Chapter Eight: Dragons, Fire And The Argo 2

Leo hadn't spoken to Nico since he'd broken his dragon.

Dang, Leo had worked so hard on that. Granted, it only took him a few minutes for his nimble fingers to assemble the basics – but still. If Nico's little hissy fit wasn't enough, he'd had to destroy Festus as well. Leo loved Festus like he was real; he'd almost cried when he'd seen the damage the stupid Ghost King had done.

It didn't help that Nico had shown up at the swim meet. Leo hadn't looked at him – he'd been busy sulking in the corner – but Jason Grace, who Leo had decided was his new best friend, had mentioned seeing him. And afterwards, when Leo third-wheeled on Jason and Piper's coffee shop lunch date, Leo had seen Nico again.

Nico hadn't even looked at him.

Despite Leo wanting to help fix Nico's moodiness, he didn't appreciate how the kid acted around him, like he was a hydrogen bomb ready to explode. He wasn't that bad.

It didn't help that he was on his way to wood shop. If he hadn't been given a formal warning – again – for skipping lessons, he wouldn't have gone. But he got caught up with the crowds walking that way, narrowly – but thankfully successfully – avoiding Hazel Levesque and her boyfriend Frank.

Leo did not want to go down that road again.

Once inside the workshop, he saw Nico sitting at their usual bench at the back, his head on his arms, which were spread across the height of the table. As usual, he was being depressing. Seriously, his whole anti-world act was starting to rub Leo the wrong way.

Leo walked boisterously down the middle aisle, whistling, and stopped at their bench. He threw his bag down, and it might've accidentally hit Nico's arms – but he didn't flinch. Leo scowled.

Instead of saying anything, he moved so he was behind the other stool, and pulled it out so it scratched across the tiles, making a screeching noise like angered birds. Nico still didn't move.

Leo wanted to whine. Nico was being so difficult.

He dropped down on his stool and banged his elbows down on the desk. Nico was being so still, so unnaturally silent that he had to ask, "Jeez, are you dead or something?"

"I wish," Nico mumbled.

"Whoa." Leo scratched the back of his neck. He hoped Nico was kidding – although if he was, he had a sick sense of humour to say something like that. Obviously he'd never been fully affected by the death of somebody close, which Leo had been, to know that death jokes weren't funny. But if he wasn't joking... Leo wouldn't know how to react.

Nico sat up, his dark eyes glistening with something unreadable. "I didn't mean that."

"Yeah," Leo said. "Then don't say it."

Nico eyed him warily, as though he were about to explode. It was usually how most teachers and even some of his friends looked at him. "Are you still mad about your dragon?"

Leo shrugged. Yeah, he was. But he wasn't going to say that, because he didn't want to show Nico his true feelings – and he didn't want to downplay how good he actually was. He could easily rebuild Festus – using the head, which was the only piece of him that still remained.

"Are you sure?"

"Nah," he said. "I mean, yeah, I'm sure. It's just a dragon."

"But it was our project," Nico said, looking at the bench. "I shouldn't have snapped like that."

Yeah, Leo thought. It was a little late for that.

That lesson they had a supply teacher who didn't know what she was doing – not unlike their own teacher – so Leo pulled out something from his tool belt, a silly little robot again, to work on. He didn't have Festus' head with him; otherwise, he would've started working on it again.

Nico didn't say anything again; he stretched his arms out again and rest his head on them. Leo stared at him, although he tried to hide the fact he was. Honestly, he'd started to get used to Nico's sunken, depressed attitude – and he'd carefully been trying to work out why that was, so he could help him – but lately he'd been different.

Leo internally sighed. "Alright," he said. "I forgive you."

Nico lift up his head again and raised a questioning eyebrow. Leo gestured around him, as though that showed him anything. Then, looking down at his tool belt, which had thrown up its contents so they sat on the table, he picked up little scrap parts of metal that he kept for repairs. In around five minutes, he had finished.

