Hello everyone! Happy Pride!! Coincidentally, June 1st is also the anniversary of my Fanfiction.net account, so I thought I'd have a little bit of fun and post my VERY first ever Valgrace fic! I actually started writing this before I finished rereading The Lost Hero back in 2023, so there's a lot of character writing that I have learned to do VERY differently, and some of the lore facts are just completely wrong. Case in point, this is supposed to take place after BoO, but Leo is notably unexploded because I completely forgot about his thing with Calypso and thus forgot that he killed himself. Wild.
So, here is a Blast From The Past: At the Water's Edge
Jason took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut.
“I like you.”
Leo was silent for a thudding heartbeat too long, so Jason peeked open one eye. Leo was just staring at him patiently, like he was waiting for something else. Jason scowled at him and Leo's eyes bugged. “Wait, that's it? That was your big act of selfishness? Telling me you like me?” He fell backwards, his whole frame shaking with laughter. “I'm your best friend, dude. I sure hope you like me.”
“I don't mean like that.”
Leo froze and his cheeks got dark. “Are you saying you like-like me?”
***
Jason and Leo have a long overdue conversation
Jason wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting on the dock staring out over the New York Sound. Long enough for his back to start cramping from his stiff posture. Long enough for his vision to go a little blurry around the edges from not blinking. Long enough for Leo to find him and sit in unusual silence at his side. Long enough for Leo to get bored of said silence.
“So, are you gonna, like, tell me what’s up with you, or are we just gonna brood in super manly silence forever?”
Jason blinked, ignoring how uncomfortably dry and sticky his eyes had gotten and looked at Leo. “Huh?”
“You’ve obviously got something on your mind,” Leo shrugged. “I thought I’d give you a chance to break the ice first, but since that’s obviously not happening, I figured I’d get a timeline.”
Jason snorted and looked back out over the water. Leo was right, there was something on his mind. Something that had to do entirely with the boy sitting right next to him.
*
“Can I—” Jason cut himself off with a slight choking sound. He bit his lips, refusing to look Leo in the eye. “Can I do something selfish?”
Leo cocked his head and studied Jason from a different angle. “Jason, you're probably the most selfless person I've ever met. It's one of the things I'll admit I admire about you.” Jason felt his lungs collapse in disappointment. That wasn't a no, exactly, but to be told that his selflessness was a thing to be admired meant that to let go of it was a thing to be scorned.
As if reading Jason's mind Leo held up a hand. “But I think it may not be good for you. You get so caught up in your responsibility to everyone around you that you never take time to take care of yourself, which sucks. So, yeah. If you wanna be selfish around me for the first time in your life, I say go for it. I'd be honored to be your selfishness wingman for the night, dude.”
A smile played at the corner of Jason's lips. Still, he hesitated. “I'm worried that it's gonna hurt you.”
“As if you could,” Leo laughed brightly. When Jason just scowled to show he was serious, Leo shrugged. “Look, man, there have been exactly two people in my life who I've trusted to not hurt me. The first one was my mom.”
“Who was the second one?”
Leo laughed again, but when Jason just kept looking expectant, he froze in shock. “Holy Hephaestus, you're actually asking me that. For real, not clickbait.” He dragged a frustrated hand down his face. “The other one is you, idiot. I'm pretty sure you'd rather tango with a Telchine than optionally do something bad to me.”
Jason gaped at him. Leo’s trust was a hard-won prize, always had been. To hear Leo toss it out so casually like his trust in Jason was as intrinsic to the world as thunder following lightning? To be compared to the saintliness of Esperanza Valdez? That rocked Jason to the core. When he spoke his voice was tinier than any Roman soldier's should ever be. “Do you really think that?”
Leo cocked his head to the side and blinked at him. “Am I wrong?” he asked, then laughed at Jason's desperate, gasped out, emphatic no. “Then, yeah, I think that.”
“Thank you,” Jason said, and he wasn't gasping this time but it was no less desperate or emphatic.
“What? Thank you for not thinking you’d kill me given the opportunity?” Leo scoffed. He wrinkled his nose over a grin. “You're a weird dude, Jason Grace.”
Jason just shook his head. Leo would never understand or appreciate the gift that was his own trust. The thought made Jason a little sick, but he pushed it aside. “Thank you for believing in me.”
