Disclaimer: I don't own PJO nor HoO, they are the beautiful children of Rick Riordan.
CHAPTER 11
Don't. You're a strong, independent woman, twenty-two of age, used to taking care of yourself and doing that just fine since early teenage years. You are intelligent, reliable and reasonable. You don't need to- (Wait, what was tha-?!) Aand, you'd just looked at him once again... Leo Valdez, the one violating your undeniable right to spotless self-control. Just great.
Reyna clenched the pen she was holding and tapped it on the notebook's cover in annoyance. She tried not to glance at him anymore, but it wasn't her conscious doing that her eye decided against her will and kept noticing the way Leo's curls bounced when he fidgeted in his seat a few tables from hers and how surprisingly different he looked in that stylish black jumper he'd decided to wear that day. Not that she paid any special attention to how his clothes highlighted his slim body-built... She wasn't ready to give into those... feelings of hers just yet...
Leo run his fingers through his hair in slight anxiety. If Mrs. Lupa had given him the chance to recall the vibe of working together with Reyna, instead of having decided to commit the worst and give the class an all-too-known, completely unnecessary and uttermostly boring OSH lecture (her excuse was preparing the lab for the high school occupation, his ass!), maybe his mind wouldn't have started coming up with the worst case scenarios for the visit at his queen's house.
What could possibly go wrong? Right there and then, in his head - everything! It wasn't that he was scared or felt like giving up the efforts to get closer to her, but Reyna was... She was different. Unpredictable, that was probably the best phrase to call her, he couldn't quite come up with any schemes for her reactions. With other girls, it was easy - he saw right away when they already had enough or that he could still keep trying. With her... It was impossible. He never knew whether that slight curve of her lips meant she found his joke funny or was an expression of distaste. Her diplomatic attitude was really giving him a hard time!
Just a few more minutes and they'd both be free to... That was right, just what was he supposed to do?! Should he talk to her or let her be for the time being? Would approaching her there just before he would visit her at her house be considered nagging or could he give it a go? He glanced at her over his shoulder and couldn't make out which one of them was more surprised when their eyes met. More driven by instinct than following any deliberate plan, he flashed her one of his famous flirtatious grins. His guts clenched in a warm knot when the corners of her eyes wrinkled in a reciprocal expression.
He turned back to at least try to focus on the lecture but was sure he would see that smile just about everywhere he looked from then onward.
X
His dilemma solved itself on its own when Mrs. Lupa prevented him from going through the choosing process by stopping him after she'd finally finished boring them all to death to ask to help her carry some reagents to the lab. When he was on his own again, Reyna was nowhere to be seen and, frankly, he wasn't able to decide whether that wasn't actually a good turn of events... More time to prepare to sweep her off her feet, wasn't it?
"Who are you and what have you done with Leo Valdez' stained T-shirt?!" a well-known voice cried in mock terror and he smirked, turning round to meet the horrified look in Piper's amused eyes. He drew his arms to the sides and made a full twist, showing off his outfit like a model on a runway while his friend watched in wonderment, shaking her head in disbelief. A curtain of thin braids smacked her in the face when her grinning mouth showed itself back up to him again.
Leo shrugged. "New clothes, new me, is it?" he looked himself up and down and turned back to his overreacting friend, presenting her with a similar potty face. Piper folded her arms across her chest, adjusting the heavy, old leather bag on her shoulder that had belonged to her father when he'd been studying. Her gleaming multicolor eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips, though not being able to fully suppress the crook of her lips.
Stabbing his chest with one surprisingly forceful finger, she teased "Let me guess... It's for Reyna, isn't it?" The smile gracing her features widening meant the prayers he sent to the god of actually not blushing for once when you didn't want yourself to were left unheard. Piper laughed, a clear, tuneful melody he'd always liked. That was, when he did feel like being the reason for her friskiness, unlike in that particular moment.
"Have I overdone it? Am I ahead of the fashion?" he joked, hoping to get the conversation back into neutral field, where that one small, weirdly sensitive part of his brain would eventually shut up and stop whispering acidic words triggering the self-conscious side of Bad Boy Supreme. After all, humor was the best way to stay away from problems, general gloom and nagging sadness. It seemed to had worked, as Piper calmed down, her expression changing into a warm, reassuring smile of pride.