"See?" he said, holding up a miniature dragon figurine; it was no Festus, but the basic idea was there. "It's okay that you attacked my dragon" – Nico might've rolled his eyes, but he couldn't tell – "because I can make another one. Our project is fine," he added hastily, because Nico probably didn't care at all about Festus.

Nico looked at it in awe. "Whoa."

Leo couldn't help but smile. Awesome. He'd made Nico do something that wasn't glare or scowl – success. "Yeah," he said. "Festus' design is a little different though. Hey – maybe this can be his brother! Or friend." He almost started giggling, he was so pumped. "It can be me and you."

"I'm not a dragon. Or your–"

"My?"

"Never mind," Nico said.

Leo shook his head and looked down at the little dragon in his hands. Festus could be him, because he was way better (and Leo was working on getting him to breathe fire, which Leo would never admit he used to think he could do). This little guy could be Nico, and they could sit together on the foremast.

"I think you're going a bit off topic here," Nico said, frowning. He gestured to the two freshmen girls in front of him. "They're making Titanic."

"Psh. Who cares about the Titanic?" Leo said. "Come on! We have the Argo 2."

Nico started shaking his head, but he didn't protest. Instead, he said, "Whatever. Just give me something to do."

"Um." Leo wondered what Nico was good at – being moody, being antisocial, and being depressing. But they weren't skills. At least not skills useful to building a ship. He snapped his fingers. "Are you any good at art?"

Nico shrugged. "Why?"

"Because I'm not," he said. "I'm good at anatomy and all that. But not really drawing or design."

Nico looked at their planning sheet like he was mulling this over. Leo watched the way his mouth twitched. Leo started nervously tapping on the table, until he realised what he was doing. Sometimes his ADHD started getting the better of him – and he'd go into Morse Code instead, something his mother had taught him when he was a kid.

He stopped tapping and pushed some hair behind his ear. "Well?"

"I can paint it." Nico shrugged his shoulders.

"Better than nothing. Let's go!"

"Um," Nico said, "isn't the ship at your mom's garage? How are we supposed to work on it if we don't have it here?"

Leo blinked. Of course – he'd left the ship and Festus in the garage.

"It's a shame we can't leave school early to work on it," Leo said.

"Yeah," Nico replied vacuously.

Leo stared at him. "Yeah."

Nico scribbled down stuff in his planner, and Leo waited for him to understand. Moments later he looked up and shook his head. "I'm not skipping school with you. No way."

Leo groaned. "Why not? We only have to skip last lesson." He grabbed Nico's planner from under his grasp and flicked to the timetable. "Can you really not miss creative writing? It's not like we're not being creative; we'll be working on our project!"

"No," Nico said, snatching the planner back. One of the kids from the front row turned and sniggered at them.

"Come on, man. I want to have the most awesome ship," Leo said, oblivious. "If we get the best grade, ours gets displayed in the Christmas fair!"

Nico's small nose wrinkled. "Christmas fair?"

"Uh-huh. Please?"

Nico shrugged his shoulders, but Leo could practically see his mental mechanisms whirring. Oh, he so wanted to skip class with Leo and hang out with him. He just perhaps didn't know it yet himself.

"Maybe I could just come over after school?" Nico offered.

"That's good enough for me!" Leo grinned. "Come on, let's plan."

...

Leo skipped his last lesson anyway, despite the formal warning lingering in his brain. Whatever. Let him get kicked out of another school and watch the authorities try and find a place for him. It wasn't like it would work anyway – he didn't fit in anywhere, no matter how hard he – or they – tried.

So he just kicked about in the hallways, hit in the toilets from Octavian, and went into the courtyard and pulled funny faces in the window at Piper, who had bailed on him, when her teacher wasn't looking.

When he came back into the hallway just a few minutes before the bell was going to go, he almost bumped into the same goddess girl he'd seen a few weeks earlier in his wood shop. Calypso. When Leo had seen her on another day and looked at her for maybe a little bit longer than he should have, Percy had grinned at him and told him her name. But he wouldn't explain how he knew her, which annoyed Leo.

