**Author's Note: I'm back! And this is a long chapter to make up for it (not that much longer, just by like 200 words or so, haha). I'm not sure if I want to take down the last chapter, now that I think about it, do the reviews go away when you take down a chapter? I'm going to do all your suggestions eventually, so I don't want them to like, disappear before I have a chance to write them. Oh well, I'll leave it up for now. Thanks for all your help! This chapter was from the suggestion of Tazmaster who wanted to see Leo sing, and half of what karatekid34 said, which was Leo forcing Nico to sing(the other half of that suggestion I'll do in the next chapter). So, thanks, and enjoy! This was really fun to write, by the way.**
Nico sighed, tilting his head back to look up at the pitch black sky, speckled with stars. It felt so peaceful, especially after an encounter with an eidolon. He put his hands in the pockets of his coat, thankful to have it back. A small smile appeared on his lips as he remembered the feeling of Leo warming his hands, and he glanced over at the pyrokinetic.
Leo sat next to him, pulling rubber bands out of his toolbelt, shooting them in just about every possible direction. His eyes darted around the ship, finding various targets like the top of the mast, or the crates stacked in the corner, or the back of Festus' head (which the dragon was not very happy about). Next target: Nico's—
"What are you doing?" Nico snapped, grabbing Leo's wrist, which was inches away from his face with a fully loaded rubber band in place.
Leo yelped, dropping the rubber band in surprise. "Nothing, nothing!" he answered quickly, trying to tug his arm out of the other's grasp, with little success. "Not like I was gonna, y'know, shoot a rubber band at your face..."
"Leo..." Nico glared at him, debating twisting his wrist, before letting it drop. Instead, he picked up the rubber band, and shot it over the side of the boat. "The entire deck is littered with these things, and now you've got an angry dragon. Either you're really stupid, or you're really bored."
Leo frowned, silently mourning the loss of the little rubber band. "Hey, why not both?" he answered. "But now that I think about it, you're right. I am seriously bored right now, bro." He sighed, shoving his hands into his toolbelt pockets, rummaging around for something to do. Without realizing it, his hand had closed around a Wii remote. "I have an idea!"
"Should I be concerned?" Nico replied, but Leo was already hopping off the ledge, dragging Nico along with him. Something at the back of his mind told him it was going to be a long, long night.
"Yeah, probably," Leo answered with a shrug, when they stopped in front of the ship's TV set. Grinning like a madman, he hit the power button and pulled out the Wii remote from his pocket, swinging it around on the safety strap casually. "Ever play on one of these things?" he asked, gesturing to the Nintendo console.
"Uh, no," Nico muttered, but his eyes widened slightly. "Isn't... Isn't that the thing you use to control the ship?" he asked with concern in his tone at the way Leo was waving it around like it was nothing.
"Yeah, but it's not just for that. Great for games, killing bugs—you name it." He smirked, and just then the safety strap on the remote snapped, sending the contraption flying across the room. When it crashed into a nearby cabinet, the entire ship shuddered, violently lurching forward.
Nico went tumbling to the ground, shouting, "LEO!" He fell facefirst into the floor, which he probably was not very happy about.
The mechanic, on the other hand, quickly scrambled over to where the remote had fallen. He did a quick once-over to see if it was broken, then hit a complicated button sequence on it, causing the ship to return to normal. "Yes!" he exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air, very pleased with himself.
Nico groaned, struggling to his feet. "I... really hate you," he grumbled, glaring intensely at Leo. "I'm going to sleep. Goodbye."
"Hey, that's not fair!" Leo whined. "Then I'd have to do night watch all alone, man. Not cool." He doubted that the kid would actually go back to bed, but he wasn't going to take any risks. Sure, he could busy himself with work, work, and more work—but what fun was that? And besides, being alone on the ship at night was a little creepy at times.
Nico muttered something under his breath about irresponsibility and how much he hated floors, but even he knew deep down he'd never just up and leave Leo. Abandoning friends wasn't really his style. "Fine. What's this 'idea' you were talking about?" he asked, because as angry as he was, he was still vaguely curious about it.
"Glad you asked." Leo plugged the Wii system into the TV. "How's a little game of Rock Band, sound to you?" He was excited, because he'd spent a long while tricking out the game making it so that it had gameplay options for just about every song in the universe rather than just a few (with a bit of help from the Apollo cabin, of course).
'Horrible,' Nico almost said, but Leo was already dragging out a drumset, two guitars, and a microphone out of a storage closet. Rather than answering, he just stared at him in disbelief, before saying, "Did you really use closet space for all of that stuff?"
"Of course I did," he answered, as if it should have been obvious. "You're the first person I'm playing a game with, though—are you honored? Yes, or yes?"
Nico rolled his eyes, lips curling upwards in a faint smile. "I'm not, but let's play." A memory tugged at the back of his mind—he and Bianca, flipping through channels on a TV at Westover Hall, when a commercial for the latest gaming system, none other than the Nintendo Wii, had turned up. He begged and begged his older sister for the thing, despite knowing it was impossible. "I've always wanted to try one of these," he murmured, a little sadly.
"Great!" Leo grinned, pulling a second Wii remote out of his toolbelt, handing it to Nico.
They went through a few songs with Leo on drums, Nico on guitar, then switched places, then both played guitar and had a rather epic duel. Twenty minutes, nearly half an hour passed, before the small microphone (which had sat, unused on a chair) caught Leo's eye.
