Sleep Is For The Weak

nico di angelo x leo valdez

warnings: slash

Disclaimer: I do not own PJATO and I do not profit from this.

Leo groaned into his hands as he scrunched up another scrap of paper. He couldn't figure out what was wrong, for the life of him. Whenever the blue prints came out and he began assembling the parts, small details always manage to ruin the automaton in the tiniest way possible.

Hindering Leo from figuring out just what went wrong.

It irked him, to say the least. Was he finally running out of Hephaestus genius juice? He quickly swatted the thought away, what nonsense was he hallucinating anyway. Pff, a genius like him would never run out of genius-ity. Or whatever the word he was looking for called.

'Or maybe it's because you've been staying up all night.'

Leo grunted and glanced at the clock. It was still 3 in the morning. 2 more hours to go until it can be deemed late enough that Leo could be passed off as taking an early rise and a head start of the day.

He rubbed his sore eyes and stared out at the window. Since his creative juices were failing him up until this point, and no, he had definitely not been staying up five days straight, he decided he could let his old bones slack off somehow.

He gave his arms a stretch and stood up, making his way to the kitchen first to get some coffee, then it's off to the engine room for him to get busy with repairing the air ship. Hey, it wasn't easy maintaining and giving maintenance to the gigantic warship you know? If minor complications could fail a small automaton so easily, imagine everything that could've gone wrong with the Argo II!

Leo nodded to himself, it was a plausible excuse.

Besides, what are the odds of him running into someone this late-

"Ow.."

Whoops, did he just jinx his luck?

He rubbed the sore spot on his forehead when it crashed headfirst into whichever body part of the other person. Though the other person did sound familiar...

"The hell you doing up this late Valdez?"

Just had to be di Angelo. Great.

"Or early, depending on the way you see it." Leo gave a half hearted grin before a searing headache took over his thoughts and ow ow ow owww he can't seem to think straight and this was turning out to be a bigger problem than Leo foresaw.

Leo could slightly make out the concerned figure of the tiny di Angelo, though it was questionable how di Angelo's chin came into contact with Leo's forehead if he was as tiny as Leo made him out to be. But he really couldn't care at this point, nor could he think straight.

"Whoa you okay?" Leo stumbled a bit, but other than that he was fine.

He took a few wavering steps before insisting that he was "Mm fine," then his knees gave out beneath him. "Or not,"

Nico gave an exasperated sigh before leaning down to hoist Leo up, lending Leo a helping shoulder to cling to before dragging him off to the common room to seat Leo down.

Leo couldn't really make out what exactly the di Angelo was doing until he was offered hot chocolate and begrudgingly accepted the pills from Nico. His guess was Nico went to the kitchen to get him drinks and drugs, though he really didn't need to point that out.

They sat in silence with Leo pondering life decisions and Nico observing him intently.

Once Leo got the bitter tang of the pills out of his mouth because he took too long to swallow, "Ew," tongue sticking out.

Nico scrunched his nose, "Ew indeed."

Deeming Leo well enough, Nico prodded, "So what were you doing up so late anyway?", eyebrows raised.

Nico was starting to worry about Leo, especially when his automated response came up immediately after he posed his question.

"I was worried about the well being of the ship and broke off in my sleepy haze to check up on the engine!" Leo grinned as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, before wincing as another head-splitting headache broke out.

"Uh-huh. You know, that would be more believable if I hadn't caught your mumbling from the cabin since evening." Nico deadpanned.

Leo gulped. He really didn't want to get busted just five days into this unhealthy routine. He did swear he was getting better every night and that his condition would improve slowly albeit bit by bit. Okay, not really.

"Sleep is for the weak, neeks. When are you gonna get that in that tiny head of yours?"

Nico sighed. Now Leo was delusional enough to mess up dimensions.

Leo mind raced a thousand miles a second, running through everything he's talked about in his cabin since evening. Or worse, Nico could've hear him from the start of his rambling. His face paled as Nico's knowing face told Leo what he needed to know.

"Are you ever going to tell?"

Leo seemed to clutch the cup tighter and curl into a smaller ball.

