"Good morning, Leo," Jason said in a forcefully cheery way. The Latino stood almost a foot shorter than him, so he had to look up to respond.
"Oh, hey, Sparky."
Jason sucked in a breath between his teeth. "Tell me you got some sleep last night."
Leo's eyes widened a little bit with confusion. "What? Oh yeah, I got six hours, I'm fine." He waved Jason off with a tired hand and tried to shake the bags from his eyes.
Jason tilted his head. "Dude, are you sure?"
Leo really wished everyone would just stop. He wasn't some broken little boy still upset about what happened with Tartaurus and everything. He wasn't overextending himself or working too hard because he was afraid of failing again. He knew what everyone else was whispering behind his back. And the other Six were all completely wrong.
"Alright," the tall blonde muttered, "Well, I'm gonna go eat breakfast. Do you want to come?"
Leo rolled his brown eyes. "Not really. But if I don't go with you, everybody's going to think I'm starving myself or something."
Jason stiffened at his friend's joke. "Are you?"
Leo fought the urge to slap Grace in the face (hey that rhymed!). "Of course not! Why would I even do that? That's loco! And sure, I can be crazy sometimes, but I'm not like that." He clenched his fists tensely.
"Yeah, yeah. I know." Jason continued, growing a little suspicious of Leo's outburst, "Let's just go eat."
Jason wasn't surprised that the dining hall was already full. Percy's plate was stacked with waffles and pancakes alike. Meanwhile, the guy was reaching over the entire table as he reached out for the bottle of syrup.
"Annie please give me the syrup!" he wailed, leaning forward a little further until Jason was sure he was going to fall into his food.
"Sit back down, Seaweed Brain! I've already got a bowl of it in the microwave I'm heating up for you."
Percy blinked. "Wow. That was really thoughtful."
Annabeth's look was sharper than her dagger. "I am thoughtful. I am a very thoughtful person. I don't know why you would be surprised that I'm thoughtful."
Percy waved his hands awkwardly as he sat back down, his shirt grazing the stacked pancakes, but still looking clean enough. "Nope! Yep! I mean, you're an Athena kid! They've got lots of thoughts and stuff."
Jason sighed and fiddled with his glasses, which he still hadn't gotten entirely used to. He shot Leo a sideways glance. The boy was grinning widely, laughing right along with Piper at their shenanigans. Anyone else would think nothing was wrong. But still… Jason couldn't ignore his gut feelings.
"Nice guys," Leo chuckled, grabbing a banana off the counter and peeling it immediately, "So Beth, what's the plan for today? Are we going to go skipping off to find another statue or maybe relax and fight a giant or two-"
Jason never heard the end of his friend's joking. An alarm blared through the Argo II, the lights flashed violently. The whole ship seemed to shudder.
"What did you do?" Piper asked the mechanic as she stood up, trying to maintain the humorous atmosphere by teasing Leo. Unfortunately, her shaky voice gave away her intentions.
"I don't know," Leo muttered, not even bothering to argue that it wasn't his fault. He knew Piper was joking about that. Yeah, it was just a joke. He tapped his index finger on the counter in frustration.
"Hey Repair Boy," Percy called out, assessing the situation, "Let's go to the engine and see what's wrong."
Leo nodded as his hand clenched into a fist and together they ran off, descending further into the ship.
"Alright," Annabeth took charge, "We're going to head up to the deck and see what we can do."
Jason followed the blonde-haired leader, unable to ignore the increasingly familiar sinking feeling in his stomach.
-Authors Note-
Thanks those of you who took the time out of your days to review my last few chapters! It means a lot to me that people care! This chapter I tried to focus again on the character dialogue! I hope nobody sounded too OOC. Thanks again!
-Apollo
