Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Unbelievable!” Jason cries, angrily slamming the refrigerator door shut. He stares down at the empty Tupperware box in his hand, irritation washing over him in waves. “It’s gone. Again!”

Nico looks up from where he’s heating his pasta in the microwave. “What is?”

“My sandwich!” Jason shakes the empty box in his face. “This is the second time in two days.”

Nico lazily chews on a cookie. “Did you label it?”

“What does this look like?” He shows Nico the top of the box, which clearly says: DO NOT TOUCH. This sandwich belongs to Jason Grace.

“Somebody keeps ignoring my labels,” Jason snaps. “I know they’re doing it on purpose.” Dramatically, he throws the empty box onto the nearby counter, a disgusted look on his face.

Nico, on the other hand, has the gall to roll his eyes at him. “Why are you getting so worked up? It’s just a sandwich. A sandwich that you’ve been eating every single day at work for weeks. Maybe it’s a good thing it’s stolen – you can try something else now.”

Jason snorts. “As if anything could measure up to my sandwich.”

Nico opens the microwave door. “I think day-old pasta could give it a run for its money.”

“Day-old pasta? You’d better be kidding. I get up a whole half an hour earlier so I can make that small piece of grilled sandwich heaven –“

“Oh, come on, it’s not even that good –“

“– the perfect combination of mushrooms, onions, mayonnaise, blue cheese, mustard, cayenne –“

“Did you just say cayenne?”

“– and lightly toasted on both sides so that when the time comes, it melts in your mouth, all the flavors complimenting each other to produce a faultless symphony of–“

“You’re so pretentious, it’s not even funny.”

“– and now some barbarian’s probably chomping it down as we speak, not even savoring or appreciating the love and hard work that went into it –“

“Is that a note?”

Jason stops mid-word. “What?”

Nico’s grabbed the box Jason had tossed away, pulling the lid open. “There’s a note in here!” he cries excitedly. “Your sandwich thief wrote you something.”

“You’re kidding,” Jason moves closer, snatching the note out of Nico’s hand and ignoring his “Hey!”

It’s a piece of notebook paper, a little crumpled and slightly greasy (Jason can just imagine the guy eating his sandwich while writing it). The writing is a messy scrawl, the lines and curves bumping into each other, and is written in bright purple ink. The color isn’t the weirdest thing, though. It’s the note itself:

Does it? I think I’m a little jealous.

“What the hell?” Jason frowns, vaguely annoyed. “What’s that drawing?”

“It’s a winky face.”

“A winky face?” Jason glances up at Nico, who looks delighted for some reason. “What does this even mean? Jealous about what?”

“Your label, Jason,” Nico shows him the lid. “You said the sandwich belongs to you, remember?”

Jason glances down at the note again. His heartbeat steadily grows faster as he realizes what the note actually says. “Oh.”

“Someone’s got a secret admirer,” Nico sing-songs.

“I do not,” Jason says quickly, trying to fight down a blush. “Stop it.”

“No way. You always make such a big deal whenever I get flowers or anything, even though you know they’re all from Will. I’m going to be just as excited about your secret admirer.”

“This isn’t a secret admirer! This is someone who thinks I’m a pushover – they think if they give me a half-compliment, I won’t be mad when they steal my food.”

“Is it that hard to believe someone likes you?”

“No,” Jason says emphatically. “I’m just saying – if someone liked me, I think they’d buy me lunch, not steal it from me.”

Nico shrugs. “Maybe they were hungry.”

“Well, I’m glad my sandwich could help,” Jason mutters. “This is the stupidest-looking winky face in the world.”

“Okay, maybe they aren’t good at flirting. Or drawing. But at least we know they’re friendly-ish? Next time, write a note back and explain to them why you love your sandwich so much. If they like you, they’ll leave it alone.”

“What if they don’t like me?”

“I don’t think we’ll need to worry about that,” Nico says, smiling.

Jason huffs a laugh. “I swear I used that same line on you when we were talking about Will months ago.”

“I know, and it was very reassuring,” Nico says gratefully. “There’s a reason you write the advice column, you know.”

“Speaking of work,” Jason sighs, “I haven’t even gone through all the letters yet. Annabeth’s going to kill me if I don’t get a move on.”

“But you still have time for lunch.”

Jason shrugs. “I guess I’ll just get something from that café nearby.”

He stuffs the note in his pocket. Nico doesn’t miss the action, and he raises his eyebrows at Jason, before handing him the rest of the pasta he was eating. “I can get some food out of Will,” he explains.

“You’ll probably eat it off of him too,” Jason mumbles. When Nico just smirks in response, Jason’s eyes widen. “Oh my god, I was joking! Nico, you’re not supposed to do this at work!”

“Do what at work?” Nico says innocently, already inching towards the door. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“When I go to report the sandwich thief,” Jason calls after Nico as he rushes away, laughing, “don’t even think I’m not going to report you guys too!”

~*~

Jason thinks a lot about it the rest of the day. He thinks about it while going through his mail, and answering every lamenting letter with whatever advice he thinks best. He thinks about it while talking to his other work friends, while reassuring Reyna his column will be done by the deadline. He thinks about it while eating the pasta Nico gave him, while playing games on his phone, and while rereading and rereading the tiny note in his pocket.

Finally, he decides who it must be. Only a few hours after the lunch break, he goes to see Piper.

She’s got her feet up on her desk, reading through a notebook and occasionally writing something in it. She does interviews with semi-famous people, and her section of the magazine is undoubtedly the most-read. She’s good at it too – her friendly and approachable personality charms everyone she meets, and she asks all the right questions in all the right ways.

She glances up at him when he enters, then back at her notebook. “Hey, Jason. If you’re looking for Nico, I saw him and Will disappear into the men’s room a while ago. I don’t think they’re coming out anytime soon.”

“I bet,” Jason mutters. “Actually, I was looking for you.”

That gets her attention. “What for?” she asks warily.

Wordlessly, he takes the note out and smooths it over her desk. She gives him a curious look, swings down her legs and then peers at it.

Jason just waits with folded arms, expecting her to smile sheepishly up at him and admit it was a joke and give him his amazing sandwich back. Instead, she looks up at him with a raised eyebrow and says, “I don’t get it.”

“What is there not to get?” he says as coldly as he can. “Give me my sandwich back.”

“What?”

“My sandwich, Piper! The sandwich you stole? Give it back.”

“I didn’t steal your sandwich,” Piper says, seeming genuinely offended. “Why the hell would I? Like I don’t have better things to do.”

“It’s only the most awesome sandwich anyone in the history of earth has ever made. Why wouldn’t you steal it?”

“And do what?” Piper cries. “I brought my own lunch, and ate it. And what does a stolen sandwich have anything to do with this?” She motions to the note in front of her.

“I found that in my empty lunch box, right next to the big empty place where my sandwich should’ve been.” He leans over the desk to look her in the eye. “Where’s my sandwich, Piper?”

She leans back in her chair and pointedly puts her feet up again, close to his face. “I don’t have it, and I don’t know who has. I’m not sure if you know this, but I have an actual job to do here during work hours. I don’t spent them stealing people’s lunches and leaving them cryptic messages in their place. I mean,” she throws up her hands, “jealous of what? That makes no sense.”

Jason studies her with narrowed eyes. She doesn’t look away under his gaze, and finally, he scoops up the note from her desk. “Of my sandwich, apparently.”

Piper frowns. “Someone wants you to eat them?”

Jason throws her a look, and her frown instantly turns into a smile.

“I see,” she grins. “Someone wants you to eat them out.”

“Piper,” Jason groans.

She raises her eyebrows up and down at him. “Who is she?”

“I have no idea. There’s no name on the note.”

“You can tell plenty from a simple note, my friend. Here, let me see.” She jumps up and grabs at it, looking it over with new interest, like she’s a detective trying to solve a case. Now that Jason thinks about it, Piper is actually really good at this whole romance stuff. Jason had never seen it when they were dating, probably because he was too involved then, but she’s always known what to do in situations like these. He always comes to her whenever he gets heartbreak mail, and she helps him reply – so much so that he wonders if she should get half his salary for it.

After a long while, she looks up at him, a knowledgeable glint in her eyes. Jason waits for her to counsel her on what to do. She opens her mouth to speak.

“They’re horrible at drawing.”

Jason groans, running his hands through his hair. “That’s all? That’s the best you can do?”

She squints at the piece of paper. “They, uh, might not be female? I don’t know, I’m no expert.”

“I consider you an expert.”

“Sorry,” she laughs. “I really don’t know how else to help you. You could look for someone with a purple pen?”

“Just because it’s written in purple ink doesn’t mean the pen itself is purple too.”

“Well, think about it. How many pens with purple ink have you seen that aren’t purple themselves even a little bit? There’s always some identification.”

Jason chews his lip. “I guess you have a point. But I won’t go around peeping into people’s pen pots, will I?”

Piper tilts her head at the note. “They obviously work here. Maybe even on this floor?”

“I know everyone on this floor. No one would steal from me.” He frowns. “I don’t think.”

Piper shrugs, handing over the note and putting her feet back up on the desk. “Well, that’s all I can help you with for now, then. The easiest thing would be to look out for someone who might be crushing on you, but a lot of people are good at hiding that kind of thing, so I’m not sure.”

“Okay,” Jason says miserably, folding the note back, “If you find something out, you’ll tell me?”

“Sure thing. But Jason?”

“Yeah?”

Piper pauses for a while, as if deliberating what to say. “If this person’s really stealing your lunch – flirtatious note or not, that’s kind of annoying, I have to admit – and you really do want to find out who it is, I think you’re going to have to try something a little more extreme than looking for purple pens.”

Jason hesitates. “How do you mean?”

“I’m not sure myself,” Piper says, laughing a little. “All I’m saying is – we’ve got a pretty relaxed workplace here. Don’t be afraid to bend the rules a bit, cause some chaos. It’ll definitely give the rest of us some entertainment.”

“Won’t our editor-in-chief have something to say about that?”

A slow smile spreads over Piper’s face. “Let me handle Reyna. Now shoo.” She turns her attention back to her notebook. “Unlike you, some of us actually have work to do.”

~*~

At the end of the work day, Jason and Nico ride the elevator down to the ground floor. As the floors fly by, Nico pulls his jacket closer and cheekily says, “Any new leads on your secret admirer?”

“Sandwich thief,” Jason corrects, ignoring Nico’s sniggers. “And no, I have no idea who it could be. But after a quite enlightening talk with Piper, I think I have a way I could find out.”

Nico stops laughing, looks warily up at Jason. “And what way would that be?” he asks slowly.

“Well,” Jason says, trying to sound casual but hardly able to control his glee, “They expect me to bring another sandwich tomorrow, don’t they? And they’re going to steal that one too.”

“Let me guess. You’re going to write them a particularly scathing note?”

Jason laughs. “I’m going to write a note, yeah. Not sure if it’s going to be scathing, but we have to keep up communication, don’t we?”

Nico, suspicious, narrows his eyes at Jason’s not-answer. “Okay, I’m getting a teeny bit scared, Jason. What are you planning to do?”

Jason smiles. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”

Chapter Text

The next day, Jason gets up even earlier than normal so he has abundant time to craft his sandwich to perfection. He walks to work, rides the elevator up to his floor, says hi to the few people already there, and puts his sandwich in the lunch room’s refrigerator, complete with a label bearing his name in capital letters, and a small note tucked in the corner of the box itself:

Dear Sandwich Thief,

I don’t know who you are or why you think you can steal my sandwich, but I know one thing for sure: I’m not going to sit back and let you have whatever you like, at least not without a fight. When it comes to my sandwich, I’m not willing to compromise. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll back off. Until then, have fun eating someone else’s lunch.

Sincerely, Jason Grace

P.S. You can’t even draw a winky face. For shame.

His desk is only a few feet away from the ladies’ room, so everyone who goes in there passes by him. As creepy as that sounds, it’s vital to Jason’s plan. As for the men’s room – he can go in there himself, so that’s no problem.

What is a problem however is when he does go to dump his things on his desk – and is met by a fuming Annabeth.

Annabeth takes her job as managing editor very seriously, and the truth is that the magazine would already have crashed and burned if it weren’t for her. All the employees are great at their jobs, but what they aren’t great at is keeping up with deadlines. And honestly, who is?

Jason’s one of the few who’ve managed to keep their work a day – or even two – ahead of deadlines, so he’s always been in the clear with Annabeth. It also helps that they get along alright (unlike Leo and Annabeth, who regularly have highly enjoyable arguments that Jason and Nico watch while sharing a bowl of popcorn between themselves).

Jason stands to attention for a whole fifteen minutes while Annabeth berates him for not turning his finished column in yesterday when he promised. The deadline’s today and Jason’s not even half-finished yet, and he has to turn it in until lunch at the latest. When Annabeth finally leaves, Jason gets to it, all thought of the sandwich thief erased from his mind.

~*~

Writing the advice column isn’t half as much work as Jason would like to do. People around him write riveting articles and interviews, submit the most striking photos and personal pieces – Nico’s writings are almost regularly featured, a talent that’s made him important enough to have his own office, albeit a small one.

And then there’s Jason. The agony aunt.

He doesn’t even come up with most of the advice. Half his job is moving around the whole office building, asking people he knows for advice on problems he thinks they would know something about. All he has to do is type up what they tell him. That makes him feel like even his fan mail is misdirected – people thanking him because taking his advice was ‘the best decision ever’ don’t realize it wasn’t his advice in the first place.

Of course it’s great to be able to help people with their problems in any way he can, but when it comes down to it, it’s only an advice column. It’s all anonymous, so strangers never recognize his name like they do Nico’s or Piper’s – they never go, “Oh my god, I loved that one article you wrote!”

He’s not a real writer, doesn’t have the job he would like to tell people he does, and sometimes, he feels like a spare part. They could replace him in the blink of an eye and no one would notice. If the magazine ran without his column, they would just expand an article to cover his area, and no one would be the wiser.

This is the kind of stuff that keeps him up at night, staring at his bedroom ceiling, trying to convince himself that everything that matters is going well, so he shouldn’t be nitpicking and trying to make himself miserable. Most of the time, he’s happy as a clam, mainly because he has an amazing group of friends and a workplace he enjoys, things that he’s grateful for. But other times, he feels like he’s being held down, and he can’t muster up enough strength to break free.

He always seems to think of these things while rushing to finish his work – probably because he’s wondering if it’s even worth rushing for – but the next few hours pass without him even noticing. By the time he looks up from his desk, exhausted (emotionally exhausted, mainly – there was one letter about a man trying to get over his girlfriend’s death that made him a little teary-eyed), he realizes he’s worked all through lunch.

He stretches his arms above his head and relaxes for a second, already imagining how blissful it’ll be when he eats his beautiful sandwich.

And then he remembers.

He jolts up, glances at the clock again. He’s sure no one spent all day in the ladies’ room, so without wasting time, he abandons his desk and makes a run for the men’s room.

It’s completely empty, the door wide open, and Nico and Will are standing in front it, both looking red-faced and embarrassed, their hair and clothes in a disarray. It’s understandable, because Reyna’s busy lecturing them about something, by the look of it. Piper’s next to Reyna, obviously trying to placate her.

Frowning, he walks up to them. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“What hasn’t been going on?” Reyna practically snaps, taking him aback. As if on cue, Piper moves forward, putting an arm around Reyna.