Calypso looked at him tiredly. "Excuse me."

Leo stepped out of her way and swept his arm out. "See ya."

Calypso glared at him and looked like she wanted to punch him, and he wouldn't have been surprised if she did. Instead, she stood on his toe and walked away, swishing her long, cinnamon-coloured hair behind her shoulders so it flowed down her back. Leo watched her go, and then shook his head.

He walked into the English hall and waited outside the opposite wall from Nico's class. He could see him in the front row, the nerd, writing down from the board reverently. Then the bell rang, and he jumped a little. Leo watched him stand, collect his things, and wait to be dismissed.

He thought about how different he was to Nico – and not just that he was orphan and didn't have any money to his name except whatever the garage, which he technically owned, brought in. Nico was smart, and he was focused. Days before, Leo had overheard Hazel talking to Piper (which really didn't happen often), and she'd said she was worried Leo would be a bad influence.

At first, Leo had thought Hazel and Nico were a thing, which now made him laugh. Hazel was actually Nico's half-sister through their recluse, psychopathic dad. Leo could sort of relate. He had an absent father too, although he'd never actually met his.

Nico tapped his shoulder and stood in front of him with a half-catlike-smirk/half-frown, which was the oddest combination. "You were daydreaming."

"I was thinking," Leo corrected.

The two boys walked through the halls, stopping at one another's lockers. Leo peered inside Nico's, which was scarce except for his books; there was only one thing tacked on the inside door, and that was a picture of a beautiful woman in a black dress and white gloves, and a girl who was obviously her daughter with a braid. They both had olive skin, and the girl held a boy in her arms, hugging him tightly. Leo wondered who –

Nico slammed his locker shut. He regarded Leo darkly. "Are you ready to go?"

"Um," Leo said, refusing to look in his eyes. "I just need to stop at my locker if that's okay."

Leo's locker was cluttered. He had pictures tacked on the inside, of Piper and him, of his mother and him. Drawings of inventions and designs and little dragons, which were becoming his new obsession. A little red bandana, which belonged to Nyssa, was hanging on the hook. His school books were another story, thrown inside and disregarded. Leo hadn't used the majority of them. And all around, bits of paper and candy wrappers and tools.

Nico made a throaty, vaguely disgusted sound – but he covered it up with a cough.

Leo slipped on his army jacket and grinned. "Let's go."

He was so excited to work on Festus and the ship and incorporate things that he and Nico had planned in the lesson that he didn't stop off to get his flavoured laces from the candy shop Silena Beauregard's father owned.

Nico followed him and didn't say a word. Again, Leo took Nico through the little forest and meadow. The petals that fell on Nico's black coat and into his hair made Nico scowl, his cheeks going pink. Leo laughed.

Truthfully, the meadow hurt a little. His mother had taken him this way everyday when she picked him up from preschool, and she'd pretend it was their little secret world that nobody else knew about.

He and Nico stepped out, and Leo opened up the garage to let Nico inside. He'd felt a little awkward the first time, what with the cut on his lip. Nobody else had noticed it, and Nico had regarded him like he was a hazard afterwards. It wasn't like it was a new thing.

It always happened, but Leo didn't like to talk about it.

"Not wiping the seat clean?" Leo asked as Nico pulled out a stool with a ripped leather seat and sat down. As soon as he'd said it, Nico glared at him.

Leo raised his hands. "Let's just try and get through this without you killing me."

...

Leo worked with Nico on the project for what felt like hours, but he didn't care. He loved building and creating new things, and his head spun with ideas so quickly that he had to sit down to stop himself from toppling over he was so dizzy. Nico was actually helpful, too, and as soon as Leo fixed together the ship and the two dragons, he pulled out a paint tin – from the right cupboard this time.