"I'm just impressed, you really did the homework" she gave him a friendly smack on the arm, which he rubbed in pompous play of grand pain, his face in a grimace and eyelids tight shut not to let her notice his eyes shining with mute laughter. The two of them started walking down the hallway, Piper still not able to stop staring. Please, she could have given the show up already! Leo rolled his eyes.
"Enough about me. Where's your baby-boy?" he teased, effectively turning the tables of embarrassment. His friend was suddenly all too interested in the walls they'd been passing every day for… How much time was it now? For sure a lot more than he'd lasted with each and every of his foster families, when he'd still been a cute, harmless kid. He smirked to his thoughts. Now he was only cute.
Before he could have experienced any of his best friend's aggressive defensive techniques, Leo and Piper reached the outside door and just in the moment he was reaching to open it for her ("Be nice to girls, mijo!"), a strong, muscular arm pushed the glass surface forward, their faces met with tender, warm wind of a pleasantly sunny day in California. When he looked at their exit hero, Jason grinned at him and gestured for them to go ahead of him.
"Just in time, Sparky" Leo winked at Piper, whose absent-minded smile was the obvious enough sign of her infatuation with the blond superhero playing with the loose straps of his backpack, peeking at his girlfriend from behind the classy golden eyeglasses of his. Leo's smile widened and he had to use all resources of mental force to stop himself from rolling his eyes yet again. Oh, those two were so worth one another…
"JUST in case you were wondering..!" he butted in between the tract of love, or just their gazing session, waving his hand in front of Jason's face, who blinked a few times and frowned in confusion, and sending a mischievous smirk to Piper, who turned her head in the other direction, struggling to hide the faint blush covering her shapely cheekbones "Somebody here has a date today, and it's not you, 'cause you two are obviously on one all the time…" he shrugged, getting ahead of his friends who halted to exchange confused looks.
"Wait a minute. You didn't actually say it's a date?!" Piper exclaimed, catching up and hooking her arm around his shoulders in brutal attempt to make him speak. Did he mention she was like an older sister to him..? Oh yes, she was! Fortunately, Leo was skinny and swift, so he managed to free himself and run… straight into Jason's finely built chest. May his football practice back in high school be damned!
"Reyna agreed to go on a date with you?!" he asked, and if Leo didn't know it was probably because he'd been trying to get attention of the least approachable girl at campus, whom his friend had known longer than himself, on top of that, the shock in Jason's voice might have hurt the Latino's feelings, like did they really have so little faith in himself?! But it was two on one, a crushing superiority he had no choice but to submit to.
"It's not exactly a date… Yet…" he admitted, grimacing in concentration "But that has never stopped me before, has it?" he chuckled, using Jason's surprise to get past him and walk some more down the path, sticking his hands in his jeans' pockets and staring blindly into the distance with a goofy smile on his face. "We're supposed to study, if you're interested" he called, and that seemed to had shaken the astonishment off his friends.
"I feel like Reyna's gonna be dissatisfied with the amount of knowledge you'll provide her with…" Piper said, heading in the direction of their favorite spot to meet during breaks – an old maple tree in the centre of the front yard, nicely shading the grass and creating a perfect place for laughing, gossiping and just spending chilling time with your best buddies. The trio spread down on the ground, where Leo laid with his hands behind his head, sticking his face out to the sun.
"In Chemistry… Maybe…" he chuckled with a dirty grin, making them all laugh. "Please, Pipes! Let's see if she won't kill me for coming over to her house, first…" he opened one eye and peered at his friends, who were sitting with their backs to the trunk, holding hands. He smiled. Looking at a happy couple brought him nowhere nearer any fulfillment in his own love life, but it was certainly heart-warming to know such relationships were truly able to exist in that universe... Maybe not for the mechanic-minded ones like himself, but he wouldn't give up that easily!
"Wait…" the wrinkle on Jason's forehead came back in its full glory "You're coming over? To her house? What happened?" he shot the questions like a nosy human machine gun he was, or at least a tiny little part of himself which he always denied having was. If it wasn't for his lifelong practice with his own face, Leo's muscles would have certainly given up by then, as a result of an overdose of smiling. Piper sometimes cracked a joke or two about how the doctors must have wanted to acknowledge a new medical case of a newborn grinning like a madman, when he'd been born. Leo explained the situation to his friends, not being able to resist to overdo it a bit when it came to how charming and stunningly clever he'd been when Mrs. Lupa had come to share the news. They knew him well enough to sort through what was clearly impossible to have happened, anyway.
