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Frank shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“Ha ha, very funny Leo,” Hazel’s saying indulgently, despite looking far from amused.
Frank isn’t laughing either. He’s sitting on the roof of cabin thirteen with her, Leo, and Nico, where they’ve been eating strawberries and catching up for the past half hour. Leo’s sitting across from him, next to Nico, and he’s just made a really weird quip about campers apparently lining up to punch him in the arm when he first returned to Camp Half-Blood. It puts a rotten feeling in Frank’s chest, but he tries to shake it off. Leo can blurt some outlandish stuff sometimes, it’s just how he is.
“Yeah, I guess it was pretty funny at first.” Leo shrugs. “Though I’ll admit, after the first few punches I kinda started to wish they hadn’t all picked the same spot.”
Frank blinks. Wait, what?
“I mean, I had a bruise the shape of Texas on my arm for weeks.”
What?
Leo chuckles weakly. “Still glad to know they cared though.”
Frank’s head starts spinning. Is he being serious? He sounded plenty sincere at the end there. But he’s painting such an ugly picture, and none of it makes any sense. What the fuck does punching Leo have to do with caring about him?
“Exactly.” Nico says affectionately. He doesn’t seem to notice Frank’s inner turmoil, or the fact that Hazel’s expression is growing very dark, very fast. He elbows Leo. “That’s what you get for making the people who care about you think you’re dead.”
“EXCUSE me?!” Hazel shrieks in a fury. The two finally glance back at them, startled. Frank still doesn’t have any words, so he just stares back, dread swirling around uselessly in his chest and slowly turning to ice.
“...what did I say?” Leo asks, sounding appropriately nervous now.
“If this is some kind of joke, I need both of you to cut it out right now.” Hazel says. She turns on Nico. “Tell me that’s not actually what happened.”
“Uh- I mean-” Nico looks like he’s desperately trying to figure out what he’s missing here. “That’s- that’s what happened. Like I said, they were pretty upset that Leo just let everyone think he was dead for so long-”
“Oh. my gods.” Hazel says. She has that terrifying, warrior-witch look in her eyes. “I want names."
"W-what? I mean– it was pretty much everyone at camp-"
"You know what– fine. I’ll just have to find everyone then." She starts to storm off.
"Hazel? Uh, sorry… where are you going?!" Leo asks, alarmed.
She turns, says, "Oh, I'm just gonna go find out for myself how everyone else feels about being punched for making a mistake," and then she's gone.
“Okay, she’s joking.” Leo says after a beat. “...right?”
“I really don’t think so.” Nico responds, looking a little pale. “I– I’d better go try and talk to her, actually, before…” he gulps, “...yeah.” And then he’s leaving too.
Leo and Frank sit in silence for a moment. Then, Leo starts fidgeting anxiously with odds and ends from his tool belt.
" Crap. " He mutters. He glances up at Frank. "I'm sorry. I– I said that all wrong, I must have. I don't think Hazel– I mean, I think she has the wrong idea."
Frank frowns at him, and forces himself to speak up, finally. "I think she heard everything she needed to, Leo." Shit. That sounds more ominous than it had in his head. Leo seems to shrink a little. Fuck. "Sorry, that came out wrong. If you want to try explaining again, I’ll listen.”
Leo opens his mouth, then closes it again. “I guess…” he starts, “I don’t actually have much more to say, just… it wasn’t that big of a deal, you know? I didn’t… mind?” his voice wavers a bit on that last part. “Well… no. I did mind. But, like Nico was saying, I basically had it coming.” he scratches his neck uncomfortably, apparently too shy to keep looking Frank in the eye.
Frank’s heart hurts a little more with every word, but he’d promised he would listen. “Leo…” he pauses, trying to push past the wall of fear that he’s gonna say the wrong thing, make everything worse. “What– what exactly makes you think that?”
Leo gives him an exasperated look that nearly shatters Frank’s confidence. “I already said: because I let everyone think I was dead.”
Frank decides it’s time to draw from his emergency supply of courage. “I just don’t understand how that was your fault. It’s not like you decided to die. Or, I suppose you kinda did, but you literally sacrificed yourself to save everyone else. Why should anyone attack you for that?”
“Well… I dunno, but…” Leo looks like he’s losing steam. “They said it was selfish of me, to be gone so long, and just leave everyone hanging…”
Frank bristles, and barely keeps himself from raising his voice. That’s probably the last thing Leo needs right now. He speaks instead in a restrained voice, “You literally engineered a magic scroll, on the fly, because you didn’t want them to worry about you. Because you care. I can’t see that as anything but unselfish.”
“Ok.” Leo says meekly. “I get it. I guess I do agree. I'm not exactly Mr. Humble." He tries to crack a grin, but Frank can’t quite return it. "But like… I can't exactly expect them to be thinking logically after all that. Grief's a messy thing."
Frank squeezes his eyes shut. "That… doesn't give them the right to take it out on you, Leo." Frank says, as gently as he can. “You deserve better than that.”
When he opens his eyes, Leo’s transitioned from his usual advanced tinkering to passing a bolt mindlessly between his hands, staring into space. Frank’s heart sinks a little. He’s probably fucked this up already. “Look, I’m sorry if– I’m not trying to, like, force a TedTalk on you. If this is all too much right now, we can drop it.”
“No, it’s okay.” Leo says softly, looking down at his bolt. He plucks his ambiguous mechanism back up and carefully screws the bolt onto it somewhere. “I, um. Care. What you think. About m– uh– about things.” Is his face turning red? “You don’t have to stop. I want to listen. Really.”
Oh. Frank tries to fight the blush creeping up his own neck. He needs to focus. Leo wants him to continue, and he thinks he still has a bit of courage left. So…
“Well,” Frank says, clearing his throat. “I think… Hazel and I, we were both there with you on Delos. I might be one of the only people who knows how much forethought went into your sacrifice at the battle with Gaea. It wasn’t careless, or impulsive, or fucking ‘selfish’, it was simply the bravest thing I have ever seen. And that’s saying a lot.” Leo’s tinkering has slowed down again, but that doesn’t deter Frank this time. “If people have been assuming the worst of you, that’s their mistake. And if they’ve been taking it out on you, and playing it off like it’s fine, they’re on my bad side. End of story.”
Leo looks up at him with dewey eyes. He notices Leo’s hands shaking, too, and suddenly worries he really did manage to make him feel worse. But then Leo nods a little, and he still looks so small, and Frank kind of can’t take it anymore.
“Can I give you a hug now?”
Leo’s eyes widen. “Um…” He looks around, then nods again. “Yeah.” So Frank gives him his very best bear hug. It’s a little awkward, and they’re both still blushing, but he thinks it makes them both feel better anyway.
Just as they pull apart, Nico appears next to them, looking winded and afraid.
“Oh gods,” Frank says, “What happened?”
“I. Fucked. Up.” Nico pants. He looks at Leo. “I. Told her. What Chiron did.”
Leo goes a little green. “Oh, shit.” he whispers.
“Why?” Frank asks, bewildered. “What did Chiron do?”
“She.” Nico continues, “She went. For her sword.”
“We gotta go.” Leo says, grabbing Frank’s hand. Frank is very confused, but he’s beginning to think he should be fearing for that old centaur’s life.
As they reach the roof’s edge, an ear-splitting whinny from the direction of the big house stops them all in their tracks. They turn, and all any of them can do is stand and stare in horror.