The first time Leo felt truly, actually jealous, Calypso had befriended Annabeth's half-brother Malcolm Hopkins who was also apparently a huge fan of geography and was intensely curious about Ogygia's phantom nature. Leo probably wouldn't have really cared if he hadn't just come out of the meeting from Tartarus in a crazy bad mood.
He'd spent nearly three hours at the forges with his siblings, working on custom training for Cabin 4 who had promised to swap dish duty with Cabin 9 for a month if they'd help. Demeter's children were interested in weaponising their normally passive nature abilities, which Leo found intriguing.
Miranda Gardner, head of Cabin 4, had been referred to Leo by Calypso who had told her if anyone could make the peaceful plant magic destructive, it was her boyfriend. They talked for a long time with Nyssa and Shane present while they discussed creating a kind of obstacle course for the demigods to practise on that would be tailored to concentrating on strengthening their powers. Things seemed to go well until Nyssa had suggested grabbing an Ares kid as well (god of warfare and all) to brainstorm.
Leo was about to call for Frank, who'd arrived from Camp Jupiter a few days earlier but Miranda, who had never really gotten along with the Roman demigods much, asked for a Greek.
Regrettably the only Ares kid available was Kyle Stronski who was tall and strong and thicker than two planks of wood. The meeting, which had looked to be ending soon, suddenly took a turn for the worse when Stronski complained about the course being too easy and voted for the inclusion of piranha somewhere. Then Shane brought up the improbability of being able to collect piranha and Nyssa had asked how they would feed and Stronski had belligerently argued that no obstacle course was truly complete without some kind of danger (inferring all the while that he doubted any of them would have the courage to face such a course) and then Leo had muttered the only danger they needed was Stronski trying to use his teeny tiny brain.
Which is how they ended up with Stronski trying to strangle Leo and Leo three seconds away from burning Stronski's eyebrows off and Nyssa arguing that Miranda should've just let them call Frank and Shane trying to keep the peace and it was another two hours before they actually set down to work.
Finally, after settling the details, they got to work sketching a blueprint, working on a few details and smoothing out the real requirements for the course. It had to be durable and escalate in difficulty, it should probably include some kind of planting station and preferably involve non lethal deterrents.
By the time they took a break, Leo was tired, kind of irritated but overall, invigorated. Nothing like this had ever been thought of before but Miranda had quietly added that Cabin 4 had felt helpless and totally vulnerable during Gaea's attacks because the earth obeyed the ancient goddess far more eagerly than the demigods. This kind of training would change the way Cabin 4 fought in future battles.
He'd hoped to catch up with Calypso during the break and was headed towards the woods when he heard her pretty laughter coming from the veranda of Cabin 6.
Grinning, Leo ducked around Cabin 9 and spotted her immediately…sitting pretty close to a tall blonde Athena's kid.
"…so it just up and left? How could you tell where you were?" the pretty owl boy was saying, eagerly.
Calypso looked amused. "It didn't move exactly, just appeared. I could feel the magic surrounding the island and I knew it would not head too far north. And sometimes the water would feel warmer or cooler- Leo!" her eyes lit up upon seeing him and he noted that even with her slightly auburn hair, the orange of her Camp Half-Blood shirt still looked fantastic on her. Figures.
Pretty boy seemed to be thinking the same thing by the way he watched her smile.
"Hey, Sunshine." He teased, coming to a halt at the steps of the cabin. The unwritten rule of camp was that you typically had to be invited into another cabin other than your own and when pretty boy raised his eyebrow just slightly, Leo knew he was very much aware of the fact. "What'cha up to?"
"I was just telling Malcolm about Ogygia." She answered with a shrug.
"Calypso has been indulging me." Pretty Boy chimed in, smiling winningly at her.
Ugh, Leo felt like gagging and eyed the arm Malcolm was laying across the porch swing they sat at, imaging how it might look bursting into flames.
"Are you finished with your meeting?" Calypso asked, hopefully even as Malcolm waved his hand, dismissively.
"Cabin 9 forges are in business for another two hours." Pretty Boy replied in Leo's place.
He felt a scowl pull at his lips as his gut curled with irritation at the pretty boy and long forgotten words drifted through his head. "Not yet. Nyssa doesn't think my latest sketch can function so, naturally I have to go prove her wrong." Leo smirked slightly.
Calypso rolled her eyes with a humoured smile. "Fine, go prove your genius, Wonder Boy. I'll see you tonight though?"
"I'll be there." He nodded with a final somewhat weak smile and left, watching as they re-entered their oh so fascinating conversation. He knew better than to be jealous. Calypso loved him. She told him so. He shouldn't even give Pretty Athena Boy a passing thought.
But did they really have to sit so close together on that stupid swing?
That evening, Calypso persuaded Leo into breaking curfew with her and sneaking out to the top of the cliff that housed Bunker Nine. Calypso was having trouble adjusting to the rules of Camp Half-Blood. She'd gradually become more familiar and relaxed around the campers, far better than she'd been when she first arrived. But the rules of camp were another story entirely. To begin with, she wasn't a born demigod and she was, in fact, the same age as (if not older than) the Olympians, making it very difficult for her to take Mr D's threats and orders seriously.
