The choiceless hope in grief (chapter 19)
“I hate to break this up, but I do have to check on Leo now that he’s awake,” Will said, looking way too amused. “You can get back to kissing afterwards, I promise.” “We can?” Jason asked, sounding so stupidly eager that Leo wanted to kiss him again right then and there. “Yes. Absolutely,” Leo agreed immediately, sounding extremely cool and suave and not even slightly pathetic, thank you very much. “Your ears are on fire, by the way,” Piper pointed out with an expression of pure mirth. She was laughing the whole time he struggled to put them back out. ”Disregarding all that,” Will said, biting his lip like he was also trying not to laugh, “how are you feeling?” “As long as Jason keeps kissing me, I think I’ll live,” Leo joked, delighting by the way his boyfriend blushed all the way to the tips of his ears. “Serious answer, please?” “This is Leo we’re talking about. Pretty sure that line of inquiry is hopeless,” Piper said with a snort. Leo stuck his tongue out at her. He did take a moment to consider the question, then—partially to spite Piper, but mostly because he wanted to get this over with so he could go back to kissing Jason. “Honestly? I feel amazing. My stupid ankle still hurts, I’m hungry and I could really use a shower to get the Underworld smell off me, but aside from that? I’m grand.” He looked at Piper and Jason and smiled so hard that his cheeks hurt. “It’s nice to be home.”
Rating: Teen and Up
Chapter Word Count: 8.6k
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Chapter 19: The roots are metaphorical this time
Leo woke up feeling thoroughly rested in a way he hadn’t felt in years. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept this well. His usual nightmares had left him alone in favor of the kind of regular, bizarre dreams most mortals had. He was delighted to discover that he barely even remembered what he’d dreamed about—something about Chiron with a weird party hat? It had been nothing important. Nothing that mattered. He could use a few more nights of nonsensical dreams like that.
He slowly opened his eyes. Light fell into the infirmary from the windows.
Best of all, Jason and Piper were sitting on either side of him, expressions immediately softening when they realized he was waking up.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Piper said, ruffling his hair.
Leo rubbed his eyes, still a little groggy. “How long was I out?”
“Eighteen hours, give or take,” she said, shaking her head. “Which is insane, but it’s honestly kind of a miracle you didn’t sleep even longer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone pass out from sleep deprivation before. You must have been dead on your feet.”
“You know how it is. No rest for the wicked,” Leo joked, grinning up at her and Jason. “How are you feeling, Superman?”
Jason had ditched his weird Underworld school uniform in favor of a camp shirt and jeans, which made him look more like the kid like he was and less like someone might call him any minute to ask if he could do their taxes. A necklace with a single orange bead hung around his neck.
“Weird. Still getting used to the whole ‘no longer being dead’-thing,” he said, smiling softly at Leo. “Really happy too, though.” He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Leo’s forehead. “Sorry. I- was that okay? I’m still figuring this stuff out.”
“I- yeah,” Leo stuttered out, trying to ignore the way his heart was slamming against his ribcage. Right. Him and Jason were kissing now. That was a thing. “Missed my lips by a whole bunch, but we can fix that.”
He sat up at the same time as Jason leaned back down, resulting in them headbutting each other, which hurt a little but mostly made them both burst out laughing.
They were still laughing halfway through the kiss, which meant it was an astronomically terrible kiss, and Leo felt so absurdly warm and happy all throughout that he was seriously worried he would burn the infirmary down.
He could get used to being woken up like this.
Someone cleared their throat behind them, and Leo and Jason jumped apart like… well, like teenagers who’d been caught making out.
“I hate to break this up, but I do have to check on Leo now that he’s awake,” Will said, looking way too amused. “You can get back to kissing afterwards, I promise.”
“We can?” Jason asked, sounding so stupidly eager that Leo wanted to kiss him again right then and there.
“Yes. Absolutely,” Leo agreed immediately, sounding extremely cool and suave and not even slightly pathetic, thank you very much.
“Your ears are on fire, by the way,” Piper pointed out with an expression of pure mirth. She was laughing the whole time he struggled to put them back out.
”Disregarding all that,” Will said, biting his lip like he was also trying not to laugh, “how are you feeling?”
“As long as Jason keeps kissing me, I think I’ll live,” Leo joked, delighting by the way his boyfriend blushed all the way to the tips of his ears.
“Serious answer, please?”
“This is Leo we’re talking about. Pretty sure that line of inquiry is hopeless,” Piper said with a snort.
Leo stuck his tongue out at her.
He did take a moment to consider the question, then—partially to spite Piper, but mostly because he wanted to get this over with so he could go back to kissing Jason.
“Honestly? I feel amazing. My stupid ankle still hurts, I’m hungry and I could really use a shower to get the Underworld smell off me, but aside from that? I’m grand.” He looked at Piper and Jason and smiled so hard that his cheeks hurt. “It’s nice to be home.”
“You slept through breakfast, but I can go steal a magic plate so you can summon yourself some food,” Piper offered immediately. Her expression had gone soft. Jason opened his mouth to say something, but she held up her hand to silence him. “Sparky, it’s cute that you want to play the doting boyfriend, but we both know you can’t go anywhere without being mobbed at the moment. I, on the other hand, can just tell anyone who annoys me to go jump in the lake. If Leo’s supposed to get food any time in the next three hours, I’m objectively the better option.”
Jason sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Pipes.”
“I know.” She winked at Leo as she ducked backwards out the door. “Be right back!”
Will waited for Leo to take the pain meds, then went through the tedious process of taking his blood pressure and listening to his heart and just generally making sure he wasn’t dying. Most of it was just boring, but not bad—except the part where he placed his hand on Leo’s leg, right above the cast, which hurt like hell, despite the meds.
