madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-this looks like a job for me [crazy cat lady]-

look who's back- back again

<3

Teqi paced back and forth. She couldn't ask Jason. She'd never live it down. That boy had it out for teasing her about anything and everything, not to say she didn't return the favour.

She couldn't ask Piper. Last time she'd come to her for advice she'd ended up bawling her eyes out and complicating everything.

Also, Leo had been hurt in the process, which was the opposite of what she was trying to achieve in anysituation.

"Ughhhhh," she groaned to herself, kicking quite mildly at the wall. Thank the gods she'd taken those boots off or she'd have toppled over backwards and ended up with an indent in the back of her head.

Castor had been the combative high heel wearer, not her.

She glared at her nike socks and then stomped out of her room, passing everyone's cabins until she got to the last one, and knocked on the door.

"Come in?"

Annabeth's room was pretty plain. She had a duvet with the skyline of New York on it, a few posters stuck around the desk pushed to the wall, which was covered in cups and books, and a chair that was more pile of clothes then chair now.

She was in bed with her laptop and a mug a shaped like a cat when she looked up. "Hey."

"Hi."

Teqi sat down on the end of the bed and then flopped backwards, fiddling with the empire state building. Her fingers still shook. She was getting used to it. But she hated how it made her look nervous.

She was right now, but not usually.

When she didn't say anything, Annabeth went back to clicking at the keys of her laptop, her prosthetic fingers whirring. A USB stick came out of her pinkie and she stuck it in, downloading something. Probably the code to nuclear bombs or interdimensional travel.

It was kind of soothing, like a clicking clock. Teqi watched the light move across her friend's face. Well, Annabeth's face. "Are we friends?"

She took a sip of her tea. The steam wafted around her little bunkroom. It smelt like peppermint and honey. "We went through Tartarus together and then fought the literal personification of it."

"I wasn't there for that bit. I don't think," Teqi said. They were quiet for a moment, thinking. At least Teqi was thinking, surprise surprise, about how her brain and herself felt like it was all split into two. She sniffed. "You didn't answer the question."

"Were we not friends before?" Annabeth asked, closing her lid a little and pulling her knees up to her chest. She was wearing one of Hazel's cardigans with big sleeves and strawberry shaped pockets.

Teqi twisted the material, the tops of buildings threaded through her fingers. She yawned. This bed was really soft. "I was scared of you."

"You were scared of me?" Annabeth laughed.

"You're pretty and smart and you know a lot of people, that makes you terrifying," Teqi said, closing her eyes.

Annabeth drank more of her tea. "We're friends."

They were quiet for a while. Teqi watched with her one eye as the sun set outside, through the porthole window, where a little cactus plant sat, turning yellow and then pink, and then just dark.

When she woke up, her whole arm was tingly. She'd been using it as a pillow.

She'd rolled over in her sleep too. Probably because of the bad dream. She had a lot of those. She could tell because she'd ripped a hole through the top of the empire state building on Annabeth's duvet and her hair was messed up tangled around her neck. The blanket had been moved to cover her legs.