Healing Darkness, Leo Valdez

I. even the grand canyon isn't as beautiful as her

VALERIE COULD BE DESCRIBED AS A LOT OF THINGS, like for example, she's a great listener, always wanting to know what you have to say. she's also a very good baker (she can make some killer blueberry scones).

but the one thing valerie lacks in the millions of amazing traits she has, is being a morning person.

val will never wake up before eleven if she doesn't have to. she prides herself in getting a tremendous amount of sleep every night, claiming that it keeps her skin clear. so this morning when their whole school had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to go to the grand canyon for the day, you could say val was a little upset.

so now, since she can't sleep in her comfortable bed anymore, she has replaced her bed with leo's lap, letting her wild curls sprawl over his legs as she snoozed happily, laying across him.

leo had no complaints, of course. having val this close to him, let alone touching him was enough to make his brain go haywire. he had been looping his fingers through her soft curls as she slept, twirling them through the spirals and letting them bounce back into place as he let go.

leo thought that the way that val slept was extremely adorable. he loved the way her lips were pouted slightly and pushed together because of her cheek being pressed against his legs. he loved the way her whole face was relaxed when she slept, not having her usual calculating eyes and smile gracing her face, even though he absolutely adored her smile. leo just loved how peaceful she looked, how stress-free and calm she was. he could stare at her for hours and not even blink, but that would be a little creepy, so he refrains himself from doing so.

after about ten minutes of leo playing with her hair and occasionally giving her heart eyes, val was quickly awoken by the bus jolting over a speed bump, making her body jump slightly in the air.

leo was quick to steady her, grabbing the side of the leg and arm to keep her place so she didn't fall off the seat.

she groaned and turned over to lay on her back and stared up at leo with groggy, glazed eyes.

"morning," she rasped, coughing lightly to get the croak out of her voice.

leo laughed airily, "morning, sunshine. sleep well?"

she nodded, sitting up. "slept amazing. your legs are pretty comfortable."

leo gave her a crooked smile. "well i'm glad you got something good out of them, they turned numb about thirty minutes ago."

val laughed and apologized. "you could've woken me up, silly. there's plenty of other spots i could've slept."

leo shrugged and started to fiddle around with some pipe cleaners he had brought with him. "you were comfy, so i just decided to push through the loss of feeling in my legs for a while."

val gave leo a playful smile and turned around in her seat to talk to piper, who was sitting in the seat behind her and leo with jason, her boyfriend. she was giving jason her usual dreamy eyed stare as he slept next to her, holding her hand.

"pipes, don't you always say it's rude to stare?" valerie asked teasingly.

she quickly looked up to val and leo, seemingly just now realizing they were looking at her.

piper averted her eyes from jason and looked up to us with pointed eyes. "it's not rude, i'm just admiring."

val rolled my eyes and smiled. "you admire him all day, everyday. i don't think anything's different about him."

piper smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "that's why i stare so much, because he's perfect, and i'm glad nothings different about him."

leo and val started making fake gagging noises.