“Yep. Ow. Can confirm this is probably still broken, but I’m assuming you could tell as much via your weird Apollo powers,” Leo hissed through gritted teeth. “Just how badly did I mess up my ankle?”
“Pretty badly.” Will grimaced, taking his hand back off off Leo’s leg, which helped. From his expression, Leo braced for the worst. “We did what we could, but the injury was severe, and the amount of stress you put on your ankle after you hurt it really didn’t help. The pain should get better once the break heals up, but most likely, you’ll be permanently stuck with an ankle brace and at least some level of chronic pain.”
“Oh.” Leo relaxed. It wasn’t ideal, obviously, and he would have preferred his ankle not messed up, but all in all, that didn’t sound too bad. He elbowed his boyfriend lightly. “I guess now I’ve got an excuse to make you carry me around whenever I want.”
Jason looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole. “I’m so sorry. I-”
“Don’t,” Leo interrupted him. “I don’t care about my stupid ankle, Jase. I’ll live.” He took Jason’s hands in his. “So will you. I think that’s a great deal, all things considered.”
“But you’re hurt.”
“Jason. Look at me.” Leo found himself smiling again. “You see through me in a way no one else has ever been able to. That scared the crap out of me at first. Other people never liked me very much, and I didn’t see how learning that I was a severely traumatized fire freak would help anything. But you saw all of my bent, broken parts, and instead of throwing me out with the recycling, you took my hand and told me I was important.”
“I hate when you talk about yourself like that,” Jason told him. “You are important. You’re my favorite person. You-”
Leo kissed him. Mostly because he needed to shut his boyfriend up before Jason got him to blush so hard that he really did burn the entire infirmary to the ground. Also a little bit because he just really wanted to kiss him, and Jason saying stuff like this wasn’t helping.
“Can it, you sap,” Leo said when they broke apart, though he couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. “Your declarations of love are greatly appreciated, but I was trying to make a point, and my ADHD ass already cannot remember where I was going half the time when you aren’t hitting on me.”
“Sorry,” Jason said, though the way he was beaming made Leo seriously doubt the sincerity of that particular apology.
“What I was trying to say before I was so rudely distracted,” Leo continued, barely resisting the urge to kiss his boyfriend again, “was that I want you to do your thing, Superman. Read me. Use your weird X-ray vision or whatever it is and tell me if I’m lying when I say that, ankle injury or no, this is the most okay I’ve felt in years.”
“You’re not.” Jason blinked at him. “You mean it.”
“Duh.” Leo grinned. “I made that brace with my mom. I got that injury getting my boyfriend back from the dead. It’s a badge of honor, if anything.”
“Okay.” Jason pressed his forehead to Leo’s and wrapped his arms around him. “But if there’s anything I can do, just say the word.”
“I meant what I said. I’m so gonna make you carry me around any time my ankle is being a bitch and/or I just don’t feel like walking,” Leo told him, melting into the hug and feeling completely content. “Boyfriend privileges and all.”
“I can absolutely live with that,” Jason said softly, pressing a kiss to his curls.
“You’d better. That was sort of the whole point of this whole resurrection business.”
“Right. I guess we’re done here for now. I did say you could go back to making out after.” Will sighed, lifting his hands. “Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”
“I will,” Leo confirmed placatingly. “But for the moment, I think I’m good.”
~~~~
If it hadn’t been for Piper bringing over the magic food plate and Leo being incredibly hungry, he wasn’t sure he ever would have managed to pry himself off of Jason. After he’d spent so long without him, the feeling of being curled up against Jason’s chest was kind of addictive, and that was before factoring in the fact that Leo also got to kiss him now. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get anything done ever again.
He was thankful for the food, though. He never wanted to see another granola bar again in his life.
He’d refused to ask the plates for any of his mom’s cooking up to this point—unsure if they’d be able to get it right, and afraid that even if they did manage, it would hurt too much—but he tried, then.
The Huevos Rancheros tasted exactly how he remembered them. Of course they did. The plates were magic, after all.
And, well, if he wrapped himself up in her jacket again and had a little cry over it, that was his business.
He felt like he’d probably have a lot of cries over his mom going forward. Maybe that was a good thing. It was way past time for him to give that grief room. Way past time that he allowed her room in his thoughts again beyond brief, painful flashes.
He’d tried to run from the memories for so long. It had been the only way he’d been able to deal with things for a time, but trying to suppress everything that had happened had never fully taken the pain away. It had always been right behind him, ready to catch up and drag him down, hanging over every good memory he’d ever shared with his mom and every good moment Leo allowed himself to have after her death like a storm cloud.
He didn’t want that anymore. He wanted the good back, even if it meant he had to take the bad with it. He could face the painful parts, knowing his mom still loved him. Knowing Piper and Jason would be there to hold him through it.
After Leo had been thoroughly emotionally decimated by his choice of breakfast, he spent some time talking to Jason and Piper about nothing at all. It was just nice to be around them again.
Eventually, a slightly sour-looking Drew came to collect his friends for lunch. Leo used the time they were gone to take a very long shower so he’d hopefully smell a little bit less like a dead person by the time they got back. He looked a lot less wrecked afterwards, with his hair back in order and dressed in clean shorts and an oversized purple shirt that may or may not have belonged to Jason at one point. It was too warm to keep wearing his mom’s jacket, but he’d tied it around his waist. He was committed to dragging it around with him everywhere for as long as he could without dying in the heat.
He’d expected to find the infirmary still empty when he wobbled back out of the bathroom on his crutches, since, long shower or not, he didn’t think his friends would be back that soon.
But the infirmary wasn’t empty. A small figure sat on the cot where Leo had been sleeping. He lifted his head the second Leo was through the door.
