Time today. Just to slow it down a bit, you know?”
“That makes sense,” Jason said, smoothing back his curls to press a kiss to his forehead. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Leo hummed in thought before handing over one of his pieces of toast. “Can you see if this tastes funny? I think it does, but I can’t tell if that’s my sick brain or not.”
Jason carefully observed his opponent for a moment before he took a big bite and chewed carefully. “All clear,” he said, absently taking another bite.
Leo managed to trick Jason into eating a good piece and a half of toast using his little game before he decided to call it quits,not wanting to push his luck or Jason’s attention too far. He shoved the plate and his half-drunk ginger ale away. “Alright. Now what?”
“That’s what I was going to ask you,” Jason reminded him with a fond smile. “Boyfriend Time was your idea, remember?”
Leo hummed in thought, and picked up Jason’s hand to fiddle with it, focusing on all the little magic spots Will had taught him about that relieved head pressure. His first idea was the canoe lake. Jason still wasn’t all that comfortable with big open bodies of water, but he was so damn earnest and kind that he’d accidentally charmed the watery pants off of every water nymph in the lake, so they took very good care of him. However, while that would be quiet and relaxing, it would also be very bright, considering the sun was still beaming down on them and canoeing, by nature, didn’t provide a lot of shade. Not a great option for his currently highly photosensitive boyfriend.
“What about arts and crafts?” he suggested. “I was thinking about making Piper some earrings for her birthday.”
That wasn’t exactly a lie, as he was planning on making Piper earrings for her birthday, but he wasn’t going to use anything from the Camp arts and crafts room. The little white lie was worth it, though, because Jason immediately brightened at the thought, just like Leo knew he would. It wasn’t exactly a secret in Camp that Jason loved arts and crafts, even if he kinda sucked at it, but he only ever allowed himself to go if someone else invited him. Which was ridiculous, seeing as he was in a solo cabin and made his own schedules and could, theoretically, spend all day every day doing whatever the hell he wanted. He could spend all day every day building himself a fort out of popsicle sticks and hot glue if the urge struck him. Instead, all of his time was dedicated to mythology studies and weapon training and extra chores no one asked him to do. Whatever, that was a problem for another day.
“That sounds nice,” Jason said softly, and Leo allowed himself to celebrate that small victory. Jason was still too caught up in his own head to take care of himself, but today Leo was going to get to make ugly earrings out of wax cord and pony beads with him, and that was all that mattered.
Leo took up the lead again, escorting Jason through Camp towards the activity hall. Any time someone looked like they wanted to approach, Leo went extra hard on the PDA to make it very clear that he and Jason were busy and not interested in a chat. One of the Hermes girls they passed actually clapped her hand over her little brother’s eyes, giving them a scandalized look that Leo only sort of reveled in a lot. Once Jason was properly situated in a secluded corner in the dimmest part of the room, Leo pecked a kiss to his cheek and stood up. “I’ll be right back.”
Jason looked up at him like he’d kicked a puppy. “Where are you going?”
And, well, that was just so stinking cute that Leo couldn’t help but grab him by the ears and give him a kiss. “I’ll be right back, I just wanna make me some tea.”
“Oh, okay,” Jason agreed, turning back to the massive bin of plastic beads in front of him without another question.
If anyone were to ask, Leo would freely admit that The Tea was the biggest sacrifice he made in his relationship with Jason. Leo didn’t particularly care for hot tea (he didn’t really like hot beverages in general) but The Tea was much, much worse than any floral arrangement Celestial Seasonings tried to gag him with. The Tea was a monstrous medicinal concoction of turmeric and feverfew and ginger that he had desperately tried to mask the flavor of with a healthy dose of peppermint, but he was pretty sure that just made it worse. What it lacked in flavor, though, it more than made up for with efficacy, because nothing got Jason’s migraines under control faster than The Tea. Unfortunately, because of who Jason was as a person, he’d never drink it if he knew Leo had gone out of his way to make it for him, and he wasn’t stupid, even with the migraine lowering his cognitive state, so Leo couldn’t just whip it out when he needed it.
Which led to Leo’s long con. Leo had to convince Jason that he only ever made The Tea for his own enjoyment, so he spun a lie about it being his mamá’s recipe (then sent a prayer up to the Christian God and any saint who would listen to find her in heaven and beg for her forgiveness) that he had revived as a comfort to himself. That meant that at least twice a week, Leo was choking down a steaming mug of borderline toxic sludge just to make sure everyone knew just how much he loved The Tea. Was it a thankless job? Yes, most definitely. No one other than Jason knew that it helped with his migraines, and Jason didn’t know that Leo suffered. Was it worth it? Without question. There was a long list of awful stuff Leo was willing to do to keep Jason happy and healthy, and drinking an unpleasant beverage didn’t even clear the top twenty of the worst ones.
When Leo sat back down next to Jason, steaming mug of heavily doctored tea in hand, he let out a deliberately sad sigh that had Jason checking him over instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s my stomach ache,” Leo said. “I can’t drink my tea because of it.”
