Annabeth: This is my boyfriend, Percy. And beside him is his boyfriend, Jason. And beside Jason is his girlfriend, Piper, who is also my girlfriend. And beside Piper is Calypso, who is her girlfriend. And beside Calypso is her friend, Leo, who is also Jason's boyfriend. And beside Leo is his boyfriend Frank. And beside Frank is his girlfriend Hazel. And beside Hazel is her brother, Nico, who is a boyfriend of Leo, Percy, and Jason respectively. And beside Nico is his boyfriend Will, who is also Leo's boyfriend. And standing menacingly behind Nico is Reyna, who is my girlfriend, Piper's girlfriend, and also Jason's girlfriend. And painting a picture of this whole gathering is Rachel, who is my girlfriend and also Piper's girlfriend. And beside Rachel-
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
CHAPTER 11 WHICH IM JUST NOW REALIZING I NEVER PUT OUT A TEASER FOR ‼️‼️‼️
Leo found it depressing that every choice he had made in his entire life brought him here: trying to make small talk with his one and only ex on a wooden swinging bench that got more uncomfortable by the second. Oh, and had he mentioned that it was fucking freezing?
He kept his eyes fixed on his swaying feet, unsure whether the dizziness was from the motion of his perch or his own nausea.
There were a million things he wanted to say to Calypso. Most of them started with “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry for that one time I yelled at you for going to the arcade without me.
I’m sorry for bothering you with my Rubik’s cube while you were trying to focus.
I’m sorry for ignoring you all of spirit week even though you really wanted to wear matching outfits on twin day.
I’m sorry for being a bad boyfriend.
I’m sorry for being your boyfriend.
All he had to do was utter one of those phrases out loud, get it out of his cluttered head. But instead, he used the birdsong and the whistle of the wind as an excuse. Anything he said would be swept away with it anyways.
“I’m sorry,” someone said. It wasn’t Leo. He was too much of a coward to let those words out.
Leo cleared his captured throat. His voice came out choked as he coughed up the word “what?”
“I said I’m sorry.” Calypso clutched at where the fabric of her dress scrunched around her knees, bunching it up and letting it go again like a substitution for a breath.
He coughed. “You don’t have to.”
She knitted her cinnamon eyebrows together. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me for what?”
He was afraid he’d be disappointed if he did, but he did it anyway. “For what?”
“I suppose I’ll start with the small things. Do you remember when you lost your Rubik’s cube, back in junior year?”
“… yes.”
“I threw it away. I’m sorry.”
Leo let out a low whistle because it was either that or cry like a little baby. “Yikes.”
“I’m sorry for not listening to you whenever you talked about the robotics stuff you really liked. Sometimes, I would just use it as background noise. That was rude of me.”
“I’m sorry, too. For the record.” He tapped nervously on the armrest.
“For what?”
“Basically everything I did in college,” Leo said, making a pathetic attempt at a laugh. “I was such a loser back then.”
She forced a chuckle- Leo could tell, her smile was too square at the corners, like her lips were subconsciously drawn downwards even as they were pulled up- and knocked her shoulder against his. “Weren’t we all?”
“I was especially a loser. I’m sorry I never helped you with your theater projects. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you practice the oboe. I’m sorry I never took you out as much as you would’ve liked. And one time, the day after we had our first big college fight, I got us both coffees with your cash and gave yours to some other kid on campus.”
“You told me you’d spilled it on your way to class,” Calypso murmured.
“Yeah. Have I mentioned I’m sorry?”
She snorted halfheartedly. “I think so.”
Silence settled over them, looming like a piano over a cartoon character’s head.
“I’m starting to think we just shouldn’t have gotten together in the first place,” Calypso admitted. She picked at her already chipped aqua nail polish.
“Well, you’d be right.”
“Just like that?” She laughed, but it came out strangled. “You’re not gonna even try to say otherwise?”
Leo met her eyes, only because he felt she deserved it. “I can’t lie to you, Cal, we were horrible for each other. To each other.”
“Why?”
The piano came crashing down. If it had actually been a cartoon, Leo reasoned, his head would be popping out of the lid and he’d have piano keys instead of teeth. Maybe Calypso would have taken the opportunity to scurry away, leaving a silhouette of herself in whichever brick wall she decided to escape through, but he had no such luck.
Calypso’s eyes never left his, acting like jackhammers boring into his skull. Her question was repeated in their roundness: why?
“Cal…” he started, just to keep up the illusion that he was actually going to answer her, “it wasn’t your fault.”
“Just tell me. Why would we never have worked?”
He took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to hop over the porch railing and abscond into the corn fields, never to be seen again. “I’m gay.”
Calypso’s eyes widened impossibly further. Her mouth stayed mercifully shut for a moment before it uttered the words “so many things make sense now.”
Leo couldn’t help but snort at her response. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
“You always acted weird when we had gym with Percy, for starters.”
