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demigod-shenanigans · 29 days ago

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Leo’s night off

Summary: Leo had been working on the Argo II’s engine non-stop for four days—and he’d been making great progress, thank you very much—but for some strange reason, his friends seemed convinced he needed things like “breaks” and “fresh air” and “fun”.

He’d reluctantly resigned himself to his fate of being dragged out of Bunker Nine for movie night once a week. He loved his friends. He liked spending time with them. When he wasn’t on tight schedules for impossible building projects that had the fate of the world riding on them, he was very much in favor of having fun.

Unfortunately, it was Piper’s turn to pick the movie, and her idea of fun apparently involved paranormal horror.

…at least he and Jason were suffering together, he supposed.

Word Count: 7.4k

Rating: Teen and Up (could probably be Gen tbh, rated that way for a bit of cursing and very vague descriptions of a few horror movie scenes)

My @pjo-equinox-solstice-exchange for @chaosdoesnotdefineme

I really hope you’ll enjoy this fic! Your prompt was pretty vague, so I went with some lost trio focused shenanigans.

I did check your blog and saw you’d reblogged a bunch of Valgrace art, so I’m hoping it was okay to include the ship, but I kept it relatively minor to be safe, with trio friendship being the main focus of the fic. Most of it can be read as them just being physically affectionate with each other. Also, you don’t currently allow gifts to your Ao3 account, so if you do want me to use the gift function over there, you’ll have to toggle that on first!

Anyway, that’s enough preamble from me, I think! Happy reading!

———

To say Leo had lost track of time would have, perhaps, been the understatement of the century. He’d been working on the Argo II’s engine for so long that he was no longer sure what time of day—or, quite frankly, what day of the week it was. His siblings came and went however they saw fit between their other obligations, helping as much as they could, but Leo wouldn’t have let any of them help with this part anyway.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them to handle complicated machinery—they were all children of Hephaestus, after all—but it was like that saying about too many cooks spoiling the broth. Except in this case, the cooks were inventors who each had their own ideas about the best way to build powerful ship engines, and the broth was an extremely delicate balance of highly explosive fluids that might wipe half of camp off the map if anyone so much as looked at it wrong.

Teamwork was great for lots of tasks, especially when it came to projects as big as the Argo, but this just wasn’t one of them.

Therefore, Leo had been working in the engine room mostly alone for a while, using a borrowed plate from the camp kitchens to summon food whenever his stomach started to complain and taking sips of water from a borrowed cup when he started to feel dizzy. The magic dishes were really handy. Maybe he should ask if he could add some to the Argo’s inventory for the journey. That seemed much easier than figuring out how to stock up on supplies when there was a good chance of supply runs ending in monsters chasing them out of random foreign supermarkets.

Unlike eating and drinking, sleep was somewhat of a myth at this stage of building the Argo. Thankfully, Leo didn’t actually need tons of breaks while he was working. One neat thing about being a child of Hephaestus was that whenever Leo went into Project Hyperfocus Mode, he actually didn’t need much to sustain himself in general. He could go days without sleeping if it was necessary—and considering their looming deadline with the Argo? Man, was it necessary.

That Piper and Jason weren’t huge fans of this particular power of his was probably the camp’s worst-kept secret. Jason regularly dropped by to have lunch with him because apparently he was worried whether Leo remembered the concept of “lunch” existed, which was both extremely rude and also completely fair. Piper, for her part, had dragged Leo out of the Bunker more times than he could count, insisting he needed things like “fresh air” and “to see the sun more than once a week”.

What did she think he was, a wilting houseplant?

The one regular appointment they’d successfully talked Leo into to ensure he got out of Bunker Nine and did something fun regardless of how busy his week was was movie night on Saturdays. There were a few reasons for this.

1) Jason’s knowledge of and taste in movies was absolutely abysmal, and as his best friend, it was basically Leo’s sacred duty to fix this. 2) They rotated who picked the movie, so he finally had an excuse to make Piper watch all of the Transformers movies with him. And, perhaps most importantly, 3) they’d chosen to have Movie Night at the Zeus cabin, so they got to piss off Jason’s absentee sort-of dad as an added bonus.

Yeah, yeah, and Leo supposed that maybe it was also just nice that he got to spend some quality time with his friends and could give his whirring brain a bit of a pre-scheduled break.

Not that he’d ever tell that to Jason and Piper, though. They’d abuse the hell out of that knowledge to schedule even more weekly activities, and then Leo would never finish the ship in time for their trip.

“The world ended because I had too many board game nights and video game sessions with my friends” would probably not fly with the Judges of the Underworld.

All this was to say that, with Movie Night being scheduled and all, Leo probably shouldn’t have been surprised that one of his friends may show up to drag him out of the engine room for the event. But, well… there was the whole matter of him losing track of time (if he’d ever had track of time to begin with, which could be put into question more than a little).

