demigod-shenanigans

[demigod-shenanigans]

Me thinking that I'm funny was probably the first problem

[demigod-shenanigans]

piper wouldn't have manicured nails and perfect hair and great makeup and the best closet!! her nails are bitten down her hair has been cut with safety scissors she wears vaseline lipbalm and half her closet is from her dad and leo!!!! send post!!

[demigod-shenanigans]

Drop everything you’re doing and read this <3

AND I'M BACK!!!!! Sorry to everyone who got their hopes up and thought I just decided to quit writing. I cannot be stopped forever. I will ALWAYS have some sort of nonsense to say. ANYWHO, here's a fic, chosen by @apollo-is-somthing completely on purpose and not by chance in the slightest <3 Also! Exciting news, this fic actually features mine and @demigod-shenanigans joint OC Sofía! I mean, I say that, but she is literally an infant, so you could replace her with a sack of flour tied to a boombox in this fic but whateverrrrrrrrr

So, without any further delay, here is another entry in the Baby Graces universe: Unburdened

Sofía gurgled at her, dribbling formula down her chin, and Thalia gasped in make believe shock. “What a messy little thing you are. Come on, let's get you cleaned up, okay?” Thalia gently took the bottle away, and that’s when everything went wrong. Sofía was apparently not okay with stopping her feeding time to clean up her mess, because as soon as the nipple left her lips, her face puckered up in displeasure. Thalia chuckled quietly and rubbed their noses together. “Oh, no no no. It's okay. You can have more, we just–” Sofía cut her off by tilting her head back and wailing at the top of her little lungs. Thalia’s blood turned to ice in her veins and suddenly she was seven years old again. *** Thalia heals from a decades-old wound she didn't know she had with the help of her infant niece and her adult baby brother

As far as Thalia was concerned, Sofía Valdez was the most beautiful little baby in the world, and, no, she wasn’t saying that just because she was her niece. Sofía had curly hair that fell softly around her pretty round cheeks, and she had the biggest brown eyes that always managed to catch the light so they shone up at her with warmth. She giggled and cooed and she gripped Thalia’s finger in her little hand with remarkable strength. She was happy and tiny and perfect and Thalia loved each and every inch of her. 

One of Thalia's favorite things in the world was feeding her niece. Sofía took her bottle with remarkable grace and she looked up at Thalia like she hung the moon and Thalia just beamed down at her, knowing she would do just that the moment Sofía learned to speak well enough to ask it of her. 

“One day you're going to grow up big and strong and join Aunt Lia and Lady Artemis on the Hunt,” she crooned down at the baby in her arms. “No stinky boys or heartbreak for my little moonbeam.”

Sofía gurgled at her, dribbling formula down her chin, and Thalia gasped in make believe shock. “What a messy little thing you are. Come on, let's get you cleaned up, okay?” Thalia gently took the bottle away, and that’s when everything went wrong.

Sofía was apparently not okay with stopping her feeding time to clean up her mess, because as soon as the nipple left her lips, her face puckered up in displeasure. Thalia chuckled quietly and rubbed their noses together. “Oh, no no no. It's okay. You can have more, we just–”

Sofía cut her off by tilting her head back and wailing at the top of her little lungs. 

Thalia’s blood turned to ice in her veins and suddenly she was seven years old again. She clutched Sofía to her chest, doing her best to both soothe and muffle the baby's cries. “Nonono, shh,” she begged. “Please, stop crying. You've got to be quiet, we–”

It was too little too late. She could already hear her mother's angry footsteps stomping down the hall, furious that Thalia had let the baby wake her up from her nap. Thalia’s eyes scanned the room. There had to be somewhere to hide. If she could just keep the baby quiet for long enough, her mom would just get frustrated and leave. Thalia just had to keep them safe until then.

Heart pounding in relief, she saw their refuge. There, in the corner by the crib, was a rocking chair, and behind it was a secluded little nook. It would be a tight squeeze, but Thalia could fit. With the baby's face pressed to her chest (close enough to muffle sounds, but not enough to suffocate) she climbed behind the rocking chair, pulling a blanket down over them as she went. If she was lucky, her mother wouldn't notice they were back there. If she wasn't, well–

The baby in her arms let out a confused, terrified whimper, and Thalia curled into a tighter ball, surrounding the tiny fragile body with her own. Tears stung in her eyes, but she stubbornly bit them back. “I know, I know. I'm so sorry,” she choked out, her voice barely reaching a whisper. “But we've gotta be quiet. If we don't mom's gonna–”

“Thalia?”

Thalia tensed and whipped her head up as her blanket disguise was carefully removed. Bright blue eyes, the exact same shade as hers, looked at her in obvious concern, and all at once Thalia was sixteen again. She wasn’t a terrified little girl cowering from her mother, she was the Lieutenant to Lady Artemis, leader of the Hunt. Jason wasn't a tiny, helpless infant, he was a grown man who had lived and died and saved the world. Her mother wasn't in the house, she was six feet under, and had been for more than a decade. The baby in her arms wasn't her little brother, she was–

“I'm sorry,” she gasped, pulling Sofía away from her chest. Her niece let out a little whimper, and Thalia couldn't breathe. “Oh, my gods, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just–”

“Hey, shh, you're okay,” Jason soothed. “Nobody's mad or upset. It's alright.”

With a sudden jolt, Thalia realized that he wasn't talking to his daughter, he was talking to her. “What?”

“Can I see Sofía?” Jason asked, his tone still just as calm and gentle as before. “Leo wanted to take her out to the upper garden. She likes it a lot.”

For just a moment Thalia hesitated, tucking Sofía to her chest protectively. Then she grit her teeth and silently cursed herself. There was no need for her to act like that. Sofía didn't even have an angry mother for Thalia to protect her from, she just had two dads who loved her to bits. She swallowed the bile on the back of her tongue and stiffly handed Sofía over to her father. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Jason said genuinely. He cradled Sofía to his chest just long enough to press a kiss to her forehead, then passed her to Leo, who was waiting in the wings. “I'll be out in a bit, alright?”

“Sure thing, Superman,” Leo said easily, running his fingers through Jason’s hair. “Call me if you need anything, yeah?”

Jason smiled up at him and nodded, and then he and Thalia were alone.

Thalia pulled her legs to her chest and pressed her forehead into her knees so hard it almost hurt. She felt shame clawing at the inside of her chest and she wished she could just disappear. She was supposed to be better than this. It had been a lifetime since she was in that shabby little house in Pasadena. She hadn’t even thought about her mother in years, how could she let something as simple as a baby's cries reduce her to such a coward?

