Chapter Text
Leo didn't sleep that night.
It wasn't odd, he spent so many nights wandering through the eerily silent halls of the Argo well past midnight it was nearly the norm nowadays. He had so much to do and only so many hours in a day, so he couldn't waste a second doing something as trivial as sleep.
If he wanted to sleep, he would let exhaustion consume him until it was physically impossible for him to keep awake.
But tonight he had different troubles, and none of them could be fixed with a wench or a can of redbull.
He had been doing the usual, bringing boxes full of things in and out of the engine room, doing a little clean up. He left the boxes of old stupid projects or half-baked ideas that never condensed into anything more than a few blueprints, neatly stacked inside the closet of his bedroom– well, though his bedroom was actually a stretch, he tended to fall asleep in the engine room or behind the walls of the Argo, so this was more of a storage room with a bed in it he occasionally remembered to change the sheets of.
He set the last one in, closing the door behind him and carefully taping the box. He wrote to the best of his abilities Achimede's spheres’ failed blueprints (though he was 95% sure he had written all his e's facing the wrong way) and slipped them inside the closet, standing on his tiptoes to push it and secure it.
The room dropped a couple degrees, filled with a strong scent of iron, making Leo's skin bump and his hairs rise– did you know that the purpose of goosebumps was to ward off predators by making yourself look larger? It serves no purpose now, but it did back in the day. Or not. Leo wasn't sure where he read that.
The thought was cut short by a groan –a pained groan– breaking through the quiet nature of the night. He reached for the first thing he could, a phone charger, and spun around to face his threat. He was met with–
“...DiAngelo?”
Nico half lay on the floor, curling into himself and favoring the left side, resting on one elbow with trembling hands. He was breathing shakily, clothes damp, his hair carrying a subtle scent of saltwater and his lips tinted blue– or were they just tinted? Was he undergoing some kind of hypothermia?
His fingers were blue too. His eyes were falling shut every few seconds and his face was flushed red, like he might pass out any moment. Leo dropped to his knees in a heartbeat.
“Hey, hey hey hey hey– don't fall asleep on me,” He mumbled, reaching out to lock the door. He kicked the closet door and grabbed Nico's hands, feeling to see if he was as cold as he feared. His hands nearly went through Nico’s. What–? “Why are your hands like that?”
“I–I'm fa–fading away, ha–happens with sh–shad–” Nico's teeth chattered, tears slipping past his eyes– not because he was crying, but because his eyes were that dry– as he struggled to make his words coherent. “M–Merda”
“Okay. Okay,” Leo murmured, putting his hand on Nico's forehead. Cold. Duh. “I know we aren't exactly best friends —not that I don't try— but I'm going to take off your clothes, yeah? I'd usually take you out on a date first but– ya know, desperate measures.”
Nico shook his head rapidly, eyes wide as he tried to shove Leo off. “I have to,” Leo said and moved to tug away the boy's jacket. “I'll give you other clothes, I promise, just let me– I'll wash these, okay? You can have other ones in the meantime.”
Leo nearly had to force the damp clothes off Nico, each layer he peeled back was more soaked, black clothes beneath black clothes drenched. But when Leo looked down at his own hands–
Red.
He blinked away the haze. Not the time. Not the time. Not the time. He didn't dare look at Nico in the eyes, only moving to grab the fuzziest pyjamas he had and a towel, drying the water and the… blood off the boy's arms and torso. He helped him into the clothes, led him to the bed, handed him at least three blankets and then dumped the old clothes in the bathtub.
He blankly rinsed them. Not a single thought running through his mind. It was odd.
It was weird.
It felt off.
Leo didn't know blankness. He sat through the final parts of P. E. with a thousand things running through his mind when everyone else was trying to relax or doze off, his dreams were plagued by shapeless forms of working and impossible projects, his life was a never ending college house party, a police chase between his conscience and what made him mortal. He didn't get how people could always be present, he didn't get what being present even meant. He was always somewhere else. Leo could be physically there but only a fraction of his mind resided in the task at hand.
It took him a bit to realize had been staring at the wall for more than five minutes, the water seeping off the clothes running a pale pink by now.
He took a shaky breath, and then reached for his toolbelt. He kicked his shoes off, taking out two packets– one of powdered milk, and another one of his favorite childhood cocoa, Toddy. He grabbed a mug from beneath the sink (don't ask why he keeps those there), filled it with water, and then dumped the contents in it, mixing with one of those coffee shop sticks and warming it up with his fire.