“Come on, it’s not Jason’s fault,” she says soothingly, “He’s been working all day. I went by his desk earlier to say hello and he didn’t even notice me.”

Jason raises an eyebrow at her. She hadn’t come by to ‘say hello’, she’d lobbed a packet of Lays chips at his head and shouted, “Take a snack break, numbnuts!” while walking by arm-in-arm with Frank.

Reyna just glares at him. “I’m assuming he knew what was going on, and neglected to report to me.”

“I actually have no idea what’s happening,” Jason says, as innocently as he possibly can.

“Jason doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him that we were… uh, you know,” Nico speaks up.

“It would be extremely disturbing if you did,” Will adds.

“Wait a minute,” Jason holds up his hands, looking incredulously at Nico. “Did you guys… you weren’t…?”

Nico shrugs.

Jason’s mouth drops open. “Again?”

“What do you mean, again?” Reyna snaps.

“Nothing,” Piper interrupts, “He’s stupid, don’t listen to him. Now, I think we’ve all spent enough time talking about how inappropriate this was, and I think Nico and Will have learnt their lesson?”

She raises her eyebrows expectantly at them, and they both nod.

“Absolutely,” Will says.

“We promise it won’t happen again,” Nico says.

“Not here, anyway,” Will mutters, flushing red when Reyna glares at him.

“I’m letting this go for now,” she says. “I know the general atmosphere in this office is easygoing and relaxed, but that doesn’t mean I’ll allow this. You know better – especially you, Nico.”

“What? Why me?”

“You’re more…” she throws Will a distasteful glance, “…sensible.”

“Don’t worry,” Piper whispers to an affronted Will, “She looks at everyone like that, it’s just her face.”

“Piper.”

“Yes, Reyna?”

“Please go back to work.”

“Yes, Reyna.”

“And you two,” Reyna continues as Piper leaves, pointing a finger sharply in Nico’s and Will’s direction, “Please maintain a professional demeanor from here on out. If you don’t think you can, you’re welcome to go home – and stay there.”

After she walks away, Jason turns to Nico with raised eyebrows. “Sex in the men’s room. Again?”

Nico shrugs. “We were bored, and the bathroom was empty.”

“Nico, you have an office.”

“Gross, Jason, I work on that desk. I’m not going to defile my workstation like that. Honestly, you’re so vulgar sometimes.”

“She won’t fire us, will she?” Will asks, chewing at his lip. “I’m pretty sure she implied it.”

“She’s not actually going to do that,” Jason says, “She likes Nico too much. That’s the reason she let you off this time.”

“And what about me?”

“Well, it’s not like you’ll be missed much.”

“He’s just being mean, everyone loves you,” Nico says, rubbing his boyfriend’s arm as Will starts to pout at Jason, “Anyway, Reyna liking me has nothing to do with any of it. She only let us go because Piper came to the rescue.”

“Piper’s not always going to be there. You guys should be more careful. You live in the same apartment, for god’s sake. Why don’t you keep your bedroom activities to, you know, your bedroom?”

Nico snorts. “Oh, like you’ve never wanted to do it at work.”

“Even if I did, my first choice wouldn’t be the men’s room.” He glances towards the open door, peering in at the stalls distastefully. “Remember when Leo found a dead rat in one of the toilet bowls?”

“It was covered in tiny chocolates for some reason,” Nico reminisces, looking off in the distance. Jason and Will exchange amused glances, simultaneously agreeing not to tell Nico that they were most definitely not tiny chocolates.

“Whatever the case, we’re not going to repeat this anytime soon,” Will says, putting an arm around Nico. “I mean, we can,” he adds quickly when Nico raises an eyebrow at him. “But not in a public bathroom. There was that one guy who ruined the whole mood.”

Jason sniggers. “Someone walked in on you?”

“No, I locked the door.”

“You locked the door of a public bathroom?”

Will shrugs. “I figured people would just go to a bathroom on another floor. But there was this one guy who kept banging at the door and shouting at us to let him in –“

“We probably should have,” Nico interrupts. “He sounded like it was an emergency.”

“There were other emergencies going on at the time too, if you remember,” Will smirks at Nico, who scoffs and ducks his head to hide his blush. “But really, dude, you should’ve heard him. He banged and shouted for at least a full five minutes before he left, and by then – Jason, you okay?”

Jason, who was staring at Will with his mouth hanging open, snaps out of it. He surges forward and grabs a surprised Will by the shoulders. “Do you remember his voice?”

“Huh?”

“His voice! Do you remember it? Or did you recognize it?”

“Well, I was kind of preoccupied so… no? Why?”

Jason lets go of him and turns to Nico. “That guy,” he says, pausing for effect, “was the sandwich thief.”

Nico’s eyebrows shoot up. “What? How do you know?”

“Because he would have really, really needed a bathroom today – possibly for hours. I was planning on coming around to check the men’s room every few hours or so but I got so caught up with work, I forgot.” He smacks himself on the forehead. “So stupid.”

“Working during work hours instead of chasing after the guy who stole your lunch?” Will tsks. “What a completely brainless thing to do.”

Jason stares at him. “How do you know about my sandwich thief?”

“How do you think?” Will inclines his head in Nico’s direction.

“Well, you didn’t actually think I wasn’t going to tell him,” Nico says defensively when Jason glares at him.

“It doesn’t matter whether I know or not. The question is,” Will raises his eyebrows at Jason, “what did you put in that sandwich that would force a guy to stay in a bathroom for hours?”

His blue eyes are bright with curiosity, while Nico’s look vaguely apprehensive. Jason wondered a few times this morning, while making his sandwich, if he was doing something harmful. Now, with a slight pang of guilt in his heart, he mutters, “A laxative.”

Will’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. Nico, meanwhile, tries to look horrified, and he’s successful for a few seconds – until he snorts loudly. Then he drops all pretenses, collapsing against the wall and dissolving into loud and unabashed giggles.

“Nico!” Will cries, aghast. “It’s not funny!”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” Nico says, gasping through his laughs. “It’s just – he put laxatives in the sandwich! Oh my god, that poor guy.”

“’Poor guy’ is right,” Will says worriedly. He’s practically wringing his hands. Jason’s never seen him like this. “This is so, so wrong.”

“I know,” Jason blurts. Nico’s still laughing, and it’s just making him feel worse. His face is burning. “But I couldn’t just do nothing! He stole my sandwich!”

“To hell with the sandwich! Do you have any idea how dangerous this could be?”

Nico’s laughs stop abruptly. “What?”

“There are all sorts of things that can go wrong,” Will says, “And not one of them is that he’ll crap his pants.”

Jason’s heart feels like someone’s hung a kettlebell from it. “I only put a teeny bit in,” he says in a small voice.

“How much?”

“Just a capsule or two crushed in. That’s not so bad, right?”

“How should I know?” Will cries, practically frantic. “Do I look like a doctor to you?”

“Well, actually –“

“We should tell Reyna,” Nico interrupts. “If there’s a chance your secret admirer might need help, we should tell someone, right?”

“This was so irresponsible, Jason,” Will says in a low, serious voice. Which is rich coming from a guy who was banging his boyfriend in a bathroom at work.

“Hey, I had it all planned out!” Jason protests. “He would eat the sandwich, run to the bathroom, and then I’d follow him in. He gets to… relieve himself, and I get to find out who stole my sandwich. And, you know, make him pay.”

“I think you already made him pay,” Nico says solemnly, “And to think that guy has a crush on you. Just the thought of what you’ve done must hurt him more than the diarrhea.”

His words make Jason’s heart feel even heavier. What was he thinking? He’d only put a little bit of it in the sandwich – he wasn’t a complete idiot, after all – but he shouldn’t have added any. In his mind’s eye, he can see his nameless faceless sandwich thief sneaking into the lunch room, eagerly finishing off his sandwich, and then realizing what Jason’s done. He doesn’t even know who it is but he has the indomitable urge to apologize to him somehow, maybe hug him – once he’s done crapping his guts out, of course.

“I’m a bad person,” Jason mumbles.

Nico squeezes Jason’s shoulder. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, okay? Maybe he didn’t even eat the whole sandwich. Did you check to see if the sandwich is gone? Maybe he left you a note?”

Jason blinks at him, his words slowly dawning on him. Then he makes a run for the lunch room, dragging Nico behind him.

~*~

The lunchbox is unfortunately empty, but they can see a piece of folded paper inside, and when they open it up, Jason’s relieved to find out it’s not his letter to the sandwich thief. In fact, his letter is gone – and what’s left in its place is a piece of notebook paper, scribbled on in bright purple ink.

Ignoring Nico’s excited grin and inquisitive peeks at the note, Jason unfolds it and smooths it out on the counter.

Fun fact 1: laxative capsules have a horrible taste that gives them away (but liquid laxatives are almost completely tasteless)

Fun fact 2: you adorably gave yourself away in your letter, but don’t feel too stupid, because

Fun fact 3: I still ate the whole thing, so I’m stupider than you

Now I’ve stolen your lunch, you’ve given me the runs, so the scoreboard is even. Looking forward to what’s next from my temporary home in the bathroom!

P.S. don’t feel too guilty about it if you are feeling guilty. I’ve been stealing your lunch for the past few days after all (which I plan on making up for)

P.P.S. If you run into the jerks who locked the men’s room, tell them they will have to answer for their sins in Hell, where no one will help them

P.P.P.S. I’ll practice on my winky faces if you keep writing dramatic letters. They’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen

The whole letter is peppered with smiley faces and hearts, even a horribly drawn devil next to the word ‘Hell’. How he wrote this whole thing and delivered it into the refrigerator while dealing with his bowel problems is beyond Jason.

“I’m not a jerk,” Nico mutters, “There’s bathrooms on other floors too! Tell him that when you write back.”

Jason opens his mouth to reply to Nico, but a laugh tumbles out. Before he knows it, he’s leaning against the fridge door, laughing and trying to keep it in, while Nico waits by, exasperated.

“I’m not even going to ask why.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile on his face.

Jason glances down at the letter again, eyes skipping over the messy script, the misshapen smiley faces. Although he still feels the phantom weight of guilt on his chest, the corners of his lips keep tilting up, and there’s a steady warmth thrumming in his veins.

This sandwich thief is really something. Maybe even a good something.

“Does this mean you don’t hate him anymore?” Nico asks knowingly “Your guilt and his niceness converted you?”

“Not at all,” Jason says, carefully folding the note, lining up the corners and edges perfectly. “In fact, I want to know who he is more than ever. Except now,” he tucks the note into his pocket, making sure not to wrinkle the edges, “I think this whole thing might be fun.”

Chapter Text

“I’m suspicious,” Jason says.

Nico looks up at him. “How so?”

“It might be poisoned.”

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, really? After what I did to him last time?” Jason narrows his eyes at the offending food placed on Nico’s desk. “I would definitely take revenge,” he says ominously, ignoring Nico’s eye-roll and Will’s wide-eyed glance his way.

He wonders for a few seconds if he should even put it on Nico’s desk, considering what the piece of furniture was being used for merely minutes ago – Nico’s hair was still a mess and Will’s fly wasn’t halfway zipped-up (Will turned a worrying shade of red whenever he was embarrassed, so Jason decided not to say anything).

Apparently, Reyna’s lecture yesterday was taken quite lightly by the two of them, and they’d decided to relocate their office escapades. When Jason had walked into Nico’s office a few minutes ago, he’d been met with a scream from the other two, who were lying sprawled on Nico’s desk (well, Will was. Nico was… elsewhere). Jason had let out an “Oh my god!” of his own, slapping a hand to his eyes. When he turned around, both of them were thankfully back into their clothes, Nico fanning Will’s bright face with a magazine while glaring at Jason. His glare wiped off his face soon enough when he saw what Jason was holding.

Jason supposes he should apologize for not knocking first. When he and Nico talked this morning (Jason’s pile of to-ask-Nico-for-advice letters was surprisingly large today), he had seemed glum, half-listening to Jason and humming along whenever Jason paused, smiling at him only occasionally. He got into one of these moods sometimes, and although Jason knows he shouldn’t pry, there was always a trigger. He makes a mental reminder to ask Nico of it later.

At least he seems in a better mood now, grinning as he turns the Tupperware box this way and that. The sandwich thief episodes make him every bit as cheerful as they do Jason – which is not to say that they make Jason cheerful at all. Really, it’s just another facet in the hurried rush of his life. A tiny facet, in fact. Positively miniscule.

Jason’s letter, which he placed next to his sandwich this morning as per usual, was a lot friendlier than before, even to his own eyes. Nico looked it over before they left the lunch room, raising an eyebrow at Jason as he did so. Jason had flushed and told him to shut up. Nico hadn’t said anything but the knowing expression on his face had been enough.

The letter had gone something like:

Dear Sandwich Thief,

Alright, I’m not going to lie, I felt a teeny bit guilty about the whole laxative business. It doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you, though, and when I find out who you are – and trust me, I will – there will be hell to pay. Hell. Your sweet and flirty comments won’t save you then.

And okay, maybe I was a bit sloppy last time but I mean it now. Stop stealing my sandwich or I’ll have to take more extreme measures.

Also, PLEASE fix your E’s, I can’t distinguish them from your C’s and what the hell is with the dots on your I’s and J’s??? It’s a dot, not a freaking canyon. Honestly, HOW do you expect to charm ANYONE (let alone me) if you can’t keep your handwriting under control? Makes me want to give you calligraphy lessons, I swear to god.

Sincerely,

Jason Grace

P.S. my letters are extremely threatening, okay? They are not even a little bit adorable, and neither am I.

A few hours later, when Jason returned to the lunch room, the box was missing. He panicked for a while, until he saw it in the microwave. That only made sense until he opened the microwave’s tiny door and saw the Tupperware filled with food – but not his sandwich.

“Isn’t this cool, though?” Will speaks up. He’s sitting opposite Nico at the table, his chin cupped in his hands, staring at the box. It lies in between them and Jason stands beside it, arms folded. “It’s like he turned the tables.”

“It is not,” Jason insists. “Don’t make him sound smart.”

“Did you read the letter yet?” Nico asks.

“No.”

“You didn’t read the letter and you didn’t taste the lasagna? You monster.”

“It could have anything in it, Nico!” Jason cries, waving his arms around. “I put laxative in his – my – our – my food! Shut up,” he snaps, pointing his finger at the smirk tugging at Nico’s lips. “This could have anything in it – anything!”

“Does anyone want to know what I think?” Will asks.

“No.”

“I think,” Will continues, “that’s he might be feeling guilty for stealing your sandwich all these days and was probably worried about your lack of a lunch and if you were eating and this,” he motions to the mouth-watering heap of lasagna piled inside Jason’s own Tupperware box, “is his incredibly thoughtful way of making up for it.”

“There’s a better way to make up for it. He could just not steal my sandwich.”

Nico snorts. “Oh, please. It’s not even about the sandwich anymore. Now can we taste the lasagna? Just a little bit?”

“It looks so delicious,” Will agrees.

“Fine, you guys be the taste testers,” Jason sighs, pulling up a chair. Nico and Will share a grin, then leap onto the lasagna without another second of pause.

“Oh my god, look!” Will squeals. He digs beside the lasagna and pulls up a plastic fork wrapped in a tissue paper. “Such a kind, considerate young man,” he says, wiping at an imaginary tear.

“Shut up,” Jason says, but he can already feel his walls going down at the sight of it.