She heard the rocking chair beside her get shifted to the side. She was still tucked away and hidden, but now her 6’2 baby brother was tucked in beside her. The room was tense and silent, other than her rattling breaths, and she desperately reached for words, for some justification for her behavior. 

Jason beat her to it.

“Thank you,” Jason said, his voice warm and so very earnest. “I don't know that anyone's ever thanked you before.”

Thalia lifted her head, horrified to realize that her vision was cloudy with tears. She blinked hard a few times and kept her voice deliberately even. “What are you talking about? You thanked me just a minute ago.”

“I don't mean that,” Jason corrected. “I mean, yeah, thank you for taking care of Sofía. Of course, thank you for that. You're amazing at it, and she loves you so much, but that’s not what I mean. Right now I'm talking about how you took care of me.”

Thalia’s throat swelled shut at the thought. She thought about all those times she’d had to put Jason to bed hungry and all the times she'd forcibly silenced him to keep them hidden. She thought about the Wolf House and Jason in their mother's arms and his desperate pleas for her to stay as she ran back to the car and how she'd spent so long thinking she'd never see him again. “I didn't take care of you. I wasn’t good enough.”

Jason's arms wrapped around her and pulled her into a tight hug, and she felt her body start to tremble. She couldn't remember the last time she’d been held. Probably when she was ten and on the run with Luke. The feeling was beyond foreign, but she just twisted her fingers into Jason’s shirt and clung to him desperately. 

“You were more than good enough,” Jason said, his voice deep and soft. “You were a child, Thalia, and you raised an infant, practically by yourself. No one should have had to do what you did. I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for you.”

“You were so small,” Thalia confessed. “You needed someone. I couldn't leave you.”

“And you didn't,” Jason said firmly. They went quiet for a moment before he swallowed thickly. “I remember the Wolf House.”

Thalia went stiff as a board and tried to pull away, but he just held her tight. “Gods, Jason, I'm so sorry, I–”

“You looked for me,” he interrupted softly. “I was there the whole time; you couldn't see me because of the Mist, but I could see you. You looked for me for hours, over every inch of that ruin.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as tears finally started rolling down her cheeks. Her desperate search had played on loop in her mind since that day. Her panicked, frantic cries of his name, and her heartbroken sobs of despair when they went unanswered. The thought that Jason had seen her broke and helpless when she was supposed to protect him made her sick. “Gods above. Jason, I'm so sorry.”

“You promised to find me,” Jason concluded, his voice hushed. “You said that no matter what it took, however long you had to wait, you'd find me, and you did.”

She sniffled and hugged him tighter. “I think it was more that you found me.”

“Semantics,” Jason dismissed with a chuckle. “Who found who doesn't matter, what matters is that we found each other.” He pulled back just enough to press a firm but gentle kiss to the middle of her forehead, just like he had with Sofía. “I love you, Lia. I love you so much, and I always will, okay?”

Thalia choked out a sob and hid her face in his neck. “I love you, too, Jay.”

Jason held her, and Thalia wept. She wept until her throat was hoarse and her eyes stung and her face was sticky with long-dried tears. But for once she wasn’t weeping in sorrow or fear or anger at the injustices of the world. She wept in relief and joy. She wept for the little girl in Pasadena who spent her life scared and angry and so very alone, knowing she was finally allowed to rest. She wept and wept and wept and Jason held her through every tear, stroking her hair and making soft rumbling sounds deep in his chest. 

When she was done, she felt as though she had lost a piece of herself. She felt as if she had been hollowed out. She felt as if she had been released from a burden she hadn’t even realized she was carrying. 

She felt free.

[demigod-shenanigans]

As someone who doesn’t love ToA, has mixed opinions on tsats and largely agrees that Jiper could have been written differently, I think you’re missing some details here.

a) with hoo being released when it was (2010-2014, aka during the time Korra and Asami weren’t even allowed to kiss on-screen in the series finale), having one character be gay on-page in a popular children’s book series was pretty huge. I highly doubt Rick had done any research into comphet at the time or intended for Piper to be queer initially. If HoO was written now with Rick having more experience writing queer characters, it probably would have been more obvious earlier on, but it’s pretty fun how Piper’s interactions with Annabeth and the amount of space Reyna takes up in her head still comes up as incredibly sapphic even though it likely wasn’t intentional.

b) Piper being sapphic actually was a thing in ToA. She kisses Shel at the end of Tower of Nero when she sees Apollo again and that makes Apollo recontextualize their interactions from Burning Maze. Someone posted that scene here if you wanna reread it:

I didn’t think this was handled perfectly, it could have been done a lot better (ToA as a whole has this problem that it’s very focused on Apollo and everyone else gets massively sidelined, so Piper figuring out her sexuality is barely a footnote in the larger story, like a lot of other things in ToA are (looking at Hazel’s half-assed curse resolution that’s mentioned in half a sentence😒)), but it was definitely there.

Also, Hedge and Mellie were the only ones blaming Jason for the breakup (which from what I recall Jason never corrected because he wanted Piper to have their support), the narrative as a whole does not. When Apollo asks if they broke up, Piper tells him she was the one who broke things off with Jason and talks about how she needed to figure herself out because their relationship was so heavily tied into the Mist memories and that made it difficult to figure out her real feelings.

What I think is supremely goofy about Piper and Nico’s interaction in tsats, though, is that it just makes no sense for Nico to have this interaction with Piper specifically. They have never on page talked to each other one-on-one before this in my memory. You know who he could have had a conversation about queerness with that would have made way more sense and still fit well with the Jason grief thing? REYNA! THE GIRL HE SPENDS THE ENTIRETY OF BOO WITH!

My main problem with the way Piper was written in tsats isn't that she was queer(I mean, a queer child of Aphrodite? Thats an amazing concept!) it's how her queerness was written. You can tell that she wasn't written to be a sapphic character and that it was something tacked on in tsats. I would have been better with it if there was some slight fore shadowing in hoo or maybe even in toa!! That's also kinda why I love Pipeyna so much, because Piper being attracted to Reyna in hoo whether it was romantic or purely sexual attraction would have been a good base to start for her being queer.

Plus, she was also so head over heels in love with Jason that when she said that she had broken up with him it felt so off. And don't get me wrong, I didn't mind the Jiper break-up, and I feel like it could make some sense based off of their dynamic in hoo, and I think its good of rick to show that they were 15 and not all 15 yo relationships work out, but placing all the blame of Jason was NOT the way to go about it.

anyways, the point I'm trying to get across here is that if rick truly wanted to give Piper a gf in later books that Jiper would have and should have been written a lot differently.