He had time for questions later.
He sat down next to Nico, then held out the cup for him. He wasn't shivering as much now, wrapped in a single blanket and the rest bunched up around him. Odd. Nico stared. Leo blinked.
“It's for you.”
“I know.”
“Take it, then.”
A beat.
Nico looked away, out the bullseye into the blankness of the night. “I don't need you to coddle me, Valdez.” he swallowed, taking out his hand to scratch his nose with the back of it.
His fingers were near transparent.
Oh.
Leo grinded his teeth more out of habit than anything, trying to breathe through the thick syrup the awkwardness had turned the air into.
“I'm not going to ask questions,” He set the mug on the nightstand, standing up to rummage through one of the drawers. “I'm not going to force you to stay or anything, you can go, but… I don't know man, you don't look okay enough to even walk.”
He could feel his eyes boring a hole into the back of his head. Leo took out the packet of straws he was looking for, sticking one in the mug and holding it out for Nico.
“Last time we talked I insulted your poor critical thinking skills.”
“Before that you sat with me for at least two hours just watching me work,” Leo shrugged, sitting on the bed again and offering the cup a little closer with a smile. “We have our moments.”
Nico looked from the straw to Leo, and from Leo to the straw, at war with himself.
Then leaned down and took a sip, eyes fluttering close at the warmth. Leo felt an odd thing clench in his chest, and when Nico pulled away to swallow, he only scooched closer and brought the drink nearer to the boy's mouth.
“I'm not helpless, I don't need you, you know,” Nico mumbled, head carefully nursed in the crook of Leo's neck. “...you aren't going to tell anyone about this, are you?”
“Pfft, what? Why would I say anything to anyone?” Leo ran his fingers through Nico’s hair, his other hand buried beneath his shirt, palm pressed against the cool skin in an attempt to warm the son of Hades. “It's just for warmth, it ain't breaking news or something.”
Nico buried his face deeper into Leo, taking a deep breath that tickled the boy's neck, lips brushing against the junction and drawing a shiver from the deepest parts of Leo's being.
“...okay.”
Leo smiled into Nico's hair, tracing the side of his face with a sort of tenderness he didn't know he possessed. Nico's eyes turned sharply towards him, confusion reigning over his features. He fucked up. He fucked up didn't he? Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.
He froze, hand hovering awkwardly and his blood running cold through his veins. His face felt ablaze, and yet he felt like the lethal cold Nico had arrived with seeped into every other part of his being, like a ridiculously long shiver.
“So you swear this will stay between us, right?” Nico whispered, dark eyes flickering between his at a maddening pace. His eyebrows were softly drawn together, face centimeters away from his, looking so pleading it was almost bizarre. Nico could have asked Leo to hang himself upside down on the mast in that exact moment and he would have done it without question.
“I– uhm. Yeah.” Leo smiled, trying to conceal his nervousness with a small scoff. “I mean, we're just huddling for warmth, like the soldiers, there is nothing interesting about this.”
Nico nodded, then with an agonizing amount of hesitance, reached out and traced his own hand across Leo's cheek.
He was cold. Like summer breeze.
“Your fingers are back,” Leo mused, not even realizing he was chasing the touch like a starved child. “that's good.”
“Whatever.” Nico replied, reaching out to run his fingers through Leo's hair. The last thing the son of Hephaestus saw before his eyes slipped shut was disbelief etched in Nico's face, but also curiosity, like a scientist analyzing behavior before engaging with its subject species.
That's nice. Leo wanted to say, but it slipped past his lips more like a contented hum than actual words.
“You're so…” Nico said, and Leo could almost hear the smirk growing on his face. He had seen that smirk once and it had been when he told Frank to —and he quotes!— ‘leave them to me, we're long overdue’ when talking about monsters. It was good, albeit a bit manic, but who was Leo to talk about mania? He was practically the God of mania. “...docile”
Okay. Nico had said weird things before, but this definitely took the cake.
“I'm not a dog, death breath,” Leo mumbled out, slipping his eyes open with all his willpower. Leo knew he folded easily, but come on, it was an insult to his dignity to call him that!
Nico tugged softly at his hair, and Leo's eyes fluttered shut again. He scratched at his hair, and when Leo chased the feeling, he stopped, like proving a point.
Shit. He had proved a point.
