Chapter Text
Leo had considered the subtle art of shooting himself in the head the moment he was assigned an essay in his English class.
It wasn’t even the concept of the essay itself that appalled him, nor the easily ignorable (but admittedly daunting) 3k word count. Even the sparkle in his teacher’s eye as she caught his gaze while going through the assignment instructions didn’t affect him nearly as much as the prompt itself did.
“‘Write an essay on a moment that changed your life forever.’ What does that even mean? Does she expect me to wax poetic about my birth?”
Slamming his backpack down onto the cafeteria table, Leo looks around his group of friends for validation – and is met with nothing but blank stares as his best friend, Piper Mclean, slowly lowers a handheld camera.
“‘Wax poetic?’ I didn’t know you knew that type of vocabulary, Leo,” someone next to him sniffs. Nico di Angelo, the little bastard, cozily snuggles up to Will Solace (really, when were those two going to confess to each other?) as he blinks his large, dark eyes at Leo. “And really, your life has been full of such…. defining…. moments—don’t you have a lot to pick from?”
Piper snorts quietly at Nico’s pointed words, her dark hair falling into her eyes as she looks up. “I mean, he has a point. Why don’t you write about your dad inventing… I don’t know, iPhones, or something?”
“That was Steve Jobs,” Leo says, annoyed. “Contrary to popular belief, my dad isn’t actively balding.”
“Or so you think.”
“Alright, Piper, just because your mom is a model—”
“Do we really have to do this right now?” Each head at the lunch table snaps around as Jason Grace groans the quiet protest into his hoodie sleeves. “I’ve got to catch up on sleep and I decided to spend my free period here, ‘cause I thought you’d all be quiet.”
Leo’s heart skips a beat at Jason’s voice, gaze automatically carrying out a scan of his other best friend’s face against his will. Jason’s blond hair is rumpled, and his electric blue eyes are bleary behind his thin–rimmed glasses. The corner of his mouth pulls up into a small smile—ugh, dimples—as Piper silently hands him her jacket to lay his head on.
“That was your first mistake, Grace,” someone else pipes up. Percy Jackson’s hair is almost as rumpled as Jason’s, but he seems to be wide awake. “Sitting at this table is like being in the middle of the primate section in the zoo.”
“Yeah, and you’re the loudest fucking monkey,” Nico snaps. “Don’t you have some homework to do, or something?”
“God, it’s almost like you hate me. I’m free to do whatever I like, actually, ‘Beth and I already finished our assignments last night.”
Annabeth, Percy’s girlfriend, catches Leo’s eye and sighs wearily. Leo takes that to mean that Percy barely did any work.
Piper’s camera clanks loudly against the table as she packs it away, and a bright idea somehow strikes Leo.
“I have an idea,” he announces, to various levels of dismay. Will even audibly groans, which gives him pause. “Why are you so upset, Solace?”
“Is this going to end in me having to patch you up?” Will answers, eyeing Leo warily.
“...No?”
“Good. I only have so many Paw Patrol bandaids left.”
Ignoring the cackles and shrieks of laughter that emit from various members at the lunch table, Leo proceeds. “What if I just wrote my essay on Piper’s channel? It would make sense —- that’s how I got famous.”
“You’re not famous, Leo,” Annabeth protests.
Piper shrugs. “I don’t know; his Instagram following has been affected by his appearances on my channel. I think that’s more because of my obvious love for him than…him, though.”
“I’m a bit offended by you implying that I’m not a lady magnet, Pipes.”
A silence descends upon the group of friends as they each privately recall the absolute chaos that #alldaladiesloveleo brought upon Piper’s Youtube channel two years ago—until one of Jason’s soft snores interrupts the quiet. They hadn’t even noticed that he’d fallen asleep.
“Anyways,” Leo says brightly, yanking his assignment sheets out of his backpack, “I think it’s a great idea. I can see it all in Times New Roman, font size 12: ‘All Da Ladies Love Leo: The Effect User @pipessmclean Had on Leo Valdez’s Past, Present, and Future.’”
He takes the answering sighs as a sign that his brilliance should be worshipped.
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Opening docs.google.com // Document Title: All Da Ladies Love Leo: The Essay Version
- In retrospeckt (? retrospeclt? make note to ask annabeth how to spell it later), Piper and I never meant to start a Youtube channel. It began three years ago, when she and I were fourteen, and my mom's car broke down. The Argo II was a great van - it carried me and all eight of my friends to soccer practice and back just fine (although it was named after a mythological ship that my mom was somehow obsessed with, never understood that), but on a rainy September day morning evening SOMETHING (can't remember, ask Piper), it completely broke down. Obviously, being fourteen and all, she and I decided to vlog the whole ordeal - that included pushing it to the side of the road, taking it to the shop, getting Starbucks after, and cracking totally hilarious jokes the whole time. At that time, our friend Nico only had a Samsung that barely worked with regular messages, let alone videos, so we uploaded it to Youtube so he could watch it from his little apartment in Venice (totally an insane few years, could maybe be a topic for one of HIS essays). Piper forgot to private her account, the video blew up, and she decided to start officially vlogging for fun. My luscious hair and sparkling eyes obviously caught all of her viewers' attention, which started my era as a very legit, very famous celebrity. This was a changing moment in my life.
