They tried to help at first, because that's what friends do: they help each other, whether it's homework or family problems or building a gigantic metal airship.
The way Leo reacted, though, you'd have thought he was Da Vinci and they were three-year-olds with crayons trying to "help him" with his paintings.
"Not that I don't totally appreciate all your hard work," he told Jason one day, examining a scorched wall with a look of pain on his face, "but can you not touch anything ever again?" Jason agreed, and from then on he sat in a corner with his hands folded, watching as Leo worked and Piper handed him wrenches and called him polite names like "grease monkey" and "Bob the Builder."
Some days, they'd walk in to find him practically tearing out his hair in frustration; twisted sheets of metal scattered over the floor. The first time this happened, Piper tried to leave, and Jason tried to step forward, but Leo stopped them.
"Don't," he said, holding up a hand. "Just talk to me, all right?"
So they stayed, and after that, Piper would tell stories, maybe about all the ridiculously entertaining drama in the Aphrodite cabin, or maybe something interesting she had read in a book. She was a fantastic storyteller, Jason thought, and it probably had something to do with the charm-speak, the way you just had to pay attention to her.
Other days, Piper would curl up and fall asleep on a bunk. Those days, the quiet days, Jason would sit next to Leo and talk to him in low tones. Jason liked the quiet days. He liked the loud days, the frustrating days, the fun days, the days when it was just him and Leo, the days when it was just him and Piper.
But the days he liked best was when it was the three of them.
He didn't share these thoughts, because a) he didn't want to be punched in the arm by both of them for being stupid and sentimental and b) he felt, somehow, that it would seal the deal; make this life his real one. Often, before he fell asleep, he'd offer up a silent plea of forgiveness to his old life and his old self. For everything and everyone he left behind, he was sorry, but these two were his everything now.
Occasionally Jason would walk into the boat and Leo would be slumped in a corner, staring at a wrench like it held the answers to all the mysteries of the world. On those days, Jason would yank him up off the floor and push him outside. Once outside, Leo would look around in shock and say something like, "Dude, what's this green stuff growing out of the ground?" And Jason would play along and go, "It's grass, Leo, remember? Grass."
Then they'd go smash some stuff and Leo would feel better.
The fact was: the closer the boat got to completion, the tenser everything became. Because the boat represented war. It represented change.
And it meant that Jason was going to go home.
To their credit, his friends mainly took it out on each other instead of him.
He'd sometimes walk into the dining hall and everyone would be diving for cover as Leo and Piper threw kitchen utensils at each other.
Once he made the mistake of walking into the ship during a fight, the rules of which were apparently based on I CAN YELL LOUDER THAN YOU CAN THEREFORE I AM CORRECT.
There was a period of time where they didn't speak to each other for three days. Those were, debatably, some of the worst three days of Jason's life. He would sit by Piper, only she was distant and he couldn't do anything about it, and he'd sit by Leo only to be lectured on the benefits on a celibate life. It was a short lecture.
"I'm not sleeping with her," he'd said, and Leo had given him an incredulous look that was somewhere between 'dude why the hell not' and 'cool then let's run away to south america and be bachelors forever.'
On the fourth day, he sat the two of them down and said in simple terms that he wasn't going to choose between them, because seriously guys, what are we, in fourth grade? They made up after that.
He was watching them spar one day when one of the Apollo cabin members standing nearby commented that it wasn't unlike two cheerleaders fighting over the oblivious quarterback. He went away after Jason asked him what a quarterback was.
"What was that about?" asked Piper afterwards.
"Sports, I guess," said Jason, shrugging.
During one of their more spirited arguments (an incident, to the chagrin of one Jason Grace, that was dubbed the Great Feather Feud by the rest of the camp), Piper apparently kicked Leo out of his own boat. Jason found this out when Leo stormed into his cabin at 3am, throwing his arms up in frustration.
"Man, your girlfriend is driving me crazy." Jason wasn't sure if this was a nightmare or what, so he settled for rolling over and grumbling into his pillow, "She's not my girlfriend."
"Woah," said Leo, who was now examining every inch of the cabin, picking things up and putting them down where they didn't belong, "shh, dude, do you hear that?"
"What?"
"It's the sound of denial."
Jason wisely decided that this was Leo-speak for 'please, jason, hit me in the side of the head with a well-aimed pillow,' so he did so. Then Leo hit him back, like twice as hard, which was not cool, so obviously Jason had to retaliate, and then Leo fled to the Hephaestus cabin and returned cackling with a Pillow Launcher 2000, and then, because they were teenagers and demigods and warfare tends to escalate, in a matter of minutes the entire camp was wide awake and constructing blanket forts and taking sides and there were pillows flying everywhere.
It was later speculated that that was the best campwide mock war since the incredible water balloon fight last summer (an affair that the renowned Percy Jackson was banned from participating in, seeing as how he was a Son of Poseidon and all. Reportedly he joined in anyway. Good man.)
Luckily there were no casualties, except perhaps Jason's manliness when Piper convinced him she wasn't participating and then proceeded to whack him upside the head with a pink feather pillow when he wasn't looking.
"I'm not going to just to abandon you guys," he said one night, when they were sitting around the campfire. "I— What I had before was nothing. Compared to this, I mean."
Piper smiled at him, softly, and Leo chuckled and wiped away an imaginary tear.
Then they both punched him in the arm for being stupid and sentimental.
Teenagers, Jason learned early on, tended to do things that didn't make sense. For instance: if the Ares cabin decided that, hey, they were going to hold the Hermes cabin hostage until they got a better spot at the campfire, then that was okay. And if Chiron left for, like, only two hours on an important matter and came back to see the Big House covered in magical toilet paper, then it was cool.
And, totally hypothetically, if Jason found himself getting pushed into an isolated corner of the airship by his two best friends, then he guessed that was okay too? Because the things that teenagers did didn't always make sense.
"You're an idiot," said Piper, and turned to Leo. "He's an idiot!"
"Yeah, okay," said Leo, "I mean, it's not like I'm gonna be winning any awards for paying attention, so I don't really have a right to speak, but damn dude are you stupid."
"And oblivious."
"And oblivious."
Jason looked from one to the other blankly. He wasn't entirely sure what he had done to deserve this.
"Is something wrong?"
Piper laughed, astonished, and Leo shook his head.
"We're going to land in two hours," said Piper, searching his eyes for something.
"Is this about the airship?"
"Nah, she's fine," said Leo. "Running like a gazelle. Except, y'know, she's flying."
"So what is it then?"
His friends exchanged a glance, and Leo kind of nudged Piper with his elbow.
"Jason," she said, slowly, stepping forward and he couldn't step back because he was against a wall, "we've been friends for a while, and..."
"Wow," said Leo, exasperatedly, "that is, weirdly, a perfect example of how not to do this."
"Screw you, I'm a girl, I know what I'm doing."
"Debatable on both points."
She kicked him in the shin and turned back to Jason. "So, as I was saying, we've been spending a lot of time with each other. And most likely, we won't be able to do that at Camp Jupiter."
"I told you at the campfire, I-"
"It's not about that!"
"I'm not-"
"Jesus H Christ," said Leo, and grabbed Jason and kissed him.
Jason experienced a moment of paralytic shock, like he had stuck a fork into an electric outlet or jumped into a pool of water that was icy cold. But then Piper was shoving Leo aside, saying something about 'first dibs you jerk' and then she was kissing Jason and he suddenly
didn't understand
anything.