Out of all his siblings, Harley probably looked the most like Leo. He was much stronger than Leo was—which, if he was honest with himself, was a pretty low bar—but Harley’s hair was the same mess of curls and they had the same dark eyes. Nyssa had said once that they even had the same mischievous smile—the kind that immediately told you that whatever they were working on spelled trouble for everyone else.
Worse than that was the fact that Harley was similar to Leo in that other awful way: he was a year-rounder because he had no home to go back to.
Maybe that was why he’d clung to Leo as instinctively as he had. It was definitely why Leo had always struggled to be around him. Harley reminded him too much of the hurting eight year old he had been.
But seeing him now, sitting on the infirmary cot with shaking shoulders and a face that was blotchy from crying, Leo was reminded painfully that what his own eight year old self had wanted the most was someone who cared.
He swallowed, braced himself and then sank onto the bed next to his brother.
“Hi,” he said quietly. Leo was quickly discovering that he seriously needed to work on his sincere conversation openers. He hadn’t used those in way too long, and he was clearly rusty as hell.
“I hate you,” Harley said quietly, not meeting his eyes. His shoulders were still shaking with sobs.
“I don’t really blame you. I’m kind of a miserable failure when it comes to the whole older brother-business,” Leo admitted, forcing himself to look at his little brother. “I’m sorry I left. I was going to come back, but a lot of stuff happened, and then Jason...” He trailed off. “Look, it doesn’t really matter. Point being: I suck as a brother, and I completely get it if you feel like punching me again.”
Harley did punch him, but it wasn’t very hard, and he immediately wrapped both arms around Leo’s waist afterwards. “I really missed you.”
Leo only hesitated for a moment before he pulled his brother to his chest, holding him tightly. “I missed you, too.”
“Piper was so upset, and Nyssa said you might be hurt, and I-” Harley continued, voice awfully quiet. His tiny form was trembling against Leo’s chest. “I wasn’t sure if you were ever going to come home again.”
“Harls, I…” Leo’s throat was closing up. “Gods, I’m so sorry. I was so focused on saving Jason that my vision kind of tunneled. I didn’t mean to make you all worry so much.”
“Well, you did,” his brother pouted. “I didn’t like it very much.”
“I know.” Leo bit his lip. “I should have visited sooner.”
“Yeah, you really should have,” Harley bit out, his harsh tone slightly undercut by the fact that he was still clinging to Leo. “I forgot to give you your necklace last time,” he continued, sniffling. He slowly pulled back and opened the hand that had been clenched into a fist since Leo had stepped into the room. In his palm, he held the same kind of necklace Piper and Jason had been wearing, with one singular bead strung on it. “All campers get a bead at the end of each summer they’ve been here. The others weren’t sure if you’d need one, but you promised me you were coming back, so I kept it for you.”
Leo took the necklace almost reverently. The fact that Harley had held onto it for him for almost a year… he felt a little ill thinking about that.
The bead made it worse. He’d thought it was just orange from a distance, but now that he got a closer look at it, he realized it was colored like a flame—white and yellow in the middle melting into darker shades of orange and red towards the edges—and had a familiar bronze dragon painted on it.
Oh gods.
“Are everyone’s beads like that?”
Harley nodded. “They always paint the summer’s most important event on them. Last summer, that was you saving the camp.”
“You guys give me way too much credit,” Leo said sheepishly, feeling warm right down to his core.
Harley kicked him in the leg—thankfully going for the one that wasn’t encased in an ankle cast. “Shut up. You’re a hero,” Harley said, very quietly, and then he hugged Leo again.
Leo flushed.
“Yeah, I guess I am.” He went to hug Harley back, pausing when his brother gave a little hiss of pain. “Are you hurt?”
“Not a lot,” Harley said quietly, seeming embarrassed.
“Can I see?” He nodded, holding out his left arm. It was scraped pretty badly below his left elbow, but thankfully it barely bled. “Ouch.”
“Will said you needed rest and to leave you alone for a little bit, but I really wanted to see you. I waited until everyone was at lunch and climbed in through the window.” Harley shrugged. “I maybe fell a little bit.”
“Harls…” Leo hesitated, then gently ruffled his brother’s hair. “Oh man, I really need to up my game when it comes to this older brother stuff. Someone clearly needs to teach you safe window climbing practices.”
“Yes!” Harley cheered, grinning, and yeah, okay, Leo could see what Nyssa had meant about them sharing the same mischief smile. “Does that mean you’re staying? At least for a little while?” Harley asked hopefully.
Leo nodded. “I’m still figuring out what I want to do long-term, but yeah. Piper, Jason and I are planning on sticking around for the rest of the summer.”
They’d made that decision earlier, right before Drew had appeared seemingly out of thin air and dragged Jason and Piper out of the infirmary for lunch. Piper had told them about how her siblings had been trying to get her to join in on camp activities to distract her while Leo was off on his Underworld misadventures. Then Jason had pointed out how unfortunate it was that they’d barely gotten to try any of them together because Leo had been so busy with building the Argo last summer. And, well… it wasn’t like they had other plans for the next few weeks.
That Leo could maybe try to get some stuff figured out with his own siblings while he was at it… he wasn’t exactly mad about it.
“Really?” Harley’s eyes gleamed.
Leo thought about how much it would have meant to him at that age to know someone really, properly saw him, especially an older kid that he looked up to. Him being an older kid that anyone looked up to was still a really strange concept, honestly. He needed to get the hang of this whole older brother thing.
“Yeah, really. Maybe you can show me some of the stuff you’ve been working on while I was away?”
Harley beamed at him. “You’re the best.”
“I think Nyssa would probably disagree, since I’m being a terrible role model and all,” Leo said, squeezing Harley’s shoulders as he laughed. “For now, let’s see if we can get you patched up, yeah?”