“You're making this way too deep, man,” Leo said, waving his hands through the air like he could bat the words out of the sky. Jason's chest filled with warm affection at the sight, and part of him wanted to still Leo's hands with his own, but he refrained so that he could watch them flutter around like little mechanical birds. “I'm pretty sure we were talking about you unlearning years of boot camp by being selfish for the first time in your life.”
Oh. Right.
Jason took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut.
“I like you.”
Leo was silent for a thudding heartbeat too long, so Jason peeked open one eye. Leo was just staring at him patiently, like he was waiting for something else. Jason scowled at him and Leo's eyes bugged. “Wait, that's it? That was your big act of selfishness? Telling me you like me?” He fell backwards, his whole frame shaking with laughter. “I'm your best friend, dude. I sure hope you like me.”
“I don't mean like that.”
Leo froze and his cheeks got dark. “Are you saying you like-like me?”
Jason's brows knit together and he tilted his head to the side in the way that always made Piper coo and Leo giggle at him. He hated that phrase. Like-like. It didn't mean anything. It was just repeating some senseless little word like a bird with one trick. “I— I don't— Ugh!” He growled and scrubbed his nails through the short hair on the sides of his head. “I don't know!”
“Hey, hey, it's alright. Just chill out, Superman,” Leo soothed, even as his voice pitched sharply with his own distress. Still, he grabbed Jason's wrists and held his gaze steadily, so Jason took a deep breath. “Look, man, figuring out feelings and stuff is hard for people who didn't grow up with the most emotionally stunting childhood imaginable. We'll work it out. Wildcats style.”
Jason managed a tiny grin and cocked an eyebrow at him. “I still don't really get what that means.”
Leo muttered some suspiciously Catholic-sounding curses under his breath (Jason only knew because he caught a few Latin words here and there) and glared at him. “I've shown you High School Musical more than enough times for you to know what I'm talking about.” Jason couldn't help but smirk at the agitated look Leo was giving him, and Leo sighed dramatically and released him. “Alright. So. You like me. But not in a friend way?”
“Of course I like you as a friend,” Jason frowned.
“Okay, but do you like me as something more than a friend?” Leo cut himself off before Jason could dispute the wording. “Okay, maybe not more, just friendship… plus something else.”
Jason stared at his hands where Leo had left them in his lap. “I don't know. Maybe?” He shook his head and said more decisively, “No, there's definitely something else there, but I don't know what it is.”
“Hey, it's no biggie. That's what you have me here for,” Leo shrugged. “I'm, like, the second smartest person you know other than Annabeth.”
Jason's frown deepened. “Annabeth isn't smarter than you.”
“Dude, her mom is the wisdom goddess,” Leo scoffed, rolling his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. “Being smart is, like, her whole deal. The whole cabin is probably smarter than everyone else in Camp.”
“They're not smarter than you,” Jason argued stubbornly. “They're good at plans and strategies and stuff, but you're just as smart or smarter than all of them, including Annabeth.”
Leo gave him a sharp, mischievous little grin. “Better be careful who you say that around. Pretty sure Percy would not take kindly to you insinuating that Annabeth isn't the best at literally everything.”
Jason growled out a derisive noise from the back of his throat. “I can take Percy Jackson.”
“Sure you can, Superman, but can you take Annabeth right after? She's got a pretty sensitive ego. I doubt she'd appreciate your assessment, either.”
Jason scowled. “If she wants to say that you're dumber than she is, she should be the one worried about taking me on.”
Leo comically swooned and draped himself across Jason's lap, but Jason could still tell that he was a little flustered by the declaration. “You're willing to fight Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase to defend my honor. You're definitely in love with me.”
Jason perked up at the idea. “Okay.”
“‘Okay?’” Leo spluttered. “I just accused you of being in love with me and your response is ‘okay?’ Dude, what the hell?”
“You said you were going to help me figure it out!”
“I was just joking about you being in love with me, though.”
“What? Am I not allowed to be in love with you?”
Leo gave him a sour look. “That is not what I said and you know it.” Jason blinked at him and gave his best Sorry, I was literally raised by wolves, so you have to hold my hand through this look, and was more than a little pleased when he could see Leo immediately fold like a house of cards. Leo gave his own look that said I know what you're doing, and you can't keep getting away with it but that was fine because he was getting away with it now and that's all that mattered. “Obviously you're allowed to be in love with whoever you want. I just doubt you're in love with me. You weren't supposed to just accept that as your final answer and go on about your merry way.”