"Ready?" Nico asked, struggling a little bit under the weight of the tin. Some of the red paint that was dripping from the lid fell onto the floor and some got onto Nico's fingers, but if he cared, he didn't show it.

Leo grinned. "Of course." He rolled up the sleeves of his white school shirt, ripped off his tie and picked up a black paint tin. Nico stared at him. "What?"

"You're not seriously painting in your uniform," Nico said.

"Uh," Leo started. He placed down the tin, went over to the cupboard and pulled out two aprons. "Okay?"

Nico frowned. "I guess."

Leo whipped on the apron, so excited to get started that he didn't wait for Nico, who was pulling all the stops to make sure he didn't get any of the paint on his clothes. Instead of picking up one of the brushes Nico was deliberating through, he dipped his hand in the paint, giggled – and threw it onto Nico.

Nico paused, going completely still. For a second Leo was worried he was going to jab the paintbrush into his abdomen. Instead he pushed it into the paint, and streaked the brush down Leo's face.

Through a mouthful of red paint, Leo coughed. He could see through his new red mask that Nico looked furious – although after wiping himself with the cleanest rag in the garage, he passed it to Leo. Leo didn't wipe his face; he got a fistful of paint and grabbed Nico's hair.

"Ow!" Nico protested. Leo loosened his hold, but when he tried to turn away, he tripped on his shoelaces. He placed out his palms, thinking he was going to hit the floor, but instead fell onto Nico, leaving two black handprints on his chest.

Leo wiped his face with the back of his sleeve and smiled. "Oops. Sorry."

"You did that on purpose," Nico muttered. Leo cocked his head. Was Nico blushing?

Leo raised his hands. "Get me back if you want."

"I tried!" Nico said. "You tried to assault me."

Leo rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic. I was only trying to paint my ship."

He turned to the ship and saw, devastatingly, some of the paint from his and Nico's fight had gotten onto it. He wanted to scream. Now it just looked messy, and how was he supposed to fix it?

Nico came beside him and studied it. Surprisingly, he reached his hand into the red paint and wiped his finger up the side, testing it. He turned to Leo. "Do you have any yellow? Orange?"

Leo pointed to the cupboard, but didn't turn his eyes away from Nico. "I think there might be some in there."

"I think I know how to fix it." Nico came back, hauling two huge tins of yellow and orange paint. Leo took the yellow from him and placed it on the bench.

"Okay?" Leo said.

Nico's hands soon became covered in red, yellow, orange paint – and Leo thought it looked like fire. Then it clicked. Nico was painting the ship with a fire design. Using a brush (because his hands were all painted up with brighter colours), he took some black and painted a base coat. Then, without waiting for it to dry, he started finishing the fire he'd started with so much precision and artistry that Leo couldn't help but be impressed.

"Okay," he said. "That's cool."

Nico looked at him, and Leo swore he smiled. But he soon turned back to the Argo 2, working his magic. Pretty soon, the whole right side of the ship looked even better than Leo had first imagined. Swirled on a black base was a brilliant fire, and it didn't look messy anymore. It looked amazing.

Leo grinned. "That's so cool."

"Thanks," Nico said, wiping his hands on a rag. He didn't look at Leo. "Um, we should finish the other sides tomorrow or something. It's getting a bit late. And we could work on the dragons in class, if that's–"

Leo was so happy, he placed his paint-covered hands on Nico's cheeks and kissed him.

When he pulled back, he was so full of happiness that he didn't have time to register the fact Nico was gaping at him. He turned back to the Argo 2, the most pleased he'd ever been, and just stared at it.

A/N I figure a lot of people who are reading this story are more interested in the Valdangelo side of things, so I hope this was one you guys will like!

Please don't assume it's all going to be smooth-sailing (heh, like the Argo 2, get it?) from here. I mean, I meant what I said about problematic. And *zips mouth shut*

Also, did anybody notice how the last chapter bumped the story to exactly 22,222 words? Because I did.