“See?” Nico said, and when Leo opened his eyes again, he was met with the unthinkable.
Nico was giving him a lazy smile. His eyes were half-lidded, weighed down by exhaustion and crinkling at the edges, a consequence of more than just an upturn of his lips. A smile. A whole smile. Pleased and relaxed, tired but amused.
He looked beautiful.
And Leo was being weird about it. He was always weird about it.
“Shut up, dude.” Leo murmured, hooking his chin over Nico's shoulder. That last word felt forced, like swallowing a thousand needles but trying to act like they were tasty. Pure torture.
A beat.
“It was demigod's.”
He believes he can't have anything good for himself, Hazel had once said so he always ruins it before something that's not under his control does.
“What?”
“The blood, it was demigod blood.”
Right.
“Did you… Where’s the body?” Leo asked, running his hand up and down Nico's back despite the thousand images his mind (traitorous one) conjured to project into the blank ceiling.
Nico sat up, confusion in his eyes. Leo would be lying if he said he didn't miss the contact. “There is no body, just– she was a child of Enyo, so when I…” He swallowed thickly, looking away, down to his hands. He flexed his fingers as he continued to speak. “she… dissolved. She fell forward so I got soaked with–with her blood.”
Shit.
Holy shit.
Holy shit holy shit holy shit.
“Okay. Okay.” Leo mumbled, sitting up too. He tried to swallow back the wave of nausea that threatened to overcome him, blinking away the dark spots in his vision from the sudden movement. Not now. Not now. He really needed it to be anytime but now.
Nico straightened up, as stiff as a board, and wordlessly made an escape attempt. Leo grabbed him by the arm, gripping to stop him from slipping away, and then met his eyes.
“You had to.”
“I know.”
“Then don't leave,” Leo said, reaching out to cradle Nico's face, tracing his thumb over his cheekbone and rubbing off a droplet of dry blood near his hairline. “This stays between us, nobody has to know.”
“At some point they are going to know,” Nico shakily raised his own hand to cover Leo's, hovering uselessly. Afraid he was going to stain Leo's hands with the long-gone blood. The twitch of his eye gave away a kind of fear his carefully impassive expression desperately tried to hide away. “and by them you can't be involved.”
“I'm already involved,” He replied, wiping away a stray tear on his own face. Nico looked so out of it, numb to the prospect of killing someone but not to someone finding out. What had war done to him to make him end up this way? Normal one second and then feigning indifference the next. Like the man with a gun to his head still spatting in the face of his offender, all despite trembling like a leaf. “It's okay.”
“No, it's not.”
“Nico, nobody saw you, you shadow traveled back, right?” Leo insisted, cupping both his hands on the boy's face, running his fingers through his hair and offering a shaky smile. Nico nodded. That's all he needed. “as far as anyone knows… you were here, on the ship, with me.”
“Nobody is going to believe I was with you, Valdez,” Nico said, bringing his knees up to his chest and scrubbing his eyes. “I don't do people, everyone knows that.”
Leo's mind was working overtime, his hands fluttering about as he searched for something to prove their alibi. One they might never need. He hoped they never will.
He reached out for his toolbelt, rubbed his finger against the palm of his work-gloves, and then cupped his face again, smudging the soot on his cheek and in the collar of Leo's own pyjamas. Nico flinched away, but he yanked him right back closer, trying to wipe away the soot on his cheek unsuccessfully.
“This takes a lot of soap and hella time to wash out, but don't try to anyway,”
“What–?”
“As far as anyone knows, you were here, on the ship, with me.” Leo repeated like a mantra, running his fingers through Nico’s hair again. An encouragement to repeat.
“As far as anyone knows, I was here, on the ship, with you.”
“Good,” Leo murmured, bringing Nico in more because he needed it than because the son of Hades needed it. Selfish desire tended to overcome Leo, and even if he swore he was well past it, all information pointed elsewhere.
Nico stiffened, bones and muscles alike going rigid, all before he slowly melted into him. They both fell backwards, Leo's head brushing against the headboard, nursed between too-soft pillows, with Nico's weight pinning him down into the bed and perhaps constricting his airways, like a gigantic weighted blanket that was clearly trying to keep his tears to himself.
Leonardo Valdez, fifteen years old. Arsonist, escapee (multiple instances), fugitive, and accomplice in murder.
Great.
Do you think Leo would look good in orange?