A/N: And here's another update! I read the comments and I'm going to reply to some of them right here : Yes, I know nothing about boys, but in my defense, I have no brothers or dude friends or whatever. I'm basing my boy-mind-thingy knowledge on whatever Rick Riordan writes and I hope I'm at least a little close. I am working on a bigger plot conflict so it's not just random fluff. Maybe a little vugfuvgquiergvuvruqwe (hahaha I'm not gonna tell you. Wait for the next few chapters). ATrueHufflepuff13, I don't have a beta, so thanks for the praise on my grammar ! To my character readers thingy people, once I get out of Camp Jupiter I'll add in all of you Greek demigod characters so be patient! Please! And again to ATrueHufflepuff13, I don't think I've ever read or reviewed your story, I'm sorry. That might have been someone else or maybe someone used my account. IDK, but the title and description looks unfamiliar. On a totally unrelated note, I'm not the only one who saves the blue M&Ms for last, right?
Dedicated to Ryan Fritz, thanks for the PM's!
Leo slept on the couch with a blanket that night. He was deep in sleep, dreaming about weddings.
He imagined his mother getting married with his godly father, Hephaestus. He knew, of course, that gods don't get married with their mortal flings. But it was nice, though, to see his parents getting married.
Then the dream switched so he was watching his own wedding. He saw himself all dressed up in a tuxedo, his hands clean of any oil stains. A veiled bride was coming down the aisle. Leo hoped it was Calypso, but as she got closer, he saw that it was Gaea in her veil of dirt, her eyes closed and a dreamy smile on her lips.
Leo gasped and looked back at himself, but only to find dream-Leo gone, replaced with a faceless person. Leo blinked a few times but the unknown groom was till standing there. He turned back to look at the bride to see it was someone different. It looked like an older Calypso. Like, an old-older Calypso. Her face was all wrinkly, but her bright eyes and cheerful smile were still the same.
Leo felt a pang through his gut. He knew it was just a dream (not that all demigod dreams were just dreams), but it pained him to see his crush happily getting married with some other guy.
He awoke from his dream so suddenly he thrashed out his arms trying to defend himself because he thought he was being attacked in his sleep.
"Ouch!" cried a girl's voice.
Leo froze. "Who's there and what do you want?"
The voice huffed under her breath. "It's just me, Calypso."
Leo waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was, in fact, Calypso standing by the couch were he slept. "Calypso," He asked. "Why- what are you doing?"
She held up his blanket. "I was getting a glass of water, and I saw that you had kicked the blanket off in your sleep. I tried to put it back on because it was a little chilly until you freaked out." Calypso frowned and threw the blanket at Leo.
He put the blanket aside and arranged himself so he was sitting upright. He patted the space next to him, motioning for Calypso to sit down. Warily, she complied.
"Well, now we're both awake. Wanna' talk?" Leo asked.
"Not really. Tell me a story instead." She answered.
"About what?"
"About your quest to stop Gaea."
"That'll be a long story."
"The night's long enough."
Leo sighed, and leaned back on the couch, aware of how close they were. "It all started on the bus in the Wilderness school. I've told you this part before though. Want me to skip it?"
Calypso yawned. "Sure. Begin where you guys flew to Camp Jupiter the first time."
So Leo told her the long and sad and mad and happy tale of the biggest quest of his life. He skimmed over the part about his days on Ogygia. He was almost done when he noticed Calypso snoring softly beside him. Her head was tiled to the side so that her neck would be sore when she woke up in the morning after sleeping in that position for a long time.
Leo tried to set her more comfortable as gently as he could. It resulted in her head lying against the arm of the couch and her body occupying the rest of it.
Now, Leo had no place to sleep but the floor. He could go sleep in Calypso's empty bed, but that seemed like an invasion of her privacy. Even though it was only the guest room and it wasn't really hers anyways.
Leo didn't feel like sleeping the night in either place, so he tried to curl up next to Calypso without really touching her.
Since she was on the outer edge of the couch, he tried to place himself next to the back of it, facing the cushions. It took a long time because he was trying not to wake her, but he finally managed it.
He snuggled on the couch with his back to hers and fell asleep.
Leo woke for the second time, but to a surprised gasp right in his ear.
He groggily opened his eyes. He had his body cocooned around something long and soft. For a second, he thought it was his *cough* huggie-pillow *cough* back at home, but it was breathing. Pillows don't breathe. Or snore softly like… Calypso. Oh, no.
His eyes flung open and he saw that he was cuddling with Calypso. Leo sat upright, knocking her out of the couch.
"AH!" She yelped as she hit the ground with a thud. "What in Olympus…?"
Leo sat on the couch, his face beet-red. "Wha-!"
He met eyes with Calypso, who was in a heap on the ground. They stared at each other wide-eyed, they awkwardness to thick to break through. The sound of two doors opening and shuffling came from down the hall. Frank and Hazel ran to the living room in their pajamas.
"What's wrong? Is everyone okay?" Frank asked, looking around the room, searching for an intruder.
Leo broke eye contact with Calypso and said, "No, everything's all right." He searched his head for a passable excuse. "Calypso just came to wake me up for breakfast and scared me."