~~~~
Leo waited until after Jason and Piper got back from lunch to send an Iris Message to the Waystation.
It wasn’t like he was worried Jo and Emmie would be mad that he hadn’t called sooner. They’d cut him a lot of slack when he’d basically vanished off the face of the earth after Jason had died, so he figured he was probably okay on that front. Besides, he’d only been out of the Underworld for a little more than a day, and he’d spent most of that day unconscious, so him not calling immediately was probably fair game.
He was a little anxious about seeing them again, though. He’d left foster parents several times in his life, and none of the ones that he’d been sent back to—back when he’d still been new enough to running away to get himself caught—had ever seemed thrilled to see him again.
Logically, he knew this was different. Of course it was. Him leaving the Waystation had involved actual goodbyes and well-wishes instead of him just slipping out of a window in the middle of the night. But that didn’t completely untie the anxiety knot in his chest that his past experiences had left there.
The image that appeared in the rainbow was that of Jo and Emmie standing in a large planter box, both of their gloved hands covered in dirt.
“Leo!” Jo got up from her haunches and wiped her dirty gloves off on her oil-soaked overall, which made her wife shake her head in fond exasperation. “How was your trip?”
She asked it like she was welcoming him back after a school excursion to a museum rather than a two week trek through the Underworld.
A part of Leo still couldn’t believe it had been that long. Time really did move strangely in the Underworld. Sometimes, it had felt like he’d only been down there for a few hours. Other times, he’d thought it may as well have been an eternity. Neither of those extremes really fit into the reality of it having been two weeks.
“Actually? It was surprisingly okay,” he said, the tension melting out of his shoulders at her casual tone. “Your Mist card ended up coming in really handy when I was in a tough spot, so thanks.”
He was still wearing the watch, despite the fact that he wasn’t very good at actually checking the time on it. The weight on his wrist was weirdly comforting now.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Anyway, I’d like to introduce you to someone. This,” Leo said, gesturing to his boyfriend, “is Jason.”
“Hi,” Jason said, lifting one hand in greeting.
“Oh, it is so nice to finally meet you,” Jo said, grinning in a way that immediately made Leo dread the next thing that would come out of her mouth. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You have?” Jason said, his voice climbing an octave higher than usual.
Leo’s face burned.
“Josephine!” Hemithea laughed, swatting her wife’s arm. “Let the poor boys live.”
“Sorry, sorry,” Jo said, lifting her hands defensively. “They’re just too sweet. I couldn’t resist.”
“I’m also here, by the way,” Piper pointed out, waving enthusiastically. “I know that’s not as exciting as the resurrection stuff, but it’s still good to see you again.”
“Piper! How nice to see all three of you back together.” Emmie looked at her a little sheepishly. “I never did send you that vegetarian curry recipe you asked for, did I? Apologies. It’s taken me a few thousand years, but it appears I am finally getting old.”
Piper chuckled. “No worries. I’m kind of shit at cooking, anyway.”
“I dispute that kind of,” Leo told her, which earned him a light swat to his arm in retaliation. He ignored her and turned back to Emmie and Jo. “How’s Festus?”
“He’s been getting more and more agitated the longer you’ve been gone.” Jo exchanged a look with her wife. “He may have wreaked a little bit of havoc.”
Leo cringed. “Sorry about that. He doesn’t deal with grief super well.”
He remembered the state he’d found Festus in when they’d first met, badly influenced by a corroded control disk and grief for an older brother of Leo’s that he’d never gotten to meet. He owed his poor dragon so much motor oil and Tabasco sauce for scaring him like that.
Jo waved him off. “Most people don’t. No reason metal dragons should. No hard feelings. I’m sure he’ll be glad to know you’re alright.”
“Can you tell him he can come to camp if he wants? We’ve decided to stay here for now, and I think actually seeing me and Jason might help tune down his destructive behaviors.”
He wasn’t sure how he was expecting Emmie and Jo to react to the fact that he wouldn’t be coming back immediately—that, so far, he hadn’t even confirmed he was coming back at all—but Emmie just smiled at him and said, “yeah, we can absolutely do that. I hope you’ll have a wonderful time with your friends.”
“Boyfriend, actually,” Jason corrected quickly, not willing to let the misunderstanding stand despite the clear nervousness he displayed when talking to the two women.
Gods, Leo was so absolutely, hopelessly in love with this dork.
“Of course. My apologies.”
Jo didn’t say anything to her wife, but the look she gave her clearly communicated ‘told you so’. Then she turned back to Leo. “Will Festus need anything for a cross-country flight? Has he crossed a distance like that on his own before?”
“He navigated all the way to Ogygia with me unconscious on his back, so he should be fine, but running some basic maintenance in advance probably can’t hurt. I’ll send over a copy of his blueprint via messenger scroll.” Leo smiled. He felt glad, knowing that she cared about his dragon making it here safely. “How have things been at the Waystation? Is everyone doing alright?”
“Things have been good. Largely peaceful, aside from the occasional mishaps. Nothing out of the ordinary. We had a daughter of Victoria staying here last weekend who needed a little bit of patching up before she continued on her way to the Wolf House, but other than that, it’s been relatively quiet,” Jo told him.
“Calypso is still at band camp and from what she told me, I get the impression she’s quite enjoying being a counselor. It’s good to see her just be a kid for once after everything she’s been through.” Emmie smiled fondly. “And Lit has been helping in the gardens a lot these past few weeks. He seems to find it really helpful to define himself more through being a son of Demeter than a son of Midas.”
“Nice. Tell him I said hi.”
Jason looked at Leo with wide eyes. “Hang on. Lit as in Lityerses? The guy who tried to kill us in Omaha?”