It also doesn’t help his skepticism that the lasagna looks like it came right out of a food magazine. A tower of perfectly distinct layers, oozing with cheese and sauce, beef and herbs peeking through. The pasta – a sheet of golden brown covered in grated flakes of white – is perfectly creased at the sides, and there’s even a little garnish on top. It fills the small office with a spicy scent that makes him salivate. It’s hot too, Jason can tell by the condensation on the lid of the box.

He hopes it doesn’t taste half as good as it looks, but Nico’s moan at his first mouthful quickly disproves him. “It,” he groans, as Will snatches the fork from him and takes his own bite, “is so, so good.”

Will has a similar reaction, dropping the fork back into the box and covering his face with his hands. “Dear lord,” he sighs, “If I die now, I’ll die a happy man.”

“I want to marry this lasagna,” Nico says. He actually looks a little teary-eyed.

“Where have you been all my life?” Will asks the lasagna, pure adoration written all over his face.

“Oh for god’s sake,” Jason snaps, grabbing the fork. He’s exasperated with their melodrama for exactly point five seconds, until he has his own bites. Then he can barely hold himself upright in the chair.

Nico grins at his reaction. “Better than sex,” he agrees.

“I’m not even offended by that,” Will says. “It’s so true.”

The three of them slump against the desk, sharing the dish and making obscene noises all the while. Will describes the taste like an explosion, but Jason thinks it’s more like a perfectly choreographed dance in his mouth – an awe-inspiring combination of salty and sour, and accompanied by the sobering cheese and silky smooth pasta, it makes his taste buds stand up and applaud. There’s a light hint of something Jason’s never experienced before, and he briefly wonders if it’s umami, which is pleasantly unexpected.

It’s – dare he say it – better than his sandwich. Which brings him to the question: why the hell is his sandwich thief stealing his bagged lunch when he has the ability to make restaurant-style dishes for himself?

“I have no doubt now,” Jason mumbles, almost sleepy with the comforting warmth radiating from his belly.

“What?” Nico asks, finishing up the last of the lasagna.

“It is poisoned. It has to be. It’s too good to be true.”

“None of us are dead yet, so I don’t think so,” Will says. He leans forward, swipes at some sauce at the side of Nico’s mouth, and sucks it off his finger, ignoring Jason’s exaggerated gagging noises.

“You still haven’t read the letter, Jason.” Nico pulls out the note from underneath the box and pushes it at him.

A new excitement tingles at the tips of his fingers. Will and Nico come closer to bracket him as he opens the note.

Awww, I knew you felt guilty! But don’t worry, it’s all okay, I only spent a few hours on the toilet cursing you to hell (just kidding, I would never ever curse you – unless you’re into that sort of thing).

What do you think of my winky faces, by the way? They’ve gotten better, huh?

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve been entirely fair to you. I don’t want to be stealing your food and leaving you with nothing, so like I promised, this beautiful lasagna in front of you is my way of making it up to you! I cooked it with a lot of love and care. I hope it makes you not-miss your sandwich too much.

And what about your sandwich, you ask? Well, it was extra delicious today. I finished it in record time. Kind of feel sorry for you for missing out, in fact. Maybe next time we could share it.

P.S. Oh my god PLEASE give me calligraphy lessons this isn’t even a flirty thing I just REALLY need better handwriting and yours is so good oh my god

P.P.S. your letters are too adorable to handle and you are exactly twenty-seven times more adorable than that, don’t argue with me on this

“Oh my gosh,” Nico is already saying before they’re halfway done reading, “This is too cute for my heart. Jason, what is this madness?”

“Twenty-seven,” Jason mumbles. He can feel the heat rising off his cheeks. “That’s so random.”

“What’s this about the winky faces?” Will frowns.

Jason’s gaze is still fixed on the note. “Inside joke.”

Will exchanges a look with Nico. “You’re right.”

“Didn’t I say so?” Nico nods.

“What?” Jason says, looking up. “What did he say so?”

“Oh, nothing. Just that by the end of this, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a boyfriend.”

“I don’t even know what he looks like! And okay, fine, he seems nice enough on paper –“ Nico and Will exchange another glance “– but that doesn’t mean he might not be a complete creep in real life.”

“You do have a point,” Will says after a pause. “But we don’t exactly have a way of finding out who he is.”

And Jason really doesn’t mean to be rude – he really doesn’t – but why is there a we? Is this a thing now? He and these two dorks hunt the office building looking for a sandwich stealer? He’s not even proper friends with Will, to be completely honest.

But he still can’t deny that this is fun. His workplace is entertaining – what with the daily drama between Leo and Annabeth; Piper’s and Frank’s shenanigans overlooked by Hazel, the design director; Nico and Will acting like oversexed rabbits; and a dozen other people bringing their personal lives into work and having fun discussing them no matter what any of the superiors say – but this, this is truly the most fun he’s had since he’s been here.

He smiles down at the note. He’s kind of grateful to his sandwich thief for making him feel this way.

Caught up in his own thoughts, he almost doesn’t catch Nico’s words: “I think we do have a way of finding out.”

His eyes snaps up to see Nico tap his chin thoughtfully. “That lasagna was amazing, the best thing I’ve tasted in my life. But it did taste familiar.”

Jason’s eyes widen. “You’ve eaten it before?”

Nico smacks his lips for a while, then runs a finger through the box, collecting the leftovers up, and tastes them for a while. It’s a testament to Jason’s desperation to know and Will’s patience that neither of them say anything this whole time, just watch Nico deliberate.

Finally, he says, “I think so.”

A smile blooms on Jason’s face. “Nico, this is great! Who cooked it for you?”

Nico’s thoughtful expression morphs into an almost sheepish one. “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t really know.”

“What?”

“Remember the potluck dinner Reyna held here a few months ago? For all the employees. You didn’t come because you were visiting your sister at the time and of course, Will didn’t work here then.”

“Oh my god,” Jason groans. “Please don’t tell me –“

But Nico’s already nodding. “There was a lasagna there. It was finished up really quickly, so I only had a bite in passing from Hazel, but it was definitely the same recipe.”

“And you don’t remember who brought it?”

Nico shrugs. “I’m sorry, I never asked.”

Just when Jason’s ready to don black and mourn for the rest of the week (he always did have a dramatic flair – Thalia says so), Will says, “Hold up. Isn’t there someone who’s in charge of organizing the potluck?”

“Yeah.”

Will raises his eyebrows. “And wouldn’t that person have a whole list of people, and what they’re bringing to the potluck?”

Nico blinks – once, twice, three times. “Yes.”

Jason almost hugs Will. “Nico,” he says, holding out his hands, “Please tell me you know who organizes the potluck.”

“I do,” Nico sighs, “But you’re not going to like it.”

~*~

Hazel Levesque.

Of all the people to organize a freaking potluck. It could’ve been Reyna herself. Maybe Annabeth, Reyna’s right-hand woman. Or even Frank, the copy editor.

But no. It had to be Hazel.

She sits in her office – much larger than Nico’s – and leans back in her swivel chair, moving it back and forth, back and forth, staring him down with a bright smile on her face. He’s just told her what he needs to know from her and she’s going to stretch this moment out to forever.

When they first met, Hazel didn’t trust him at all – he could feel it in his bones when she looked at him. Back then, she never even looked at him for too long, let alone stare like she is now. She’d snatch papers out of his hand, close the door in his face, power-walk by him, and when he and Nico became friends, she looked positively dumbfounded. Maybe she thought that just because she didn’t like him, her brother wouldn’t either.

Nico was the whole reason they even became friends. Not long after he and Nico started hanging out, Hazel came by his desk and said something along the lines of “you’re my brother’s best friend, might as well get to know you”.

Now, things are a lot different. Some people think they don’t get along, but it’s quite the opposite. Over time, Jason’s come to think of her as a sister – a fact he only noticed when, a few weeks ago someone mentioned the words ‘your sister’ to him, and images of Thalia and Hazel both momentarily popped into his mind. He’s not sure what Hazel’s come to think of him as, but she was the first person to wish him a happy New Year, gave him two presents on his birthday, and last week they both had a movie marathon of Lord of the Rings – Lord of the freaking Rings! – so he thinks it might be something nice.

They just have a peculiar friendship is all. One in which she delights in intimidating him, and he acts like he’s neither intimidated by her nor that he actually enjoys the way she enjoys it.

He doesn’t know why he’s scared of her, to be honest. No one else seems to be. Well, except Frank, Nico and Will – but those are her boyfriend, brother and brother’s boyfriend respectively, so they kind of have to be, don’t they?

Oh, god. It’s men. She intimidates men. Jason’s equal parts horrified and proud.

“I’m just going to ask one question,” she says finally. “Why?”

Jason’s back is ram-rod straight. He crosses his legs and clears his throat. She makes him feel like he’s being interviewed. “It’s because of my sandwich thief deal. Nico said he told you about that.”

That perks her interest. She leans forward. “What does a lasagna have to do with that?”

When Jason is done explaining, Hazel’s smile grows even bigger. “That is so sweet.”

“Sweet? He stole my food.”

“And gave you some in return. That’s more than most people would do.”

Jason splutters. “He wouldn’t have to do it in the first place if he left my sandwich alone.”

She snorts. “Oh, please, Jason, you know you’re flattered by this secret admirer junk.”

Secret admirer. She has been talking to Nico. He is going to mutilate that guy. “He’s not a secret admirer. He’s a sandwich thief.”

“Why can’t he be both?”

Jason groans. “Just give me the name!”

Hazel raises her eyebrows. Jason straightens in his seat. “Please.”

“And what do I get in return?”

“The knowledge you’ve helped a good friend catch and punish a merciless thief?”

“I can see why you’d call your kisses a punishment.”

“Hey!”

She holds up her hands – maybe in surrender, maybe to shut him up. Probably both. “All I’m asking for is something back. Come on, Jason, don’t you know how to trade goods and/or services?”

“I could, uh, give you a foot massage?”

“Ugh, no, I already have Frank for that. I was thinking more along the lines of… being my spy?” She smiles brightly at him.

Jason frowns. “A spy? What for?”

“Just, you know, report stuff back to me.”

“What stuff are we talking about, exactly?”

She shrugs, obviously trying to sound nonchalant, which makes him even more wary. “Just normal stuff. Every day happenings. Something like, let’s say, Will and Nico stuff?”

Jason’s face sets into an are you kidding me right now look. “You want me to tell you what’s happening in your brother’s relationship. Hazel, that’s creepier than my sandwich thief’s letters.”

“I just want to know he’s okay. Is that so bad?”

“He’s fine. You worry too much.”

“You don’t know what article Reyna wants him to write for the next issue, do you?”

“Uh, no. What is it?”

She shakes her head. “It’s just a suggestion, and she says she can get Piper on it, but he doesn’t want to lose the feature spot. He’s not feeling up to it either though.”

“I didn’t know that.” Jason slumps in his seat a bit, frowning off at the distance. It might be nothing, but Hazel’s tone of voice makes him think it’s whatever has had Nico so worried today. And here he’s caught up with his sandwich thief.

Hazel must see his thoughts on his face. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It’s not all on you to look out for him, is it? Just make sure he’s doing okay every once in a while, and let me know. I don’t get to talk to him half as much as I’d like.” When Jason keeps pouting, she reaches across the desk and – when someone else would hold his hand or pat his shoulder – gives him a light slap on his cheek, which Jason weirdly prefers. “Chin up,” she says. “So you wanted that name, right?”

Jason blinks. “You’ll give it to me for nothing? No payment?”

“I wasn’t going to but you look so sad.” She starts rummaging around her desk’s drawers. “You caught me in a soft moment, I guess. Better take advantage of it while it lasts. Here it is!”

She pulls out a wrinkled paper and smooths it out onto the desk. “Alright, let’s see, lasagna, lasagna, la –“

She cuts herself off, eyes widening comically, mouth turning into a large O. She looks up at Jason, disbelief in her eyes. Jason grabs the page and turns it towards himself.

There, in her neat cursive:

Lasagna – Leo Valdez

~*~

He peeks out from behind the wall at Leo sitting on his desk for a whole five minutes before psyching himself up enough to go talk to him.

As soon as Leo spots him, Jason has the urge to do a swift U-turn, but Leo’s face brightens with a smile. “Yo, Jason!” he calls. “Come here, man. Long time, no talk.”

He tosses a pile of papers onto his desk, pulling up a chair for Jason and patting it. Hesitantly, Jason takes his seat, trying not to move away when Leo scoots his own chair closer. He rests his elbows on his knees, wiggling his eyebrows at Jason.

“So,” he says, drawing out the O, “What’s up?”

Jason’s throat is dry. The only thing going through his head is: not Leo, not Leo, oh my god anyone but Leo and different variants of why Leo why?

The person in question frowns a bit. “You okay, bro?”

“Yeah, I’m,” Jason clears his throat, “Fine. I just have a question to ask.”

“Sure, man, ask away.”

Are you out of your mind? “Are you still dating that girl?”

Leo nods. “Yeah,”

“And you guys haven’t been having any relationship problems?”

“Uh, no? I mean, one or two here and there, but who doesn’t?” He grins. “We work ‘em out pretty well, if you know what I mean.”

Jason laughs awkwardly, not really sure if he knows what he means. Leo’s eyeing him curiously now, obviously picking up on the tense air. “Did you need something, Jason?”

“No I just… well, yeah, I…” he sighs, deciding to go in the direction he planned. “Leo, you know you’re my best friend, right? Or at least, one of.”

“Yeah.”

“So you know you can tell me whatever you want? No matter what it is, I’ll be here to support you.”

Leo’s frown seems permanently etched into his forehead now. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he says slowly.

Jason rubs a hand on his face. This is a lot harder than anticipated. He might as well leap into it. “Leo, you’re straight, right?”

“Yes?”

“Is that a question?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Leo,” Jason says, putting weight in his words, “If you like a guy, you know that’s totally okay, right?”

“Okay.”

“And if you have ever had a crush on a guy, Leo –“

“Like a dude crush?”

“– Yeah, whatever – you should know that I’m one hundred percent here for you and also that I kind of already know who it is –“

“You do?”

“– And Leo, I’m sorry, I’m flattered and all but –“

“I’m just scared Hazel will kill me.”

Jason’s brain short-circuits. “Uh. What?”

“Hazel,” Leo shrugs, seeming incredibly off-handed to a person who’s supposedly talking to their crush. “I’m kinda terrified of her. No one knows that better than you though, huh?”

“Why would Hazel kill you?”

“Because of my dude crush on Frank?”

Jason’s eyes boggle out of his head. “Frank Zhang?” he cries, leaping to his feet and startling Leo. “Leo, oh my god! Have you no shame?”

Leo’s mouth drops open. “I thought you said it was okay!”

“Frank Zhang? You would do that to Frank?”

“He’s really buff, okay?!” Leo shouts wildly. “Who the hell did you think I was talking about?”

“Me! You’re my sandwich thief!”

Leo’s mouth twists in disgust. “I am not! Get away from me, you sicko.”

“You cooked that lasagna!” Jason points an accusing finger into Leo’s face. “The lasagna the sandwich thief dropped off for me – it’s the exact same recipe used for the lasagna you made for the potluck months ago. Don’t lie to me, Leo.”

“Is that what this is all about?” Leo slaps Jason’s hand out of his face. “Dude, that could’ve been anyone.”

“It’s your recipe.”

“Yes it is, and you know what? It’s freaking awesome, which is why six different people asked me for it during the potluck. I told everyone I’d eventually post it on the notice board in the hallway, and I did. Literally anyone could’ve noted it down from there.” He kicks at Jason. “Now get away from me, you complete pervert.”