“Oh my (god,)” Leo groaned as he buried his face in his hands, “I was so obvious, wasn’t I?”
Calypso chuckled. “Yeah, you were. And there was also Frank. Was that fake flirting… was it actually…?”
“I can’t tell you what teenage me was thinking, but I can tell you it wasn’t entirely straight.”
She hummed, voice lilting with humor and melancholy. Her eyes moved off to the horizon, though Leo’s stayed fixed to her face, reading it (or at least trying to) like a manual.
Step One: get together with a girl of literally anybody’s dreams in 7th grade.
Step Two: spend the rest of your middle school, high school, and college years with each other.
Step Three: fight. A lot. Which leads to a messy breakup, and it’s like, this whole entire thing.
Step Four: don’t speak to each other for three years.
Step Five: tell her you’re gay and make her realize that she wasted a decade on you.
“I know I’ve said it a lot, but I’m sorry, Cal,” Leo whispered. “You deserved somebody who loved you romantically. You still do. And I couldn’t give you that, but I got us into this mess anyway, and here we are ten years later with one toxic relationship under our belts and not much else.”
“I’m honestly not sure I even wanted a relationship,” Calypso said. “I think that… my father may have pressured me into it when I didn’t want it or need it.”
Leo nodded.
“I don’t want one now, either. What does that say about me? Am I… am I going to be alone forever?” She turned towards him. The sunlight caught her eyes, making them glint like glossy pearls with tears not yet shed.
“Cal, no,” Leo said gently, somewhere between a whimper and a sigh. He shook his head and placed a cautious hand on her shoulder. “No. You’re not gonna be alone. You, you’re a wonderful person. You’re so passionate and you always know what you want and you’re really smart. There are people out there that are gonna love that, whether it be romantic or not. There are people out there that will love you however you want them to.
“I… I couldn’t do that for you. We couldn’t give each other what we wanted from that type of relationship, if we wanted one at all. And that’s okay. We’re not kids anymore, nobody can pressure you into anything.
“And, if it makes you feel any better,” he offered, “I still want to be friends.”
Had those words really just left his mouth? And had he meant it?
Calypso gave him a watery smile. “Do you mean that?”
Leo found himself returning it. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
She tackled him in a hug, nearly knocking them both off the porch with the force of it. They laughed and the sound was familiar. It came from sunny summer days spent playing video games, and chilly walks from class to class when fall came around, and sharing an umbrella when the frigid winter rain hit, and goofing around at the spring dance. It was a bit of his childhood coming back to him.
She practically performed the heimlich on him, the way she was squeezing him like a stress toy. He threw his arms around her neck and patted her awkwardly as he tried not to turn too red (between all the laughing and back breaking hugs, it was sure to be a failure). “God, I missed you, Cal.”
“I missed you, too.”
~*~
They sat there for hours, talking about interests both shared and not so shared. She would talk about her travels in Greece, he would chat about his students, she would explain what she learned about music, he would describe all the projects he’d made. Eventually, the subject turned from work to social life, from social life to friends, and from friends to love. Leo wasn’t quite sure how he felt discussing his (mostly nonexistent) love life with his ex, but with an old friend? Yeah. Yeah, he could do that.
“There was this one girl in Greece, Echo. I wanted to be her friend for the longest time, I’m not even kidding you. I found out the bar she usually went to on Friday nights, and yeah I know that sounds creepy but I just had my friend Zoë tell me. So it wasn’t that weird. Anyways, I got up to talk to her, right? And turns out, she’s mute, and I didn’t know sign language yet, so we ended up having a written conversation on her receipt. And at the end, she gave it to me, and it had her number on the back!” Calypso giggled, and he couldn’t help but giggle with her. What else could he do? That was one hell of a meet cute.
“Are you two still friends?” He asked.
“Oh, yeah. It’s kind of easier, we communicated mostly by text anyways because she doesn’t like using paper a whole lot. She’s toying with the idea of spending summer here, actually.”
Leo hummed acknowledgingly.
“What about you? Any pretty ladi- uh, handsome guys around here?”
He snorted, but that didn’t keep him from blushing hard. “Nice save,” he deflected.
Calypso got a smug look on her face. “Oh, yeah. There’s a handsome guy alright. You look like a tomato.”
“Fine. There’s a handsome guy.”
Calypso squealed and kicked her feet. “Tell me everything.”
“You want to know all of it? There hasn’t even been that much.”
“I mean, you listened to me about Echo, so consider it payback. Now tell me.”
“Ugh, fine,” he sighed. “Um, Frank and Hazel moved away a few months back, so Piper had to find a new farmhand to replace the guy. Um. And his name is Jason. He’s a big buff blonde dude.”
“Is that your type?”
“I don’t know! Maybe? I think my type is just man.”