It's not like Nico doesn't know what Leo is facing with, however. Nico has had to deal with it on his own for quite some time now. It takes longer than expected to heal from it. One could claim that they could fix it within three days but the reality of it is much harder to bear. Sometimes it doesn't ever go away, you just learn to cope with it and carry on with your daily lifestyle.

Leo shook his head.

Nico's frown deepened.

"Alright, but if you need someone to talk to, I'm always in my cabin."

Nico really wasn't trying to be exceptionally nice. He just felt the need to be there for Valdez ever since he's noticed that Valdez is lonelier than he seems. The smiles don't quite reach his eyes despite the funny jokes he tells. His laughter doesn't quite resonate though the halls anymore.

And how he always frowns and breaks down internally when he thinks no one is looking.

Valdez has offered odd but useful advices, they made absolutely no sense to Nico when Leo first spoke, but after a while Nico gets it.

It's because Leo is as lonely as Nico.

Valdez made it a point to not leave Nico out whenever the major couples were present, not that Leo actually knows about his unrequited love, but Nico supposes he really isn't that hard to figure out when you know what signs to look out for.

That's why it's so important for Nico to pay back Leo.

This was the seventh night now, Nico can't prolong this anymore. He could hear Leo's mumbling and incessant fumbling around with screws and nuts and bolts and just about anything metallic that could be put together or welded or taken apart to build another mind-boggling contraception.

Even his mind rambling was starting to sound a lot like a mini-Leo.

He scrunches up his nose and sits up. He's going there right now.

However the door slams open and a disheveled Leo that looks like he just ran a marathon with two raging minotaurs chasing him kinda just flops in, uninvited.

Nico sits unmoving, slightly shocked at the unprecedented intruder.

"A.. little help, please?"

After multiple attempts, Nico finally manages to situate Leo into a more comfortable position on his bed, there really aren't many other options to be considered if you were to be honest.

Nico makes it a point to keep his mouth zipped, but glare at Leo in the most unwelcoming gaze possible, with his lips pursed and arms crossed. The uncomfortable demigod in front of him begins shifting around, obviously deterred.

Finally he breaks down.

"Okay! Okay I'll spill alright?" Leo sighs as Nico sits infront of Leo on the bed, legs crossed.

"I've been, suffering from insomnia and," Leo's throat dries up and he swallows saliva audibly, Nico urges him on, "memories of my mother isn't really helping and, the knife in my room has been used pretty frequently."

Leo closes his eyes, waiting for the tell-tale mother hen caring heartfelt talk from Nico.

However when he opens his eyes, he just sees Nico giving him a small nod, then leant back further into the foot rest of Nico's bed.

'Nico knows,'

Nico knows you don't just stop cutting with a little heart to heart talk, and the nightmares don't just go away the moment you decide to talk about it. So he takes the best step he knows he should. He starts slow.

"When did it start?"

Nowadays Nico can tell, leo smiles more genuinely. He rarely cracks that cringey half grin that for some reason everyone else doesn't notice. It was weird to say the least, as if Hecate had casted some spell on Leo.

'Maybe she did," He mused. After all, it wouldn't be the first time the gods decided to mess with Leo.

However one major change was now whenever the son of Hades was present in Leo's eyesight, Leo would bound over to him like a puppy on pills, rambling a mile an hour about a billion things all at once.

At first this terrifies Nico, seeing as he withdrew from society for quite the long hours.

However as time grew, Nico soon got used to Leo's mumbles and even grew fond of it, smiling unabashedly whenever Leo gets hyped up with his conversation with himself. Leo needed someone to talk to, Nico needed someone to listen to. They made it work.

Nico still wanders the hallways alone, but that night a groggy Leo stumbled onto deck with Nico.

Leo voices his concerns.

"Why are you awake?"

"Pff, sleep is for the weak."

And Leo sits down on deck for story time with Nico.

It really shouldn't come as a surprise when they shared their first kiss at midnight, under the covers. Then burst into small fits of giggles before throwing insults at one another again.

Sleep is for the weak after all, there are so many things you could do at night.