Jason does, staring down at Leo, processing his words. The last few minutes have given him whiplash. “It’s not you,” he says finally, “You’re not my sandwich thief.”

“Of course not. Why the hell would you think I have a crush on my bro? That’s incest, man.”

“You’re not my sandwich thief.”

“Oh and by the way, I’m actually straight as an arrow, I kid you not. I know it’s hard to believe in this workplace – where practically no one is hetero – but I am. Checking out my dude friend occasionally doesn’t mean anything. Whoever says they don’t do that is lying.”

He does have a point. “Frank is really buff,” he agrees.

“Why are you grinning?”

“I’m not,” he says, but he so is, because Leo isn’t his sandwich thief and thank god Leo isn’t his sandwich thief.

Leo catches on quick. He laughs at him, then pushes himself up and slaps him on the back. “Don’t worry, dude. I have no doubt your sandwich thief is some pretty boy who writes featured articles regularly and reads, like, Tolstoy.”

Jason sniggers. “That’s actually not my type at all.”

“The ‘pretty boy’ type is.”

Jason laughs and before he knows it, he’s hugging Leo, who looks surprised but not unpleasantly so. He thumps Jason on the back again. “Look at you, man. All this secret admirer stuff is making you soft.”

Jason pulls away. “I’m not going to lie, I’m really, really, really happy it’s not you. The truth is I’m kind of invested in this now, and it would be really disappointing to know it’s a friend I can’t imagine being with, or worse, a cruel prank.”

“If it does turn out to be a cruel prank, don’t worry, I’ll beat up the guy for you.”

“Or get Frank,” Jason laughs. “He’s more buff.”

~*~

Jason borrows the lasagna recipe from Leo and spends that evening making it. He knows it’s the exact same thing the sandwich thief made for him but somehow, it doesn’t taste the same.

Chapter Text

Jason’s getting his sandwich ready to put in the refrigerator when a mental reminder goes ding ding ding in his head, so he turns to Nico and says, “Hey, what’s this about some article Reyna’s making you write?”

Nico, who is going through the notices pinned on the bulletin board, starts at Jason’s sudden question. “What?”

“Hazel told me. She mentioned you were upset because of it. What is it?”

“I’m not upset,” Nico says quickly, which is an obvious signal of how upset he is. “What does your note say today?”

“Nice change of subject. Flawless transition, honestly.”

“Shut up,” Nico snaps, grabbing his Tupperware box from him. He goes through the whole box, then raises an eyebrow at Jason. “There’s nothing in here.”

“No there isn’t,” Jason says smugly, placing the sandwich into the fridge, “Because he’s not stealing it today.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I am going to be right here in the lunch room,” he raps once at the table beside them, “the whole time to catch him.”

“Annabeth’s not going to let you do that. She’ll report you to Reyna.”

“Why would she? I’ll still be doing my writing. I’ll just bring it here. It shouldn’t matter where I work as long as I do.”

“By that logic, I should be able to take my computer up to the window ledge in the highest floor and write articles there while my legs dangle over the whole city.”

“Yeah, go and do that,” Jason grins, approving, “More power to you. Speaking of articles,” he pulls out a chair and takes a seat at the table, motioning for Nico to do the same, “tell me about this article.”

Nico doesn’t even bother refusing him. He just flips out his phone and turns his attention there, ignoring him. Jason knows from past experience that Nico can go on ignoring him for ages (his record was a week and a half, until Will dragged a grumpy-faced Nico to a grumpy-faced Jason’s flat and made them apologize and be friends again).

Jason grabs the phone and pockets it, and in the blink of an eye, Nico’s out of his seat and headed for the door. Jason practically tackles him down again.

“What,” he demands, making Nico sit down again, “is so bad about that article?”

Nico folds his arms on the table and buries his head in them. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I only want to help.”

Nico silently crosses his arms on top of his head. Sighing heavily enough to make a point, Jason collapses on his own chair.

“I told you, I’m going to be in this room all day. And I won’t let you leave either, so you might as well talk to me.”

Nico is unmoving. Jason was planning to go get his work supplies from his desk once he’d set the bait for the thief in the fridge, but apparently that’s not going to happen for a while. He just sits back and people-watches.

After a while, Nico peeks at him from between his arms. His voice is muffled when he speaks. “It’s stupid. You’ll make fun of me.”

“No I won’t,” Jason laughs, because honestly the thought of it is so preposterous. “If I didn’t laugh it you when you told me about your fear of Furbies, I won’t laugh now.”

“That wasn’t a laughing matter. Everyone’s scared of Furbies. You’re weird for not being scared of them.” When Jason just gives him a look in return, he slumps in his seat. “It’s about the changeover from being a kid to being an grown-ups – all that stuff on how teenagers are expected to be children one day and responsible adults the next. Reyna knows a lot of our readership is close to that age group – like seventeen to twenty-two or so – so she wanted to cover it.” He frowns. “I don’t know why she thought of me.”

“You’re the youngest writer here. Maybe she thought you could relate.”

He shakes his head. “It’s a good idea but I’m not right for it. I didn’t exactly have the most normal childhood. I had to grow up at ten, not eighteen. Whenever I try to write it, I always go back to much worse times, and I’ve been through enough to know that’s not good for me.” He rubs at his eyes tiredly. “I don’t want to disappoint Reyna.”

Jason’s not sure what to say. He knows only bits and pieces of Nico’s childhood, but the things he does know make him want to tuck Nico in a fluffy green blanket and cradle him while the two of them watch How To Train Your Dragon over and over and over again.

But as sympathetic as he is to Nico’s plight, he can’t help but think how great of a job he would do at this article. He doesn’t even know the particulars of it but he likes to think he was a pretty well-adjusted person throughout his teens, and that he took his responsibilities and duties as an adult in stride too. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he was popular in high school, but he was well-liked – and college was great for him, excluding all the anxiety he got because of his studies.

The more he thinks of it, the more he convinces himself. He would be really good at writing this – if he wasn’t an agony aunt. As it is, the best solution would be to give it to someone who could do just as good a job as him.

“I think you should pass it over to Piper,” he says to Nico. “It’s no use torturing yourself over it, and it sounds to me like Piper would be great at this.”

“She will be. I thought of it before. Maybe I should just give it to her.” Nico sighs. He stares off into the distance for a while, contemplating, and then stands up. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your secret admirer stuff. I can get your stuff from your desk if you like.”

“Aren’t you staying with me?” Jason says, surprised.

Nico snorts. “No. There’s no way Annabeth’s going to let you stay here all day, and I don’t want to face her wrath.”

“She won’t be that angry, will she?” Jason says, chewing his lip.

Nico smirks. “I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”

~*~

Jason begs everyone he comes across to not rat him out to Annabeth, and so he’s able to spend a whole two and a half hours in the corner of the lunch room, working and keeping an eye out for his thief, before she discovers him.

During those two hours, Jason finishes reading the letters he’s received and even composes half-decent replies for most of them. Only three or four are ever published per issue, but Jason tries to squeeze in as many as he can in the small space he’s allotted in the magazine by keeping his replies short but friendly as well.

He’s halfway through the letters when his mind wanders and he starts thinking about Nico’s article again. The subject of it was very vague, and he knows you need a lot more information than that to start writing an article – not to mention, the featured writers always draw a draft or an outline first and submit it to Annabeth, and it’s only when she green-lights it that they can go on with the actual writing process.

There’s so much more to writing than Jason’s aware of but he wants to know all of it. Especially so he can use it and actually test how good he even is – for all he knows, he might be a terrible writer.

And wouldn’t it be great practice to write Nico’s article himself? Just for fun, of course. Nico brought him his laptop anyway. If he’s being honest, he started writing it in his head the moment he heard it, so what’s the harm?

Maybe it’s because he knows no one’s going to read it and it’s just for fun that he pours everything he’s thinking into it, not even caring about word limit, only pausing for a second or two when a particular word slips out of his mind. He’s mulling over the closing paragraph when a hand slams into his table, making him jump and slap his laptop closed out of reflex (he’s been caught searching highly embarrassing things on the Internet one too many times).

And there’s his nightmare standing in front of him, glaring at him with fierce grey eyes. “What are you doing here?” she snaps.

Jason sets his jaw, unwilling to show weakness. “Working.”

“You have a desk, Jason.”

“I know. But I choose to work here.”

Annabeth leans in close. “You can’t do that,” she says slowly, emphasizing every word.

A squeak builds in his throat, but Jason wrestles it down. “There’s no rule that says that,” he argues, “I can sit in the lunch room if I want, and you can’t stop me.”

“Can’t I?” she cocks an eyebrow, and Jason immediately regrets her words. She’s not allowed to hit him, right?

They have a stare-off for what seems like an hour, Jason all the while screaming at himself in his head not to give in. Finally, just when his eyes are starting to water, Annabeth backs off and marches out of the room, throwing him a look over her shoulder that makes him think he’s not out of the woods yet.

He doesn’t even get his sigh of relief though. The door never closes behind Annabeth because a new herd of people enter, chattering amongst themselves, laughing and shoving each other, huddling around the fridge and microwave to pull their food out and then gathering at tables. Jason glances up at the clock.

It’s lunchtime.

Not wasting a second, he jumps up from his seat and positions himself near the fridge, where he’ll be able to see anyone touch his lunch. A few people give him odd looks – he tries to seem casual, but he ends up scratching at his chin while looking off at a corner of the ceiling instead.

He does keep an eye out for his sandwich, but no one touches it. No one even seems to notice it.

Suspicious, he trains his gaze at the people around him, pausing the ones that make his alarm bells go off.

There’s a guy with curly dark hair who seems slightly drunk but isn’t interesting other than that, and barely even glances Jason’s way. Another dude with light brown hair and a beanie walks funny as he passes Jason, almost as if he’s slowing down next to him, but then Jason realizes that’s just the way he walks. One guy has scars on his face and a cast on his arm, yet another one chugs at a disturbingly blue drink, and there’s an impressively muscular man with an interesting rainbow tattoo on his bicep. Jason knows some of them and they even catch him staring a few times, which ends up in him awkwardly waving and saying hi from afar.

His sandwich is untouched. None of them are his thief.

Did he give up? The thought leaves a bitter taste under Jason’s tongue. He wouldn’t do that, not after all that flirting. Would he?

Shouldn’t he be glad he has his sandwich all to himself? He opens the fridge door and stares at it for a few seconds. He was extra careful while making it this morning – has been for the past few days. Everything was correctly proportioned and warmed before adding, the layers all evenly distributed, the mustard carefully squeezed so it wouldn’t drip down, and then the sandwich pressed down into an edible height.

He never took this much care making it for himself. He made it for the stupid thief. And the guy never even showed up.

He shuts the door and folds his arms, looking away from everyone around him. He can feel his eyebrows furrowing and his lips pursing in annoyance. He can’t keep his disappointment and hurt hidden for long.

Jaw clenched, he sits at his table and gets back to work.

~*~

The lunch room is almost empty by the time Annabeth finds him again.

She has Reyna in tow, which he should have expected. Nico trails along beside them, spiritedly trying to explain Jason away. Jason wants to pat him on the head for his loyalty but right now he feels too weighed down to even move.

God, he’s such a drama queen. Maybe that’s why no one wants him.

Reyna comes to a stop beside his table. “Jason,” she says, hands on her hips.

He lets out a long exhale. “I know, I know. No working in the lunch room.”

“You have a desk for a reason. If you don’t want to use it, feel free to let me know so I can use that space for something else.”

She’s going to make a storage room out of his workspace. He pushes himself off his chair and starts picking up his things. “I was leaving anyway.”

“Is this because of the whole sandwich thief deal?” Annabeth demands. “Because if that’s cutting into your productivity, Jason –“

“No he’s not,” Jason cuts her off. “It’s all fine now.”

Nico frowns. “You okay?”

“Uh-huh. Help me with this stuff, will you?”

He doesn’t miss the looks the other three exchange between them before Annabeth and Nico move forward to help him. Jason cradles his laptop close to his chest, wondering if he should mention to Nico that he wrote a whole article that will probably never see the light of day.

He’s still got his back turned to his friends when Reyna says, soundly strangely dumbfounded, “Um… Jason?”

“What?” Jason says wearily.

“Uh…”

“Delivery for Jason Grace?”

Jason freezes, his hands stopping mid-motion. There’s complete silence in the whole lunch room, and a beautiful fresh fragrance is spreading around him.

Slowly, he turns around – and is greeted by a face full of flowers.

The bouquet is huge, easily half his height, big enough that Hazel would collapse underneath it and emerge as a Hazel pancake. It’s a celebration of color and scents, flowers of all the colors of the rainbow displayed side-by-side so superbly you’d wonder why they don’t naturally grow like that. And there’s so many – roses, amaryllis, orchids, tulips, lilies… Jason doesn’t even know most of them.

Everyone in the lunch room is gaping at it. Beside Jason, a wide-eyed Nico whispers, “It’s so ugly,” and Reyna elbows him so hard, he doubles over.

A face peeks out from behind the arrangement – an unenthusiastic delivery girl looking at him expectantly. “Are you Jason Grace?” she asks, smacking her gum.

It takes him a minute to find his voice. “Yes.”

“This is yours,” she says, and then proceeds to dump it in his arms. Reyna and Annabeth scramble to help him (Nico is still incapacitated) and when he buries his head out of the flowers, spitting out petals, a clipboard is thrust under his nose. “Sign here,” the delivery girl commands.

Jason manages the bouquet with one hand while signing with the other, grateful for all those hours spent at the gym. The girl turns on her heel to leave, but Jason cries out, “Wait! Who gave this to you?”

She smacks her gum again. “It’s anonymous. I can’t tell you. Company rules. But you can probably find out from the card.”

“Card?” She points at the bouquet. Jason turns his head and there, nestled between two carnations, is a simple white card.

On top of it, in purple scrawled handwriting: Thought I forgot, didn’t you? And then that damned winky face.

Jason can hardly keep his laughs inside him. His lips are already stretching into a permanent grin. Nico snatches the card off and holds it open so they can both read:

In fact, I didn’t forget AT ALL. I came to the lunch room ON TIME and whaddaya know, Jason freaking Grace is standing right next to the fridge waiting for me. That was very smart of you, by the way, but not smart enough. You’re not catching me that easily.

And yes, before you wonder, I did see your cute little pout at me not showing up. I had no idea you liked people stealing your lunch so much. Also, PLEASE exercise caution while making adorable faces, you practically gave me a heart attack.

But I did feel guilty. So here is my apology, by way of flowers. I don’t know your favorite so just have all of them. I made lunch for you today too, but the delivery girl said she couldn’t care it AND the bouquet. It’s a pity too. You missed out on some really good homemade pizza. Oh, well, we’ll be eating our own lunch for once.

P.S. I’m sorry if you’re allergic to any of these flowers and are sneezing up a storm right now. You probably still look hella cute while sneezing so there’s that

Before Jason can stop himself, he giggles. Honest-to-goodness giggles. Reyna and Annabeth give him twin surprised stares, but Nico seems like he expected it for a while.

The delivery girl is still standing there. “Is that all? I have more deliveries to make.”

Jason grins at her, tucking the card in his pocket. “How about one more?”

~*~

As the delivery girl waits by, Jason quickly writes a note back:

Dear Sandwich Thief,

Okay, I admit it. You outwitted me. And you’re incredibly sweet. That’s two points for you.