“Oh,” Jason frowned back at him, studying the cup. He knew how much Leo hated wasting food, especially when that food had sentimental value. Ever the big damn hero, he gave Leo a tiny smile. “I can drink it for you, if you can’t?”
“Really? You’d do that for me?” Leo asked, making his eyes go extra big and hopeful in that way that always got Jason to do what he wanted him to. When Jason nodded his head, Leo rewarded him with a kiss to the cheek. “Thanks, babe.”
They sat there in relative silence as they strung beads on cords and tied flimsy knots Piper would undoubtedly critique later. Leo stayed pressed up against Jason’s side the whole time and occasionally complimented his steady hands or precision while Jason picked out bead combinations that made Leo wonder if Jason was maybe a little bit colorblind as well as farsighted. When he did, Jason would make a soft little noise of appreciation and press a quick kiss to whatever bit of Leo he could reach. For that little bit, everything was perfect.
Unfortunately, perfection usually lead to complacency and complacency always led to a blunder.
“Hey, Grace, you got a minute?”
Leo’s head whipped up from where it was resting on Jason’s shoulder and he cursed silently when he saw Sherman Yang approaching them with determination. “What do you want?” he asked, not trying to hide his petulance.
Yang hardly spared him an irritated glance before he looked back at Jason. “Capture the Flag; you’re on my team. We were gonna have a strategy meeting this afternoon. You in?”
Jason looked conflicted, glancing between Yang and the beads a few too many times, so Leo cut in. “He can’t; he’s busy.”
Yang once again scowled at him. “Doing what?”
Leo refrained from offering a cheeky Me, duh, and just shrugged. “Sorry, man. I’ve got dibs on his whole schedule. Maybe tomorrow. If I’m feeling generous.”
Yang just rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man. Grace, if you manage to surgically remove your boyfriend from your hip, come find me.”
When he was gone, Leo huffed and squished his cheek into Jason’s chest so he could look up at him. “That guy’s a dick. You should join mine and Pipe’s team instead.”
Jason chuckled softly and smiled down at him. “Sorry, but I already promised. You and I both know there’s nothing more binding than Capture the Flag allegiances. Besides, he’s not that bad. You just like antagonizing people.”
“Boo,” Leo huffed. He allowed himself to pout for a bit longer, reveling in the feeling of Jason’s fond amusement before he stood and stretched. “Come on, let’s go to the Bunker.”
“Oh? You want help with a project?” Jason’s face puckered at the thought, and Leo knew why. The Bunker was loud and chaotic and the air was too thick to breathe easily unless your divine daddy built you from the ground up to endure it. Leo knew Jason was no fan of the Bunker, but he also knew that none of his siblings were going to be anywhere near it today, leaving it quiet and still and perfect.
“Nah, but the best cure for a stomach bug is sleep,” he recited. “And the best way to get sleep – for me anyway – is to be cuddled by a hot blond demigod who can benchpress me as his warm up.”
Jason let out a bright bark of laughter, the loudest sound Leo had heard from him all day, and he craned his neck to kiss him. “Alright then. Naptime it is.”
Leo smiled up at him and he wasn’t fibbing even a little when he said, “You’re the best boyfriend ever.”
Jason woke up from his and Leo’s Bunker nap very, very slowly. Leo always had a talent for making cozy little sleeping nests, and his go-to spot in the Bunker did not disappoint. It was secluded and piled with all sorts of blankets and pillows (and Jason’s “missing” hoodie) collected from all over Camp. But most importantly, it had Leo, who was half sprawled across Jason, his nose tucked into a little divot on Jason’s collar that let his heart beat loud and steady beneath Leo’s cheek. Jason woke up from that nap feeling more rested than he had in nearly a week.
He still had a headache, but he couldn’t help but notice it was a lot more manageable than it had been when he woke up that morning. The tea had definitely helped. Jason would never, ever be glad that Leo was too sick to partake in his mother’s memory, but he couldn’t help the relief he’d felt when Leo agreed to hand it over to him to keep it from going to waste. Speaking of Leo and his stomach bug…
“Sweetheart?” he cooed, gently combing his fingers through Leo’s hair to coax him back into the realm of the living and waking. When big brown eyes finally squinted open at him, Jason smiled. “Hey, there. How are you feeling?”
Leo stretched out his neck and his back and each and every limb like a cat before collapsing back down onto Jason’s chest. “Not too bad. How ‘bout you?”
For a moment, Jason considered confessing to migraine still brewing at the base of his skull. If it was a little worse, maybe he would have. Instead, he just hummed softly. “I’m fine.” Leo’s face puckered like he wanted to question that, so Jason pressed forward before he could. “Do you think we could put Boyfriend Time on pause? Just for a bit. I really kind of need to be at that Capture the Flag meeting.”