Leo laughed. “Yeah. Long, weird story involving our mutual friend Lester, but it turns out that when Lit isn’t trying to stab you, he actually isn’t that bad.”
“Can confirm. Didn’t interact with him for a long time when I was there, but he was pretty okay for the most part,” Piper chimed in. “Don’t ask him about corn, though. He gets weirdly intense about corn.”
“Oh, yes. He’s especially enthusiastic about planting corn,” Emmie confirmed.
“I…” Jason shook his head. “You know what, I’m not even going to ask.”
“Probably for the better,” Leo said with a snort. “No need to worry your pretty little head about it.”
Jo craned her neck to look at something outside of the rainbow’s receiving area. “Oh, I think Georgina is coming over. She was very busy digging a large hole into one of the empty planter boxes up until a moment ago and I didn’t want to disturb her.”
Leo nodded. “Completely understandable. Sometimes a kid simply needs to dig themself a hole large enough to sit in for no discernible reason. It’s an important part of child development.”
“Exactly.”
“Where did the rainbow come from?” a small voice asked. “We’re inside.”
“Georgie? Hi, sweetheart.” Emmie leaned out of frame, presumably to ruffle her daughter’s hair like Leo had seen her do lots of times in the past. “The rainbow is Leo calling. Do you wanna say hi?”
“Kay,” Georgina agreed, and then a mop of dark hair appeared in the corner of the rainbow. “Hi.”
“Hey Georgina.” Leo waved at her.
She eyed him critically. “Do you still have my doll?”
“Oh.” Leo reached into his tool belt, carefully pulling out the tiny pipe cleaner doll of himself and holding it into the frame. “Obviously I still have it. I’m gonna give it a place of honor somewhere around here.”
“Good.” Georgina nodded, clearly pleased. Leo felt like he’d passed some sort of unspoken test. “I like you.”
Then she disappeared back out of frame.
“Smart girl.” Josephine leaned out of the frame, talking quietly to her daughter, then Leo could hear Georgina darting off completely. “She’s been making good use of the crayons you got her.”
“Oh, nice. I thought they’d completely disappeared into the void after I misplaced them.” Leo rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
“The Waystation finds most things again when it decides it’s convenient,” Emmie told him. “Whether that’s also at a time you find convenient… well, that’s a different question altogether.” She chuckled.
“Sometimes, when it feels like I’ve been working for too long, it starts making my tools disappear to force me to take a break,” Jo said, shaking her head. “When it was time for lunch earlier, it simply swallowed up all the gardening equipment and held it hostage until we’d taken a full two hour break. It really has a mind of its own when it comes to stuff like that.”
“Leo seriously could have used a building that just bullied him into taking breaks when he was working on the Argo. Alas, he had to make do with just us,” Piper joked, gently bumping her shoulder into Leo’s. “You two have been in the gardens all day?”
“Pretty much. We harvested some of our summer vegetables and planted a few new ones in their place. Usually we’d have to let the planter boxes that we just harvested from rest for a little while before sowing something new, but thanks to Lit’s help, that appears to not be necessary, so we had a lot more space to plant things than usual,” Emmie explained. “The zucchinis and poblano peppers you suggested are coming along quite nicely, by the way.”
Leo blinked. “Oh.”
Not just an unsubtle way to get him to talk about what he liked to eat, then. He hadn’t realized she’d actually planted anything new for his sake.
It was incredibly kind. It was also more than a little overwhelming.
What he was feeling must have been written plainly across his face, because Emmie looked at him gently and lifted her hands. “Please don’t think that me taking your planting suggestions to heart makes you in any way obligated to come back here if that’s not what you want. We’re always looking for new recipes to try, and there’s a very nice local farmer’s market where we sell any excess yield we don’t use.”
“Oh,” he said quietly.
“The option to come back here is just that—an option,” Jo added. Her expression was serious, but there was nothing but kindness in her eyes. “I told you before you left that there’s always going to be a place for you here, and I did mean that. But you don’t owe us anything. Do what feels right for you. If it isn’t coming back here, we’ll understand.”
There wasn’t even a little harshness in her voice. No hard feelings. No one telling him he should be grateful they bothered to put up with him at all and to behave accordingly.
“And if I try it and figure out it isn’t right for me?” he asked, wringing his hands.
“You stay as long as you like. If you figure out along the way that being here isn’t the kind of life you want long-term, that’s okay, too.” Jo smiled at him. “You don’t have to decide now. Take whatever time you need.”
The rest of the tension and the uncertainty melted out of Leo at those words. He didn’t feel ready to make any kind of lifetime commitment with everything that entailed. At his current stage of healing, the love Leo held for Jason and Piper was as much lifetime commitment as he could reasonably be expected to handle.
But this wasn’t a lifetime commitment. Instead, what Emmie and Jo had given him was an open-ended offer that he could accept or reject as he felt comfortable. They’d made it clear that they cared, but that the only person who got to decide whether he gave this a shot was Leo himself.
That kind of freedom to choose whether you wanted to be part of a certain foster family hadn’t ever been awarded to him while he was in the system. That wasn’t how it worked. You just got stuck with whatever family they assigned you to. The only choice Leo had ever had was that of staying or running away.
Right now, no one was dragging him inside a new home he didn’t want to be in, and that would be almost as quick to reject him in turn. Instead, he was standing in front of a door that would remain closed if that was what he chose. And if he opened it and the place ended up being nothing more than… well, a literal way station on his path to somewhere else, that was okay, too. If past experience told him anything, they’d just ask him to stay for breakfast and make sure he had everything he needed before he went on his merry way.
