Mistle

Jason had thought that the hardest part of going to Edgarton would be, you know, the part where he was going to a mortal high school for the first time in his life. He’d gone to school while he was at Camp Jupiter (of course he had, despite Piper and Leo’s incessant jokes about his wolf-grade reading level) but that had been completely different. School in New Rome had been carefully balanced with his Legion duties and was formatted with dyslexic ADHD kids specifically in mind. School in New Rome had been easy, Edgarton was completely different. There were uniforms and curfews and rules and– Well, maybe it wasn’t all that different from Camp Jupiter after all.

The hardest thing for Jason to get used to, though, was the free time he had. Part of that time was taken up with lacrosse, seeing as any students who lived on campus were required to partake in at least one extracurricular activity, but that was only four hours a week during fall. He spent some time on his school work, naturally, but Edgarton didn’t do homework, so other than studying for tests and writing papers, there wasn’t much for him to do. So, really, Jason found himself with idle hands far more frequently than he ever had in his life.

That was where Leo came in.

Jason had secretly, selfishly hoped that Leo’s involvement would have just amounted to a lot of holding hands in the quad and making out in their dorm room, but life was never quite that kind to Jason. No, unfortunately, Leo was very, very invested in “re-childhooding” Jason, which roughly translated to exposing him to all of the stuff he’d missed growing up in a demigod military camp. This included taking him to Chuck E. Cheese (which he hadn’t exactly loved because it was very loud) and binge watching “important” cartoons and movies (Avatar was a very good show, but the movie didn’t make much sense as an adaptation, considering it was suddenly about aliens) and, most terrifyingly, finding new hobbies and interests outside of niche Ancient Roman law. 

Lacrosse had been Leo’s idea, and it was definitely fun, there was no doubt about it. Jason liked the physicality and the predefined rules and the teamwork involved with sports. However, apparently, that wasn’t quite good enough, and Leo had been needling him to try something else, something that wasn’t just about performing an action for someone else. Jason had been a little lost, trying to figure out what, exactly, that new hobby could be until their English class had done a unit on classic English poets, and Jason had discovered a love of reciting poetry. That, naturally, had led him to the poetry club (which Leo insisted on calling the Dead Poets Society, for some reason) and for one shining moment, everything looked like it was gonna work out. 

Then, because the world could never be that kind, Derrick, the club president, had cheerfully announced that the next meeting they would be reciting their own poetry.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Jason groaned into his pillow while Leo sympathetically stroked his hair. “I don’t know how to write poetry.”

“What if you just started talking in Latin?” Leo suggested. “Then you wouldn’t have to actually write anything, you could just recite a cake recipe or something.”

Jason paused and considered that option with no small amount of hope before remembering that Sheamus was in his Latin class and would absolutely call him out. “I can’t. They’ll figure it out.” He considered it for another moment before adding, “I do like the idea of writing it in Latin, though. Only one person will have any idea what I’m saying, but I’m fine with that.”

“That’s the spirit!” Leo cheered, bending over to kiss Jason’s ear, which was the one spot of face-adjacent skin not hidden by Jason’s autoasphyxiation attempt. That made him feel a lot better. “So, whatcha gonna write about?”

Hopelessness crashed over Jason again. “No idea. Can I just quit this club? That’s a normal kid experience, right?”

“No way, dude, I watched you get moony-eyed over Lord Byron last week, you’re staying in this club,” Leo said seriously. Jason didn’t bother to point out that the reason he’d actually gone all sappy was because he was reading “Soon We’ll Go No More a Roving” with Leo beside him, still and peaceful for once. Leo poked him. “Come on. Talk to me. What’s the prompt?”

Jason continued his grumbling for a moment before he heaved a heavy sigh. “Beauty beyond measure.”

“Oh, uh, okay, um. What about…” Leo floundered for a moment. “A sunset? Or, um, a flower?”

Jason refrained from gagging, but only just. “No.”

Leo pinched his ear. “Okay, what about something less conventional that you like? Like swordfighting, or something? I’m pretty sure I could wax poetic about the inner workings of Festus, if you held a gun to my head.”

Leo continued to talk, rattling off all sorts of ideas, each one somehow worse than the one before, and Jason felt his brain throb. He figured this was probably only partially due to Leo’s poetry suggestions and mainly just a lack of oxygen, so he begrudgingly rolled over. When he did, he wound up with his head cradled in Leo’s lap, and his breath hitched as soon as he blinked stars out of eyes.

Leo was sitting there, still talking and completely oblivious to the fact that Jason was staring at him in complete awe. The sun was starting to set, so warm evening sun was pouring through the window at Leo’s back, lighting up his messy cloud of curls like a halo. His crooked teeth flashed with every word, his eyes glowed, his hands flapped through the air like baby birds, and there was a breathtaking smear of grease on his chin.