Leo got quiet then, his eyes sharp and bright as they flicked over Jason’s face, just like they did when he had a particularly difficult puzzle he was trying to solve. Whatever he found must have met his standards, though because he just flopped on his back at Jason’s side. “Fine then. Abandon me during Boyfriend Time. Just let me suffer and die alone. I don’t mind.”
When they first met, Jason would have been sent into a tailspin by those words, but now he just smiled. There was a very fine line between Leo’s desperate attempts to use humor to cover his genuine feelings, and when he was just making a good, old-fashioned joke, and Jason had learned to find that line without fail. “It’ll just be an hour,” he promised. “Then we can do whatever you want. I’ll make it up to you.”
“You’d better,” Leo muttered, pressing his face deeper into a pillow. “Your ass is mine for the rest of the day, though. Got it?”
Jason pressed a kiss to the tip of Leo’s pointed ear. “Got it. Meet you back here?”
“Hmm, no, your cabin,” Leo yawned. I’ll figure out what we’re doing from there.” Jason hummed in acknowledgement and turned to leave, but a soft, “Oh, and Jason?” called him back. He found Leo staring back at him, completely safe and bundled up in his nest that was only missing one thing. “I sure hope that meeting’s worth ditching all this for.”
As it turned out, the meeting wasn’t worth it. Not at all. Granted, no meeting, regardless of how successful, would have been “worth it” with a cost that high, but this one was particularly bad. Jason was useless the whole meeting, considering he wasn’t asked to offer any insights or battle plans. Apparently, in the world of one Sherman Yang, having Aries as your father meant that you came up with the best strategies, and that divine lineage was worth way more than fourteen years in the service. Jason was the muscle, their ace in the hole to make sure the main battle was a victory for Red Team. Jason kind of wondered why he’d even been asked to show up, considering his job was “fly in, hit stuff really hard, and win.” He supposed it didn’t matter now. He’d already gone and interrupted Boyfriend Time with Leo for this stupid meeting, and now his head hurt, undoing all the work from the tea and the Bunker nap. He still had the rest of the afternoon with Leo coming up, too. Not that he didn’t want to spend time with his boyfriend, but it was hard to muster enthusiasm when his head was screaming at him to find a place to curl up and sleep forever.
He was trudging up the stairs to the Zeus cabin, expecting to find Leo in the middle of a mess of papers and gears and other Leo Junk, but what he found instead made his breath hitch in his chest.
In the hour that Jason had been suffering through a meeting he didn’t want to go to and couldn’t even participate in, Leo had completely transformed the once cold and lifeless temple into a wonderland of blankets and soft lights and warmth. Even the giant statue of Zeus had been taken care of, a blanket thrown casually over his head. Over in the corner, in the little alcove Jason had claimed as his own, a hastily-built little structure of heavy material and rope had been erected. Jason could tell, just from looking at it, that it was exactly what he needed. Easy to see out of, but impossible to see into, the perfect defensible den.
Then, the den opened up, and Leo was beckoning him in with a wide, eager smile. “C’mon, Jace. It’s movie night.”
Jason just nodded dumbly and followed his lead, and he soon found himself in a wonderful cocoon of safety, wrapped up in blankets, comforted by pillows, and watched over by Leo, who had insisted Jason lie with his head in his lap. Leo had a tiny screen (how did he do that, considering the rules against technology? Jason had no idea, and he was far too exhausted to ask questions) playing a documentary about starfish, but Jason wasn’t listening. All that mattered was the sound of Leo’s voice relaying some of the more interesting facts, the feeling of his fingers in Jason’s hair, and the warmth of the body Jason was practically curled around.
Jason’s eyes were half-lidded when he looked up at Leo and really studied him for the first time all day. He thought back to that morning in the training arena when he’d almost tripped after Leo practically tackle-hugged him. Only, that wasn’t how it happened, was it? Jason had already started to stumble, and Leo caught him. Quiet and unassuming in all the ways that mattered and loud enough to draw attention when it served to deflect. The rest of the day made sense now. Actually, the past two years of Jason’s migraines made sense. Of course it all came down to Leo. Of course it came down to this one, wonderful boy who made him feel lighter than his father’s powers ever could.
“You’re a really good boyfriend, you know that?” Jason said, reaching up to card his fingers through Leo’s curls once again.
Leo paused for a moment to process what he was hearing, then smiled and leaned down to peck a kiss to the tip of Jason’s nose. “You’re not too shabby yourself, you know?”
Jason wanted to argue, to explain that wasn’t what he meant, but he figured it didn’t matter. “I love you,” he said before pulling Leo down for a good and proper kiss. Leo didn’t respond, not verbally, but the smile pressed to Jason’s lips said I love you, too as loudly as any word.
When they parted, Leo pressed a soft kiss to Jason’s hairline. “Get some sleep, Jace.”
For once, Jason didn’t feel the need to argue. Didn’t reach for a to-do list or a calendar or a weapon or an excuse. He just closed his eyes and let himself rest.