madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-im running late to work i'll think of a title later-

⋆˖⁺‧₊🎧🧨🍷🎬🍓₊‧⁺˖⋆

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"How would you spell disproportionate?"

Leo's voice was mumbled when he spoke, from across the warmed-under-the-sun decking. His concentrating on something else voice. "Why d'you ask?"

She tapped her Crusty's Aquarium pencil against her lips and then slumped back across the railing, converse squeaking. They sounded a lot like the gulls circling the Argo II.

The postcard in Teqi's lap resembled a mad scientists' rambling, even though it was just her trying to add sentences running up the sides. "I'm trying to describe Frank's hair maintenance routine."

"Well then I'd go with F-A-N-T-A-B-O-L-O-U-S," Leo said with a smirk, writing the word with his finger in the air as he spoke. He wiped his grotty hands on his trousers and went back to hammering the bottom of the control panel back into place.

Teqi didn't want to even begin deciphering that. She took a crack at disproportionate on her own.

The postcard was mainly filled with a train of thought veering from the exotic desserts she'd tried in the last few days as their journey across the globe picked up speed, to instructions on what to do when each member of their cabin inevitably had a nervous breakdown now that the world was ending tomorrow morning. And then back to the fantabulous tiara she'd seen a little kid wearing when she was choosing said desserts.

Ginny already had an extensive tiara collection, but it never hurt.

She signed off on it, kissing the bottom of the card where her lip balm only left a grimy smudge. It didn't matter, really, this was a strange one to write.

She might be dead before it reached the Delphi's Strawberry Farm post box.

"Oh, that's beautiful."

"I hope you're talking about me," she said, moving on from her thoughts and brushing sawdust off the back of her striped tracksuit pants. Then she had to reach for the railing as the ship careened to the side. "Was that mechanical failure, or are we landing?"

There was clicking in the oars, and they slowed.

Leo whipped a greasy rag over his shoulder, turning to her. "What was that about mechanical failure?"

"Nothing," Teqi said. She slid the postcard into her pocket for safe keeping. She came up behind him, watching the bright blue sky make way for a low museum structure (adjacent gift shop included) with banners boasting the 'ruins of Epidaurus' and 'parking overflow this way'.

She slid the Crusty's Aquarium pencil into Leo's toolbelt, and the movement activated him like a sleeper agent.

He looked over his shoulder at her. His gorgeous brown eyes smug, under batted lashes. "You're always beautiful."

She blinked. Oh gods. 'Aphrodite how you've cursed me', she thought, and covered her face with her hands, vision filled with shaky scarred skin and picked at nail polish. "Stop! Stop it-"

Leo laughed at her, pulling her hands away with his own and pressing kisses to her bright red cheeks while she scolded him, a painfully large grin pulling at her laser burn all the while. "I heard you," he laughed.

His lips were soft and warm and made her feel like she was in a song. She couldn't look him in the eye. She felt she might melt through his fingers, so she stared into the sun that seared her eyes and smiled.