So, when Piper waltzed into the engine room, loudly proclaiming, “yo, Repair Boy, put your tools away, it’s your night off!”, Leo startled so badly that he nearly did make the engine explode by accident.

Leo cursed, moving frantically to put out the small fire he’d started.

“Gods, Pipes, what did I tell you about sneaking up on me like that when I’m working?”

“Not to do it because it’s dangerous?” Piper asked innocently. “Hey, if anything, you should take this as a compliment! It means I completely trust you not to blow us both up, even by accident!” She winked at him. “Now come on, we’re gonna miss dinner, and if we do, Jason’s gonna pick the snacks all by himself. You know how that will end.”

Leo shuddered at the memory of the dried fruit chips, beef jerky and unseasoned popcorn that Jason had picked out the one and only time he’d been solely responsible for the snacks. After that traumatizing incident, they (Leo and Piper) had unanimously decided the three of them would pick all of their snacks together going forward. But if the camp store was closed by the time they got there… well, avoiding a repeat of that particular snack incident was as great a motivator as any for Leo to try and finish up as soon as possible.

“Yeah, no thanks.” Leo paused. “Hang on. Isn’t it, like, Thursday? Movie night is on Saturdays.”

Piper looked at him, appalled. “It is Saturday. I’m afraid to even ask, but how long have you been in here?”

Leo winced. “Wednesday? I think?”

“You think?”

“Listen, I’m shit enough at keeping track of what day it is when I have an actual schedule like we did at Wilderness. Here? Free rein, Beauty Queen. You’re lucky I even know what month it is.”

He fastened the last few components on the part of the engine he’d been working on, then started collecting his tools and stowing them away in his tool belt, since him leaving the Bunker was a thing that was definitely going to happen now.

A shadow of guilt crossed Piper’s face. “I should have checked on you sooner, but I knew Jason dropped by regularly, and with the drama we’ve had at the Aphrodite cabin this week, I kind of didn’t realize just how long it’s been since you showed up for a meal.” She bit her lip. “Jason didcome see you, right?”

“Oh, yeah, he totally did. Not sure how long ago it was, but we’ve eaten together twice since I started working on the engine earlier this week.” Leo strategically neglected to mention that he’d sort of promised Jason to go take a nap in an actual bed after their second lunch and then just… hadn’t. Piper didn’t need to know that.

“Good. I’m glad. I’m still sorry I didn’t look out for you properly this week, though.”

“Eh. It’s fine. You’ve annoyed me out of the Bunker plenty of times since I started working on the ship. You’ll be forgiven for slacking off for one week.” Leo grinned at her. He wiped his hands off on a piece of cloth he’d pulled out of his tool belt, rechecked that all the engine compartments were stable and not at an imminent risk of exploding one last time, then gave her his full attention. “Now, I wanna hear about your cabin drama. I miss all the fun stuff while I’m holed up in here.”

“You wouldn’t miss nearly as much if you spent a bit more time outside,” Piper pointed out, but then she told him, anyway. “My siblings have been arguing a bunch. It’s been a mess.”

“Yeah? How big of a mess are we talking?”

“It honestly seemed like a stupid issue to me, which didn’t help my ability to manage it. Calix and Mitchell showed up to breakfast in the same outfit a few days ago, and they both got upset about it. Somehow, this devolved into an all-out sibling war. There were factions and everything.” Piper rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “Shockingly, me snapping and yelling ‘who cares?’did not help. It just made everyone mad at me on top of being mad at each other. I’m starting to think that I may not be cut out for this whole head counselor business.”

Leo snorted. “Hey, don’t look at me! I’m pretty sure I was only elected head counselor of the Hephaestus cabin because my siblings knew I’d be way too busy to check whether anyone was doing their chores—not that I would have cared much about it either way. I doubt you’re anywhere near as bad at this as me.” He elbowed Piper. “So, did you get it sorted out, or do I need to prepare myself to dodge love curses and lethal hair brush throws at dinner?”

“I couldn’t get it sorted out. I had to ask Drew for help.”

“Oh gods.”

“She’s not…” Piper shook her head. “I mean, she did look very smug about the whole thing, but Drew knows her stuff when it comes to these things. Had the whole matter sorted in two minutes by giving Mitchell a shirt to go with the pants that ‘compliments the color of his eyes’ and pairing Calix’ shirt with a different pair of pants and a belt.” Her voice held something like begrudging respect for her sister, which Leo thought was weird considering the way their sisterhood had started out. Then again, his siblings were basically his construction crew. He wasn’t exactly an expert on normal family dynamics. “I may not have liked the way Drew ran the cabin,” Piper continued, “but she was right that I don’t get some of the things my siblings care about. I’m not planning to suddenly, like, get obsessed with expensive designer clothes or anything—there’s a reason I’ve never liked that kind of stuff—but I’ll admit that I could stand to be a bit more respectful of my siblings’ interests. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I was genuinely glad Drew was around to help out with this.”