Frank and Hazel looked at them.
Hazel sighed. "All right. Just don't scare us like that. I really thought something bad had happened."
Calypso got up and straightened her nightclothes. "I'm sorry. Should I cook breakfast? It's the least I could do." She looked at Leo again and the two quickly averted their gaze.
All Leo could think about through breakfast was the fact that they had spent the night together in the same couch. Hopefully Calypso didn't mind, because Leo certainly didn't.
The morning went by quickly to Leo's relief. The four planned to do some practicing in the camp grounds.
"You never know when a monster will come after you." Leo said. "We may have defeated Gaea, but we're still demigods—excluding Calypso here—and that means we're still at risk. You don't want to be confronted by a hoard of monsters and find that you're a little rusty at fighting."
"Like how Percy and Annabeth still attend Camp Half-Blood," Hazel pointed out. "And I could practice my Mist-bending skills."
"Exactly. So what kind of things do you practice?"
"Well," Frank said. "We can see if we can practice Pegasus riding. Oh, and maybe we can use some battle armor and weapons to practice combat fighting."
Leo didn't really have a weapon of his own. If he needed to fight, he just used his fire or tools from his magic tool belt, but it couldn't hurt to try. For example, if he didn't have his belt or if he fought someone who was immune to fire attacks.
In reality, Leo thought, ridinga Pegasus was harder than it seems.
Don't be misguided by those cartoons where people just jump on the Pegasus' back and fly off into the rainbow. You have to make sure they want you to ride them. Then you have to make sure you don't slip off the dumb winged beast. Its wings are always getting loose feathers in your face or pushing you off. And trust Leo when he says, falling off a horse in midair hurts. Luckily Frank is in eagle mode to catch fallers. If you don't have a Frank, then you're screwed.
Leo had no idea how Percy manages to stay in his horse/brother Blackjack. (And yes, Leo thought it was disturbing that Percy was a half-brother to all Cyclopes and horses. And the fact his dad dated Medusa who had Pegasus.) Calypso seemed to be getting on okay, and Hazel already knew how to ride her horse, Arion. Leo had only ridden him once, and they went very fast.
Combat training was alright, if alright meant that you accidentally burned off your clothes again in front of all of Camp Jupiter and almost got killed by your crush with a sword. Yeah, Leo was not a good Pegasus-riding-sword-fighter.
Nonetheless, he was having a great time. Leo was doing something active with his friends and it gave him a chance to erase all tension with Calypso. The day was good, until some roman dude started hitting on Calypso.
They were having lunch Roman-style (which was amazing, Leo thought. Romans knew how to eat.), when this guy came and sat right next to Calypso. Like, he shoved Leo aside, looked at him like this guy thought he was some kind of Latino defect, and flashed a dazzling smile at Calypso.
"Hey there," He said. He reminded Leo of Dylan, the storm creature that pretended to be human and tried hitting on all the girls in school, including Piper.
Leo glared at him as hard as he could. Too bad; Leo couldn't shoot lasers from his eyes.
The new guy continued his attempt at flirting. "I haven't seen you around before. Where have you been all this time?"
Leo was about to tell this guy off for being rude and trying to get his almost-girl.
Calypso scoffed. "Definitely away from you.*"
Leo stifled a laugh as the guy scowled.
"Now, now, I don't like girls who play hard to get."
Calypso frowned in frustration. "Leave me alone. Get lost. By the way.. I'm taken."
Leo gaped at her. Taken? Like as in, taken-taken? By who? Leo?
The dude frowned even more and got up to leave. "Whatever, I'm out of here. There are better girls around here than you." He strutted away, leaving Leo flabbergasted.
"Taken?" He asked Calypso.
She blushed but shook her head. "I just said that to get him to leave."
Leo's heart went, plunk. "Oh."
Calypso eyed him shyly. "Unless…"
Leo looked up. "Unless?"
She fiddled with her food, opening and closing her mouth like she wanted to say something but couldn't find the right words. Leo felt that way right now.
Should I ask her?
How? Should I just say, Hey, I want to be your boyfriend, so date me please?
Should I—
Leo was spared having to ask when Calypso blurted out quickly, "Unless-you-want-to-maybe-like-go-out-sometime?"
Leo sat there with his mouth slightly open.
"I mean, if you want to…" She shook her head. "I shouldn't have asked but you—I—I mean…"
Leo took her hand. "Yeah. Sure. I mean, of course!" He smiled and she smiled back. The day world could end and nothing would damper his mood.
A/N #2: Aaaand I had no idea how to get them to ask each other out because obviously I havn't had the experience. It was really mind juggling to do that and keep a small strand of their character. I felt that things were too fluffy so I added in a very very short rival dude or whatever. by the way...
*I did not make this line up, I found out about it from a profile page, and I thought since I was never going to use it in real life I wanted to incorperate that in here somewhere somehow.
I was at a dead end for this chapter, the Roman Camp chapters for me was a dud. I wanted to use the Leo/Calypso sleep-snuggling because well, I just really want that to be a reality. I mean, come on. Cleo (Caleo, Leypso, whatever) for the win!
Byees for nowiees,
Melanie. Or whatever, just byebye :)