"I remember when Dionysus was still a baby sewn to Zeus' thigh." She muttered petulantly after the Lord of the Vine informed her she couldn't just disappear for hours at a time without telling anyone where she was going. Again.
Not to mention, Calypso had been on her own for three thousand years and resisted being suddenly told what to do, where to eat, what time to be at what place. In a way, she was a lot like Leo, only Leo knew when he wasn't meant to be doing something. To Calypso, the restrictions didn't seem to occur to her.
It didn't bother him though. He knew having a former goddess for a girlfriend wasn't precisely easy and that Calypso was still getting used to her freedom. As a matter of fact, Leo enjoyed their midnight excursions immensely since they usually led to incredibly hot make out sessions.
But more than that, he just liked being alone with her, talking like they had on Ogygia, like he'd dreamt about for weeks after he left. It was peaceful, something he rarely found during the day.
Tonight though, Leo couldn't let himself relax. The picture of Malcolm's arm laced around Calypso's back as they swung gently on the pretty porch swing on the pretty veranda, smiling his Pretty Boy smiles at his girlfriend had him all fired up and he was already trying to figure out how he could dismantle the swing without anyone noticing.
"Where are you?" Calypso asked simply, laying on her back beside him. Her hair was braided just like it was on Ogygia and she rested her head on his shoulder, peeking up at him with curious eyes. In the moonlight, so close as she was, Leo could pick out the reddish strands of her hair. For a second, he felt a savage kind of triumph that Pretty Boy would never get to see her like this. "Wonder Boy?"
"Sorry." He mumbled, sort of embarrassed as he realised he held the end of her braid in his fingers.
"Where are you?" she asked again, rolling over to lie on her stomach and look at him properly. "You're miles away from me."
He managed a weak smile, the words still rattling through his brain like a venomous dart. "I was just thinking, that's all."
"Careful, I hear it's bad for your health." She quipped, raising a slightly more authentic grin to his face which made her eyes sparkle in return. "There you are, hero. What's on your mind?"
"Do you hang out at Annabeth's cabin a lot?" he blurted out, trying to remind himself that Athena's children were not the enemy.
Except for that pretty boy Malcolm.
"Sometimes." Calypso shrugged, completely guileless. "They're nicer than some, I'll admit. Some campers are not as encouraging."
"What? I thought things were better now." Leo frowned, irritation seeping through his skin. "Who's been saying stuff? I'll introduce them to the Leo Fists of Fire!" he punched the air with a whooo-wah! like a cheesy ninja movie.
Calypso snickered and let her fingers trace the side of his face. "I've been around for over three millennia, Fist of Flames. I can fight my own battles. Things are much better now. It's just some of the campers, like Dionysus' kids. They don't like having another god at Camp apart from their father even if she's mortal now." She explained softly.
"But not Athena's cabin?" Leo muttered, stuck between being happy that his girlfriend wasn't being picked on (though to be honest, even reduced, Calypso's magic would kick any camper's butt up to Olympus itself) and irritation that 'pretty boy' got to play knight in shining armour.
Leo wasn't good at being a knight; that was more Jason or Percy or hell, even Frank's thing. He was the mechanic, the fixer, the joker. Swords didn't fit into his grasp as easily as hammers.
"Is this about Malcolm?" Calypso asked, calmly and when he didn't reply, she rolled her eyes. "Leo, he's a friend of mine."
"He likes you too much."
"Leo!"
"What?" her boyfriend protested. "He does! He was looking at you today."
"I should hope so," Calypso muttered, dryly. "It's awfully difficult to converse with someone otherwise."
"No, looking-looking, like he was…I don't know…picturing you naked or something." Leo grumbled. "Should've set his arm on fire when I had the chance…"
"I love you Wonder Boy." She suddenly said, rolling over until she hovered above him. She planted her hands on either side of his head and let her braid swish down her shoulder til it brushed his neck. "No one else. Just you."
Leo let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "I-I know. I love you too."
Calypso's answering smile was so bright it nearly blinded him as she pressed her lips to first his right cheek, then left and then ever so carefully his mouth.
"So what is this really about?" she whispered when they pulled apart, breathing just a little heavier than normal. She lay beside him on her side, her pretty blushing face still close to his.
The sight made Leo smirk slightly. I did that. I get to kiss her and make her all pink and breathy like that. Me. Until her words sunk in and his smile wavered slightly. "It's just something Aphrodite said when my dad took me to Olympus." He confessed, unable to meet her eyes for a minute. "She told me I wasn't her first choice for you."
"Oh, hero." Calypso sighed fondly but with exasperation. "You really must stop taking the gods so seriously. I've seen them make mistakes before- many, many mistakes and occasions where they let themselves be caught up in their own egos. Aphrodite is no different."
"I wasn't the goddess of love's-" he said scornfully. "-first choice for you. I probably wasn't even fourth or fifth. In Aphrodite's eyes, I'm adequate but not your 'perfect match'." He raised his fingers in air quotes, recalling the phrase from one of Piper's more insipid half-sisters. "I don't deserve you."
"She's wrong." Calypso replied, simply as she ran a hand through his hair, running her nails along his scalp. "You're mine Valdez and I'm yours. And no man, god or monster can convince me otherwise."