Was the bouquet really expensive? It looked like it. If you want, you could send me the bill? (And yes, I know you won’t actually, it’s only polite to offer.)

Oh my god, I missed out on PIZZA? And all because I tried to hunt you down. Never trying that again. Feel free to send me as much food as you like. I’ll just sit here and indulge myself.

But seriously, though. You still annoy me but not as much as before and I can honestly say that if you tell me who you are, we can become friends. No joke, I would really, really, REALLY like to get to know you. REALLY REALLY. So it’s up to you.

Sincerely, Jason Grace

P.S. Don’t worry, I wasn’t allergic to any of them. But yes, I do look insanely cute while sneezing, if I do say so myself.

He heats up the sandwich, places his letter carefully inside the box, pays the delivery girl extra and then sends her off, settling back into his desk chair himself.

Nico raises his eyebrows at him. “Aren’t you going to follow her to see where she goes? I thought that’s why you were doing this.”

It’s a good idea, but Jason doesn’t want to find him out, not anymore. He wants the sandwich thief to come to him – or at least, give him a blatant clue as to who he is, if he’s shy about it.

“No,” he says to Nico, thumbing the petals of the bouquet, forever mesmerized by its beauty. “I think I’ll wait for him instead.”

Chapter Text

Jason buys a humungous vase that evening and pops the flowers in water once he’s gone. By the end of the weekend, some of them are already wilting, so he chooses the ones he likes best and presses them between the pages of his favorite novels. He knows he can’t preserve them forever, but he can hope.

He doesn’t get any secret admirer letters the whole weekend, of course, although he stupidly checks his mail for them each day. He’s kind of relieved he hasn’t received any right at his doorstep. Even through his joy-addled mind he can tell that would be a little creepy.

But he’s on cloud nine all weekend, even more so whenever he catches sight of the flowers or the notes (which he’s stuck to his own refrigerator door). By the time Monday rolls around, he’s ready to deal with anything – starting with that article.

He fixed it at home a bit, edited it here and there. He prints it and confidently strides with the copy into Nico’s office, eager to show it to him and get some feedback.

What he gets, however, a wholly unwanted view of Nico and Will half-dressed and attached to each other like magnets.

“This,” Nico snaps as he pulls on his clothes, “is the second time in as many weeks, Jason!”

“I wouldn’t walk in if you locked the door!”

“I tried,” Will grumbles, “but someone likes the element of danger it adds and won’t let me.”

Needless to say, Nico threw Will out of the office not long after that comment. While Jason sprayed the sex stink away with an air freshener (all the while holding his T-shirt up to his nose like he was in a landfill), Nico collapses in his chair and eyes the papers in Jason’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh, I’m not letting you touch it until you wash your hands.”

“Oh my god.”

“I’m serious. I saw where your hands were, Nico di Angelo, and it wasn’t pretty.” He takes a seat across from Nico. “I can wait.”

Glaring at him the whole time, Nico pulls out a hand sanitizer and cleans his hands, then holds them out for Jason to inspect. Jason spends an unnecessarily large amount of time poking at his palms with a pencil while Nico groans in frustration, before nodding in approval and handing over his writing.

Nico snatches it. “You’re annoyingly chipper these days. Makes me want to peel off your skin and rub salt all over with you.”

Jason just smiles at him as he flips through the papers, suddenly nervous. He watches as Nico’s expression morphs from annoyed to confused to surprised. Finally, he looks up at Jason and says, “This is my article. But you… wrote it?”

Jason nods. “It’s just for fun. You said how you had no idea how to write it but I didn’t think it would be hard for me so I just…” he gestures to the paper, “did. Granted, it’s not a final draft yet, but –“

“You want it to be published?”

The certainty that Nico says it with, like all Jason has to say is yes and it’ll be in the next issue, takes Jason aback. “Um. Well. I wasn’t thinking on it.” Nico looks puzzled again. “I’m not a writer, Nico. And it’s really unpolished. It can’t be published anyway.”

“But aren’t you showing me this so I can pass it on to Annabeth?”

Jason blinks. “You can?”

“Yeah. She and Reyna will decide whether it’s good enough to be published but,” he looks the paper over, “I don’t think it’ll need that much work.”

Jason’s mind is still catching up. He never expected for it to be published. It’s his own word vomit. He thought it would help Nico write the actual article – at the most, maybe motivate Jason to do some writing of his own. He’s not even a writer.

“Nico, this – this is your article, anyway. I can’t just steal your article.”

“You’re not stealing anything, Jason. To be honest, I was going to pass it over to Piper anyway.” His gaze softens. “No matter how good of a writer I become, I’ll never be able to write about certain things the way I want to. But it looks like you can, so why shouldn’t you get that opportunity?”

Jason stares at him. Nico’s eyes are clear and he nods encouragingly at him. Jason lets out a long exhale. “You… you really think I could get published?”

Nico smiles wide. “I do. If you want.”

“If I want?” Jason laughs, his heart swelling with each inhale until he feels like it might burst.

“Awesome,” Nico grins. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? We need to make a good case for Annabeth and Reyna to let you on, and we can only do that if your article is so perfect, Reyna wonders why you aren’t published yet.”

Jason’s practically jumping in his seat. “How do we do that?”

Nico grins, grabs a red pen and uncaps it. “Editing time.”

~*~

If Jason’s learnt anything being surrounded by writers for the past few years, it’s that each and every one of them possesses an extraordinary blend of arrogance and inadequacy that he hasn’t discovered in any other people. They all truly think their writings are inferior to their colleagues’, but at the same time, believe everything they write deserves to be hailed as revolutionary. They’re admiring and criticizing of other people’s work just as much as they’re of their own, and all at the same time. Nico tells Jason every element of that is necessary if you want to better your writing, but he can tell Nico has no idea what he’s talking about.

Nevertheless, despite only writing an advice column for most of his career (and unpublished stand-alone short stories here and there), Jason seems to have fallen prey to exactly that thinking. He knew he was doubting himself even before he put pen to paper, but it’s not until Nico starts covering his paper with red marks that he realizes how absolutely sure he was that his article was the stuff of legends.

And Nico’s so casual about it too, omitting or replacing words, rearranging whole paragraphs, cutting complete sentences out. He leans his head on his hand as he wrecks (improves?) the article, and it’s entirely too long before he realizes Jason’s gaping at him.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he waves it off, “It’s not that it’s bad. You’re just new to this, so there’s obviously stuff to fix. It’s actually impressive for your first time writing.”

“Impressive,” Jason repeats as Nico scrawls a sentence of his own at the end of a paragraph.

“Uh-huh. Every magazine has a writing style, see, and all the writers have to follow it so it’s not like a bumpy roller coaster ride for the reader. And that’s difficult, because everyone has a different writing style. They’re like fingerprints. They might look a lot alike but no two are ever completely the same.”

“Oh.”

“That’s what makes our job so hard. We’ve got to write according to the general approach, but we have to add something of our own too, so the readers eventually start to recognize – and love – your trademark. So they can choose favorites, basically. And the favorite has to be you.” He beams at Jason. “Get what I mean?”

“This is a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

“You’ll get the hang of it, like everyone else did.” He laughs. “You look so worried.”

“You’re painting the whole thing red, of course I am.” He slumps in his seat. “I would eat my lunch for comfort but I already did.”

Nico pauses, pen hovering over the paper. “It’s not lunchtime yet.”

“I was hungry.”

Nico puts the pen down, raises an eyebrow at him. Jason rolls his eyes at him. “Fine!” he gives in. “I wanted to hear from him.”

And that does it. Nico forgets about the article in record time, turning his complete attention to Jason, huge smile on his face, waiting for the note.

Jason sighs. “There was no note.”

The smile drops off Nico’s face like he’s just told him he’s going to die today. “No note? Did you write one?”

“No, it’s his turn now.”

“But he didn’t send one? He’s never done that before.”

Jason shrugs. “I don’t know, but I’m not concerned.”

“You’re… not?”

“Nope. I would’ve doubted everything a couple of days ago but not anymore. I figure he’s got something up his sleeve and I’m willing to wait until he reveals it.”

Nico studies him through narrowed eyes. “You’re very sure of yourself.”

Jason smiles languidly. “Must have been the incredible fajitas he made me.”

Nico’s eyes widen. “No.”

“I’m telling you, Nico, I thought I died and went to heaven when I first took a bite.”

“No. You didn’t save any for me!”

“I would have, but you had something else entirely in your mouth at that time.”

Nico throws his pen at Jason, who just laughs in his face. “I hope he doesn’t write you back,” Nico grumbles. “No, I hope he does, and you both meet and like each other and love each other and date for a long time and get engaged and you’re both incredibly happy and you’re getting married and then he leaves you at the altar.”

Jason stares. “You are an evil little bunny, Nico.”

“Don’t,” Nico points at finger at him, “call me little.”

~*~

“It’s strange,” Annabeth says, flabbergasted, “It’s actually good.”

Jason snorts. “Well, thanks.”

She holds a new, edited (by Nico) copy of his article in her hands, which Nico pitched to her, and which she’s now come to Jason’s desk to discuss. She keeps glancing up at him as she goes through it, as if making sure it’s really him. He would be offended if she wasn’t exaggerating it on purpose (or at least, he thinks she is).

“Did Nico help you with this?”

“Yeah, he did. It was actually his article first but –“

“I know. This didn’t cut into your column writing, did it?”

“Not even a little bit.” Jason fervently shakes his head. The month’s issue is almost ready – to be issued tomorrow – so of course he’s already wrote his column.

Annabeth nods. “I was glad this article is going in the next issue because I was worried Nico wasn’t going to make the deadline. But I suppose he doesn’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Jason’s chest swells. “So it’s good enough to be published?”

“Honestly? I think so. But,” she quickly holds up a hand, “don’t celebrate yet. Reyna will have to approve it in the end, and I’ll send this to Frank to go through first, of course.”

“But is it good enough?”

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

Jason can’t help it. He moves forwards and hugs her. He quickly pulls away in case she knees him, but she doesn’t seem insulted. In fact, her lips are turning up at the corners. “You are way too happy these days,” she observes.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“Not at all,” she responds instantly. “It’s nice to see someone get this excited about writing. Just don’t get your hopes too high, okay? Reyna might not give the green light.”

Jason knows that, but he honestly doesn’t think he would even mind. He’s been here long enough to know how many drafts new writers have to submit to the editors until they get to one that can be published. If that happens for him a first time, he’ll be astronomically lucky.

If that doesn’t, he’ll just try again.

~*~

It isn’t until it’s after lunchtime that Jason opens his column mail. He spends most of his time loitering around Frank’s office. Annabeth said she’d send his article to Frank and whenever Jason had free time, he should go visit so Frank could edit it in front of him. Jason would build up the courage to knock but it would crumble by the time he raised his hand to do so.

Never mind, he thinks, I have work to do.

He puts his feet up, reaches for the first letter and starts to tear the envelope before he realizes there is none. Just paper.

Folded notebook paper.

Eyebrows shooting up his forehead, Jason quickly sits up and surveys his surroundings, as if his sandwich thief will be standing there with a label slapped to his chest. Sitting back down, Jason slowly opens the letter, not even trying to control his goofy smile.

Dear Aunty Grace,

This one has been bothering me for ages, I’ll be really surprised if you can think of a solution. See, there’s this guy at work who I like a lot but he has absolutely no idea, which is ridiculous because we’d be absolutely awesome together. We don’t even work side-by-side (so I’m daily deprived of his cuteness which is just a crime honestly). I don’t know how to go about asking him out but stealing his lunch every day and leaving letters behind is probably not a good way, right?

His sandwiches are great, but really, I just want to hold his hand. What do I do?

Yours, The Secret Admirer

Jason doesn’t even roll his eyes at the signature. Of course he’s describing himself like as a secret admirer.

He runs his thumb across the I just want to hold his hand and, for the first time that day, feels a pang of sadness. The letters have only made him happy so far but now he can’t help but think: Well, why don’t you just ask me?

The prospect of his sandwich thief being revealed to him was always certainty, but now that he’s stopped hunting him, he wonders if he ever will. What if they keep exchanging letters and nothing else? What if he never meets him?

The possibility makes him more upset than it should.

The frantic sound of footsteps rushing to his desk tears his attention away. Nico practically runs into his chair, eyes wide and horrified.

“Nico?” Jason grasps his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“Frank…” Nico mumbles.

“What’s happened? Should I call 911?”

He’s already half reaching for his phone when Nico slaps it out of his hand. Jason clutches his fingers and backs away, wondering if he’s finally gone rabid.

“Frank…” Nico says slowly, “Frank signed himself in today.”

“And?”

Nico clutches Jason’s arms. “He used a bright purple pen.”

~*~

It’s while peeking at Frank’s office door from behind a corner, feeling foolishly like he did when he went to talk to Leo, that he realizes how ridiculous he’s being. “It can’t be Frank. How could it be Frank?”

Nico slaps him so hard he jumps. “Of course it’s not him.” His eyes are wide and agitated. “He’s dating Hazel. He loves her. Why would he choose you?”

“I always love your pep talks. So motivating.”

“I’m serious. He doesn’t like guys – I don’t think he even likes girls other than Hazel.” He starts shaking his head. “Nope, nope, we are not destroying my sister’s relationship. Nope.”

“Nico, calm down,” Jason puts a hand on top of his head. He stares at it for a while, wondering where he’s going with this, then rolls with it and starts stroking his best friend’s head. “He never signed in with that pen before, has he?”

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope –“

“Then he just happened to buy it recently,” Jason explains, patting him more. He actually seems to relax as Jason does so, which reinforces Piper’s theory that Nico is part cat. “We can only find out by asking him. I’m supposed to go see him anyway, so I’ll –“

“You are not destroying my sister’s relationship.”

“It’s Frank, Nico. Of course I won’t. Now go grab your stress ball, you’re making me tense.”

~*~

Jason’s not ashamed to say he brought the most recent sandwich thief letter with him. For support or for proof – he doesn’t know, but he’s glad he did.

There are no purple pens in any of Frank’s pen pot, unless they just don’t look like it. Frank gives him warm smiles in between reading his article, and he tries for his answering ones to not be so forced.

“I have to say, Jason,” Frank finally tells him, “this is incredibly professional. If I didn’t know better, I’d think –“

“Have you bought a new pen recently?”

Frank pauses. “Uh. What?”

Blood rushes to Jason’s face. “A new pen. I just don’t see any new pens around here.”

Frank studies him warily and then points at one of his pens. “That one is fairly new.”

“May I?” Without waiting for Frank’s response, Jason grabs it and scribbles it over his palm.

It’s black.

“Do you have any purple ones?”

“Purple what?”

“Pens, Frank. Purple pens.”

Frank doesn’t answer for a while, and then, with slow movements, as if trying not to set Jason off, he plucks the pen from his hand and replaces it. “Jason,” he says, putting his interlinked hands on the desk, using his guidance counselor voice, “tell me what’s going on.”

“You signed in with a purple inked pen.” Jason leans forward, deepens his voice. He wants Frank to understand the gravity of the situation. “My sandwich thief writes the letters with a purple inked pen.”

Frank frowns for a few seconds, uncomprehending, before it dawns on him. And then, to his surprise, he doesn’t reply with exasperation like Piper had, or disgust like Leo, but laughs instead – full-bodied and boisterous. Startled (and a teeny bit offended), Jason stares at him.