“Okay, who are you and what have you done to my friend?” Leo teased, pinching one of Piper’s cheeks with his fingers and gently pulling it sideways like it was a mask that he was expecting to come off.

“Leo! Ew!” Piper yelped, swatting his arm and then wiping at the grease stain he’d left on her cheek. “Okay, seriously, we need to get going. You desperately need a shower before dinner, and we were already going to be late.”

“Are you saying that I stink?”

“You’ve been hanging around in Bunker Nine for, what, more than three days now? Do you really want me to answer that?” Piper asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Besides, you’re covered in oil.”

Leo looked down at his oily, soot-stained work overall and winced. “…fair point.”

~~~ By the time Leo had showered, brushed his teeth and made his way to the dining pavilion in clean, comfortable clothes, he was starting to get seriously tired. That always happened when he came out of Project Hyperfocus Mode.

If this was his body trying to give him a sigh, Leo was expertly ignoring it.

He made his way over to the Zeus table and slid onto the bench next to Jason pretty much automatically.

“Hey Superman. Fancy meeting you here. How’s it going?” he asked, immediately digging into the cheeseburger he’d summoned. Man, he was way hungrier than he’d realized.

“Hey.” Jason smiled nervously at him, the way he always did when Leo insisted on sitting at his table. “It’s great to see you, don’t get me wrong, but are you sure we should be pushing our luck with the seating arrangement? Doesn’t that rule exist for a reason?”

Leo laughed. “Dude, didn’t you say your dad closed Mount Olympus specifically because he thought the gods were too involved in their kids’ business? Do you seriously think he’s gonna reopen it just so he can smite me for sitting at the wrong table?”

“He might,” Piper chimed in cheerfully as she sat down across from them. “It probably wouldn’t even make the top ten of the pettiest things Zeus has ever done. Besides, you are pretty annoying.”

Leo threw one of his fries at her in retaliation. “Shut up. You’re gonna scare poor Jason.”

“I’m not scared,” Jason insisted, although he did seem a little embarrassed. “It’s just that the sleepovers are already pushing it. And from the way the ceiling I always thunders at night, I’m pretty sure Zeus isn’t even a fan of me sleeping in there alone.”

“Yikes. Really feeling the love from your dad, hm?” Leo asked with a grimace, patting Jason’s shoulder. Then he turned to Piper. “Well, you heard the guy. No sitting here today. So: are we pissing off your mom or my dad instead?”

“My vote’s on your dad. I love my siblings, but after the last few days of warfare, I could use a bit of a break,” Piper decided immediately.

“Not sure my sibs are the right call if you want a break from warfare,” Leo pointed out, gesturing vaguely in the direction of his eight year old brother Harley, who had just placed something that vaguely resembled a massive paintball gun down on the edge of the table, “but it’s your funeral.”

He grabbed his plate with one hand, then looped his other arm through Jason’s so he could drag his best friend along to the table that was technically intended exclusively for the Hephaestus kids (though Leo was pretty convinced that, unlike some gods, his dad didn’t actually care about this stuff).

Jason didn’t seem entirely sure what hit him, but he just let it happen.

Since Leo had a bunch of siblings who were present all year round, he along with Jason and Piper made a bit of a tight fit for the very limited empty spots (and Harley’s contraption being in the table admittedly did not leave a lot of space for additional plates), but Jason immediately looked much more relaxed, so the change of scenery had clearly been a worthwhile endeavor.

“Leo! Hey! Good to see you,” Jake greeted him.

“You any closer to letting us back into the Bunker?” Shane asked immediately. “We’ve been working on the railing shields at the forge and I’m itching to see what they look like fastened to the hull.”

“You have? That’s awesome!” Leo grinned. He hadn’t even told them to do that, but apparently his siblings had found a way to pick up his slack without disrupting the delicate engine work. “Another day or two, maybe. I’ve almost gotten all the kinks worked out. I’m thinking we could try to figure out the loads afterwards?”

“Oh hell yeah! I’ve had a few ideas for-” Christopher started to chime in, but Piper lifted a hand to interrupt him.

“Okay, that’s enough work talk for the evening. This is the one night off we got Leo to agree to. You can do Argo planning literally any other time,” she said sternly.

“Ugh. Fine. But if we miss our deadline, it’s gonna be your fault,” Leo teased, turning his attention to the thing Harley was tinkering with. That Argo talk was banned didn’t mean he couldn’t grill his siblings about their other projects, after all. “What are you working on?”

Harley’s whole face lit up with excitement, but before he could say anything, Nyssa cut in. “Nothing anymore,” she said immediately, crossing her arms and shaking her head at their little brother. “Harls, what did we say about working on deadly weapons at the dinner table?”

“Not if they’re anywhere close to completion,” he said, pouting. “But getting to finish a project is the most exciting part!” He hung his head.

Nyssa’s expression softened slightly. “I know, buddy.” She reached out and ruffled his hair. “It’ll still be exciting after dinner, though. I promise. I’ll even help you test it, if you want.”

“Really?” Harley beamed. “Can Leo come?”

“I’ve got other obligations tonight,” Leo told him, gesturing towards Piper and Jason, “but I’d love to see it in action tomorrow.”

Harley pumped his fist—and, after one more stern glance from Nyssa, he finally put the weapon away. This put the Hephaestus table dinner destruction count at a new record low.

