Good Enough
Fandom: Heroes of Olympus
Pairing: Leo Valdez/Nico di Angelo
Characters: Leo Valdez, Nico di Angelo, OC
Time-Setting: One year after the war with Gaea
Summary: Leo gets rejected by a girl and starts to think of himself as useless and unloved. Nico comes to the rescue.
Requested by: Roxana Bracamontes
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
A/N: Yeah, so, the sweet Roxana Bracamontes gave me the prompt for this. I really hope you like it, all of you, I tried my best. Enjoy!
His hands were shaking, breaths coming unevenly and his heart was beating faster than a galloping horse.
The girl in front of him had one eyebrow raised, taking him in.
Him, with his messy brown curls, the grease-stained shirt and trousers, the lone flame that rose from a hair on his bare forearm.
"So?", he asked.
Impatiently, he wrung his hands and bit his lip.
The girl shrugged.
She was a natural beauty, long honey-blonde hair cascaded down her back in delicate curls, big green eyes stared at him with disinterest.
She was tall, definitely taller than him, and very pale.
She shook her head, causing her huge silver earrings to jingle loudly.
"No, thank you."
And then she was gone, off again to talk to her friends, probably to talk about him, share a laugh.
Leo sighed and shook his head, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and slowly trotted back to his cabin.
The bed creaked dangerously as he threw himself onto it, groaning in frustration.
He was used to it by now, getting rejected, yet it still hurt.
He was never good enough for anybody, without doubt even his friends didn't actually want to have anything to do with him.
Sighing again, he rolled over to lie on his back.
The ceiling was old and dusty, the wood torn apart in some places, steam was coming out of random holes and cobwebs filled the corners.
The Hephaestus kids never really cared too much about the state of their cabin, much less the state of said cabins ceiling.
They cared much more about their machinery.
Actually, the girl hadn't been the one Leo really wanted to go out with, but this certain someone would never like him anyway, so why not try to get over it?
The problem was, Leo had tried to get over it for months now.
They were friends, extremely good friends actually, with a lot of similarities and secrets shared between only them, yet Leo was hundred and fifty seven percent sure that the other wasn't interested in him romantically at all, like anyone ever was.
Leo couldn't blame him though, any of them, he wasn't as handsome as Jason or as kind as Percy, he wasn't as cute as Frank or as charming as Chris.
All he was was chaotic, he was pathetic, his only talent lay in destruction, what else could fire do?
His attachment to inanimate objects, such as pieces of metal and wires didn't add to his attractiveness either.
Yet Leo didn't even ask for much, of course, the person had to be considerably attractive, and they shouldn't be completely dull, but in the end all he wanted was somebody to love him simply for who he was, somebody who wouldn't get annoyed with him and his antics.
He knew who he wanted that person to be, he wanted it so desperately he had even thought about telling him, but what difference would it make?
He didn't want to get rejected by someone that actually meant so much to him, he couldn't take that.
Neither did he want to destroy the friendship they had built since they met on the Argo 2 almost a year ago.
He understood Leo in ways that others never could, he didn't judge him for anything because he knew all too well what it is like to be made an outsider for who you are.
Leo was head over heels in love with Nico di Angelo, and seemingly nothing he did could change that.
Nico had been wandering around Camp aimlessly for hours now.
Like so often, he found himself thinking.
Thinking about his sisters, the war, even though that now lay far in the past, but most of all he would find himself thinking about Leo.
Leo, with his stupid yet so charming half-smile, his loud laugh and kind brown eyes, his passion for his work and his complete and utter disability to hold a sword for longer than five minutes.
The son of Hades shook his head, a small smile lighting up his usually gloomy expression.
Somehow he had walked to the shore, it was late afternoon and the water of the Long Island Sound was tinted orange by the setting sun.
Nico knew he had it bad for his best friend, how could he not?
He was always there whenever Nico needed him, even abandoned his beloved machines to assist him with whatever tiny problem he had.
For a very long time now, he had been debating whether to tell Leo about his feelings or not.
Until this moment he hadn't found an answer.
Taking one last look at the soft waves of the water, he turned on his heels and started towards the Hephaestus cabin.