“Why do you think it's so unlikely for me to be in love with you?”
Leo gave him a wry smile that Jason didn't really like all that much. “Just trust me, dude. You're not in love with me.” He shook his head. “Okay, so let's try and connect some dots. Who was your best friend at Camp Jupiter? Before you met me and Piper.”
“Reyna,” Jason said without a moment's hesitation.
“Okay, do you feel the same way about me that you did and or do about Reyna?”
Jason physically recoiled at the idea. “Absolutely not.”
“See? That's why I say you're not in love with me,” Leo laughed. “If you were in love with me you wouldn't be horrified of putting me in the same category as the girl you used to have a crush on.”
“Why does everyone seem to think I had a crush on Reyna?” Jason grouched. “She was my friend. That's it. I know she apparently had a crush on me, but I didn't like her like that.”
“Wait, really?” Leo asked, blinking in obvious shock. “Well, who have you had a crush on?”
“Uh, Piper, I guess? I mean I dated her.”
Leo nodded like a sage buddha bobble head figure. “Okay, and do you feel the same about me and Piper?”
“Not… exactly,” Jason said hesitantly. “Like, it's got some of the same feelings, but it's different at the same time.”
Leo kept nodding. “That makes sense, seeing as we were both your Tía Callida assigned besties.”
Jason snorted. “You're still calling Lady Juno Tía Callida?”
“If she didn't want to be called Tía Callida, she shouldn't keep showing up in my dreams as Tía Callida.”
“Wait a minute,” Jason gawked. “Are you saying Lady Juno is regularly visiting you in your dreams as your psychotic babysitter? Why didn't you say anything?”
“Because they're boring dreams ” Leo pretended to yawn. “I'm just minding my own business and then BOOM! I'm walking through some park or another, escorting Tía around while she grills me about what I'm doing at Camp. I'm half convinced that she's going to call up Chiron and demand he start sending her progress reports for her to sign.” Before Jason could voice his confusion, Leo added, “Progress reports are things in mortal schools where the teacher prints out grades for your recent assignments. You're supposed to get them signed by your parents to prove that you showed them your grade. I'm guessing Camp Jupiter didn't have anything like that. Wait, did you even go to school?”
“There's lots of kids in New Rome, so there's definitely a school, but we didn't have anything like that. Most of the kids are ADHD or dyslexic, so we didn't really have grades like mortal schools,” Jason explained. “Besides, I didn't have any parents so I was the Fifth Cohort's responsibility. If I was struggling with something, my teacher just told the centurions and they had to help me. Let me tell you, a dyslexic, ADHD fifteen-year-old trying to teach Hooked on Phonics to a dyslexic, ADHD six-year-old who can barely speak English is not a pretty sight.”
That wasn't exactly a fair thing to say about poor Martyn who Jason distinctly remembered trying his best, but the comment made Leo howl with laughter, so Jason figured it was worth the slight besmirching of his old centurion’s name.
Leo eventually caught his breath again, and he looked at Jason with his eyes still sparkling. “Even with that, I bet you still managed to be ‘a pleasure to have in class.’”
“Definitely not for the first couple years. Pretty sure I was actually a nightmare,” Jason shrugged. When Leo cocked a brow, Jason smirked. “Raised by wolves, who tended to solve everything by biting it really hard. Plus, I didn't really understand the whole concept of ‘no’ for like six months after I got there.”
Leo once again broke out into his maniacal giggling, this time slumping into Jason's side. Jason felt his heart kick up a notch, and he let his free arm wrap around Leo and drift up to play with some of the curls on the back of his neck. Leo didn't seem to mind, and just let his weight sink more heavily on Jason, frame trembling with the force of his laughter. Jason didn't mind, either, and just let his heart thump happily in his chest right beneath Leo's cheek.
Too soon for Jason's liking, Leo sucked in a deep breath and sat up on his own. He slapped his cheeks a couple times and gave Jason a serious look. “Okay. We're on a mission. No more getting distracted.”