~~~~

It was well past nine by the time Leo and his friends started setting up inside the Zeus cabin. Piper and Leo had brought over sleeping bags as well as a vast collection of pillows from their respective cabins and spread them out around Jason’s sleep nook, flooding the neat, boring area with its’ white and golden pillows with all kinds of mismatched colors. A variety of snacks were spread out around them. It wasn’t exactly cozy—with the giant looming Zeus statue and the weird weather effects, Leo didn’t think it could ever be truly cozy in here—but it was probably the closest to cozy the Zeus cabin could get.

At least the white marble walls made for a great background to aim their projector at.

The projector in question had been one of Leo’s earliest additions to Jason’s cabin, way before they’d ever started doing movie nights. Its regular purpose was helping Jason sleep. Most nights, it covered the walls in calm nature scenes—mostly videos of animals moving through the woods, sometimes wildlife documentaries—to provide a contrast to the thunderstorm hell of the ceiling.

Right now, it was showing the menu screen for the movie Piper had picked out—something with the title of Bodies at the River.

The scene that the menu used as a background picture was almost as charming as the movie’s title. It showed a cabin in the creepiest woods Leo had possibly ever seen (which was saying something, considering he’d slept in a bunch of creepy-ass woods in his years as a runaway teen). In front of the cabin flowed the titular river. Leo couldn’t see any bodies at first glance, but there was a definite trail of blood that led into the water.

“Pipes, is this a horror movie?”

“Yep!” she confirmed cheerfully. “You guys aren’t scared of ghosts, are you?” Her eyes twinkled in a mischievous way that Leo didn’t really like.

“I… don’t think so?” Jason said, but it sounded more like a question than a statement. “Most of the ghosts I’ve met—or at least the ones I sort of remember interacting with—were Lares. They’re Roman house ghosts. Ancestral spirits. Generally friendly.”

But there was a tension in Jason’s shoulders, like there was something he was neglecting to say, or—more likely—some other, ghost-related experience that hadn’t been so pleasant but that he couldn’t quite remember.

“Well, this one definitely isn’t friendly.” Piper smiled. “Leo, how about you?”

“Me? Afraid of ghosts? Psh.” Leo waved her off. “I sleep in a dead guy’s bed, remember? Besides, we’ve had to deal with a bunch of evil people who came back into the land of the living in real life. Why would I be worried about fictional dead guys?”

He conveniently neglected to mention that the whole matter of inheriting his bed from a dead camper was half the reason he’d rarely—if ever—slept in the Hephaestus cabin since they’d gotten back from their quest. They didn’t need to know that.

“Great! Then let’s see if we can make you scared of ghosts by the end of the night,” Piper announced, sounding slightly too gleeful for Leo’s taste.

Oh that lovely note, she went to turn off the lights, then climbed into her sleeping bag and pressed play.

The beginning of the movie wasn’t too bad—just your average teenage protagonists being dumbasses and thinking an isolated cabin in the woods seemed like an A+ spot for a parent-free vacation.

A few creepy things started happening around the ten minute mark, like furniture moving on its own, the missing person poster they found in the woods and a message that suddenly appeared on the bathroom mirror that looked like it had been written in blood. The protagonists, of course, ignored all the red flags and just set up for their party.

Leo lost his appetite around the time the first body was found with massive slashes across his chest. Jason inhaled sharply next to him.

At that point, one of the teens finally got their phone out and tried to call for help, but obviously they had no cell service.

“So, this movie was clearly made by demigods, right?” Leo joked in a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. “Because there’s no way in hell you’d get any other group of teens together anywhere and not have even one of them try to update their Instagram. If they aren’t demigods, someone would have discovered there was no cell service out there way sooner.”

”Oh yeah, totally.” Piper snorted. “They do such a good job sticking to demigod safety rules, and then the monster finds them anyway? There’s truly no justice in the universe.”

She leaned forward eagerly, clearly thrilled as she watched the terrified teens try to plot their next course of action. Should they try to flee? But who knew what might lurk in these woods. What if whatever had killed their friend was still out there? Maybe it was safer to bar the doors and wait for sunrise.

Leo was stressed as hell, knowing that whatever they’d decide, it would probably be wrong.