Leo shouldn't be in his cabin now, around this time of the day all of Hephaestus' children would be out and about working in the Bunker or the Camp's forges.
But Nico still wanted to check.
As he entered the cabin it was empty, like he expected it to be, save for one person.
A lean, bronze-skinned figure lay sprawled out on Leo's bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Determinedly he walked over, slightly worried because Leo was there, he wasn't supposed to be there.
Not that Nico wasn't happy to see him.
"Leo?", he asked.
His friend looked up, eyes wide like he hadn't noticed him walking in.
"Nico?", he asked and ran a hand through his hair, "What in Zeus' name are you doin' here?"
The younger boy raised an eyebrow, sitting down on the unmade bed next to his friend.
"Checking on you, I didn't expect you to be here though", he coughed awkwardly, "Are you...alright?"
Leo sat up straight now, he wasn't smiling like he usually was, around Nico he never pretended.
"Do I look alright?"
Nico flinched.
"It didn't work out with Kaitlin?"
The mechanic threw his hands up in frustration.
"Of course it didn't! When does anything ever work out!?"
Nico blinked, taken aback by that answer.
He reached out to grab Leo's arm, forced it down.
"What happened?"
Leo glanced at the hand still resting on his arm and swallowed.
Now more calmly he spoke.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. It's just..."
"What?"
Leo sighed.
"I...Nobody wants me, you know? Like, I'm not planning to pull the whiny twelve-year old, but this is so frustrating. I...I know that I'm not...you know, amazing or anything like that. I don't know anymore, am I really that bad?"
Leo looked up from his arm to meet a pair of worried black eyes.
Nico's grip on his arm had tightened.
"Leo, that's not true."
The amount of pressure in his voice caused Leo to shudder.
"It's not? Then tell me why in my seventeen years of living, I have not been in one relationship. Tell me why the person I love the most doesn't love me back, tell m-"
Nico interrupted him.
"How would you know that?"
Leo searched his gaze, but almost immediately dropped it again.
"Like I mentioned before, it's not like anyone would-"
He was cut off again, this time, in a rather unexpected way.
The feeling of Nico's lips on his was more amazing than he'd ever imagined.
They were soft, though slightly chapped and Leo barely realized that he was kissing back with full force.
He had leaned forward and Nico had gripped the collar of his shirt to pull him closer.
When they broke apart, Leo managed to ask: "Why did you do that?", which caused Nico to roll his eyes in a, for him, typically over-dramatic manner.
"Because I like you, you idiot. For Zeus' sake, I've been in love with you since our first real conversation", he breathed heavily, "And you were going on about how nobody loved you and I had to do something to prove you wrong. I may not be who you want, bu-"
They were kissing again.
It was a lot shorter this time, the main purpose being to make Nico shut up.
Leo couldn't keep the smile off his face.
Absentmindedly Nico noted that this was probably the happiest he had ever seen him.
"You are exactly who I want", he said.
Yet Nico couldn't help but notice the underlying look of doubt on Leo's face.
He took both of Leo's hands with his own, smiling slightly at the heat they gave off.
"You know I mean this, don't you?", he asked, looking straight into the other's eyes.
Leo smiled sadly.
"I-"
"Don't. You...You're such an amazing person, Leo. You deserve to be loved, to feel loved."
Leo opened his mouth to say something but Nico continued talking.
"I love so many things about you, from the way you smile when you see your friends are happy, to the look in your eyes when you talk about what you love. You're incredibly intelligent, Leo. You are brave and you have a great, if not very sarcastic, kind of humor.", he sighed,"You try not to bother others with your problems, even though sometimes you should. You care so much about your friends but you just don't know how to show it. You know what you're good at and you're proud of it and that's great. I could go on like that forever and if you don't believe me I'll-"
He stopped when he noticed the single tear that rolled down Leo's cheek.
He was looking at their hands, smiling happily, he didn't say anything at first, probably speechless, but when he did, he did it with the most beautiful smile that Nico had ever seen.
"I love you too."
Dear god, i really have a thing for cheesy endings, don't I? Oh well, I hope you liked it! :)