After reading House of Hades, this idea was just stuck in my head and I could not get it out. Please review!
Disclaimer: I don't own HOO.
An exploration of the crushes in Leo Valdez's life.
1 Piper
When he first sees Piper, he can't help but think wow. She's pretty – beautiful, actually – and totally out of his league.
Just his type.
When she strolls over and asks if she can be his friend, he can't believe it. She wants to be his friend, not Dylan's (what a jerk) or Isabella's (what a diva) or the crying kid in corner's (what a wimp). No, she wants to be his, Leo Valdez's friend, and that in itself is a miracle.
He discovers that her name, Piper McLean, is a pretty one, too. It suits her and her rich voice. He's glad that she doesn't turn out to have some squeaky, irritating voice that would put him right off her.
But as he grows closer to her, he realises that his feelings towards her are less romantic and more platonic, like she's his sibling. Not really the type of girlfriend he'd have.
So his crush on her fades.
2 Khione
Khione is ice-cold and beautiful and everything he is not. She moves with a kind of elegant grace, her eyes sparkling as brightly as ice itself.
But, alas, as she is the complete opposite of him (and, hey, opposites attract, right?) that makes her bad.
Very bad.
Evil, in fact.
Her coldness becomes less of a pleasant snow experience and more of a blizzard. She tries to kill him, more than once. She destroys Festus, freezes up his circuits. He's gotta admit, it hurts.
He's not really her type, anyway.
She offers him to join her. Some part of him is tempted to accept, but he looks in her eyes and sees that they hold no trace of warmth, no affection for him. She is full of hatred and bitterness and all things he is opposed to.
So he laughs in her face and can't believe he might ever have fancied her.
He is so over Khione.
3 Thalia
He has to admit – Thalia is sexy.
She is tough, sexy, strong, independent, totally out of his league and a Hunter of Artemis. Unattainable. His new crush.
Of course, she flat out rejects him, but he doesn't give up that easily. He expected it, anyhow.
He tries to look macho, and, of course, epically fails. She shoots him looks that say she wants to throttle him, but can't because he's her baby brother's best friend. He grins back to say he still fancies her.
He doesn't see her after the Wolf House. You can't really badly fancy someone if you haven't seen them for months, so, in time, he forgets all about Thalia Grace.
4 Reyna
The praetor of New Rome is hot, no doubt about it. With her perfect posture and long dark hair and dark eyes, she is totally his type.
He'll save the pick-up lines for later, he decides. And the flirting. He doesn't want to flirt in front of an entire legion of highly armed demigods that all look up to her.
Reyna barely spares him a glance. He's glad, actually – if she focused on him then he'd probably turn bright red and stutter and be unable to say something. No, he needs to wait, build up his nerve first.
He gets the chance to admire Reyna from afar. She is beautiful – in a regal, prefect way. No pretty dishevelled hair like Piper or freckles cutely splashed like Thalia. She's more like Khione, with the exception of her being an ice goddess.
An eidolon makes him fire on New Rome before he gets the chance to speak to her, destroying any chances he might have had with her (few as they may be).
He finds out that Reyna blames him completely for the shooting, despite the evidence that it wasn't really him. It's unfair – everyone knows it was the eidolons.
She glares at him the entire time they dine by the Athena Parthenos.
That pretty much closes any and all feelings he may have for her.
5 Echo
The first thing he notices about Echo is how pretty she is. Sure, she's partially invisible and therefore pretty hard to see, but when he finally catches a full glance of her it's worth it.
And she has a really nice smile.
Can't forget the smile.
But she's so hung up on Narcissus she probably doesn't even notice his staring. She's just obsessed with rescuing a guy that can't even see anything other than his own reflection, can't bear to, in fact.
She deserves so much better than a loser like him.
But the gods have never been fair, and this is both his and her punishment.
She doesn't even spare him a second thought, instantly choosing Narcissus over the ones who actually bother to notice her, let alone think about her.
He can barely remember her after a week, anyway. He remembers her name, and that she helped them, and that she was pretty, but he can never quite remember what, exactly, Echo looked like.
6 Hazel
She's pretty, sweet, cute, and really, really nice.
She also fancied his great-granddad. She also has a boyfriend.
There are many moments between them that could make someone watching want to cringe, like their on some awkward sitcom or something. The time on the boulder, for one. Another when she almost pukes over the side and he confesses his dislike for cars. Many more that fade from his memory because they are just so frequent.
Hazel Levesque is pretty cool, he'll give her that. But she's taken.
He's good friends with her, but there's an awkward tension that hangs in the air between them. He still crushes on her from afar, but he's promised Frank he won't move in on her, so that's that.
She's never really been interested in him, anyway. She only ever wanted to be reminded of Sammy, to find out his connection with him.
(He was never really that interested in her, anyway. Really. Honest.)
7 Calypso
He doesn't like Calypso at first.
Perhaps that's what makes her different.
He hates at first, actually. She's rude and a bringer of bad news and utterly unhelpful. No matter how good she might smell (like cinnamon, actually), she's still the annoying girl tat can't decide whether she wants to leave him alone or spend all her time with him.
Which is equally as frustrating as the rest of it.
He has a feeling that she feels the same away about him.
She's annoying, but she's the only company he has on this entire island (and what sort of a name is Ogygia?) that he's apparently stuck, stranded on.
Which is very irritating, indeed.
He's surprised when she looks after him, and even more surprised to find that he actually enjoys spending time with her, would be capable of even considering setting up a shop with her.
Maybe the thing that makes their relationship so unique compared to the others is the fact that he doesn't fancy her straight away, not because of her looks (though she is pretty). No, he likes Calypso for who she is, for her personality.
Same with her, he suspects.
He has to leave as soon as the raft appears, which signals that she's finally realised that she doesn't want him to go.
This is crueller than the other heroes she's been sent, in a way. This time she's just finally found someone who is different from all the others. This time the raft didn't appear when she wanted it to. It came just as she found true, unique love.
He promises he'll come back for her. Because it just wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair to leave her that way.
He can't just ditch her the way so many others have done.
He doesn't care if the oath he made is the one of the prophecy. He's coming back for her.
This girl is a little more than a crush.
Hope you liked it!