Anti-Hero || Leo Valdez

28 - Sally Jackson = Mommy

The original plan had been to go straight to Camp Half-Blood from Nina's house, but Leo decided that after Via had recounted every detail of her messed-up history with Lamia, he needed to do something to cheer her up. So it was decided about thirty minutes out that he'd be taking a small detour through Manhattan. They began to descend as they passed over the Empire State Building. Via, who'd been mostly quiet since their conversation about Lamia, let out a small laugh when she saw it.

Leo felt the corner of his mouth start to turn up at the sound of her laughter. "What's up?"

"Oh... it's kind of stupid, but every time I see the Empire State Building I can't help thinking of Benpire."

"What's that?" Via lapsed into a giggling fit, which only made Leo's grin grow bigger. "What? What's Benpire?"

"It's this stupid thing on TikTok where..." she laughed some more. "Where people make ship edits of Big Ben and the Empire State Building."

"Are you serious right now?"

"I'm so fucking serious," Via said, practically wheezing with laughter at this point. "At least half of them have 'London Boy' by Taylor Swift as the background music and —"

"Oh, my gods —"

"And people actually take it pretty seriously!" Via added. "Like, the Empire State Building's official account actually started posting edits."

"Are you that serious about it?"

"Uh, not really, but... Okay, don't tell Pat, because he'll never let me live it down."

"Okay."

"I actually said 'Aww' and felt disappointed when the official account started posting ship edits about the Eiffel Tower instead of Big Ben."

Leo snickered. "You were that invested?"

"Benpire reminded me of Joe Alwyn and Taylor Swift, so —"

"But didn't they break up, too?"

"You don't have to remind me," Via complained. "Like, sure, I'm not in denial about it anymore, but still."

Leo chuckled before turning his focus back to flying. He really liked to hear her talk. He was almost glad she'd become a ghost so they could talk alone for hours at a time. Of course, he'd never say that out loud...

"Hey, by the way, where are we going?" Via piped up after a few minutes of silence.

Leo grinned innocently at her. "What do you mean?"

Via raised an eyebrow and pointed at him suspiciously. "Hey, don't give me that face. I know that face."

"What face?" Leo pretended to be offended. "There's nothing wrong with my face! I'm devilishly handsome, as per ushe —"

"Okay, sure, but —"

"So you agree?" Leo asked her, dropping the offended act and grinning at her.

"What?"

"You agree that I'm devilishly handsome."

She stared at him for a few moments. She didn't seem flustered (which was what Leo had been going for), more like she was processing what he'd just said. Finally she remarked, "This conversation feels very Regina George-coded."

Leo burst out laughing, then said in his best Regina George impression, "You can't sit with us."

"Actually, Leo," Via said in a snobby voice, "I can't sit anywhere. I have —"

"Hemorrhoids," Leo said, finishing the Vine reference.

"Well, yeah, but I was actually going to say 'a ghost butt.' "