"You know me, couldn't let a chance like that slip by, could I?" he tried to shrug awkwardly, ignoring how his shoulders were blocked and his body pressed by the force of gravity and lack of sleep he'd had the night before, not anything we wasn't used to. He fought to ignore how his heartbeat quickened just thinking through the bold actions he'd made. He hated overthinking stuff, as it always made him doubt his doings and, worse, regret anything that seemed too risky for the coward hidden deep inside his heart. Especially when it came to girls like Reyna…
"Well…" Jason trailed off in deep thought, not meeting any of the two's gazes "It could be a great occasion to get to know each other better. In a friendlier environment, you know?" he shrugged, his electric-blues sparkling with amusement. "Just… Don't try anything too extreme, I guess…" he messed up his friend's hair playfully, making Leo scoff and wave his hands helplessly to keep him at bay while Piper couldn't help but giggle at their child's play.
If he'd been rejected one more time… Well, he'd still have had a place to come back to, to his friends that were more like a family than anything else he'd engaged himself in since his mother passing away… Leo watched Piper and Jason in silence, the smile engraved into his face turning into more of a serious expression. Soul relatives or not, he wasn't going to become a burden when they grew up and moved on. He didn't want to become that problematic single uncle that everybody loved, just… from time to time…
Why wouldn't he try and see if Reyna didn't feel like joining in..?
X X X
Her house was in a mess. Clothes stretched on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink, Aurum and Argentum running all around, cuddling to herself whenever she tried to get a hold of the turmoil. Reyna sighed, brushing loose strands of freshly-washed, still-moist hair away from her eyes and considering yet one more time where to start tidying up. How had it even happened that the usual order was ruined?! She must have been strangely distracted lately…
She picked a few pieces of clothes up and threw them into the laundry basket. First collect it all from public space, then do the laundry. That was right. She smiled to herself, flipping her hair by her shoulder and storming through the house, getting rid of any unwanted disruptions in the rooms' structure. Her bare foot slipped on a pool of unidentified liquid and she made a mental note to clean that up when she was done with the current task. Quickly moving forward through the corridors, she reached the study room, with Chemical glass Leo had requested on one table and her beloved laptop on the other.
Her gaze wandered over the place, searching through the corners, when her eyes fell on the computer screen… And that was the greatest mistake she'd made on that day, worse even than letting that horrible mess rule over her place. Because she was stopped dead in her tracks when a flickering red sign reminded her about that episode of one of her favorite series she was supposed to watch a few days earlier… She still managed to resist the temptation but felt as if it was only a temporary state…
Let's see… She'd washed her hair and made sure Aurum and Argentum didn't blow the place up while playing like carefree puppies they, of course, were no longer supposed to be… She'd got rid of the dirty clothes… She was still in her tracksuit, but what problem was that to get changed into anything more proper for receiving a guest..? Maybe she could give it a go, after all, there was still plenty of time, wasn't there..?
She carefully placed the basket under the table and sat down, turning on the series that which watching had started merely as a mixture of curiosity and physical attraction toward the main character, but ended up becoming one of the most gripping, entertaining TV programs she'd ever encountered.
X
Why was it that whenever there was a cliffhanger in the series, something always had to interrupt her watching?! It made no difference that she was experiencing it for the second, or even third, time already! Reyna groaned, clicking the pause button aggressively in irritation and trying to summon a smile on her upset face before answering the door. It was probably just the postman, no need to vent her annoyance on the poor man simply doing his job right.
Only it wasn't anyhow who she was expecting.
Her hand froze on the knob and she had to resist the urge to slam the door back into Leo's smiling face. How?! Why?!
"Um… I'm not too early, am I..?" he asked, motioning for her silhouette and, she was almost sure, fighting back a full grin. Her head jerked back for her to stare at the clock and she cursed under her breath, which he had to have heard, judging from the quiet snort he made. She'd mistaken an hour. How usual for a time when it was most essential to be on time. However, she had no choice but to go along with the current situation, right? She rubbed her fingers on her forehead and moved to the side to let him in.