“You don’t actually think it’s me?” Frank chortles. At Jason’s uncomfortable expression, he just laughs louder. “Oh my god, this is gold. Jason, I borrowed that pen from someone. I didn’t have one on me at the time.”

“Really? Well, who was it?”

Frank reigns in his laughter, staring off into the distance as he thinks about it. “Hmm… I don’t seem to remember.”

Of course he doesn’t. Typical. He’s starting to wonder if his sandwich thief is a ghost. A particularly nice ghost.

“Sorry I can’t help,” Frank says sheepishly.

“It’s fine,” Jason waves it off, “I don’t think he’ll ever reveal himself, but it’s fine, I’m willing to wait. I think.”

A smile still lingers on Frank’s face as he picks up the article again. “You know, I have a few suspects for your sandwich thing. People who I think might be likely. Want to hear it?”

“No thanks. Knowing my luck, it probably isn’t any of them.”

“If you’re sure,” Frank relents. “I guess we’re done here then.”

“But… my article?”

“Do you really think we can talk normally about your article after that? I’ll pass it on to Reyna and gush about it, of course, and she’ll tell you what she thinks tomorrow. But for now…” he smothers his laughs as he reaches for his phone, “I have to tell this to Hazel.”

And, well, he mentioned Hazel, so Jason running out of the office and not stopping until he was safely locked in Nico’s is completely justified.

~*~
The rest of the day is a frenzy, Jason scrambling all over the building so he can squeeze in the reply to his sandwich thief’s letter into the next issue while hiding from Annabeth because he knows she’ll think he didn’t complete his work on time, and cursing his sandwich thief all the while in his head.

He knows he doesn’t have to publish the letter or the reply. It’s so last minute, and he could just leave it in his lunch box the next day for him to find. But he sent it into the advice column, and when Jason thinks about the food, the flowers, and oh god the laxatives, he really wants to do this.

Somehow, manages to squeeze it into the issue. It’ll be in print the next day, both the letter and his response:

Dear Sandwich Thief,

Take a leap and show yourself. He wants to know who you are more than you might think. You can’t hold his hand if you never reach for it.

Chapter Text

Today is the day. Jason knows it.

Today is exactly one week since he received the first sandwich thief letter, and what better day for his sandwich thief to reveal himself than now?

It helps that Jason so effectively pointed it out in the reply to the last letter. He sits at his desk, the completed new issue of the magazine in his hands, reading the published words of his and his sandwich thief over and over in the Ask Aunty section.

…this guy at work who I like a lot, Jason reads, …we’d be absolutely awesome together.

Today has to be the day. If not now, then when? As sweet as all his notes have been, the novelty of secrecy is already wearing off. Jason can’t go on exchanging letters with him forever. He needs to know who he is but more than that, he needs for the sandwich thief to willingly show himself instead of Jason hounding him down like he tried before.

Of course, all of that depends on the sandwich thief. Maybe he’s too shy. Or maybe he just likes torturing Jason, which is much more likely.

“Why the long face? Wait, don’t tell me Reyna already refused you.”

Nico’s leaning against his desk, brow furrowed, even as he chomps down red licorice. Apparently, Will viewed the sandwich thief’s gigantic bouquet as a challenge, especially because Nico wouldn’t stop talking about how nice the flowers were, and had gifted his boyfriend with a candy basket big enough to rival the bouquet. Nico had distributed half the candy around the office and was busy eating through the rest, which was why his mouth was constantly filled with chocolate and nougat these days.

“No, she didn’t,” Jason answers, shaking his head when Nico offers him some of the licorice. “I wanted to talk to her first thing this morning, but Annabeth says she’s going to be busy with the Marketing department all day. I’ll try to catch her later.”

“Oh. Then why so sad?”

Jason sighs. He tilts the magazine towards Nico. “I just want to know who he is. I don’t understand why he’s taking so long.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to yet. I know he practically declares his love for you in every one of his notes, but it’s a lot harder to look someone in the eye and bare your feelings for them.”

Jason frowns. “Are you talking about Will?”

Nico huffs a laugh. “Something like that. Trust me, he’ll come to you whenever he wants to. Until then, just enjoy it.” He tilts his head. “Or we could continue plotting out traps for him. There are a million things we haven’t tried out yet.”

Jason shakes his head. “It wouldn’t feel right to find him out like that.”

“Then we can do something else for fun, to take your mind off of this stuff.”

“Nico, your definition of fun in the workplace is sex with Will on your desk,” Jason frowns, remembering earlier today when he walked in on them yet again, “which is strange because I seem to remember you telling me it would be gross if you did that.”

Nico shrugs. “I changed my mind. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

Jason sighs, glancing down at the magazine. “At this rate, that’ll never happen.”

~*~

He spends most of the day in the higher floors of the building, going through a few problems in publishing that arose from his last minute addition in the issue. When he’s done, he finds an empty elevator and rests for a few seconds on the back wall, eyes closed, until he hears the words, “Hold the door!”

Jason jolts forward, pressing his hand against the moving doors, just as someone else hurriedly rounds the corner and slaps their hand on top of his.

Jason’s eyes shoot up until they’re locked with a set of green ones that widen impossibly at the sight of him. The two of them stand there for a while until Jason realizes the doors have slid out from under their hands, and they’re just standing there staring at each other while holding hands.

“Oh,” Jason blushes, extricating his hand, “Sorry.”

He flashes his pearly whites. “It’s all good.”

He steps into the elevator and presses the button for the ground floor. He’s dressed in jeans and a form-fitting shirt that’s almost as black as his messy hair, and is lugging a huge box filled with files and folders. The file room’s at the lowest floor, he must be a clerk…

But he looks so familiar. Jason’s seen him before, hasn’t he?

“Wait, I know you,” he blurts. The guy, who had been grinning down at his box of folders for an indiscernible reason, glances up and raises his eyebrows. He’s biting his lip as if trying to hold laughter in.

“Do we?” he asks. His voice is deep and bubbling with glee. It sparks a memory.

“You’re Nico’s friend!” Jason cries.

His eyebrows go even higher. “Nico’s friend? Can’t say I’ve been described like that much.”

“Nico di Angelo! We met that one time at his birthday – hold on, you don’t work as a clerk here, do you? I could’ve sworn that’s not how Nico introduced us.” He flushes. “Sorry, I’m rambling, I don’t even know your name.”

His face falls. Like Jason’s flipped a switch, the light in his eyes dulls and his smile droops. “You don’t know my name?”

“Oh, uh…” Is it Jason, or did his eyes actually go into full puppy-dog mode? He looks so hurt, Jason wants to slap himself. He wracks his brain. “I, uh…”

“Percy.” His lips twitch up a little at the sight of Jason slapping his forehead in exasperation and whispering, “Percy!” to himself. “And you’re Jason.”

Jason blinks. “Uh, yeah.” Percy gives him a lopsided grin, and Jason smiles back without realizing. “You know who I am?”

“’Course!” he beams, that close-to-laughing lilt slipping back into his voice. Jason wonders if he always talks like that. It’s kinda cute. “Wouldn’t it be a crime to work in this building and not know who the great Aunty Grace is?”

“Oh my god,” Jason groans, covering his face (read: smile) with his hands. “Isn’t this thing supposed to be anonymous?”

“Plenty of stuff is supposed to be anonymous, but I know everything.” When Jason removes his hands, Percy’s wiggling his eyebrows at him. “Don’t worry, though, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thank god, I wouldn’t want anyone to know about my secret double life.”

A laugh bubbles out of him then, just as bright and happy as the rest of him. Jason finds himself laughing along, all the tension from the morning leaving him in waves.

“And no, to answer your question,” Percy continues once he recovers, “I’m not a clerk. But I brought all this stuff up to my office,” he tilts his chin at the box, “and I’d rather not make extra work for someone to take down and file, so I thought I’d do it myself.”

Jason glances at the box curiously and Percy hefts it higher to make it easier for him to see. His hands tighten on the edges of the box, the lines of his tendons standing out, and when he pulls the box upwards, the muscles in his forearms strain against his skin – which is a lot more tanned than Jason had thought, a golden brown that looks really nice on him…

“Jason?”

Percy’s voice is deeper and when Jason glances up, his face much closer than before.

“Your floor is here,” he continues. Jason doesn’t have to turn around to know that. He can Leo’s shrill laughter from all the way over here, accompanied by Piper’s screams of “HAZEL LEVESQUE, YOU PUT THAT BOOMERANG DOWN OR SO HELP ME!” He doesn’t even care what’s going on.

Percy’s eyes are a lot darker than he first thought.

“Do you want some help?” Jason blurts. “With your filing and all?”

Percy blinks. Once, twice. Than a smile spreads across his face. “Whatever you say, Aunty Grace.”

~*~

“So. What is this sandwich thief deal?”

Jason almost trips over a cabinet. He glances over his shoulder at Percy, his flush bleeding down his neck. “What?”

Percy’s sitting on a chair at the only table in the filing room, thumbing through a drawer full of files in front of him. “Your sandwich thief. Nico told me.”

Jason lets out a nervous laugh. “Never thought Nico would go around spilling stuff everywhere.”

Percy’s hands pause over his files. “Would you rather not talk about it?”

To be honest, Jason would rather not talk about it with Percy. They’ve only spent fifteen minutes down here, but Jason already feels like he’s cheating on his sandwich thief or something. Which is ridiculous, because it’s not like he owes the thief a date. But he did like him a lot, enough to imagine scenarios with the faceless guy as he lay in bed at night, and yet, here he was, periodically checking out someone he really only met less than an hour ago.

Jason can’t really be blamed, though. He doesn’t know how he missed it at Nico’s birthday – or wherever else he first met Percy – but the guy is, long story short, really hot. And he has great eyes, which everyone knows are Jason’s weakness. He’s friendly and nice too, and has an adorably dorky sense of humor that suits him perfectly.

Not to mention, he’s a real, actual person. Not faceless like his sandwich thief. In fact, he has quite an attractive face.

And Jason’s feeling guilty for having noticed that.

The sandwich thief is not your boyfriend, he reminds himself. Just because he makes you food and buys you flowers and eats a laxative for you and writes you sweet letters… where was I going with this?

Something flimsy collides with the side of his head. Jason looks down to see a crumpled ball of paper lying at his feet and narrows his eyes at Percy, who was busy up balling another one. “You wouldn’t answer when I said your name. I was worried you were having a seizure or something.”

“So your first thought was to throw stuff at me?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Percy beams. “We were talking about your sandwich thief.”

He sits forward as if eager to hear what Jason has to say. Jason takes a seat across from him. “There’s not much to tell.”

Percy frowns. “What do you mean? Isn’t it nice? Having a secret admirer and all?”

“Well, yeah, and he’s really sweet and all but…”

“But?”

“But that’s the whole point. He’s so sweet and nice and I know we’d get on great if we actually met, even if we didn’t end up dating, so why doesn’t he show himself already? The secrecy and letters and gifts is great for a while, sure, but I want to meet him too. I want to talk to him face-to-face and now…” he sighs, “I’m just waiting for him to make the next move.”

Percy’s silent for a long while as he studies Jason. Jason tries to hold his gaze but it’s difficult when he’s looking at him as intensely as he is.

It seems ages before Percy wets his lips and says, “Maybe he’s scared of what will happen if you do find out who he is. Maybe it’s a lot less daunting to hide behind a pen and a paper.”

“He can’t hide forever, can he? I hope he doesn’t hide forever.”

Percy smiles, lowering his eyes. He’s playing with the edge of a file, twisting it this way and that. “He’s probably just intimidated by you.”

“Why? I’m not intimidating.”

Percy raises an eyebrow.

“What? I’m not!”

“Maybe not as a friend,” Percy replies, laughing slightly. “But as a crush, I wouldn’t be so sure.”

His voice has gone silent and sober, devoid of the laughing lilt Jason’s come to enjoy. He wonders what he’s said wrong.

“I’m not saying he’s not right to be scared,” Jason says. “I’ve asked out people too, I know he would be. It’s very likely that I might want to be just friends with him. But it’s also very likely that I might not. And how will we ever know if he doesn’t try?”

“That sounds a lot like what you said to him before,” Percy says, and Jason’s heart stutters. Impossible scenarios whiz through his mind, until Percy glances up at him from beneath his eyelashes and says, “You know, in the last issue of the magazine, when he wrote to you.”

“Oh.” Jason quickly looks away, a clump of disappointment lying heavy in his heart. “Yeah, you’d think he’d get a hint from that at least.”

Percy huffs a single laugh, still playing with the folder. “He must be really dumb.”

Jason smiles when Percy smiles. “Must be.”

~*~

Jason and his new friend part ways in the elevator again, and when Jason steps out onto his floor and asks him if he’ll see him again, Percy winks and says, “Sooner than you think.”

Jason’s not even concerned with what that means, as long as he does.

~*~

When lunchtime rolls around, Jason nabs his lunchbox from the fridge and decides to eat it at the park nearby.

He walks around for a while, helps a couple of kids feed the ducks in the pond, strikes up a conversation with an old woman who’s there with her grandchildren. It’s only when he’s sitting alone on a bench under the shade of a large oak tree that he opens the box and peers inside.

Brownies. He made Jason brownies, complete with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles.

The only strange thing is that the note isn’t on a piece of notebook paper this time. It’s a Post-It stuck to the inside of the lid, scribbled on hurriedly in his trademark bright purple ink. Jason takes a large bite out of the gooey brownie as he turns over the lid to read it.

It’s short and simple:

I tried to make something half as sweet as you are, but I didn’t have enough sugar.

A little birdie told me you’re feeling down today, so I thought I’d let you borrow a little something of mine. I left it in the corner of the box. Don’t worry, I put it in one of those mini Ziploc bags so it wouldn’t get chocolate all over it.

I hope it makes you feel better! You can return it to me when we meet.

Jason pauses at the last sentence for a whole minute, half a brownie lying as it is in his mouth. When he realizes he probably looks crazy to people, he scrambles to find whatever the thief left for him.

When he finds it, he first removes a layer of tissue, the opens the plastic pouch and shakes the object out.

It’s a badge, like those inspirational ones that say Believe in Yourself.

Except this one is plain white, with nothing but a stylized winky face on top.

~*~

When he returns back to the office, happy grin firmly in place, he only walks about two feet before Nico materializes out of nowhere, a lollipop in his mouth, and grabs his shoulders. “Where have you been?” he cries. “Reyna’s been back for almost half an hour and I’m pretty sure I saw her reading your article and you’re nowhere to be found!”

Jason’s eyes dart to Reyna’s office and through the glass walls, he can see her going through a few pages stapled together. “Oh my god. This is it.” He grabs Nico, shaking him. “This is it! She’s going to tell me if I’m published!”

“And you will be!” Nico shakes him back.

“I’m going to be published!”

“Calm down, you two,” Will says from beside them. He’s leaning against the wall, sending them an amused smile around the chocolate bar he’s chomping on. Jason didn’t even notice him there. “Don’t celebrate yet. You have to talk to Reyna first.”

“You’re right.” Nico lets go of Jason. “Your hair is a mess. Will, comb.”

“What?” Jason asks, but Will’s already whipped out a comb from his back pocket. Jason has only a few seconds to send Will a highly judgmental look (to which Will gestures to his hair like you don’t get hair like this without working for it) before Nico’s pulling the comb through his hair, practically scraping off his scalp as he does so.

“Ow! Nico!”