Piper had explained to Leo once that the reason she enjoyed horror movies was that the anticipation was stimulating for her easily bored brain. “It’s like that rush of adrenaline I got whenever we were in life-or-death-situations on our quest, except my brain knows I’m just watching a movie and there’s no real danger, so I just get the excited, good stimulation brain chemicals and none of the fear ones.”

Leo, for his part, was definitely getting the fear brain chemicals—and apparently so was Jason.

Jason’s eyes were glued to the projection, but he had the expression of someone who couldn’t look away from an impending disaster, not that of someone who was having any amount of fun. His shoulders were tense, his hands clenched tightly around the popcorn bowl like he was preparing for a monster attack and the monster in question may or may not be defeatable via porcelain dishes to the face.

Leo wanted to say something else funny and/or comforting to make his friend feel better (since Piper, who was tapping rhythmically on her knees and grinning from ear to ear, was clearly not going to be any help), but unfortunately he picked just the wrong moment to try and do that. Right as he reached over to tap Jason’s shoulder in an attempt to get his attention, the ghost was properly shown for the first time. She had a pale, sunken face, red eyes and blood-stained hands that glowed faintly in the dark. Her hair and her clothes were dripping like she’d crawled right out of the river. At the same time, blindingly bright lightning flashed on the ceiling above them.

Leo would vehemently deny that this had happened later, but he did scream.

Unfortunately, it turned out tapping your friend’s shoulder during one of the worst jump scare moments of the movie and then screaming in his ear were not particularly comforting moves.

Jason went rigid, then jumped with the speed and suddenness of a spring uncoiling, tackling Leo right in the chest and pressing him to the ground like he was an enemy that Jason had to incapacitate.

“Sorry! My bad! I wasn’t trying to- it’s just me!” Leo stammered out, words tripping over themselves in their haste to leave his mouth. He felt as startled as Jason looked.

His best friend stared at him, first confusion and then guilt abruptly overtaking his agitation. The second it seemed to click in Jason’s brain what had happened, he immediately moved off Leo, looking horrified.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to- gods, you really startled me. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He offered Leo a hand up, which Leo took him up on immediately.

“Nah. My ego’s a little bruised from how easily you just managed to do that, but otherwise I’m fine. You did sort of tackle me into a mountain of pillows,” Leo pointed out, chuckling weakly. “You good?”

“Fine,” Jason confirmed, but he wouldn’t meet Leo’s eyes.

Piper cleared her throat.

“Are you guys done making out back there?” she teased. “Because you’re gonna miss one of the best parts.”

Leo exchanged a look with Jason. Both of them seemed to rapidly be arriving at the conclusion that this movie wasn’t going to have “best” (or, honestly, “good”) parts for either of them, but that they were going to bear it for Piper’s sake, anyway. If she could put up with Transformers for Leo’s and terrible 20th century romcoms for Jason’s sake, they could put up with a single horror movie for her.

The “best part” Piper hadn’t wanted them to miss turned out to be a second, even bloodier death scene.

Leo was mostly just glad his dinner didn’t decide to make a sudden reappearance at the sight. He wasn’t usually squeamish when it came to blood, but holy hell.

Jason gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze—which, judging by his ashen face, was probably as much for Leo’s sake as for his own. Thankfully, they managed to make it through this second attempt at comforting with zero tackles involved.

The movie just got worse after that—with Leo’s personal least favorite scene being one where a girl killed her possessed boyfriend in a desperate (as well as futile) attempt to save the rest of her friends. The scene dragged Leo right back to that unpleasant, hazy memory of being mind controlled at Medea’s department store. If it hadn’t been for Piper, either him or Jason might have ended up just as skewered as the guy in the movie.

Judging by how hard Jason was squeezing his hand throughout that entire scene and after, Leo was pretty sure he was thinking the same thing.

If this hadn’t been a horror movie, the ghost’s backstory actually would have been kind of intriguing. Some jerks had killed her girlfriend over witchcraft accusations centuries ago, and she’d gone into the river to be with her, unwittingly binding herself to this place via her rage. She spent the whole movie testing whether people’s love for their significant others was strong enough to save them—strong in a way she herself hadn’t been. That was why the only couple who got away at the end was a pair of best friends who’d rather die than let harm come to the other person, even when things got really dire.

Leo kind of got why Piper liked the movie, at least thematically. Also, if anyone ever made him sit through another slasher movie, it would be too soon.

The final jump scare at the end of the movie, which featured the ghost seemingly breaking through the screen and addressing the audience directly, startled Leo so badly that he all but jumped into Jason’s lap.

His heart was still hammering by the time the credits finished rolling and Piper finally switched the lights back on.

“Wasn’t this fun?” she asked, beaming at them. “It’s one of my favorite movies. Thoughts?”

“It was terrifying,” Jason said quietly. “It also made me feel kind of sad.”