And, weirdly, Leo found that all of this combined meant he did, in fact, want to walk through that door. He wanted to know what life with Jo and Emmie and Georgina could be like when he wasn’t drowning neck-deep in grief.
As much as Calypso’s words had stung, she had been right about a lot of the things she’d said to him during their breakup. It was way past time for Leo to step onto a bridge or two and find out if it would hold his weight.
“I think I’d like to come back once summer is over.”
Josephine and Hemithea both smiled at him.
“I’d say we’ll have your room ready, but I think the Waystation would be quite offended if we as much as implied it didn’t do literally all of the work,” Emmie said with a chuckle.
Piper cleared her throat next to him. Her expression was stern.
“Just so you know, I’m expecting you to visit me in Tahlequah literally all of the time,” she told him, jabbing a finger into Leo’s collarbone. “No more excuses. I don’t care that you’re a whole ten hour drive away from me. You’re my best friend, and you will come see me at every opportunity, unless I come to see you first.”
Leo laughed, pulling her into a hug. “Duly noted.”
“It better be,” she warned, hugging him back just as fiercely.
Then Leo’s eyes trailed over to his boyfriend.
Jason had gone very quiet. He was quiet a lot, and usually, this didn’t alarm Leo. He was more of a listener than a talker. That was completely fine. But now he’d crossed his arms over his chest almost protectively, and his eyes were glued to the ground, like the infirmary’s floor tiles had suddenly become extremely interesting.
Leo reached out to take Jason’s hands in his, squeezing them gently. “Hey Superman, what’s wrong?”
“I guess I just…” Jason trailed off. “I just feel kind of lost right now. I’m still not really sure what I’ll do when you guys leave camp at the end of the summer. I can’t go back to Edgarton—I don’t want to be responsible for the Mist messing with even more people’s memories—but staying here wouldn’t be the same without you.”
“Come back to the Waystation with me,” Leo blurted out, with no preamble or warning. His mouth had formed the words before it had given his brain even the slimmest of chances to catch up.
Jason lifted his head, his electric blue eyes wide with surprise. “What?”
“They’ve got plenty of room,” Leo continued, his heart hammering in his chest. “We could do whatever it is bored teenagers usually waste their last year of high school on. No more undead Roman emperors or Giants or homicidal earth goddesses. Just you and me and whatever it is we need to do to get you into NRU.” There was something utterly absurd about this scene. Leo had spent so much of his life running, and now here he was, Jason’s hand clasped tightly in his, his heart thrumming a desperate rhythm of stay, stay, stay. “Sound good?”
Jason swallowed, and for a moment, Leo was scared he’d say no. There was too much baggage there for Leo not to consider the possibility. He’d been abandoned a few too many times in his life, and the scars that had left him with didn’t magically go away just because he’d made some weirdly positive experiences lately.
But Leo pushed the fear down. It was completely unnecessary to invite doomsday when doomsday was constantly showing up on his doorstep unprompted, anyway. And besides, considering Jason had followed him out of the Underworld, it seemed a little silly to think he’d draw the line at Indiana.
“I want to. So much,” Jason said finally. He bit his lip, which was stupidly distracting. “But I tried the normal life-thing at Edgarton and it didn’t go so well. I’m such a natural monster magnet that I had to kill one of my teachers. I don’t know how normal your life is really going to be as long as you’re around me.”
“I’ve had teachers I wanted to stab regardless of whether they were monsters,” Leo joked, squeezing Jason’s hand. “Also, who the hell said anything about me wanting a life that’s normal? I said that it could stand to be more boring, yeah—a year or two without having to save the world would be grand—but I mostly just want it to have you in it, whatever that entails.” He elbowed his boyfriend lightly. “You know I literally catch fire whenever I’m nervous or excited, right? How much normal do you think you’re realistically going to get with me?” he pointed out, turning Jason’s question back around on him.
Jason’s features softened immediately. “Then yes. I’ll come with you.”
He said it like what he really meant was that he would have followed Leo to the ends of the earth.
Leo couldn’t help himself. Audience be damned, he leaned forward and kissed him.
When they broke apart, Jason was looking at him like he was the only person in the entire universe, so, of course, Leo had to put his flaming hair out again.
“Case in point,” he snorted.
Piper whistled. “You know, I always thought U-hauling was a lesbian thing.”
“Does it count as U-hauling considering Jason barely has any stuff?” Leo countered. He wasn’t even embarrassed about it, honestly. He had literally died for Jason and dragged him out of the Underworld. Asking him to move in together was far from the craziest thing he’d ever done.
“No, that still counts. It’s the principle of the matter. You two have only been together for a day.”
Josephine chuckled in the background. “Your friend has a point.”
“You’re saying this like you didn’t outright tell me I could bring him,” Leo said with a shrug.
“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Jo told him, smiling. “I am quite curious to see if he’s really as awful at cooking as you said.”
“Honestly? Whatever you’re imagining, I’m probably worse,” Jason admitted sheepishly, his face flaming red.
That made all of them burst out laughing.
~~~~
Leo maybe should have expected the party. If there was one thing he had learned in the six months he’d lived at camp before their Argo quest, it was that the majority of demigods were keenly aware that their lives might be cut short by either monsters or world-ending deity shenanigans, and they seemed to deal with this by making the most of all the positive moments they were granted. Essentially: if you gave them a reason to throw a party, chances were they were going to take it. Jason’s resurrection was as good a reason as any.
But when Will cleared Leo in the afternoon, telling him he was okay to leave the infirmary as long as he took things slow, the possibility of a party was the last thing on his mind. He mostly just thought about getting fresh air that didn’t smell of disinfectant and maybe being able to have dinner with his friends later.
But when he stepped outside, his best friend on one side, his boyfriend on the other, about half the camp greeted them.