[demigod-shenanigans]

The choiceless hope in grief (chapter 15)

“You remember what I told you on Mount Olympus, don’t you?” Hades asked. He looked exactly like he had in the world above, right down to his flowing dark robes, but he seemed even more powerful down here in his domain. In the world above, he’d only been one of many gods that controlled the forces of the cosmos. Down here, few deities would have dared to challenge his rule. “Your trust in your bond must be strong enough. If it is not—if you do not truly believe he will follow you out of the Underworld—you will succumb to doubt, and it will end in your untimely death, just like it did for your predecessor.” “Have faith in your friend. More than that, have faith in yourself,” Persephone told him. She’d grown to divine height and taken her throne at her husband’s side, but her voice was still gentle. “I’ve always liked Orpheus. I admire this determination some of you mortals have, to let nothing—not even death—separate you from the people you love. I’d quite like to see a version of this story where Orpheus succeeds.” “Once you turn your back on this room, Jason Grace may choose to follow you,” Hades continued, his intense black eyes focusing right on Leo. “He may also choose to remain in the Underworld. Until your journey is completed, the choice he made is not for you to know. You may not look behind you to see if he is there. You may not turn. If you do, you both will be lost to the world above for good. But lead his soul back to the surface and refrain from turning until you’re both bathed in sunlight and I will release him. He may have one mortal lifetime to use however he pleases.” Leo felt like he was going to throw up. His palms were sweaty and he could feel himself shivering. This was like the Mount Olympus stage fright he’d felt, multiplied by a thousand.  If he screwed up now, he would lose Jason for the very last time.

Rating: Teen and Up

Chapter Word Count: 6.1k

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Chapter 15: Does the heartfelt speech still count if you might not even have an audience?

Leo was starting to realize that if you were a fan of vacationing in scenic places with nothing to do except hiking, hiking, and even more hiking, the Underworld would probably make for a prime travel destination. 

Personally, he thought that if he never went on another hike again in his life, it would be too soon.

Granted, the idea of trekking through a sandy desert with a broken ankle probably would not have thrilled even the biggest hiking enthusiast, but still.

Despite this, Leo figured he shouldn’t complain too much. Compared to the rest of his Underworld Experiences, this leg of the journey wasn’t too bad. Yes, his ankle hurt every time he put weight on it, but there were large rocks sticking out of the sand every few feet, providing great spots to sit and take breaks whenever he needed to. Even better: nothing was currently chasing Leo through the desert, so taking those breaks was actually doable without anything immediately trying to kill him. 

Leo had to stop a lot more than he would have liked. It wasn’t just his leg. The amount of time he’d spent resting after Asphodel had helped, but there was a bone-deep exhaustion in him that sitting alone couldn’t seem to cure. It was really starting to hit him that he had no clue how long he’d been down here, and that the only thing akin to sleep he’d gotten since had been the times he’d passed out on the bank of the River Styx and the time Asphodel had tried to turn him into a tree. Those two experiences were tied with his physician’s cure resurrection for world’s worst nap.

Leo wished he could have curled up and fallen asleep on one of the rocks, at least for a little while, but even with Melinoe newly occupied with things that didn’t include tormenting him, he wasn’t confident that anywhere in the Underworld was safe to fall asleep. He hadn’t come this far to take a short nap only to wake up and discover he’d turned into a ghost while he slept.

Aside from his aching ankle and the lack of sleep, the worst part of this section of the journey turned out to be the silence.

This was maybe odd, since Leo would have given anything for silence back when he’d been surrounded by wailing ghosts and Asphodel’s whispers, but silence meant he had way too much time to think.

Leo’s mind kept wandering back to his mom. His emotions about seeing her again were all over the place. He’d gotten her back and lost her again in a matter of hours. The shock of that still sat deep in his bones. 

His mother’s death was something he’d spent years learning how to survive. This new pain was kinder, but the wound was still fresh, and he hadn’t learned how to tend to it yet.

But he was so, so grateful, too. 

For so long, his last memories of her had been painful. Memories of the fire, and hastily being shooed away from a covered stretcher, and a coffin being lowered into the ground, his heart leaden with guilt.

Now, his final memories of her were her smiles and her laughter echoing through the Underworld as they worked on a project together, and of her telling him she’d always love him.

It wasn’t a happy ending to their story—he didn’t think that had ever been in the cards for them, with the way the Fates had woven the threads of their lives. But it was a much happier ending than he’d ever dared to hope for.

He huddled deeper into his mom’s jacket. He wasn’t sure how it made sense that he’d gotten to keep it when it had very much been a see-through part of her ghost initially, but it was solid around his shoulders, and it still smelled like her. When he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend she was still holding him.

The other thing Leo was having a really hard time not thinking about was the fact that, once he made it to Hades’ palace, his margin of error would become practically nonexistent. His mom was right about what she’d said regarding messing up being a normal part of the invention process, but this was an area where Leo couldn’t afford to mess up in. One glance in the wrong direction and he and Jason would both be doomed. 

Considering all the obstacles Leo had faced on the way to the palace, as well as the fact that in the myth, the Underworld grew more terrifying once Orpheus had something to lose… well, even if Jason did follow Leo, there were a lot of ways this could go really wrong, really quickly.

Leo kept thinking back to the vision he’d seen in the blade of Katoptris—that awful image of Piper cradled in Annabeth’s arms, sobbing like she’d just learned she’d have another funeral to attend. 

He didn’t want to think about whether the vision meant he would fail. He’d meant what he’d said to Apollo. If he fucked this up, he wanted it to be his failure. He didn’t want to think that it had been a predetermined thing—that there was no possible world where Eurydice ever touched the sunlight again.

Leo knew from experience that Katoptris wasn’t a hundred percent reliable. It had shown Piper partially incorrect visions before, like the one of Baccus next to the Topeka sign. Besides, even if it was accurate, there was no way to know for sure if it was about Leo. It wasn’t like the semi-reliable knife of prophecy had been nice enough to provide subtitles.