Piper nodded sagely like she was teaching a course on this movie and deemed Jason’s reply an acceptable first impression. “Leo?”

“The effects were really cool,” Leo said noncommittally, because focusing on the technical aspects of the movie was easier than admitting just how much it had scared him. “I was expecting the ghost to look kind of stupid, but they seriously knew what they were doing. Hatedthe way the blood glowed when it was splattered all over her dress, that was eerie as hell.”

“Yeah, the effects really make or break paranormal horror movies, and I could gush about the ones used in this movie for days.” Piper’s eyes gleamed. “The patterns on her dress are based on foxfire.”

“The bioluminescent mushroom?” Jason asked, eyes wide. “I knew they seemed familiar.”

“Yeah, that’s the one! It fits extra well because foxfire grows on deadwood—particularly moist or wet deadwood like the one of the tree her soul is tied to.” She beamed. “And the imagery of that tree? Two separate stems growing intertwined, one still living and struggling for sunlight, the other rotten down to the roots, slowly dragging the living tree into the current with its weight? The way that it symbolizes Eleanor’s relationship with her beloved? Absolutely incredible.” She sighed dreamily. “I may disagree with my mom on a bunch of things, but there really is something kind of romantic about the thought of a girl loving me so fiercely she’d haunt the lands of those who wronged me for generations to come.”

“Right! So you clearly have issues,” Leo commented, nodding his head. Piper lightly swatted him with one of the pillows. “Hey!”

“You deserved that.”

Leo rolled his eyes, but he was grateful for the laughs after he’d just spent the better part of two hours terrified.

“How did you even get your hands on this movie? That has got to be R-rated for violence,” Leo pointed out. He loved hearing Piper talk excitedly about movie effects, but he’d much rather move on before she started to try and explain the exact making of the murder scenes. There were some things he’d just rather not think about too hard.

“I asked my dad to send me the DVD from home when we first decided we were going to do regular movie nights.” She smiled. “I talked my way into the cinema to see this movie when I was thirteen. Dad worked with the director once or twice afterwards. When he learned I was a fan, he got her to sign me a copy of the DVD and got me an earlier version of the script.” Piper ran her fingers over the neat black letters on the plastic hull, expression soft. “It’s one of the coolest things he’s ever done for me. And also the one time that it was convenient be doesn’t pay too much attention, because he didn’t even bother to check the age rating.”

She chuckled.

“That was really nice of him,” Jason said, looking at her fondly. “I don’t think mom ever brought me or Thalia anything back from a set, but I was also way too young when I ended up with Lupa to remember much from before then.”

“Yeah, I really have two best friends who are children of celebrities. No idea how that happened either, but yes, they do make me feel weird about it occasionally, thank you for asking,” Leo joked, holding his empty cup upside down and speaking into it like it was a microphone.

Piper gave him another light swat with her pillow, but she was laughing.

“Anyway… thanks for doing this for me, guys. I could tell the movie wasn’t really your thing, and I vow I’ll find something less scary for you two cowards next time, but… this was the first time I got to watch this film with friends, and it meant a lot to me.”

“Aw, you sap.” Leo moved to hug her. “I’d say anytime, but it appears horror movies aren’t really my vibe. I’m glad it made you happy, though.”

Piper hugged him back, then grabbed Jason’s arm and pulled him into the hug, too. “Sorry. Mandatory trio group hug,”

Jason chuckled. “I don’t mind. This is nice.”

~~~~

What Leo and Jason did mind, actually, was the ensuing walk through the dark, silent camp to get to the bathrooms. It was late enough that the campfire had died down and the rest of the campers had disappeared into their cabins due to curfew. Thankfully the harpies had been instructed to refrain from eating demigods if all they did was head right to the bathrooms and back, no matter how late into the night it might be.

One serious downside the Zeus cabin had—in addition to the shitty weather effects, the massive statue and the general gloomy atmosphere—was that, because it had clearly been built as a temple rather than a living space, it didn’t have the small attached bathroom most other cabins came with. Due to this, they had to use the public washrooms to brush their teeth.

Usually, Leo didn’t mind this so much. Sure, a five minute walk outdoors when he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night was annoying, but that was all it really was.

Right now, though? Camp was eerily quiet, and during their walk Leo was reminded unpleasantly of the fact that the three of them were, technically, teenagers staying in a cabin in the woods with little to no adult supervision and a large body of water close by. He did not appreciate the similarities to the movie.

He felt that demigod alarm tug in his gut which kept him vigilant for any sign of danger. At the current moment, this feeling was incredibly stupid considering the massive, very much intact barrier around camp that kept monsters out, but he just couldn’t turn it off.

He spent the whole walk jumpy as hell. At one point, one of them stepped on a twig, and Leo promptly made the reasonable self-defense move of bursting into flames.

“I mean, yeah, you will for sure be able to defend yourself against the evil twig that way,” Piper snickered. “It doesn’t stand a chance.”

Leo glared daggers at her.

Somehow, this wasn’t even their worst horror movie-related incident. When they passed by the lake—which usually had a nice, calming air to it, even late at night—bubbles rose up in the dark water.

Jason’s gladius was in his hand faster than either Leo or Piper could react, and only Piper’s quick thinking and her charmspoken “STOP” prevented Jason from rashly beheading some poor naiad whose worst crime was probably the gossip she was undoubtedly going to spread about this incident.

Her friend that had emerged next to her looked equally startled.

“Sorry, ladies,” Leo said, looping his arm through Jason’s and pulling him a little further away from the shore, “bad horror movie experience,” he tried to explain. “Uh. Have a nice night?”

“Stupid demigods. Can’t even moonbathe in peace,” the first girl muttered.

The two naiads gave them all disapproving looks before disappearing back beneath the surface.

“You guys are both morons,” Piper said, shaking her head, though there was a distinctly amused glint in her eyes. Now that the situation was dealt with and no one had been seriously hurt, she clearly thought the whole thing was hilarious.

They made sure to give the lake a wide berth in their walk back.

