While Nico and Percy were making some noise belowdecks, there was an entirely different kind of noise happening topside. Two sets of loud pounding, strangely in sync with each other.
I am referring, of course, to the pounding of Leo's footsteps as he ran away from a furious Jason Grace.
"VALDEZ!" the blond roared as he chased after the Son of Hephaestus, sparks dancing through his short hair in a display of his fury, but the firebug merely laughed maniacally as he scurried down the deck as fast as his legs could carry him. His toolbelt thudded against his waist with each step, reminding him with a twisted sort of irony that if he messed up his friendship with Jason, there was nothing he could pull out of it that could fix it.
The obvious next solution was to run away from his problems until they gave up and went away. That worked, right?
"Yeah, Jason?!" he yelled over his shoulder as he skidded to a stop and stepped quickly to the side, allowing the taller boy to thunder past him, "Something you need?"
Instead of struggling to a halt and turning around, which would have given Leo ample time to resume his escape, Jason simply launched himself into the air and took a hairpin turn to dive bomb the cackling demigod. Leo gave an immediate startled shriek and rolled out of the way, expecting Jason to barrel right past him once again, but the Sky Prince didn't have that pesky kinetic energy working against him this time. He stopped with a billow of wind before shooting to the side, hauling Leo up by a fistful of the engineer's shirt and taking the both of them high into the sky.
Festus roared in concern below the two as they stopped about a hundred feet above the ship, hovering in the midst of a gathering thundercloud. Bolts of pure electricity flashed all around them, illuminating the sky for brief instances, but the only power Leo focused on was the power in Jason's glaring eyes.
"So," the furious blond started, and even though he was speaking lowly Leo could hear him perfectly despite the howling wind, "You spied on me in the shower, hm?"
"Uhhh…" Leo stalled, glancing around a bit as he searched for a suitable excuse. Down on the deck, he had been in his element, but up here was a completely foreign battlefield. Before he could get too deep into his plotting, though, Jason twitched, and Leo screamed in shock as a white-hot bolt of lightning struck the boy square in the back. It crackled along his skin and down his arms, and though it didn't pass through the material of Leo's shirt to shock him, the firebug knew that that could change at any second.
"Okay! Yes! I did!" Leo admitted, perhaps a tad hysterically. Fear was creeping up on him now as Jason held him by his shirt, far above the ship and ever farther above the ground, and a moment of tense stillness occurred, the only sound being the thunder around them and the loud, sustained crackling of the electricity on Jason's skin.
"Why?" Jason asked, a different sort of quiet suffusing his voice, though he was still glaring, and Leo began grasping at straws.
"I-I-I don't know man, I just- I mean, a joke maybe?! Something to hold over you?! I didn't even know when I did it, just that there was a really good reason and-" the Son of Hephaestus stammered, the fear becoming more pronounced as Jason's expression darkened further, and he gave another scream as lightning struck Jason once more.
"I wanted to see you naked!" the boy shouted, screwing his eyes shut and grabbing Jason's forearms tightly. Tears streamed down his cheeks now, because he couldn't take it back now that he had said it, and he was legitimately afraid that Jason was going to drop him or something.
Jason smirked, bringing Leo closer to him, and the firebug gave a little whimper as he felt the boy's breath on his ear. "And what are we not going to do again?" Jason questioned softly, reaffirming his grip on Leo's shirt, and the engineer made a little noise at the sudden jolt.
"N-Not gonna spy o-on you," Leo whimpered, every inch of him tense. He gave a startled, fearful cry as Jason shook him suddenly, and hastily amended, "On anyone! N-Not gonna spy on anyone!"
"Hm. Good," Jason said in triumph, adjusting his grip again, but the slight jostling elicited another scared noise that captured the blonde's attention rather effectively.
"P-Please don't drop m-me…" Leo whispered, fisting Jason's shirt even more, and the Son of Zeus immediately stilled.
The next thing the terrified firebug knew, they were back on the deck of the Argo II , Festus's relieved roaring filling the engineer's ears and Jason standing a good few feet away from him. The son of Zeus was eyeing him warily, and...fearfully?
"I wasn't going to drop you," the boy called out, and Leo's eyes widened. Had he said that aloud?
Apparently he had.
"Pfft, of course you weren't. You wouldn't murder your favorite engineer, would ya?" Leo asked, automatically much more confident now that he was back on the deck. Even so, though, he didn't miss the way Jason winced at 'murder'. Maybe he should have worded that differently.
"Of course not. But it didn't look like you knew that up there," Jason told him, and Leo scoffed.
"Of course I did. I was as cool as a cucumber," he boasted, and Jason's face morphed into a scowl at the obvious lie. Leo felt his gut twist in irritation as Jason turned to go below decks with a muttered 'whatever', and the indignant engineer lunged forward.
He grabbed Jason's arm and pulled him back, snarking, "Now hold up there! I get the feeling that you don't believe…" but he fell short as Jason turned to face him again. Unshed tears were shining in the blonde's eyes, and Leo felt his gut twist for an entirely different reason this time.
"You were afraid of me," Jason said in a shaky voice, not giving him any leeway for argument, and Leo slowly moved back into a neutral stance as he processed this new info.
"Yeah," he finally admitted with a nod of his head, "Yeah I was."
Jason swallowed thickly, and without another word he pulled his arm from Leo's grip and thumped down the stairs. Leo Valdez was left alone on the deck, with nothing but Festus and his thoughts to keep him company. He stood there, staring at the hatch for the longest time, not even noticing when he slowly made his way back to the helmsman's wheel and began some tiny recalibrations. His mind was whirring in a thousand different directions at once, which was normal, but they all ended at one place.
Jason Grace.
He tuned that wheel to perfection as he contemplated and planned, not even looking down at his work, and it was some time later when both his thoughts and his repairs came to an abrupt halt as Festus made one of the floorboards spring up and smack him on the ass. He gave a yelp and jumped to one side, glaring down at the dragon head, but his look softened when the creaky crooning of the concerned familiar reached his ears.
'Are you okay?' Festus asked in the mechanical language he shared with Leo, and the firebug thought for a moment. His mind went back to Jason's expression before he descended the stairs, and he gave a slight shudder.
"No," he answered back, even as he filled with a firm decisiveness, "But I will be."
And with that, he vaulted the rail in front of him in one graceful movement and thumped down the stairs.