“Shut up,” Nico orders, grabbing at his jaw so he can’t pull away. He combs his hair long enough and roughly enough for tears to gather in Jason’s eyes and then finally steps back. “There. Now you look presentable. Just don’t touch it.”

Jason snorts. “Yes, Mom.”

Nico grins. “Get in there and make me proud.”

~*~

Jason’s lost the feeling in his cheeks by now but he can’t stop smiling. Reyna’s very obviously trying to fight off a smile herself as she watches his reaction. Finally, after spluttering for way too long, Jason breathes, “Really?”

Reyna nods. “You’ll have to clean it up a bit, and Frank will help you with that, but once you’re done – within the deadline Annabeth sets, of course – it’ll be ready for the next issue.”

Jason can barely breathe. “And it’ll have my name on it?”

“Your name and in a featured spot too. Not a lot of first-time writers can say they’ve done that.”

“And I can – I can keep writing?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, Jason, it might be a while before you get the chance.” She shrugs. “It’s just the way it is. And you won’t formally join the team of the writers, not yet, but once you’ve written enough for us, I’ll happily promote you – provided we find another agony aunt. But of course you’ll get paid accordingly for everything you write.”

“But I can keep writing?”

Reyna grins. “Why not?”

His whole body feels like it weighs as much as a helium balloon. He can’t help it – a laugh escapes him, breathy and gleeful and sounding nothing like him. He can’t stay still. He’s practically dancing in his seat.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you so much.”

“It was my pleasure. There were a few people who hounded me to give you a chance. You should thank them too.”

“Nico and Annabeth and Frank,” Jason nods happily. “I will, trust me.”

“And there was one more,” Reyna smirks, “Although I think he was only saying it because he has a crush on you.”

Jason’s breath gets caught in his throat. “What?”

Reyna’s smirk widens. She looks so proud of herself. “It was very suspicious. I didn’t even think you two knew each other, and he was only appropriately interested in the article until he read your name. Then he started going on and on about how great it was and how I had to publish it.”

Jason’s jaw is on the floor.

“I don’t know how I didn’t figure it out before. He’s better at keeping secrets than I thought.”

Jason finally manages to suck in a breath. “You know who my sandwich thief is.” It isn’t a question.

Reyna doesn’t even smirk now. She full-on grins. “Yes.”

“Oh my god,” Jason grabs his armrests. “You know who he is. You’ve seen him. You’ve met him. You talked to him. You know for sure who he is.”

Reyna nods, sniggering slightly to herself at his disbelief.

“Oh my god.”

“Before you ask, I’m not telling. He made me promise.”

“Of course he did. What would be the point of it all if you just flat-out told me who he was?”

“But don’t you want to know?”

Jason hesitates. So much has happened in the past few minutes. His heart is beating a mile a minute, his face feels overheated, and he can’t stop smiling.

He puts his hand in his pocket, running his fingers over the badge that rests there.

“He’s going to tell me soon, isn’t he?” he asks.

“Sounded like it.”

Jason nods. “Then I can wait. As long as he wants me to know.”

To his surprise, Reyna laughs. It isn’t a loud, full-bodied one – then again, he never expected it to be – but when it dies down, she’s grinning at him. “I never pegged you for a romantic, Jason Grace.”

“Just tell me this.” He takes a deep breath. “Is he… is he a good person?”

“Without a doubt,” Reyna answers instantly, “And I never thought of the two of you together in any way but now that I have, it makes sense. It makes a lot of sense.”

There are probably a million and one questions Jason can ask, but his mind is clouded with a pretty sea green fog right now. He just grins goofily, presses down on the pin at the back of the badge, and wonders why his heart hasn’t exploded from sheer happiness by now.

“Any more questions?” Reyna asks.

“Just one,” Jason says as he stands up. “And this is an important one: Does he appreciate the beauty of my sandwiches like he should?”

Reyna laughs. “So much,” she says, handing him back his article, “it weirds me out looking at him.”

Needless to say, Jason is sold.

Chapter Text

It’s nine am when Nico finds him. Jason’s surprised he took so long.

Jason’s spare key is on the ledge above his door, so he lays there on his couch, listening to Nico’s annoyed grunts as he tries to jump and reach it for a whole five minutes before the key is jammed into the locked door and opened.

As soon as they make eye contact, Jason says one word. “No.”

Nico puts his hands on his hips, studies Jason. He’s still in his pajamas, cuddled in a fluffy blue blanket, some inane Nicholas Sparks movie playing on his TV screen. A large vase full of wilting flowers is placed on the coffee table in front of him, a badge with a winky face on top of his chest. He rubs at its plastic surface as if drawing comfort from it.

“And why not?” Nico asks.

“I can’t do it,” Jason pouts. “No one is as great in real life as they are on paper. I won’t like him and then he’ll decide I wasn’t worth it and we’ll both hate each other. My hopes are too high, Nico. Whatever happens from here on out is just going to disappoint and hurt me.”

“Not if he’s as awesome as Reyna says he is.”

“And so what? Plenty of people are awesome. Doesn’t mean I get along with them.” He turns his gaze back to the TV. “Leave me alone with my misery.”

“Oh for the love of –“ Nico strides forwards, grabs the blanket tangled in his legs, and tugs hard, and Jason crashes to the floor in one fell swoop.

It’s really his own fault, Jason thinks numbly, as the whole world spins around him. He should’ve known better than to anger Hazel Levesque’s brother. Their fury runs in the family.

“Nico,” he groans from where his face is smushed into the floor. He rolls over, wildly grabs for the badge and presses it close into his palm. “I can’t –“

“Shut up,” Nico snaps, and then proceeds to sit on top of Jason’s chest.

He’s a lot heavier than he looks. Jason wheezes. “What the hell –?”

“Shut up.”

“Nico, I don’t think Will would appreciate –“

Nico reaches up, grabs a wilting rose from the vase, and stuffs the wet flower into Jason’s mouth, all the while chanting, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

Jason squirms, trying to get away, but Nico’s got him firmly grounded. “Nico!” he shouts, “Get off, you little –“ Nico shoves yet another flower into his mouth, still chanting the same two words.

Deciding he’s tapped into the well of rage that he’d always suspected existed deep inside his best friend, Jason stills. Didn’t he read somewhere you should co-operate with a serial killer if ever you come across one, lest they gut you and hang you to rot?

“Are you going to be quiet now?” Nico snaps from above him, hands clamped tightly down onto Jason’s petal-stuffed mouth. “Good. Now, do you want to know what I, your best friend, the by-stander to this whole sandwich thief fiasco, thinks? Do you?”

Jason nods.

“No! You don’t! I keep giving you and giving you advice and you never understand that I’m right! I know things, Jason. I don’t have a habit of overthinking stuff like you do, I’m an uninvolved third party, an observer, and more importantly, your best friend, so you should listen to what I have to say!”

He’s practically jumping up and down on Jason’s chest by the end of the sentence. Jason’s never seen him this worked-up before. He must really be a handful to do this to Nico.

“Now are you going to stop being a brat and listen?” Nico glares.

Jason nods more fervently this time, even holding up a thumbs-up at him. Nico’s glare follows him even as his hands leave and Jason can finally spit the flowers out.

“Go on,” he finally says, quietly, so as not to set him off again.

Nico rolls his eyes and honest-to-goodness slaps the side of Jason’s head. “Stop treating me like I’m a crazy person,” he demands.

“I would if you stopped acting like one,” Jason mutters. “Could you at least sit on my stomach?”

Poker-face in place, Nico slides back until his butt is firmly on top of Jason’s abdomen. “Thank you,” Jason says, “Now I’m listening.”

Nico fixes him with a forceful stare, and when he talks, he talks slowly, as if to inject gravity into his words. “I know it scares you how much you like him, especially when you don’t even know him. You feel stupid for having feelings for a few words on a piece of paper, but it’s much more than that. All those words, that food, these flowers, that badge you’re holding onto like it’s your lifeline, all of that stuff’s been given to you by an actual, real person. A person who wants to meet you as much as you want to meet him. The only thing that holds you back is both of you thinking you won’t like him as much as he likes you, but don’t you see?” He grabs Jason’s shoulders and gives him a little shake. “That doesn’t matter, not even a little bit. No one can say you’ll like him romantically, but that doesn’t mean you won’t like him platonically. And just because you can’t date him doesn’t mean you can’t be friends.

“And!” he continues, shaking him harder at the frown on his lips, “And if you don’t even want to be friends, that’s perfectly okay! You can pick your friends, right? If you decide you don’t like him at all, you can just part ways and we can all move on.

“But if you don’t meet him, you’re always going to wonder what could’ve happened. You’ll end up thinking he was it for you, and you’re going to measure up everyone you date to some impossible ideal of him that you make up in your head. Isn’t that worse than meeting him and being hurt and disappointed because of your own feelings, and then moving on from the whole thing a few weeks later?”

He pauses then, eyebrows raised, waiting for Jason’s response. The badge’s pin must have formed a permanent indent in his skin by now. Jason takes a deep breath and nods.

Nico nods with him, an encouraging smile touching his lips. “And you know what? Think of the opposite end of the spectrum. He might turn out to be everything you’ve been dreaming of this whole time.”

Jason shakes his head. “I don’t think so. The person I’ve made up in my head… he can’t be that perfect.”

“People are never perfect, Jason. They’re only as perfect as you perceive them to be, and when you’re in love with someone, nothing and no one is better in your eyes.”

Jason cracks a smile. “So you’re saying he might be a frat boy with his waist band near his ankles but as long as I love him, he’s perfect?”

“I’m saying that out of all of the things you could do right now, staying at home and overthinking yourself into misery because of a few secret admirer letters like the stereotypical inexperienced schoolboy is the absolute stupidest.”

Jason sighs. “You’re so mean to me. Why are we friends?”

“Because you would be lost without me.”

“At least I wouldn’t have almost choked on a bouquet.”

“That’s your sandwich thief’s fault. If he’d gotten you a candy basket like my boyfriend, you would’ve gladly choked to death on it.”

Jason laughs. “Thanks, Nico.”

Nico flashes him a smile. “No problem. I’ll always be here to remind you how stupid you are.”

“Thank god.” He folds the badge underneath his fingers. “Someone has to.”

~*~

Reyna doesn’t reprimand him for coming in late, thank goodness. She just raises an eyebrow at his appearance but doesn’t comment.

He’s dressed himself with a lot more care than he usually would, admittedly. He’s wearing the newest clothes he has – a clean pair of jeans (that, according to Nico, made his butt look nice, and he trusts Nico’s judgment) and a long-sleeved shirt, made of some fabric that seems to cling to him, but not uncomfortably so. Nico folded up the sleeves a bit, then tortured Jason’s scalp with a hairbrush once more. Jason applied an unhealthy amount of body spray onto himself (he just likes to smell good, sue him) and put on the nicest shoes he had before leaving the house.

Unbeknownst to even Nico, however, Jason had spent a few extra minutes in the bathroom taking care of his mouth area: brushing his teeth, flossing, gargling mouthwash, shaving away coarse stubble, and even popping in a breezy breath mint. He doesn’t dare think he’ll actually be kissing his thief today, but he can dream, can’t he?

And, of course, as a last touch, his smiley face button rests firmly in his pocket within reach.

~*~

He spends most of his day working with Frank on his article to make it perfect as soon as possible.

He puts aside a whole fifteen minutes especially to thank the people who spoke in favor of him to Reyna. Of course, he can’t do that face-to-face with the sandwich thief, at least not yet, but he does thank him in his letter, which he wrote with almost as much attention as he made his sandwich.

Dear Sandwich Thief,

I’m hoping this is going to be my last letter to you, since you said we’re going to meet soon and if we do, writing letters will be the very last thing on my mind.

Reyna told me you vouched for me about my article and I want to thank you. Really, honestly, from the very bottom of my heart. Even if you think your opinion doesn’t matter much, it matters that you spoke up for me.

Okay, I’m going to just say it. You. Are. Killing. Me.

I don’t remember the last time I was this heartsick over someone I have never even met. I’ve thought up a thousand and one different scenarios of meeting you, what you’ll be like, how it’ll feel to actually talk to you, and a whole lot of more embarrassing things that I won’t admit to.

Long story short: I really, really, REALLY want to see you. So much I’m actually kinda scared, but the only thing scarier than meeting you would be not meeting you.

All I need is one clue. One deliberately obvious clue that you’re sure I’ll understand. You won’t even have to make a big reveal for that. I’ll just come to you. I think that would work out nicely.

Enjoy your sandwich.

Yours,

Jason Grace.

~*~

“And here,” Hazel says with a final click of her mouse, pointing to a place in the magazine’s page on-screen, “is where your name will be, above the rest of the article.”

She’s shining her pearly whites at him as she speaks, and behind him Leo’s grabbed his shoulders and is jumping up and down excitedly, singing, “Jason’s gonna be a writer, Jason’s gonna be a writer,” over and over again. Beside Hazel, Piper’s leaning back into a chair, Hazel’s foot propped into her lap as she carefully applies nail polish to her toes. She draws a beaming smiley face to Hazel’s biggest toe and angles it towards Jason. He’d correct her if he wasn’t so happy.

“Good enough?” Hazel asks him.

“Of course,” Jason says instantly. “This is…” a strangely high-pitched giggle slips out of his mouth. “This is amazing. I have absolutely nothing to complain about.”

“Well, good, because it wouldn’t have mattered either way,” Piper says.

“Isn’t this awesome?” Leo practically screams into his ear. “This is the best day ever, dude!”

“In more ways than one,” Hazel adds, exchanging knowing glances with Piper.

“Something else is happening?” Leo cries. Jason’s certain he crept into Nico’s candy stash this morning – he’s been so hyped up, his feet have hardly touched the ground. Even now, he’s halfway climbed onto Jason’s back.

“I only know what Nico’s told me. You should hear it all directly from Jason.”

Jason glares at her with absolutely zero malice while Leo gasps dramatically and grabs Jason’s head from his perch on his back. “It’s about you?”

Jason is slightly concerned by the wild dilated look of Leo’s eyes. Exactly how much candy did he consume? “It’s about me.” His voice sounds nothing like him – it’s all soft and low, like how Nico’s sounds when he talks to Will on the phone (Jason doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, it just happens sometimes).

“Or more specifically,” Piper speaks up, “his sandwich thief.”

“Did someone say ‘sandwich thief’?” Frank pokes his head into Hazel’s office. “I’ve been hearing that phrase way too much these past few days.”

“I know, right?” Leo maneuvers his steed so he can face Frank properly. “Whoever heard of someone stealing food? That’s the stupidest – oh my god,” he slaps his face, eyes widening, “The Hamburglar. Oh my god. I can’t believe I forgot him. What is going on with me? How could I do this? Lord forgive me.”

“He ate his weight in candy today,” Piper explains at Frank’s confused expression. “So did I, but I’m not a lightweight like him.”

“Never mind Leo,” Hazel waves him off. “Jason, tell us,” she leans forward, eyes gleaming. “Are we going to meet the famous sandwich thief today?”

They all stop what they’re doing, turning to look expectantly at him – even Leo looks down at him from where he’s sitting on his shoulders (and damn his neck is aching). The weight of their stares almost wipes the goofy smile off of Jason’s face. Almost.

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “But if I do… I think I’d like to spend the day with him alone.”

The other four blink at him, Leo doing so worryingly fast. Finally, Piper sniffles and wipes an imaginary tear from her eye. “Our little baby’s found The One,” she coos, hugging Hazel’s leg to her chest.