~~~~

The second they’d finished putting some minimum effort into tidying up their sleeping space and killed the lights, Piper immediately passed out. She snuggled up in her sleeping bag and happily, peacefully snored away, like they hadn’t just finished a borderline traumatizing horror movie less than an hour ago.

Leo could not relate. He’d come into this movie night exhausted, but since then, his body had been kicked into flight mode so hard that he wasn’t sure he’d ever remember how to feel tired at all.

The smallest noises made him jump. Even Piper’s steady inhales and exhales, which Leo usually found comforting because the noise was so familiar, suddenly added to the ominous atmosphere.

Leo felt like he needed to go for a run or something to get all of this anxious energy out, but a light post horror movie jog through the monster-infested woods at midnight didn’t actually seem like a very good idea to him for some strange reason.

Part of him maybe slightly longed to suffocate Piper with one of their many pillows as revenge for her movie of choice, but he was decently sure a less anxious, less sleep-deprived version of him would probably regret that, so he shelved the murder plans for now. Instead, he closed his eyes to try to at least pretend he was going to get any sleep whatsoever.

Bad call. The final death scene painted itself onto the inside of his eyelids in all its gorey details.

Yeah, screw closing his eyes. He went back to staring at the ceiling and tried to get a handle on his breathing.

This, unfortunately, turned out to not be much better. The ceiling lightshow painted shadows all over the walls. And like that wasn’t bad enough, the second he’d gotten his heart rate to slow down a minimal amount, the room suddenly exploded into noise—first that of a lightning strike, followed by the loudest thunderclap Leo had ever heard in his life.

He yelped, flinching violently at the noise. The noise was so loud and seemed so close by that he briefly wondered if maybe they had pissed Zeus off so badly he’d decided to come down from Olympus and blast the roof off this cabin, but thankfully nothing else happened, so that probably wasn’t the case.

Leo would have been mortified about his intense reaction under normal circumstances, but the mortification was slightly lessened by the fact that the noise had made Jason jump so hard that he was literally levitating a full foot above the mattress now.

“Gods of Olympus,” Jason muttered under his breath, which was the closest Leo had ever heard him come to an actual swear word.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Leo agreed, annoyed at how squeaky his voice sounded. “Screw your dad and/or whichever jerk installed this stupid lightning and thunder display.”

He sat up, giving up any pretense that he was going to get even an hour of sleep tonight. “You gonna come back down, or do I need to worry about you floating away on me?”

“No, I-” Jason took a few deep, slow breaths that sounded very forced, then slowly levitated himself back onto his mattress. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, clearly. And we’re obviously both huge fans of slasher movies,” Leo replied sarcastically, raising an eyebrow at his best friend.

A part of him was honestly relieved that Jason couldn’t sleep, either. The fact that the movie had rattled even Jason Grace—seasoned hero that he was—made Leo feel a lot less ridiculous about just how badly it had scared him.

Piper on the other hand was still happily snoozing away, despite the thunder and Leo’s yelp and Jason’s little flying stunt.

“Okay, so maybe I’m not fine,” Jason admitted with a sigh. “My adrenaline’s all over the place. I feel like there’s some monster lurking in the dark that I’ll have to fight any second now. The shadows on the walls aren’t helping, either.”

“I’m so glad it’s not just me,” Leo told him. “I don’t even want to stab anything, I’m just super jumpy, but it’d still suck a lot worse if I was lying here waiting for some ghost to show up and murder me while you two were snoring away on either side of me.”

Jason looked at Piper’s sleeping form and shook his head. “I have no idea how she does it.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Hey, Leo?” Jason asked, something almost hopeful in his voice.

“Yes?”

“Any brilliant ideas on how to deal with this situation?”