Before any of them had a chance to process what was happening, Leo’s siblings were dragging them off to the beach.
Picnic blankets had been spread out in the sand. Each of them had a basket of snacks—homegrown strawberries, chips, marshmallows—and several bottles of lemonade placed neatly in the middle of the blanket. Austin sat off to the side providing music. The Demeter kids had teamed up with the dryads to hang up flower garlands between the trees. Several sunshades had been put up, too—all of them so fancy that Leo was sure the Aphrodite cabin must have provided them.
“Wow, you guys really went all out,” he muttered, mouth agape.
“Successful quests deserve a proper celebration,” Nyssa informed him matter-of-factly. “We’ve got a special surprise prepared for after the sun goes down, since you missed the Fourth of July fireworks two years in a row. They’re basically a cabin nine staple, so we couldn’t let that stand.”
“For now, we’re gonna need details about your quest,” Christopher chimed in, patting his shoulder encouragingly. “We’ve been trying to pester Jason about it, but he just keeps mooning over you and not being very helpful.”
“It’s not my story to tell,” Jason insisted. He looked like he longed to disappear behind Leo and Piper, which was hilarious considering their height difference. “And I’m allowed to moon over my boyfriend.”
“Whatever you say, wolf boy,” Piper teased, flicking him lightly in the forehead.
So that was how Leo spent his afternoon: sitting on a picnic blanket with Jason, Piper and several of his siblings as he recounted his Underworld misadventures. He slightly exaggerated some aspects, as was expected of him, and left out anything that he didn’t feel comfortable sharing with a crowd that included a bunch of total strangers.
He felt a little overwhelmed about the fact that the other campers had decided to throw a whole party for him and Jason. His boyfriend seemed even less sure how to handle the situation. Leo repeatedly heard him state that “Leo deserves all the credit, I didn’t really do anything except die.”
This technically wasn’t true—this whole resurrection wouldn’t have worked if Jason hadn’t trusted him more than life itself—but Leo didn’t correct him. Mostly because he could see how obviously relieved Jason was whenever people took their attention off him. He knew his boyfriend hated being the center of attention, and that he’d never really known what to do at parties. He could handle semi-formal events that had some sort of clear structure—the kind they usually seemed to have at Camp Jupiter—but the informal ones they had at Camp Half-Blood? Yeah, those were disastrously overwhelming for him. From any and all camp parties Leo had ever attended with Jason and Piper, he knew very well that Jason was the type of party-goer who only went under duress and proceeded to spend the majority of the evening standing stiffly in a corner and trying his best to pretend he was an inanimate part of the decorations that no one needed to interact with.
That Leo and Piper had gotten Jason to dance with them at the farewell party the campers had thrown for the Argo crew had been nothing short of a miracle, and that had been the only time they’d ever managed it.
Ergo: Leo was more than happy to take all the credit for now, if it meant Jason would feel a little less awkward and keep his arm around Leo’s shoulder in return.
Besides, Leo knew what he’d achieved wasn’t a small feat. It was nice to be able to recognize that for once, instead of focusing on all the ways he’d messed up and should have done better.
People eventually split off into groups and started dancing, though Leo obviously wasn’t asked to join due to his broken ankle. The one time someone tried to ask Jason to join in, he looked helplessly over to his boyfriend, and Leo reacted by demonstratively plopping down in his lap.
“Sorry,” he said, leaning back against Jason’s chest. “He’s a little busy right now.”
The only one who couldn’t get out of dancing was Piper, who was eventually dragged off by her younger siblings. It took her almost an hour to escape them again.
Once the sun went down, the sunshades were put away and little lanterns started floating around the beach for some extra light. Someone lit a fire so people could start roasting their marshmallows.
The fireworks were breathtaking. The first ones were the standard kind, painting the sky in flowers in a multitude of colors. But the last few were almost like animated scenes painted into the sky. And not just any scenes. They were adventures from their Argo II quest—most of them looking way more heroic than they’d felt at the time. Battles against giants and monsters. Leo and his friends standing side by side. A giant bronze dragon emerging from the wreck of the Argo.
“We were technically working on these for the one year anniversary of Gaia’s defeat, but I figured we could spare a few,” Nyssa said with a proud smile.
“They’re amazing,” Leo breathed. “I need to know how you guys made these.”
“Harley said you’re sticking around for the rest of the summer, so I suppose I can show you. Because I’m a good sister and all. Only if you actually agree to help with making more, though.”
Leo nudged her. “Hey, you guys built a whole boat with me. I don’t think me helping with a few fireworks in return is too much to ask.”
~~~~
Jason, Leo and Piper rounded off the night in Bunker Nine. It had been Leo’s idea—a casual suggestion to duck out of the party to have some time to themselves once he could tell they were all starting to get overwrought.
Piper had been the one to suggest they make it a sleepover.
The Bunker was remote and quiet and had plenty of space. It was basically the perfect place for it. It wasn’t empty, exactly—several of Leo’s siblings had larger projects sitting around here that they couldn’t reasonably keep at the forge or in their cabin—but compared to when the Argo had been in here, taking up the majority of the space, it still seemed huge.
Due to Leo’s whole broken ankle situation, the only thing he had been allowed to take care of was dinner. Even that he’d had to fight for, since Piper and Jason had said they could just bring along some plates to summon food.
Sure, they could have done that. It probably would have tasted great. But Leo had missed cooking—in general, but also for Piper and Jason specifically.
By the time the others had carried over mattresses and blankets and way more pillows than they were reasonably going to need, dinner was almost ready.
The three of them sat next to each other, Leo squished between them as he handed out tofu tacos in either direction. He’d offered to make an extra batch with meat after Piper’s food was done, but Jason had immediately shaken his head, his eyes misty.