You have added [email protected] to this document as an editor.
Comment #1: It's "retrospect." Your autocorrect should show it to you.
Comment #2: Derailing and putting your thoughts in parentheses is highly discouraged in academic papers.
Comment #3: How can you spell "luscious" without a second glance and still need me to double check "retrospect" for you?
Comment #4: Leo, this is only 243 words. You have 2,757 more to go.
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It wasn't that Nico was stupid. If it were up to him, he'd actually probably argue that he was incredibly intelligent - both emotionally and intellectually.
Yes, he had harbored an unfortunate crush on Percy Jackson, the idiot himself, and had never realized until approximately two years after it magically disappeared, but that didn't mean that he was out of touch with his emotions! (Although, were you to ask Leo, he would probably enthusiastically affirm that it was important informatiom that Nico's feelings for Percy disappeared around the same time that Will Solace came into the picture. Nico doesn't think that it's relevant at all).
Rather, he would say that he and his emotions got along at the perfect level - he wasn't so in tune with them that they overran his thinking, but he was also harmonious with the concept of feelings enough that he wasn't emotionally constipated (like his father).
All of this to say, Nico could admit to himself how utterly and supremely fucked he was the moment that he woke up to Will's angelic face only a few inches from his.
He did not, notably, yell. Or kick him off the bed. Of course not.
"What the fuck, Nico?" Will says, sleepy blue eyes wide in alarm. He rubs his elbow, wincing visibly as his hand brushes past the spot where he hit the corner of the bedframe, and Nico feels a twinge of guilt.
"What are you doing here?" He whisper-yells, alarmed at the prospect of his maybe-not-sort-of love of his life in his bed.
"Persephone let me in to wake you up, and I accidentally fell asleep! Jesus, have you been going to the gym? I never thought you were this strong."
Face flushing at Will's offhand compliment, Nico feels a bolt of worry strike him at the mention of his stepmother. "She isn't... she doesn't think you..."
"She knows we're friends," is all Will says, and the warm lilt of his voice turns a bit frosty.
Fuck.
"Will, we really need to talk about thi-"
"It's fine," Will hastily interrupts him, avoiding eye contact. Nico snaps his mouth shut, feeling a little aggrieved - doesn't Will know how hard it is for him to communicate on a good day, let alone trying to initiate a heavy conversation? - and yet can't bring himself to verbalize any of his feelings as Will hauls himself up from the floor.
"William," someone calls from the doorway, effectively cutting the heavy tension in the room. Nico's stepmother raises her eyebrows at him, silently questioning the tormented look on his face, before turning back to Will. "Stay for breakfast, I made your favorites."
"Waffles and bacon?" Will's eyes light up and Nico just knows he's thinking of his mother Naomi, back in Texas.
At Persephone's nod, Nico's... friend? something more? practically rushes from the room, leaving the di Angelos alone together.
"He still cares for you," is all she says, and Nico sighs.
"Can we not get into this now? I'll be late for school."
Persephone inclines her head slightly, acknowledging Nico's complaint, yet still fixes him with a shrewd stare. "Don't let your hypotheticals get in the way of what you could really have, Niccolò," is all she says before she turns and follows Will down the stairs.
He was right before. Fuck.
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Opening docs.google.com // Document Title: What Is Mr. Brunner Talking About
[email protected] has added [email protected] and [email protected] to this document as editors.
---- Using our school computers to chat during class could get us stuck in detention for the next few weeks, Percy - J
---- dude we gotta live a little and i genuinely don't understand what mr brunner is saying- p
---- why couldn't your email just be "[email protected]". why did you have to feel special
---- huh who's this - p
---- Obviously Nico. - J
---- oh yeahhh hi neeks! doesn't it suck that we have to be in school tho :| if we were famous none of this would be a prblem- p
---- what would you even get famous for? you don't have any talents
---- dude wtf that's mean !! and I can play the bass pretty well actually - p
---- I'll believe it when I see it. - J
---- MR BRUHHER IS LOOKIJG OVER HERE JASON AND NCIP NE CARELYFUL
--- NVM false alarm guys - p
--- "ncip" wow.
---- Do you know what's wrong with Will today, Nico? - J
---- wdym?