Weirdly, the thought of Piper having to live through a tragic event unrelated to him didn’t bring him much comfort.

~~~

Hades’ palace was huge. The tall obsidian walls made Leo feel like an ant. The highest of the towers seemed to reach all the way to the cavern ceiling. The building reminded Leo strangely of the palace of the gods on Mount Olympus, though with an obvious change in color scheme. He wondered if that was on purpose.

He walked across a long stone bridge, dragging his feet a little. His heart was in his throat. 

This was it. Things were about to get real.

Despite the terror this whole situation inspired in him, Leo was thankful to have solid ground beneath his feet for a little while. Walking on the rocky floor with his cane was much easier than walking through the sandy desert had been.

Two skeletal sentries guarded the ginormous bronze gates. The gates were so tall that they would have towered over the Hephaestus cabin, and they were engraved with a bunch of lovely death scenes that Leo didn’t really feel like getting a closer look at.

He instead turned his attention to the skeletons, trying desperately to ignore how clammy his hands were. The sentries swiveled towards him, each holding up a halberd that seemed like it should have been way too heavy to hold up with arms that had been stripped of every bit of muscle they may have once possessed. They glared at him from their empty eye sockets—or whatever the equivalent of glaring was called when you didn’t have any eyes.

Leo gulped and held up the hand that wasn’t holding his cane. 

“I come in peace?” he tried, and when his skeletal audience continued to stare, unimpressed, he added, “my name is Leo Valdez. I have an appointment with Hades. It’s been a bit of a long day, so could you please just let me through?”

The skeletons turned towards each other. Leo had no idea what they were doing, since they weren’t speaking and they obviously couldn’t be silently communicating with their eyebrows, but he figured that meant to stay where he was for the moment.

Finally, the skeletons stepped aside, their halberds still raised, and the gates slowly opened. The ensuing squeak made Leo pull a face. He barely resisted the urge to cover his ears. Wow, someone really needed to oil the hinges on this thing.

The mental image this conjured up—three skeletons balancing on each other’s shoulders as the top one tried to apply oil to the doors without pouring it on the skeletons holding it up—was so ridiculous that a little bit of tension went out of Leo’s shoulders. 

He took a deep breath and walked through the gates.

The courtyard wasn’t what Leo had expected at all. Sure, he’d known Persephone’s garden existed, but he’d kind of imagined it tucked away somewhere private. Instead, it was the first thing anyone entering the palace would see. 

The path was lined with bioluminescent mushrooms. A ghostly blue moss covered the ground. There weren’t many flowers—despite his terminal black thumb, even Leo knew that flowers usually needed light, so he guessed that was probably why—but a multitude of colorful, glowing plants made up for it.

It reminded Leo a little of the pictures Piper had shown him of her tenth birthday party at a black light minigolf course. It was the last semi-normal birthday she’d had before her dad had started picking up bigger roles and she’d slowly become nothing more than an occasional appointment in his calendar that might be cancelled if something more urgent came up. 

Leo had never seen her smile as brightly as she did in those pictures—partially because she’d been through a lot since then, and partially because the black lights had literally made her exposed teeth glow in the dark.

For the first time since he’d entered the Underworld, Leo thought that maybe it was a good thing that Piper wasn’t here with him. If she had been, there was a real chance they’d have joked about Underworld minigolf long enough that at least one of them would eventually have decided to take a shot at it, and he imagined Persephone probably wouldn’t have been thrilled about that.

The thought made him chuckle. It was a balm for his hammering heart.

Leo wandered through the orchard of pomegranate trees towards the inner walls of the palace. The fruits smelled delicious, but between his general dislike of the texture of pomegranate seeds and the knowledge that eating Underworld food would make sure he was stuck here forever, he wasn’t especially tempted. 

His eyes caught on a patch of glittering flowers. They mimicked the real deal so well that it took Leo a moment to realize they weren’t actually flowers—everything from the emerald leaves to the ruby petals was made of crystals. He wondered if this was what it would look like if Hazel ever decided to pick up gardening as a hobby.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice behind him asked. 

Leo spun around automatically—a habit he really needed to grow out of sometime in the next ten seconds.

He found himself face to face with a woman. Or, well, face to face wasn’t quite right. She was a decent amount taller than him. Her long, flowing hair was the color of dark earth. If her otherworldly beauty hadn’t already given away her godly status, her dress absolutely would have. It was a vibrant green, made from threads that may have been live grass, and flowers were in full bloom all over the fabric.

But the thing that truly made Leo’s brain short-circuit were her eyes. They were almost startlingly blue—the exact same hue as Jason’s.

“Persephone.”

“Hello, little Orpheus.” The goddess of springtime smiled at him. She should have looked out of place against the Underworld background, with her suntanned skin and her dress that was so full of life, but she looked right at home in this strange garden. “From what my husband has told me, you’re here for my brother?”

“I-” Leo looked away. Seeing those eyes on anyone but Jason hurt too much. “Am I too late? I don’t remember Hades setting a deadline, but I know I took a while to get here, and if it’s too late…” He broke off. His mouth was dry as chalk. He had no idea what he’d do if, after everything he’d been through, he didn’t even get to try.

“It’s quite alright. I’ve come to take you to the throne room. He’s already waiting for you.” 

Leo’s heart lodged in his throat. He was terrified to ask if she was talking about Hades or Jason or both of them. Even if he had asked, she probably wouldn’t have been allowed to answer. 

“Thanks,” was all he managed instead, his voice weak. “This place looks huge. Pretty sure that if I tried navigating it alone, I would have gotten lost on my way to the throne room, never to be seen again.”

Persephone chuckled. She led him through the garden and up some stairs, which his broken ankle didn’t really love. He tried not to think about the Orpheus entrance and the amount of stairs that would still be ahead of him if he managed to make it back there.

“My brother is lucky to have you, you know. Our father can be… difficult. Jupiter expects obedience from his children, and he will not stick up for anyone unless it’s beneficial to him in some way. Knowing you have someone on your side can make a world of difference.”

Leo wasn’t sure he’d agree that Jason was lucky to have him, seeing as he was half the reason Jason was dead, but that wasn’t a conversation he particularly longed to have with the Queen of the Underworld, so he just shrugged noncommittally and followed her.

They walked between two rows of dark marble columns towards a set of giant doors. Those should have maybe seemed less impressive just due to the sheer number of large doors Leo had looked at lately, but they weren’t. He was still just as impressed and just as terrified. 

Leo was glad to not be walking in silence. So close to Hades’ throne room, his thoughts grew way too loud every time there was a lull in the conversation.

“What are you doing down here? Isn’t it summer? Pretty sure you’re supposed to be upstairs during the summer,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the cavern ceiling. “Uh, no offense,” he added quickly.