“Are you sure?” Jason asked unhelpfully, making sure that the whine in his voice wasn't audible. He was pretty sure Leo still heard it, though. “I'm pretty okay with us just getting distracted.”
“Nope!” Leo chirped. “We're going to fix this before we stand up, got it?”
Jason was tempted to stand up right then, just to see what Leo could or would do about it, but he refrained. “You know I'm not a machine, right? You can’t just hit me with a wrench a few times until I start working.”
Leo didn’t look particularly thrilled at the reminder. “Look, man, just focus, alright? We can figure it out.”
Jason rolled his eyes and sighed. “We really don’t have to, you know?”
“No, but we’re going to,” Leo said with a determined tilt to his chin. “You can’t just wander around with this eating you up inside without at least being able to give it a name.” Jason thought to himself that he’d been perfectly happy with the assessment that he was just in love with his best friend, but he kept that thought quiet. Leo pressed forward. “Okay, so what about your other friends? What about Percy? Assuming you’re not gearing up to kick his ass.”
“He’s like…” Jason paused, considering. “He’s like a cousin I get sent to summer camp with.”
“Dude, he is a cousin you get sent to summer camp with. So is Nico and all of the Demeter cabin. Woah, dude. I’m like your step-nephew.”
Jason rolled his eyes and shoved Leo’s face away. “I mean he’s definitely a friend, and I like hanging out with him when we’re in the same place, but I’m not really seeking him out just to hang out, you know?”
“Hmm, yeah, I get that,” Leo said, tapping his chin. “Nico, too?”
Jason shook his head. “No, I like Nico. He’s cool.”
“So, Percy’s not cool?” Jason glared, but Leo just gave him a blissfully innocent smile. “Frank? Hazel?”
“They’re my friends, dude. I don’t know what you want from me,” Jason groaned. That wasn’t exactly true. Jason knew exactly what Leo was after, and that was an answer. He couldn’t stand for a puzzle to be left unsolved, and Jason had gift wrapped a major brain teaser for him.
“Okay, let’s focus back on Piper, then,” Leo decided. “You said that was similar, right? Well, what’s different?”
“Well,” Jason said slowly, “when I was dating Piper, I just, I don’t know, wanted to show her off? I guess? But not in a weird way. I just thought she was really cool and I was glad to be dating her and I wanted to show everyone how cool she was. I still feel that way, kind of, but not as much.” Leo hummed to himself, and he opened his mouth to say something, but Jason was on a roll. “With you, it’s like the exact opposite. I mean, I think you’re just as amazing as Piper, but I don’t want to show you off. I want to just… put you on a shelf where only I can see you. I don’t want to have to share you with anyone ever. I get frustrated when you pay attention to anyone who isn’t me, you know? I want to be the only one who gets to talk to you.”
Silence fell over them again, and Jason looked at Leo to see him flushed bright red and gaping at him. When he spoke, his voice was little more than a squeak. “Dude.”
Jason ducked his head and felt shame crawling up the back of his neck. “I told you it was selfish. Sorry.”
Leo stayed quiet, and Jason was getting ready to flee (maybe he’d call Tempest and let him dissolve when they were halfway over the Atlantic or something) when Leo’s hand grabbed his own. He looked up again to see Leo smiling at him. His smile was tiny and his cheeks were still vermillion, but he didn’t look upset. “Like I keep telling you: it’s cool. That was just a little more intense than I was expecting, is all.”
Jason let out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding and gave Leo a smile. “Okay, so what’s your analysis, Doctor Feelings Mechanic?”
Leo barked out a little laugh. “I dunno, man, but whatever it is is a lot. We’re probably gonna have to tag Pipes in on this one. Even a love expert such as myself needs to know when to tap out.”
Jason groaned good-naturedly at the idea of having to explain all this again to Piper, but his chest felt a bit lighter. Maybe Leo was on to something after all when he said that naming his feelings would help. He hauled himself to his feet and offered a hand to help Leo up. “Well, come on then, mister love expert. I’m not interrupting Piper’s afternoon nap without some kind of backup.”
Leo grinned at him and took the offered hand, but instead of letting go like Jason thought he would, Leo laced their fingers together. Jason’s heart fluttered in his chest and he beamed down at their hands, and then at Leo who just tugged him along and he let himself follow.
#cats of tumblr
#lana del rey
#horror movies
#photography
