madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-the god of karaoke machines-

that meme encapsulates my entire existence also go watch the end of the fucking world it's fucking awesome anyways enjoy the chapter 

<3

"I wish I'd been here to yell at you."

"Me too," Leo sighed, picking up one of the floorboards and lining it up against the other two. Thank the gods his toolbelt had gloves hidden somewhere in the black hole beneath the zipper. Teqi's pocket was still attached to her shorts. She wasn't allowed to take it off.

He frowned, putting the floorboard down and turning around, his shoes squeaking on the melted down floor, "wait, what?"

Teqi looked up. She was brushing her hair out in the corner of the engine room because apparently all of her problems were solved now that she was clean again. He would never understand women. "I wish I'd been here to yell at you, so you'd stop being silly and trying to ditch us all and run off to be banished to the edge of Africa like some royal lion, or whatever it was you had planned."

He watched her sitting on the crumpled duvet they'd dragged in, surrounded by nail polish and berries and bandages, with a face as still and blank as the walls he was remaking.

The ground groaned when Leo stumbled to his feet and crossed the huffing and puffing room, ducking beneath a low hanging wire. It was supposed to be holding the crankshaft and the valves together. "I wasn't ditching you, querida I prom- wait, shit, sorry, I mean-"

Why could he never remember not call her that?

"...Hey, I know... it's okay," Teqi started gently, reaching up to him where he stood in front of her. Her shaky hands pulled him down by his beltloops, and he tried not to fall over in his haste. The bowls of strawberries from Piper's cornucopia were moved to the side. "Why are you apologising?... I wasn't blaming you for anything."

She smiled at him, she smiled, her lips dry and her light lilac eyes tired, "I know you'd never ditch us."

Leo blinked. He looked away, feeling his face grow hot. "You're such a sap."

"I'm a sap?" she asked, leaning against the wall he'd rebuilt first so the melted down bronze wouldn't stick into her back. The black nail polish bottle was unscrewed, a strawberry was eaten, and best of all, she rested her scabbed leg over his crossed ones.

Buford clicked rapidly in the corner.

A low long one, which meant the intercom was jammed again and Festus couldn't get through, and a few high ones evenly spaces, which meant he was counting how many passengers were hopping on and off the Argo II. That probably meant everyone was setting up lunch on top of the hill. To sort out their statue sized Athena shaped problem.

Leo would like to say that he'd figured it out, how to cart it home without causing several billion problems along the way, but there was only so much one brain could do, and right now his was taken up by his girlfriend. There was the obvious choice, someone who could shadow travel, or perhaps, teleport, the statue across the world, but that wasn't a viable option. She couldn't just. Leave.

Could she?

The nail polish was shiny. His heart beat was in his ears. Leo waited until she was done on her pinky finger to grab her arm, but she didn't finish. At least not properly. Both her hands were shaking, and she ended up with a messy blob.

It was horrible, watching her stare down at the droplets staining her fingers like she'd just realised it wasn't going to go away.

Teqi glanced up and away just as quickly. "I..."