“My mother can be overbearing at times, and my father…” She trailed off. “Well, you’ve met him. Every now and again, I come down here to get away from it all.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Leo said, quietly wondering if those conjugal visits were to blame every time a strange, out-of-season weather phenomenon occurred in spring and summer.

“Besides, I like to see the kids when I can.” Persephone sighed. “Zagreus, at least. Melinoe… things have always been a bit complicated with her. I’m sorry she’s made your journey so difficult. I know many of the things you’ve faced aren’t part of the myth.”

Leo huffed a laugh that was tinged with frustration.

“Actually, that’s pretty much exactly how things usually go for me and my friends. It’s never just one myth at a time.” 

They’d stepped into an entry hall with bronze flooring that was polished so well that Leo could see his slightly distorted reflection in it. 

Wow, he looked like a total wreck. Even disregarding the injury, there were huge rings under his eyes and his clothes were covered in Underworld grime. He made himself look away.

The corridor they walked along was creepy. Skeletons guarded every door, making sure no one accidentally entered anywhere they weren’t supposed to. 

That boded well.

“I had a very long talk with my wayward daughter,” Persephone continued. “I suppose I have you to thank for that?”

“I think it was mostly my mom, actually,” Leo said immediately. “I guess seeing us together made her realize she missed her family enough to try and reach out.”

“Ah. Melinoe did mention your love for your mother.” This might have sounded foreboding if it hadn’t been for the genuine smile that tugged at Persephone’s lips as she said it. “My daughter is not inherently evil, you know. But she’s torn between her natures. Her time is split between the world above and the world below, quite like mine is. She’s always struggled with that.” Persephone’s voice was sad, but there was a fondness to it, too. “It’s made her relationship with her father quite difficult. Hades… he’s trying. But seeing the way he cares about Nico didn’t make things any easier for Melinoe. She was bound to have a little rebellious streak eventually.”

“Will she be punished?” 

Leo wasn’t sure why he cared. Sure, Melinoe was the reason he got to see his mom, but before that, she had spent a pretty long time making his life hell.

But whenever he thought of her now… she’d just seemed really lonely. He knew what that felt like. He didn’t have to forgive her to be able to sympathize.

“Not terribly. She was pardoned for working with Kronos in the Titan war, just like the other minor deities. Working with Gaia earned her a few centuries of Underworld social work. She actually picked the task herself, if you can believe it. Mostly, she just seemed glad to be at the palace again.” Persephone heaved another sigh. “We probably should have reached out to her sooner, but when we last spoke, it didn’t go so well. At the time, my husband and I figured she could use a few years to cool off. But loneliness can do a number on people—even on a goddess.”

Leo knew, logically, that the gods were immortal and had been around for millennia, but someone casually saying that their kid may need space for a few years like it really meant “I’ll see them next Thursday”… yeah, that was fucking weird. That was one aspect of demigod life he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to.

“We’re here,” Persephone pointed out.

Leo had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even realized they’d stopped. They were facing another set of doors that was much larger and much more impressive than any and all of the guarded doors they’d been passing on the way here.

This one was guarded, too. Skeletons in Greek armor stood on either side of the door, holding… Leo paused. Were those rocket launchers? What the hell?

Luckily, the skeletons took one look (seriously, could it be called that if they didn’t have any eyes?) at Persephone and immediately stepped aside, probably deducing that nuking the Queen of the Underworld would be a great way to get reduced back into piles of bones.

Then, the doors swung inward, as if beckoning them inside.

The throne room was huge. It was decked out in the same bronze flooring as the corridors, with walls of black marble. Unlike the throne room on Mount Olympus, this one only had two thrones. One looked like it had been grown from an Asphodel tree. Crystal flowers and vines grew around the roots and from the back of the throne, making it way more elegant and expensive and also presumably a hundred percent less comfortable to sit on. Leo still would have chosen it over the second throne in a heartbeat—that one seemed to be made entirely out of human bones.

Wow, they really committed to the whole creepy death aesthetic down here.

Leo’s heart hammered in his chest as he walked towards the thrones. Everything he’d been through came down to this.

“Lord Hades.” Leo dropped to his knees. He immediately realized that this had been a fucking stupid move from the pain that shot up his leg—kneeling with a broken ankle sucked, who could have guessed? Apparently not Leo. Well, too late to change his mind on it now. He’d just have to deal. “Lady Persephone. Thank you for giving me this chance. I’ll do my best not to waste it.”

“You remember what I told you on Mount Olympus, don’t you?” Hades asked. He looked exactly like he had in the world above, right down to his flowing dark robes, but he seemed even more powerful down here in his domain. In the world above, he’d only been one of many gods that controlled the forces of the cosmos. Down here, few deities would have dared to challenge his rule. “Your trust in your bond must be strong enough. If it is not—if you do not truly believe he will follow you out of the Underworld—you will succumb to doubt, and it will end in your untimely death, just like it did for your predecessor.”

“Have faith in your friend. More than that, have faith in yourself,” Persephone told him. She’d grown to divine height and taken her throne at her husband’s side, but her voice was still gentle. “I’ve always liked Orpheus. I admire this determination some of you mortals have, to let nothing—not even death—separate you from the people you love. I’d quite like to see a version of this story where Orpheus succeeds.”

“Once you turn your back on this room, Jason Grace may choose to follow you,” Hades continued, his intense black eyes focusing right on Leo. “He may also choose to remain in the Underworld. Until your journey is completed, the choice he made is not for you to know. You may not look behind you to see if he is there. You may not turn. If you do, you both will be lost to the world above for good. But lead his soul back to the surface and refrain from turning until you’re both bathed in sunlight and I will release him. He may have one mortal lifetime to use however he pleases.”

Leo felt like he was going to throw up. His palms were sweaty and he could feel himself shivering. This was like the Mount Olympus stage fright he’d felt, multiplied by a thousand. 

If he screwed up now, he would lose Jason for the very last time.

“Can I talk to him? Does that break some sort of rule?” he asked, pulling his mom’s jacket tighter around himself. “Not face to face, obviously. I know that’s not how this works. But I thought… I can still ramble at him as long as I’m not looking, right? I can ask him to follow me?”

Hades seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he nodded. “I don’t see why not. You’re aware that even if he’s there, he wouldn’t be able to reply, yes?”

Leo nodded. “Yeah, I know. No cheating by playing Marco Polo or something.” He exhaled heavily through his nose and begged his hammering heart to slow because he really did not feel like having a heart attack right now. “Thank you again. Seriously.”

What he’d said was maybe not formal enough for the occasion, but Leo’s mind was drifting. Despite the hardships and all the time he’d taken to get here, he still had a shot at saving Jason. The thought was terrifying and exhilarating and he was trying really hard not to think about all the ways he could screw this up.

“You may go now,” the King of the Underworld told him. 

Leo’s heart slammed against his ribcage as he struggled to his feet. He slowly turned away from Hades and Persephone and faced the doorway.

Well. No turning back now. Literally.