“No way. You had a crush on Percy, captain of the swim team and known athlete, and probably Frank, too, and he’s literally the strongest person I’ve ever met. And now Jason? Who, when you describe him, the first words that come to mind are ‘big’ and ‘buff’? You have a type, and it’s men who could throw you like a football.”
“Oh my god! Shut up! Never psychoanalyze me again!”
“That wasn’t psychoanalysis, my good man, but simple observation.”
“You’re such a nerd.”
“And you aren’t?”
Leo decided not to dignify that comment with a response, half out of offense and half out of seeing Jason appear from over the crest of the hill. “Oh my god, oh my god, shut up, he’s coming. If you say one word about this to him I will kill you.”
“My lips are sealed.”
Leo squirmed in his seat, trying to fix his posture and look natural at the same time. “Does my hair look good?”
Calypso snorted, which caused her to wheeze, which caused her to cackle. “No, no, I’m not laughing at you, you’re just…” she trailed off when Jason came into earshot. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“I sure hope I have, actually,” he retorted. Jason was coming up the path. Should he stop him and have a chat? Could he trust Calypso not to embarrass him? “I was pretty fucking annoying back then.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. You’ve changed, of course, but you’re still the same guy, just more you, if that makes sense.” Calypso left him with that, opting to turn around and face the porch stairs with a polite smile prepared. Before he could protest, she waved Jason over and offered him a hand. “Hi, you must be Jason! I’m Calypso, Leo’s friend.”
“I believe he’s mentioned you before,” Jason said, tone even, hand shaking hers calmly. He met Leo’s eyes and held the contact with a soft expression and gently sloped brows- concern. It was probably something else, though, but a boy could dream.
Calypso continued, her eyes screwed shut with the intensity of her smile. “It’s been so nice seeing him again after all these years. He’s so funny, don’t you agree?”
Jason smiled. “Certainly.” His eyes drifted back to Leo and the smile turned slightly mischievous. Wait, was that a wink? Did he just wink at Leo?
Leo was going to be sick.
“Oh, and so smart, right? I mean, back in college, he could attend three math classes the entire year and still pass with an A,” Calypso flattered.
“No, nope, that’s not true, she’s exaggerating,” Leo interjected. “And besides, I had a shit grade in language arts so it didn’t matter anyway.”
“He’s just trying to stay humble. He was the star of the robotics club at our high school-”
“Cal, please-”
“And the computer science teachers adored him-”
“Oh my god-”
“He had the math grades worthy of valedictorian-”
“Cal-”
“You should have seen him in shop class-”
“Cal!”
“As much as I’d like to continue, it seems someone-” she shot a pointed yet fond look over to him, but he didn’t notice, as he was covering his face in his hands in an effort to conceal the redness- “doesn’t appreciate it. Long story short, I was lucky to have met him. I’m sure you feel the same.”
“I do.” Jason breathed. Okay, so maybe Leo was hallucinating, but that was definitely a blush on Jason’s cheeks, right?
“Well, I’ll let you go now. I’ve held you up long enough, haven’t I? It was nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Jason chirped, heading into the farmhouse and, god, he actually winked.
He froze for a second after Jason shut the door, and he’d like to say he recovered himself quickly, but he didn’t. “What the fuck was that,” he managed.
“That, my good man, is called wingmanning.”
“No the fuck it is not.”
“Well, sure, if you wanna get into the nitty gritty, it’s wingwomaning, but same difference. Now, I’m going to have to head out soon if I want to get to family dinner on time, but can I give you some advice?”
“…fine.”
She grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him fully towards her. “You need to ask him out. He’s smitten with you. He will say yes.”
“…how do you know that?”
“How can you watch so many romcoms and not realize the signs that someone’s in love? Did you seriously not see him look at you? Or hear him, for that matter? Listen, Leo, I want you to be happy. Just ask him out, okay? For me.”
“…fine.”
Calypso smiled brilliantly and waved goodbye and headed for the gate. She looked happier now. Her grin was less restrained, and so was her hair. It was in a low ponytail instead of that tight braid she always used to have. She looked more like Calypso.
“Cal?” He called, moving to lean on the porch railing.
“Yeah?” She shouted back.
“Come back for dinner sometime, will you?”
Her smile got a few watts brighter. It made his own smile widen. “Of course.”
Now that he had reconciled with Calypso, there was only one problem left to solve:
Ask Jason out. Huh, it sounded easier when put into words. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.
There is only one correct response to this question:
What is your opinion on Caleo??
Unfortunately, I have mixed feelings about this ship. I think it’s very cute!! The little “enemies to lovers” is something I LIVE FOR. But it also kinda came out of nowhere? Idk, but it’s cute.
Platonic caleo where they bonded on the island shittalking Percy and they start planning pranks and minor curses to enact upon him as soon as she's freed.
If I had a nickel for every time I decided that a romantic relationship between a nerdy boy who most of the fandom loves and a morally grey girl who most of the fandom hates was a qpr and they’re both aro ace, I’d have two nickels, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