"Please… Make yourself comfortable" she forced him into the study room, ignoring the curious looks he shot at the other rooms and leaving the dogs to get his full attention while she almost run to her bedroom to brush her hair and change into anything more representative than a pair of worn-out pants and an old "I [heart] LA" T-shirt. "I'm sorry, I..! I'll be ready in a minute!" she shouted through the walls, listening in and trying to spot any sound of a need for her intervention, like Leo's cries of pain or her dogs' teeth ripping apart human flesh. All she heard were his giggles and her pets' happy whines. Her eyebrow cocked in interest. It was unusual for anybody to gain Aurum and Argentum's favor so quickly…
When she came back, doing the last few buttons of the white shirt she found somewhere on the bed in the last few steps before she entered the study room, Leo was sitting on the floor, Aurum pressed to his side and disallowing him from standing up and Argentum receiving his beloved treat, being scratched on the belly. The Latino's laughter died down when he raised his head and met her eyes, his breath catching slightly in his throat and resulting in light cough when he was struggling to get out of the pile of fur and damp noses, not meeting her amused gaze and probably hoping the characteristic tinge of his face escaped her attention. (It didn't.)
"It really suits you… Your hair down, I mean…" he gained enough guts to make a compliment and she had to pretend she was suddenly interested in the flasks and test tubes she'd collected not to let the flip of her heart be seen in her face of posture. "But… Seriously..? You like that series?" she noticed him motion for the laptop out the corner of her eye and felt as if there was an ice-cube thrown into her stomach at the playfulness of his voice. But of course she'd have forgotten to turn the season finale of the first season of "Teen Wolf" off, leaving the screen with a zoom on Scott's werewolf face during his fight against Peter! She felt like jumping to the computer and slamming it close in one swift motion but that would have been even more embarrassing than him getting to know about her guilty pleasure.
"Yes" she answered dryly, crossing her arms on her chest and boring her eyes into his in a, hopefully, look more defiant and intimidating than desperate and feeble. Weakness was a word she'd crossed out of her vocabulary a long time earlier. Leo raised his hands in a defensive gesture, though not being able to dispose of that annoying smirk of his… Wait, why was she suddenly focused so much on his mouth?! She cleared her throat and turned to the other table, where he soon joined her, looking at her tie her hair in a bun and rolling up his sleeves.
"Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against… sexy werewolves and…" She shot him a murderous glare that effectively shut him up. They did a few more steps of their planned work in awkward silence, however somehow managing not to pour any potentially harmful substances all over themselves. That, and she could still keep her mind away from considering how near his warmth was and that it was her house and were they that close already?! No. It was just a coincidence, nothing to read too much into.
To break the silence, she made an attempt to defend Scott McCall's pack. "There's more to "Teen Wolf" than just that" she claimed gravely, taking a glance at his deep brown eyes behind the protective goggles and fighting off the nagging thought that had appeared in her brain the moment the series and himself were put together in her life. She didn't feel any need to deny Tyler Posey's attractiveness… Wasn't Leo somehow similar to the actor, at least when it came to his looks..? Did that mean she was free to admit to being attracted to..? No, that was way too far-fetched! Was it not..?
She cleared her throat and stuck her sight to the changing color of the tube in her hands. "You… You should try watching it before giving an opinion like that" she mumbled, her voice a bit too hoarse, struggling to remember whether that transformation of the substance was a proof of the experiment having gone well or maybe exactly the opposite. She noticed him nod his head slowly and when she looked back at him, he was smiling, looking out for her eyes with his gleaming orbs.
"Maybe… You'd show it to me, someday..?" he offered with a grin, giving a hopeless try to smoothing out his black curls sticking out in every possible direction but the one he wanted them to direct themselves into. He must have been so proud of himself to had come up with such a smooth reply… To that, she wasn't sorry to uncover her indifferent façade and answer with a sincere smile that made his eyes go misty and his Adam's apple bob visibly when he swallowed. She snorted in amusement, pushing away her common sense screaming in alert at that sudden display of her fondness. No need to overthink it. Just let the matters advance the way they like…
"Yeah, maybe I will…"
ZJeM, 25.09-26.12.14
From author:
Fun fact: I'm not actually up to date when it comes to watching "Teen Wolf". I've been stuck on season 2 for quite some time, sadly. ;)
The title for this chapter comes from Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night". ;)
Oh, and Merry late Christmas to any of you who's been stuffing themselves with food like me! :D
THANKS FOR READING!