~~~

The worst part was that it didn’t feel like anything changed once Leo crossed the threshold. The air around him felt exactly the same. The only sounds he heard were those of the skeletons moving about the palace, guarding their doors with vigilance. 

Leo’s ankle hurt. Getting back up had seriously sucked. The ambrosia he’d taken tasted like sour candy—the kind that was way too overwhelmingly sour to be good, but that was at least great at pulling you away from unhelpful thoughts because of how hard it was to think of anything else at this level of sour in your mouth.

He remembered sitting in the workshop of the Waystation a few nights after he’d told Piper he needed space. He remembered how awful he’d felt, and how everything had just been too much. He had kept thinking of Piper’s tear-streaked face, and he hadn’t been able to even focus on the project he was working on.

Jo had set a bowl of the candies down in front of him with the words “these might help.” She hadn’t made him talk, or tried to convince him to have any of the candies. She’d asked permission to squeeze his shoulder, then told him she’d be “right over there” by her own workbench and left him to his unsuccessful tinkering. It had been a quiet reassurance that he wasn’t alone, and that she’d be there to talk if he ever felt like it, but without any of the pressure that may have scared him off.

He’d had one of the candies eventually. They had helped.

She’d told him he could take the bowl up to his room, if he wanted.

The taste was soothing now, but not quite enough to calm his racing thoughts. There was too much on his mind for sour candy to combat.

“Hi, Jason.” Leo’s voice was shaky. “You know, if you aren’t behind me and I’m just talking to myself, I’m gonna feel really stupid about this later,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Anyway, there’s so much I want to tell you. And I will, if you stick around for a little while longer. I just don’t want to do it in front of this whole skeletal audience.”

He gestured vaguely around himself with his free hand. The skeletons further down the hallway had their empty eye sockets trained on him. He wondered if they were able to see Jason, in case he was really there.

Leo kept walking until he was back in the gardens. Then he slowly worked up the courage to speak. He was struggling to find the right words. 

He’d spent a while thinking about what he’d say if he ever saw Jason again, back when he’d been traveling around with Calypso. He’d thought about the jokes he’d make and the stupid anecdotes he’d tell him about and how he’d cling to him until his arms went numb.

None of that was what he needed right now.

Leo needed sincerity. He wasn’t good at sincerity. But if he was going to get Jason to follow him, well… he had to at least try. He needed Jason to know this wasn’t a joke to him.

“Hades literally just explained how this works, so I won’t waste your time explaining the rules again, especially since this mostly depends on me not messing up. Which, I know you’ve watched me screw up a lot, and I look like a total disaster, neither of which are going to inspire a ton of confidence. I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to just stay in Elysium. It’s… well… Elysium.” Leo bit his lip. That wasn’t exactly a promising start, even if it was honest. Gods, he sucked at this. “Maybe you’re happy there. I don’t know. But we miss you. I miss you. So much. You’re my best friend, Jason. I already had to figure out how to go on without my mom. I don’t want to learn to live without you, too.” His hands were shaking, and his eyes were starting to sting again. Leo did his best to swallow the tears. He didn’t want to cry. Not right now. Not in front of Jason, if he was really there. He wasn’t sure he could handle that much honestly. “You and Piper were the best thing that ever happened to me. Those nine months I had with you both? They were the happiest I’d been in a really long time. Before then, I could barely remember what love felt like. But I was so afraid to lose you, and I messed it all up. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my stupid plan. I’m sorry I left. I didn’t mean to be gone for so long. Jason, I think I-”

Leo broke off. He couldn’t tell Jason that he loved him. He wasn’t brave enough. 

He made his way through the pomegranate trees, dragging his leaden legs, trying desperately to collect his thoughts again. Trying to find the right words that kept escaping him.

“Sorry, I’m making this all about me, and that’s stupid, because it’s not about me at all. It’s about you. You deserve a proper shot at life, Jase—at whatever it is you want to do, and not the stuff the gods or the Fates decided you need to be doing. Sure, you’re a hero or whatever. But you deserve to be so much more than that.” Leo’s voice was thick. He couldn’t help the fact that a few tears rolled down his cheek. He reached up to wipe them away with the worn sleeve of his mom’s jacket. That jacket had seen many of Leo’s tears throughout its two lifetimes. The thought was oddly comforting. “I need you to trust me one last time, okay? I promise I’ll do my best not to screw this up like I did everything else. If we make it out of here alive, I’ll even go to stupid NRU with you, and you can quote me on that one.”

The Underworld around Leo remained perfectly quiet and still. His heart clenched in his chest. He’d known in advance that he wouldn’t be getting any signs from Jason regardless of whether he was there. That just wasn’t how this worked. 

Knowing that didn't make things any easier.

But, weirdly, what Leo felt now wasn’t all dread. He was a little proud of himself for putting everything he had into words, even if it hadn’t been to Jason’s face. Even though he may have just held a whole speech for an empty crystal garden. There had been a time—not too long ago, in fact—when Leo thought he’d never admit any of this out loud. But now he had. Despite the circumstances, that felt like progress.

Leo let himself sink into memories of Jason. He thought about Jason’s arms around his shoulders and Jason’s head resting on his and the smell of summer rain. He thought about feeling safe and weightless in Jason’s arms.

Every step he managed without turning was a step towards a world where he’d get to feel that way again.