“Nada, sorry. I’m too hopped up on anxious energy to have anything but panicked squirrel thoughts right now. I’d volunteer Piper for stabbing purposes, since this is technically her fault, but I don’t think she’d appreciate that,” he joked. “Do you think your usual way of dealing with your dad’s whole… shtick might help?” He gestured vaguely at the cabin around them. The cabin ceiling chose this very moment to unleash yet another lightning thunder combo on them. “Holy fuck, cool it, lightning guy,” Leo cursed at the ceiling. The ceiling thundered back disapprovingly.

Jason laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t think you’re helping.” But some of the tension had gone out of his shoulders. “And… I don’t know? I guess we could try one of the nature documentaries. I’m not sure you’d like it, but it might at least distract us for a while.”

“Good enough for me. Besides, Pipes is totally gonna sleep right through that.” Jason laughed again. It was a full, proper laugh this time, the kind that made Leo break out into a huge grin for having caused it. He looked at the empty space on Jason’s mattress—that spot that had been freed up by Jason sitting up—suddenly feeling strangely nervous for a reason he couldn’t quite explain. “Hey, is it cool if I sit there? That way we can just aim the projector at the opposite wall and neither of us has to do any awkward neck craning.”

“Yeah, obviously.” Jason smiled at him. “I’ll go start the documentary, but I’ll be with you in a second.”

He did just that, picking out a documentary about wolves like the predictable dork that he was. To Leo’s confusion, he didn’t immediately sit back down once he’d started it, though. Instead, he began rummaging through the mountain of stuff they’d lazily shoved aside earlier.

“Whatever you’re doing, you better hurry it up,” Leo teased. “You’re gonna miss all the best wolves.”

But when his best friend reemerged from the pile of their things with a very familiar magical tool belt in his hand, Leo immediately shut up.

“Tinkering is how you usually get out your excess energy, right?” Jason asked, holding the tool belt out towards Leo as he sat down on the mattress next to him. “I figured if we’re gonna watch the documentary for my sake, the least I can do is find something that would help you, too.”

“Dude, not to be dramatic, but I could kiss you right now,” Leo told him, delighting in the way Jason’s face lit up at the confirmation that he’d helped.

Leo immediately started pulling bits and bobs from his tool belt, his hands moving pretty much by themselves. Some of the anxious tension immediately drained from his body.

In the end, that was how they spent most of the night: with Leo tinkering away on several small contraptions that were purely for fun and Jason spouting a bunch of random wolf facts to give additional context to this documentary that he’d apparently memorized word for word.

Leo forgave the fact that Jason had picked out a kind of gross documentary about wolves hunting less than half an hour in, because Jason scowling at random deer and hares in the projection was both incredibly funny and also genuinely seemed to help him relax.

It was nearly 4 am by the time Leo finally managed to pass out, but by then he’d also mostly forgiven Piper’s movie choice. Horror movie aside, he’d had a wonderful time with his friends. Besides, goofing around with Jason and light-heartedly poking fun at all of his nerdy wolf knowledge had been such a great time that Leo had almost managed to forget about the horror movie altogether.

And, well… if he went into a temporary coma with his head on Jason’s shoulder and missed all of the Argo-related deadlines he’d set for the next day in favor of catching up on sleep, that was a problem for future Leo.

———

Notes:

Special shout-out to @manygeese for the prompt idea of them watching a horror movie together, I was really struggling with the prompt I initially came up with but ended up really happy with this one :)

I feel like if the fic was narrated by anyone other than Leo, the Valgrace would probably be way more prominent, but Leo is currently still in denial about his feelings for Jason. Jason, on the other hand, is very aware he has a crush on Leo and deserves a medal for not imploding at Leo’s little “I could kiss you. Anyway, moving on”-moment, LOL

And Piper absolutely knew beforehand that neither of them is huge on horror movies and she did pick the movie at least partially because she was hoping they’d hold hands about it. (She did also just really want to see her favorite queer horror movie, though. It’s what she deserves.)

Also, I’m not the horror movie type. Bodies at the River is a horror movie that I specifically made up for a different horror movie watching fic (because Im not very familiar with many horror movies) and I decided it would both be a fun nod to that fic as well as convenient to recycle it here. That made-up movie working kind of well thematically was mostly a nice coincidence. Another funny coincidence: somehow, this fic ended up almost the exact same length as the first fic I used this fake movie in? No idea how that happened, but I do find it wildly hilarious.

Anyway, those were my rambles for the day, lmao. Thank you so much for reading! I hope you all (and of course especially the recipient of this gift fic) enjoyed it! I’d love to hear your thoughts!

#Lost trio #leo valdez #jason grace #piper mclean #hoo #heroes of olympus #my writing #fanfic #exchange #pjo equinox solstice exchange #valgrace #leo x jason #jason x leo #My writing

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