"Dude." He paused the song, staring at Nico, dead in the eye. "Sing-off."
"What?" Nico looked a little confused, and also a little peeved since he was doing really well on the guitar solo. Then, the words registered in his mind. "Gods, no," he answered quickly. "I don't sing."
"Awesome, 'cause neither do I!" Leo reached into his toolbelt, and another microphone had magically appeared—he really loved how he could have almost whatever he wanted, right in his belt. "Grab that one on the chair and start picking a song, bro."
"Trust me, you don't want to hear me sing," Nico said, gripping his guitar like he was hanging onto it for dear life. "I probably sound like a dying animal."
"Dying animals? I love dying animals! Doesn't everyone?" Leo was already too caught up in his American Idol fantasy or whatever to take no for an answer, so he just got up and shoved the mic into Nico's hands. "I, Supreme Commander of the Argo II, command thee to sing!"
"You can't be serious," Nico muttered, chuckling under his breath. "You can sing, I'll just play on guitar."
"Fine. But you're singing later, whether you like it or not, di Angelo," Leo promised. He scrolled through some songs, but a long list with over a thousand songs plus a dyslexic and ADHD brain was probably the worst combination in demigod history. With the titles and letteres swirling around in his mind, he just resorted to hitting the 'random song' option.
He didn't really pay too close attention to the song he chose, since he was still trying to clear his head of miscellaneous letters and numbers, until Nico turned to him with a strange look.
"...Didn't know you were into country," he said, "Or Taylor Swift, for that matter." He looked like he was trying not to laugh, as the countdown for the song started.
"What?" Leo felt heat rise to his cheeks. "I'm not! I just—the thing was on random, man! I don't lisetn to this stuff!" he protested, which caused him to miss the first two lines of "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."
"Better start singing, Taylor," Nico teased, snickering to himself quietly as he hit every guitar note.
"...gods, uhm... hadn't seen each other in a month..." He mumbled the lyrics into the mic awkwardly, and totally embarrassed. "...said you needed space, what?"
"Oh, come on, you can do better," Nico told him with a smirk on his face, as he scored another combo, while Leo missed nearly every note. "You're boring the fans, Leo."
"Then you come around again and say, baby, I miss you and I swear I'm gonna change," he sang out a little louder, glaring at Nico angrily. "Trust me."
The song went on, and although Leo barely hit a single correct note and Nico was fairly sure his ears were bleeding, by the time the chorus rolled around, Leo was belting out the song at full volume.
"Ooh, we called it off again last night but ooh, this time," he sang, "I'm telling you, I'm telling you—" He stopped singing, putting the microphone up to Nico's face. "SING!"
"What?!" He fumbled with the guitar, missing a few notes. "—are never ever ever," he mumbled, not really sure what he was doing, "getting back together." Heat rose to his cheeks, and he pushed the microphone away from his face.
Leo gladly took the microphone back, grinning at Nico, who was trying very hard to continue with the guitar part of the song. The song went on, and eventually Leo finished, practically screaming the last note into the mic.
"You... got very into that," Nico noted, wincing as though his ears hurt. "New song. I'm not singing." Though Leo did miss a ton of notes, Nico had to say if he was singing seriously, the guy might've had a rather nice voice. "And don't just yell the lyrics, sing them."
"You can't tell me how to sing if you're not singing!" Leo protested, hitting the random button once more. The screen read "Demons" by Imagine Dragons. "Oh, I think I know this—"
"Dude." Nico picked up his mic, eyes not even meeting Leo's gaze. "I love this song." The countdown started, and he forgot all about his guitar. Sure, he wasn't the best singer, but Leo already embarrassed himself enough, so Nico could afford to sing one song. At least it wasn't Taylor Swift.
"Ahah! You're going to sing!" Leo grinned. "Lemme change the settings," he said, pausing it and changing it so that they were both on mic. "And 3, 2, 1."
"When the days are cold," Nico started singing, but he barely even needed to look back at the lyrics onscreen.
"And the cards all fold," Leo finished the line and smiled; he had to admit, Nico wasn't half-bad. His voice wasn't very strong, nor was it very distinctive, but it was a little sad-sounding, which was oddly fitting for a song like this, and a person like him.
They sang, alternating lines until they got to the chorus, which they sang together. Leo tried his hardest sing the song and keep up with Nico who seemed to know it inside out, but he began feeling self-conscious about it, because he was pretty convinced that Nico was a way better singer than he was.
"Don't want to let you down, but I am hell-bound," Nico sang softly with a melancholy look in his eyes, before pausing the game. He hesitated, like he was letting the words of the song sink in, then turned back to Leo. "You do realize that I'm just as bad a singer as you are, so you have nothing to worry about, right?"
"Nah man, you're pretty good," Leo said with a shrug. "I don't usually sing very seriously..."
"Well, maybe you should, because you're not bad at it," Nico offered, before unpausing the game and continuing to sing.
Leo thought about this for a second, and then held the microphone to his lips and tried to sing—really sing. When the chorus rolled around, he couldn't help but grin at how his voice worked with Nico's. It was slightly higher pitched, and slightly more lively, while Nico's was more like the darker element of the song. It worked, somehow, and for a second, neither one felt embarrassed.