Those thoughts carried him out through the bronze gates and across the lengthy stone bridge all the way into the desert.

~~~

Leo couldn’t stand the silence of the desert. It had been bad enough on his way to the palace, when he’d been filled with doubt and the voices in his head had grown steadily louder, but of course now his idiotic brain kept going “if Jason is really behind me, I should hear him.”

Which was stupid. He knew that wasn’t how this myth worked. He also knew that wasn’t how ghosts worked. He’d spent a while walking beside Octavian, and it wasn’t like he’d heard the shuffling of his feet, then. He’d only heard them occasionally back when Octavian had been following him—and that had only been because Octavian had wanted to scare him at the time.

That he didn’t hear Jason now didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

This didn’t make Leo hate the silence any less.

He handled it how he usually did: he tried to fill the silence with jokes.

“Hey, Superman? Taking a dip in the Lethe and having your memory wiped is a rebirth only-thing, right? Because I really do not want to deal with amnesiac Jason 2: electric boogaloo. I mean, can you imagine?” he asked the empty desert in front of him, knowing he wouldn’t be getting an answer. “I’d have to tell you how I’m actually your best friend this time—not like last time, when I just thought we were best friends because a goddess gave us fake memories. And that’s not even getting into the whole thing with Piper. Man, that would be a mess to explain.”

A cynical part of Leo wondered if an amnesiac Jason might be more willing to follow him than the one who’d known him and been around for several of his greatest fuck-ups. Leo would just be someone with a friendly face who’d come to lead him out of the Underworld—not the walking disaster whose sense of direction was so terrible he’d spent six months trying to navigate back to camp, failing to find his way back to his friends until after Jason was already gone.

He pushed the thought away. That wasn’t helpful in the slightest.

“Sorry, I’m not even sure if that was funny at all. I haven’t slept in ages and my leg hurts and I think it’s starting to affect my comedic abilities, so you know it has to be bad. The things I do for you.” The joking tone melted out of his voice at that last bit, turning into something softer. Well, that was mortifying. “I think I need a break. I know you’re probably itching to get out of here as fast as you can, and I don’t blame you, but it’s not going to help either of us if I fall over. Besides, if I get too tired there’s a chance I may accidentally waltz us into Tartarus or something, and Annabeth and Percy gave that half a star on their travel blog, so I feel like we should probably avoid it at all costs.”

He felt ridiculous as he clambered up onto one of the stones. He didn’t think Orpheus was supposed to take breaks, especially not with Eurydice watching. But he needed water before he passed out from dehydration, and he could hear his stomach rumbling. 

The thing he needed most was a nap, but he could afford that even less than before. Leo moved around a lot in his sleep. He might turn and mess things up if he let himself take a nap, not to mention any potential monsters that might find him when he was defenseless.

Didn’t these awful undead guys he’d faced at Camp Jupiter live somewhere in the Underworld? Even if he didn’t accidentally turn in his sleep, Leo didn’t feel much like waking up as a zombie.

He’d simply have to push through.

Predictably, Leo didn’t get to finish his break before something decided it was high time to ruin his day some more. He was barely halfway through his meal—another protein bar that tasted delightfully of sawdust—when he heard movement on the stone behind him. It wasn’t Jason’s. There were no steps. It sounded more like the creature was slithering towards him.

He barely refrained from turning to check what it was, mentally scolding himself for nearly messing this up over something so stupid.

Instead, he made himself hop forward off the stone. Whatever the noise was, he figured it was best not to stick around to find out.

Unfortunately, between his sleep-deprivation and his haste to get off the stone, Leo hadn’t thought to properly factor in his bad ankle. He landed on it harder than he’d intended.

Leo cursed, vision briefly going white with pain. He barely managed to stay upright.

The thing behind him apparently saw its opening and took it. It hissed loudly and spewed a steady stream of something hot at Leo’s head.

He just had time to think that this would be a really dumb way to die before his brain kicked back in and told him it was only fire.

He did his best to push past the leg pain and focused on keeping his mom’s jacket unburnt.

The creature—was it a snake?—hissed again, although it sounded a little confused now. This didn’t stop it from directing another burst of flame at Leo’s hair.

Fire-breathing snakes… Leo distantly remembered something about that. He was pretty sure Hazel and Frank had mentioned something about those at some point. Possibly a basilisk, then? 

Leo steadied himself on his cane, doing his best to take every bit of weight he could off his bad ankle, and tried to get his bearings.

The problem with that was, well… the monster was currently behind him. And Leo couldn’t fucking turn.

Great, he thought, cursing to himself. That also wasn’t in the myth.

———

Notes:

I wish I had any fun notes today but I’m just having a miserable day (not an author’s curse thing, just a very unfortunate combination of my anxiety and the consequences of my own actions, a lot of which comes down to me just getting absolutely nothing done at the moment due to Life Stuff and also Brain Being Stupid) and the A/N is among the hardest, most anxiety-inducing parts of this fic for some reason (I literally always out these off until the last second because I get so up in my head about them) and I think today I would just rather. Not.

Maybe I’ll come back and add fun notes later. We’ll see.

Regardless, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, comments of any kind are immensely appreciated as always. I’ll see you guys next week!

Tag List: @poppitron360 @lilyfrey @lady-silkwing @intenebrisobscurat @manygeese @ann-rex @jvneseries

[demigod-shenanigans]

👀👀👀

i just need everyone to imagine Leo feeding Jason soup while he's sick. Like spoon feeding. Do y'all see the vision?

[demigod-shenanigans]

i just need everyone to imagine Leo feeding Jason soup while he's sick. Like spoon feeding. Do y'all see the vision?

[demigod-shenanigans]

Of course, no problem! I had to keep looking because it probably would have driven me crazy otherwise haha

I am reminded that jason never stopped looking for leo until chiron had to practically force him to go to school and continue with his life and urge him to stop the search and I start wailing

[demigod-shenanigans]

update: found the post I was thinking of and someone added the scene that person most likely got it from, it’s apparently briefly referenced in Hidden Oracle (I was looking for scenes that featured Piper, Jason or Leo but Nico just talks about this happening before Leo comes back which is why I couldn’t find it):

I am reminded that jason never stopped looking for leo until chiron had to practically force him to go to school and continue with his life and urge him to stop the search and I start wailing

[demigod-shenanigans]

VERY excited to get to chapter 13 of SoF because I'm going to get to include some Percabeth flirting and I LOVE Percabeth flirting

[demigod-shenanigans]

I definitely remember seeing a post about this before, but I actually don’t remember it from the books themselves? They do tell you Jason and Piper searched for Leo for months in Burning Maze but I don’t recall it ever being mentioned why exactly they stopped searching. I’ll have to recheck if there’s anything mentioned right after Leo gets back, I don’t have hidden oracle handy right now. But I’ll also admit I’m not as familiar with ToA as I am with HoO, so also reblogging this in case anyone following me knows for sure whether this is confirmed anywhere.

I am reminded that jason never stopped looking for leo until chiron had to practically force him to go to school and continue with his life and urge him to stop the search and I start wailing

[demigod-shenanigans]

thinking about the ethics of prophecy and its role as a narrative tool of coercion and control again

[demigod-shenanigans]

it turned out so so gorgeous, thank you again :D