“They grow up so fast,” Hazel agrees, rubbing her arm.

“You still need to bring him over so I can check him out,” Frank says sternly, “We don’t want Reyna breaking any unnecessary bones.”

“Can I be your bridesmaid?” Leo tweaks Jason’s nose.

“I hate all of you,” Jason announces, but he can’t help join in when they laugh.

~*~

Jason stands for a whole five minutes with the note in hand, not moving, not opening it.

Nico, beautiful understanding creature that he is, doesn’t react or question Jason about his sudden impression of a statue. He just leans against the counter, texting on his phone, until Jason’s ready to move.

Truth be told, Jason himself isn’t sure why he isn’t.

It’s his nerves acting up again, except it’s not just that. His heart is a booming drum, his hands slick, his stomach twisting in a not entirely pleasant or unpleasant way – halfway in-between. The button is suddenly a burning pebble in his pocket. Why he’s so nervous, he isn’t sure. It’s just a letter, after all.

Except there are a dozen things that could be upsetting about this scenario, about the past two weeks, about taking gifts from and exchanging letters with a complete stranger. He’s on such a high recently, and he’s dreading the moment he’ll return to earth.

And he will eventually, of course. It just depends on whether his thief is a parachute, or a boulder strapped to his chest.

“Is that it?”

Jason jumps about a foot in the air, whipping around to face Annabeth, who looks as startled as he feels. “Sorry,” she says, “Didn’t mean to interrupt your… meditation?”

“I was just,” Jason glances down at his sandwich, “looking.”

“I could see that. You haven’t opened the letter yet?”

“He opened the lunchbox,” Nico says. “Look what’s in it.” He reaches into the box and pulls out a sandwich. “The thief’s version of Jason’s sandwich,” he grins. “Isn’t it magnificent?”

“You didn’t eat any of it,” Annabeth says to Jason.

“He already feels like he’s going to puke, although you should’ve seen his face when he saw it. Anyway, did you need something? We’re going to be here a while.”

“No, I was just going to take a look at the note. I don’t want to read it, but I wanted you to know I think I recognized the handwriting on that note that came with the bouquet. I think it’s one of my friends. Best friends, even.”

“Let me guess,” Jason says dryly, “It’s familiar, but you don’t remember whose handwriting it is?”

She doesn’t answer right away, just standing there and smiling at him for a few seconds. Nico and Jason exchange confused glances, and then when Jason raises his eyebrows, she just smiles even wider. “Nope,” she says finally, “Don’t recognize it at all.”

Then she walks by him without looking back. Jason and Nico stare after him.

“Oh my god,” Nico whispers a few seconds later, his tone almost reverent. “She knows.”

Jason can only gape at him. “She’s known this whole time? She’s – she’s his accomplice?”

“And she’s only letting you know now,” Nico realizes. He presses his hands to his face, like he can’t comprehend this. “He’s letting you know now. I knew he had a type. Why didn’t I see this before?”

The world falls out from under his feet, but like he’s flying, not falling. This is less like a parachute, more like wings. All I need is one clue, he thinks. “But who is he?”

“Who is he? Jason, think about it.” Nico’s mouth, which was hanging open up until now, curves upwards into a huge smile. “If Annabeth’s the accomplice, who could be the perpetrator?”

Jason thinks he knows the answer. God, he thinks he knows the answer.

Now he’s sure what Nico introduced him as, during his birthday party: “Annabeth’s best friend.”

There’s only one thing left to do, of course.

Jason opens the note.

There are two things that made me want to everything I’ve done for the past week: your eyes and your cheese.

It’s the stupidest, beyond stupidest thing anyone could ever write to anyone else. But even as Jason laughs, he understands.

~*~

He’s reclining in his office chair, dressed in a simple shirt and jeans like yesterday, but when he looks up as Jason enters, his entire face radiates an unending amount of brightness.

Neither of them says anything for a few moments, as Jason sways on the spot in front of his (quite large) desk and he sits behind it, smiling smugly at Jason with his lips and his eyes and his whole body. Those seconds tick by as if they’re steeped in syrup, and for the longest while, Jason just locks eyes with him, his fingertips tingling, face warm, goosebumps erupting everywhere as his insides leap around inside him.

And he just revels in it for that instant, that rolling kaleidoscope colors inside his heart, fragrant flowers blooming in his mind, the feeling of being not quite in love but somewhere desperately close to it – someplace terrifying and exhilarating and utterly beautiful all at once.

And only because he’s finally found him.

After all this time, all this waiting and writing and hoping and pining, he finally knows who his sandwich thief – his secret admirer – is:

A little shit, that’s what.

“Yesterday,” Jason says, fighting to keep his happiness out of his voice, “You were talking about yourself. And you didn’t tell me.”

He obviously fails at that, because Percy just grins. “You didn’t even remember my name,” he answers, delight bouncing off of every word like the light reflects from his eyes.

There’s an almighty gasp from behind Jason. “You didn’t remember his name?”

For the first time, Percy’s brows furrow. He stands up and spots Nico, who’s looking at Jason like he just murdered his firstborn. “You’ve met him more times than I can count!” Nico cries. “He’s been sending you secret admirer notes and food and gifts and you didn’t remember his name?”

He seems so horrified, Jason’s not sure what to say. He glances helplessly at Percy, who immediately fixes an exaggerated pout to his lips and says, “It was very hurtful.”

He’s enjoying every second of this, Jason can tell. He’ll show him hurtful.

“You are so hopeless,” Nico groans.

“Well, at least I know his name now!”

Percy perks up at that, his pout disappearing. “Do you?”

“Of course,” Jason says. “You’re Percy Jackson.”

And he doesn’t mean it to, but the words come out with a strange significance to them. Maybe it’s because it’s the first time he’s properly meeting him, this guy he’s having entirely too strong feelings for. Maybe it’s because of how he couldn’t look away from his eyes as he said his name, no matter how much he tried, not that he would want to. And maybe it’s because of the way Percy’s face opens up with a smile, an adoring, almost relieved smile, and he knows Percy can’t look away either.

“Yeah,” he replies, his voice suddenly soft, “And you’re Jason Grace.”

It echoes almost perfectly of their conversation in the elevator yesterday. Jason can’t get over it. Percy is his sandwich thief. Percy wrote him letters in a bright purple pen, drew wobbly smiley faces, sent him the flowers pressed in his books right now, the letter for his column, the button in his pocket.

It’s surreal.

He’s not aware they haven’t moved until Nico announces, “And I’m Nico di Angelo, currently feeling like a third wheel, leaving you two idiots to your staring competition, which Jason will most definitely tell me about later.”

He’s already moving towards the door as he says the words and Jason’s heart palpitates at the thought of being alone with Percy – out of apprehension or excitement, he isn’t sure.

Nevertheless, the door does eventually close behind Nico. And it’s just the two of them.

Jason didn’t survey Percy’s desk before, but now that he does, he sees all the things he’s been looking for the past few days: there’s a slender glittery purple pen in the pen pot, a notebook lying open that has the same notebook paper as the letters. He almost can’t believe it, like all of this is a mirage.

Percy’s moved in front of the desk now, altogether too close and much too far away. For a few seconds, neither one says anything, but when Jason opens his mouth, words automatically tumble out.

“You’re such a liar.”

Percy doesn’t seem offended. He just smiles agreeably. “How do you figure?”

“You’re not intimidated at all.”

He laughs. “If I wasn’t intimidated, I would’ve done this whole thing face-to-face instead of hiding behind notes.”

“And spying on me through an accomplice,” Jason points out.

“I didn’t spy,” Percy rolls his eyes affectionately, moving even closer, “Annabeth was just making sure everything worked smoothly, and that you weren’t actually creeped out by me.” He shrugs sheepishly. “Plus, she was fed up with listening to me talk about you so she decided we needed to do something about it.”

It’s the kind of subtle compliments he’d write in his notes too. Jason does the exact same thing he did when he read those – he blushes. Percy beams when he sees it.

“And by ‘doing something’ you mean stealing my sandwiches?” Jason asks, pushing his hand inside his pocket, thumbing the button. “Are you sure it wasn’t the sandwiches you were after?”

“I was trying to send a message,” Percy laughs, “Plus, your sandwiches are really great. I have to be honest, I didn’t think you’d figure it out.”

“Blue. That’s your thing.”

Percy smiles. “Your eyes are blue.”

“So was the cheese.”

“I noticed your eyes first.”

“Sure you did.”

“You didn’t even remember my name.”

“You stole my sandwiches.”

“They were too good. I couldn’t resist.”

Jason lifts his chin, triumphant “So it was about the food.”

Percy pauses, and when he next speaks, his voice is quiet. “Not just about the food,” he says pointedly.

Jason hesitates then. He blinks – once, twice – and realizes they’re both closer than they were a few seconds ago. Percy’s eyes have flecks of light gold up close and his front teeth have an adorable gap between them. He can see it because he’s smiling so wide.

Leo was right after all. He does like the pretty boy type.

The words clog in his throat but he forces them out. “How come?” he asks. “We… you…” he exhales. “You don’t even know me.”

Percy doesn’t seem fazed, as if he expected this. Jason supposes he’s gone through every worst-case scenario in his mind, like Jason himself has.

“That’s true,” he agrees. “And you don’t know me. But I would like us to. A lot.”

Jason raises his eyebrows. “You would like to get to know a guy who gave you a laxative?”

“As long as he doesn’t give me another one,” Percy beams.

“Only when you really need it.”

“Please do not talk about me crapping right now,” Percy groans. “I am trying to impress you here.”

Jason’s heart flops pathetically. “Really?” he grins. “I couldn’t tell in between all the letters and flowers and food and –“

“Are you taunting me, Jason Grace? After all that I went through for you in the name of love.”

That catches Jason off-guard. He stares at a grinning Percy. “Love?” His voice sounds annoyingly breathy.

He can tell the exact moment Percy catches on to what he said, and he’s pleasantly surprised to see – for the very first time – Percy Jackson blush. “Not love-love,” Percy babbles, “no, that would be creepy, right? Just, you know, a crush. Like-like. Not love-love.”

“Like-like,” Jason repeats.

“Exactly,” he says, his cheeks still bright red.

Jason doesn’t think Percy understands, but Jason sure does. His heart is beating a mile a minute. “You… like-like me?”

Percy’s cheeks flush even darker, but just like that, his lips lift into a smile as well. His eyes flicker over Jason’s face so intently Jason has to stifle the urge to duck his head.

Finally, he fixes his eyes with Jason’s and says, in an unexpectedly shy voice, “I like-like you.”

And he thinks I just want to hold his hand and he thinks you are exactly twenty-seven times more adorable than that and he thinks I like-like you, all those words and feelings and daydreams culminating into this one moment, and later, he can’t remember when or how he moved forward, only that he did.

His lips are softer than they seemed, his hands warm on Jason’s forearms, and he smells like the seaside when he leans into him, solid and strong and right there. It’s not really a kiss, just a press of their lips, but when Percy smiles into it, he knows he feels just as dazed and deliriously happy as Jason.

They pull back but not really, their faces only an inch apart. Percy’s grinning madly. “What was that about?” he asks,

Jason shrugs nonchalantly, his grin firmly in place. “I just wanted to taste my sandwich a last time, that’s all.”

Percy lets out a noise halfway between a laugh and a snort. It’s so adorable, Jason’s heart clenches. “Really.”

“Yup. It is the best sandwich in the world, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Jason’s eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “You mean you’ve had better?”

“In a nice little sandwich shop two blocks down from here.” Percy tilts his head. “Go with me?”

A gold bubble of glee grows inside Jason’s chest. It practically cuts off his airways, and it takes a few seconds before he can reply.

“Sure,” he says as casually as possible, “Just for the sandwiches, of course.”

Percy laughs and then does the cutest thing possible – he leans forward and nudges his nose with Jason’s. “Just for the sandwiches.”

~*~

A list of things Jason comes to learn about Percy Jackson:

1. He spent two hours in the men’s room and work, and four more in his own bathroom at home, after eating Jason’s laxative-laced sandwich.

2. The first time he saw Jason was actually two months before Nico’s birthday, when he first started working for the magazine. He tells Jason that his eyes were what caught his attention, but it’s only weeks later in the middle of the night when he whispers to him that it was actually Jason’s butt that did it.

3. He has a dog called Mrs. O’Leary and a mother called Sally. He can never decide who he likes hugging more.

4. He’s a senior representative – the Marketing equivalent of Nico, although his office is bigger. Some days, he has to wear a suit and tie to work. Jason likes those days.

5. He carries the winky face button with him whenever he feels sad, and often pins it to Jason’s clothes whenever he thinks Jason is. When he doodles, he draws winky faces.

6. When Jason’s first article is published, he wants to throw a party, until Jason tells him he would much rather spend the night with him watching Netflix and cuddling. Percy has no complaints.

7. He will go off into fits of laughter at the most inappropriate moments during movies and sex, and Jason doesn’t know which is worse.

8. Piper calls him her ‘best bro’ (much to Leo’s dismay), Hazel treats him like an older brother (but not at all how she treats her actual older brother) and Annabeth has been his best friend since they were kids. Percy still won’t tell Jason his trade secrets.

9. His favorite color is blue. Specifically, “Jason blue”.

10. He’s incredibly ticklish whenever Jason’s hands are on him, but not at all when his mouth is.

11. He is a nightmare to sleep next to. He kicks and steals the covers and drools and snores really loudly, but he cuddles like his life depends on it and smothers Jason with kisses as soon as they wake up, so Jason can’t complain.

12. He stares at Jason with wide love-filled doe-eyes for ages, flushes a deep red whenever he’s caught, and then denies the whole thing ever happened.

13. He reads every last one of Jason’s articles, even though it takes him hours and makes his head ache because of his dyslexia.

14. He keeps all of Jason’s letters in a large artificial oyster. Jason keeps all of Percy’s in a little wooden treasure chest. They’ve memorized each one.

15. He loves giving Jason gifts and loves receiving them too, as long as Jason uses it in the end instead of him. Which, as Jason has explained to him so many times, is exactly the opposite of the point of a gift.

16. He never lets Jason forget that he didn’t know his name while he pined after him. Never.

17. Leo’s lasagna is nothing compared to his own, but he still loves the same old sandwich recipe. He says it tastes like memories. Jason can’t help but agree.

*~*~*

Nico’s already pushing open the office door, eyes trained on the papers in his hand. “Percy,” he starts, “Reyna says you need to see this and think of an appropriate –“

“Nico!”

Nico starts at Jason’s shout, looks up and freezes, hoping against hope he isn’t seeing what he thinks he’s seeing.

Jason and Percy stare at him from their position on Percy’s desk for a few seconds, none of them moving. And then Nico drops the papers, covers his eyes and scrambles for the door.

“Nico, wait!” Percy shouts, sounding out of breath – of course he was, considering what he’d been doing. “Don’t tell Reyna! She’ll kill me!”

“And she should!” Nico leans on the wall outside the office and scratches at his eyeballs. “You guys are disgusting!”

“You and Will do the same thing all the time!” Jason shouts.

“Not with all those toys!” Nico shouts back.

There’s a pause. A whisper, a snigger and then a “shh, shh”. Finally, Percy – voice bursting with mirth – calls, “Would you like to?”

Nico slams the door shut to their loud unabashed laughter, grumbling to himself as he stomps his way to the elevator. He is so going to report them.