---- This is the only class we have together, and he typically really likes Journalism as a topic in general, but he seems kind of sad? Kind of down, I don't know. Percy, maybe you could add him to this document and see what's going on? - J
---- no u don't have to do that percy he's fine , hes probably a little bit sick or something . we should really pay attention now tho guys, im closing the tab bye
---- was that a little sudden to you, grace - p
---- Surprisingly, you're not the pinnacle of emotional comprehension, Jackson. I'll ask Will about it later. - J
---- Percy? - J
---- Only an idiot could get his computer confiscated that easily. - J
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Will really didn’t want to be perceived.
Being in New York with only his father, the golden-haired tenor of every Broadway casting director’s dreams, for company was humiliating enough. Being in the audience as his father performed his heart and soul out in the role of a particularly hungry wolf was… mortifying. He attempted to avoid eye contact at all costs.
”Alright, take two, everyone!” the stage manager yelled, wiping the sweat off of her face wearily.
Apollo eagerly trotted down the stage stairs to throw himself into the seat next to Will. “What did you think this time around? Did I howl with enough gusto? What changes would you make to my performance?”
Will cringes slightly, gaze falling from his dad’s face to the ground. “It was.. um… a really emotional howl…?”
A blank silence.
“William, what’s happened to you?” his father sighs, aghast. “It feels like only yesterday that you were in diapers, singing whatever tune your tiny brain could remember at the time. What’s happened to your love for the theatre, the thrill of it all?”
“I still love musicals, Dad,” Will protests. “I’m just not cut out for being in the spotlight. Even secondhandedly, through you.”
Apollo takes a second to ponder that - and yes, Will knows how ridiculous it sounds. His father is one of the most famous Broadway performers of the last decade, and his mom - gods, how much Will misses his mom - is Naomi Solace herself, country rock icon. Technically, Will should be the biggest and flashiest nepo baby under the sun. Instead, he shrinks at the thought of more than two gazes on him at a time, and limits his musical talents to a short tune in the shower once every few weeks.
“You’ll grow into yourself,” is the conclusion that his dad seems to come to. “You just need people to drag you out of your shell more. What about your friends? Do they encourage you to perform or socialize?”
Yes, definitely, Dad, Will wants to say dryly. Jason, the kid that’s focused on the singular goal of becoming our valedictorian, and Piper, a youtube celebrity who’s overly fixated on trying to drag herself through highschool with as minimum interactions with the student body as possible, are definitely encouraging me to be the most charismatic version of myself that I can be.
At his son’s silence, Apollo prods further. “What about those two whirlwinds? Leo and Percy, was it?”
“Leo and Percy,” Will says tiredly, “are Leo and Percy. I try to think about them the least that I possibly can.”
Apollo laughs - and a cold dread grips Will’s heart as he opens his mouth to inquire further. There’s only one more person that his father is familiar with that he could ask about, and Will really doesn’t want to have to discuss the topic of Niccolò di Angelo at this moment.
Luckily, he’s saved by the shrill whistle of the stage manager as she calls all the actors back to their places. Apollo pats Will on the shoulder, hauling himself out of his chair, and walks away.
Will really needs to discourage his father from having a heart to heart with him ever again.
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the graduaters (and the babies)
percy: guys, when r we meeting up
jason: What is this groupchat
percy: our lunch table . the seniors + the babies (juniors)
annabeth: Percy, we’re not graduating for like six months more
percy: it’s the conceppt of it all. and yk beth i wouldn’t be so excited to graduate if we had a cool teen dream project
piper: ?? teen dream project ??
percy: like a band or a super cool skateboarding crew or smthn
nico: we’re not starting a band, percy
percy: WHY
jason: Because it’s impractical. Let’s worry about getting accepted to college first.
leo: Speak for urself grace me and nico and will and piper have a year left to mess around before we go to college
jason: Leo, I’ve told you that you need to get a head start on everything that you have to do your senior year. It’ll only do you good.
percy: you guys are all no fun :| i’ll just ask hazel to start a band with me and whoever joins then
nico: do Not ask my newly discovered sister to join a band with u???? she barely even knows all of you guys
will: hazel’s cool though, she wouldn’t mind getting to know us
piper: yeah we should add her to this chat !! <3
percy: oh the man himself!!! jason and i were just talkinf about u yesterday will how have u been
nico: we’re not adding hazel here.
will: i’ve been good, why were you two talking about me
jason: You’ve looked tired and down recently. Nico wouldn’t tell us anything so we figured we’d have to ask you directly.
will: yeah? neeks doesn’t know much about it so i guess that makes sense lol
leo: Lmaoo guys i burnt my macaroni
piper: IS THE HOUSE BURNT DOWN LEO
leo: Nahh .. why don’t u trust me pipessss
piper: i’ll give you five seconds
annabeth: Leo, get your fire extinguisher ready.
leo: OH FUCK ITS ON FIRE
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