“They were the first thing you ever cooked for us,” he’d said quietly. “Any time I had ambrosia after you… after you disappeared, that was what it tasted like.”
Tofu tacos it was.
Sitting together like this, each of them with a paper plate on their lap, Leo felt… nostalgic wasn’t the right word. Aside from Jason, who was a certified weirdo, he didn’t think anyone would be strange enough to feel nostalgic about that time they’d eaten tacos in a sewer after narrowly avoiding getting turned into lunch by a family of Cyclopes.
Maybe the word he was looking for was emotional. He’d been plenty emotional lately.
It had been just about a year and a half since that day—since the very first quest they’d ever been on together.
So much had changed since then. Leo barely even felt like the same person he’d been in that sewer—that hopeless, desperate kid who could barely even remember how it felt to be liked by someone, never mind loved, and who was swiftly having his entire world turned upside down by this quest as well as his new friends.
There had been so much Piper and Jason hadn’t known about him at the time. There was so much they still didn’t know about him now, because he’d carefully stuffed most of his past into a box, taped it shut and pushed it under a bed where he didn’t have to look at it. They were the two people who knew him best in the entire world, and he’d still barely managed to let them. Through jokes, sometimes. Once or twice because he’d broken down. But most cards he’d kept close to his chest.
As he sat between them now, Leo realized that he didn’t want that anymore. He was so tired of carrying everything alone. And he trusted Jason and Piper. If he was going to trust anyone to carry his hurt, it was them.
Once Leo finally found the courage to start, he discovered he couldn’t quite remember how to stop. He spent most of the night talking and talking and talking like his life depended on it.
He talked about his mom and growing up in Texas and how much guilt he’d carried around with him in the years since her death. He talked about the way the rest of his family had treated him after he’d lost his mom. He talked about the shitty foster homes and being sent back whenever he turned out to be too much to handle. About how, eventually, he’d started running before he would inevitably be made to leave again, until he finally stopped considering staying an option at all. About just how long he’d spent thinking he was too broken to be loved.
He let everything bleed out of him—all his doubts and regrets and fears—and he let Jason and Piper catch him. He showed them all his scarred, aching, broken bits, knowing that they’d love him all the same.
It was raw and awful at times, but like the tendrils in Asphodel, they held him upright, dampening the pain.
For the first time since he’d been eight years old, Leo felt well and truly rooted. He didn’t feel trapped. He wasn’t afraid. For once, he had absolutely no desire to run.
In the wee hours of his seventeenth birthday, Leo Valdez sat sandwiched between his two favorite people in the world and finally let himself be loved.
———
Notes:
And there we have it!
This fic being finished is… a really strange feeling, after everything that story and I went through together. This fic has been with me since March of last year, and it’s accompanied me through exam phases and writer’s blocks and was, at the beginning of this year, a very dear companion as I dealt with a loss of my own.
It’s probably the fic I’ve plotted out the most intricately and writing the entire thing out before starting to post was very different from my usual process, but I stuck to it and I’m very proud of the final product.
It’s also got quite a few lessons in it that I, personally, should probably take to heart—about how creations don’t have to be perfect but it’s important to keep creating anyway, and about the things you lose when you choose isolation because you fear rejection over a chance at being loved wholly for who you are. There’s quite a bit of me in all of these characters, and I loved being able to go on this journey with them.
Thank you for accompanying me along the way. I hope you enjoyed your trip through the Underworld at least half as much as I enjoyed sharing this—actually, hopefully more, seeing as there was quite a lot of “project at the wall”-throwing happening while I was writing this, lmao.
Speaking of that! Massive, massive shoutout to my friends who put up with my rambles and breakdowns throughout this process. Very specifically, thank you @queenjunothegreat and @mercurymasc. For the helpful feedback and the reading over chapters and for just letting me ramble my thoughts at you at absolutely ungodly hours. In a lot of ways, you’ve been my roots through this, and I’m so, so lucky I get to live in a world where I’m friends with you both.
Alright! That’s enough of me being a sap, I think. On to future plans in regard to this fic/universe, because like I mentioned in the last chapter, I’m not ready to say goodbye to these kids quite yet.
So! You may have noticed, this fic is now part of a series. The series in question isn’t new, but I didn’t want to put tchig into it until it was finished because the other fics in the series obviously spoil the ending. First and foremost: feel free to read these other fics in case you haven’t already to see what else these kids get up to after tchig if you haven’t already! And while tchig does tie a lot of plot threads up neatly, some of them are left open intentionally as I’m definitely not done with this universe at large :)
As far as immediate future plans go, I have a little Pipeyna oneshot that’ll be posted next weekend, and the weekend after that, you’ll (finally) be getting the first part of the Piper companion fic, which takes place during Leo’s Underworld trip and centers around her and Reyna visiting New Rome for Jason’s birthday. That fic will end up anywhere between 2-4 chapters and is currently at almost 10k, because Piper is my darling girl and I cannot bring myself to make her shut up ever.
There will also be the Thalia oneshot, as well as some more valgrace/lost trio content, and I may or may not be toying with the concept of another longer fic in this universe, though probably not anytime soon (I do, tragically, have a bachelor’s thesis to write which needs to take priority, LOL).
I’d love it if some of you decided to come on more of this journey with me, so please feel free to bookmark/subscribe to the series and/or follow me on tumblr for updates. Please also feel free to pester me in the comment sections or my asks in case you have any questions. Either way, thank you to everyone who followed me on this path all the way. I know we’ve been on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster here, but I hope I led you back out of the Underworld alright ;)
Much love
Eleena
Tag List: @poppitron360 @lilyfrey @lady-silkwing @intenebrisobscurat @manygeese @ann-rex @jvneseries