Order for @demigod-shenanigans! This one is from some time ago. Go read The choiceless hope in grief :]

[demigod-shenanigans]

hello quick question . do u have any angsty jason thoughts?

& semi related: does tchig have jason angst or is it focused on just leo? sry if im overstepping

Not overstepping, don’t worry! So I don’t know if you’re new here, anon, but in case you are, I do have a Jason Grace angst tag on this blog that may feature some headcanons of interest! I have a lot of angsty Jason thoughts that I’ve already shared so I’m trying to think of specific ones I haven’t shared yet

-Jason has very fond memories of this so making it angsty is a little mean, but it’s briefly mentioned in the books that he used to play hide-and-seek with Thalia when he was little. A part of me wonders if that was Thalia’s way of protecting him/getting him out of the way when their mom was doing especially badly so he was a bit shielded from it when she got angry.

-Jason misses Thalia like hell and sometimes wishes she hadn’t joined the Hunters and could just be with him at camp, then promptly feels guilty about having these thoughts because she’s off doing important things and saving the world and he was raised to believe that those things should far outweigh his desire to be able to bond with and be around his sister

-Even though a lot of Jason’s arc is centered around him deciding he belongs in both Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter, he never truly reconnects with any of his Roman friends from before. This is kind of a failure on the writing’s part, but it is interesting in an angst context of Jason not feeling Roman enough/worrying he has changed too much from the person he was before he lost his memories for his Roman friends to still like him, especially with how worried he is about not being enough. On a similar note, he sort of ends up distancing himself from his Camp Half-Blood friends, too? And part of that is because after Leo and he and Piper broke up being at camp was just weird, and part of that is him trying to figure out who he is outside of being a demigod, but he just sort of ends up alone and feeling like he doesn’t belong anywhere when his sense of being abandoned and wanting to belong is so fundamental to his character and that’s just kind of devastating to me.

-When I think about Jason in terms of college major/future job, I feel like he’d really struggle to pick something he’d enjoy over whatever he thinks is expected of him. Kind of projecting here because I have Problems™ but I’m thinking of the time when a former teacher of mine asked me what I was majoring in at uni and he was like “huh I always thought you’d go into field X” and I briefly reconsidered rearranging my entire life because I was anxious about not living up to the expectations of this one random authority figure that I’m most likely never going to run into again. That just feels immensely Jason Grace-coded to me. I can very much see Jason studying something like law that doesn’t even interest him and just being miserable the whole time and eventually Leo brings that up and asks him if that’s what he actually wants to be doing and Jason has a whole breakdown about it.

-Regarding tchig, it kind of depends on what you’re looking for? It’s obviously very Leo focused, and with the Orpheus Eurydice premise I cannot currently confirm to what extent Jason as a character will end up actually appearing in the fic, since Orpheus and Eurydice as a myth is centered around doubt, and, well, spoilers. There are explorations of grief surrounding Jason’s death that we didn’t get out of canon, and the fic goes somewhat into what Jason was raised to be vs. what he actually wanted to be and the pressure he was under, but that happens through the eyes of other people. Essentially, Jason is haunting the narrative, as any good Eurydice should.

-If what you’re looking for is Jason angst through Jason’s eyes specifically, three of my other fics may also work well:

—love will run deep like hurt runs out is a Jason sickfic that’s (among other things) about Jason struggling to let himself take a break and rest when he was raised to think of his duties as more important than himself.

—Your hand in my pocket to keep us both warm is a fic about Jason taking care of Leo that’s largely focused on Jason’s fear of failing the people he loves and feeling like a burden in the context of having lost his powers and needing to be saved.

—The Meaning of Home is a split POV lost trio reunion fic where Jason (barely) survives the events of The Burning Maze and everyone has a lot of feelings and fears about losing each other.

I may or may not have other stuff in the works, too :)

Hope that answers your questions!

[demigod-shenanigans]

I need more domestic Valgrace being silly. Like Jason chasing Leo around the house while they trip and bump into furniture. Leo sneaking up behind Jason to tickle his ribs (and probably getting elbowed right after). Them both laughing and talking loudly at midnight until a neighbor appears at the door and affectionately asks them to shut the fuck up. Jason in line at the grocery store while Leo pretends to punch and kick him.

[demigod-shenanigans]

The choiceless hope in grief (chapter 14)

“If you’re going to destroy me, just get it over with!” Leo yelled at the goddess. He wrapped his arms around his trembling body. His leg burned and his chest felt like lead. “You’ve already won. Stop gloating and just turn me into one of your stupid ghosts.” “I could do that, I suppose. I could destroy you through many means, if I wanted to. I am a goddess, after all. But above all else, I am the goddess of ghosts, and it would be a waste not to make use of how terribly, beautifully haunted you are by your past.” Melinoe gave him another one of her grotesque smiles. Suddenly, the fog started thickening around her. “I could feel it in Asphodel, and I can see it now. There is someone in my domain who would quite like to talk to you. I think I’ll let her do the honors.” With that, Melinoe disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of thick mist, like someone had turned on a whole row of Underworld fog machines. In the middle of that mist stood a person, in the same place Melinoe had been a moment before. Leo knew instantly the person was a shade. The woman was clearly faded, almost see-through.  She was wearing heavy work boots and oil-stained, singed overalls, combined with a jacket that was only slightly less singed and oil-stained than the rest of her clothes. One of her hands was clutching a screwdriver. Her dark curls were tied back, like they’d always been when she worked. When Leo made himself look at her face, his own brown eyes looked back at him. Leo couldn’t breathe. It felt like someone had aimed a jackhammer at his heart, the way he could feel himself fracturing with each racing beat of his heart. His voice was barely audible when he spoke. “Mom?”

No quote from this chapter because I’m feeling evil and want you to experience it as it happens, we’re instead doing a preview via the bit we left off on last time ;)

Rating: Teen and Up

Chapter Word Count: 6.8k

CW: guilt, mentions of past parental death and trauma

Also this part is not a CW but know that there are some Spanish bits and, fair warning, they may not be 100% correct. I’ve only been taking Spanish classes for about a year, so if any native speaker has notes, please feel free to correct me! I’m definitely still in the earlier learning stages, so if anything reads awkwardly I’m very sorry.

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Chapter 14: The goddess of ghosts gets traumatized by a hug

Leo felt like he was going to have a panic attack. He tried to look away from the shimmering form of his mother, but he couldn’t. How could he possibly have looked anywhere else?

His mom just stood there, frozen in shock, staring right at him.

He couldn’t take this. He couldn’t take seeing her. Couldn’t take hearing what she thought of him after what he’d done to her.

“Mijo? Is it really you?” the shade asked, and it hit Leo right in the chest. It was his mom’s voice—trembling and fragile but definitely hers. He knew it in an instant, even after eight years without her. 

Some of the memories had faded with time—become harder and harder to grasp at. Leo had been terribly afraid that one day, the memory of her voice would fade completely. That the version of it he sometimes heard in his dreams would stray further and further from the real thing until he could no longer remember it.

Hearing it again, so foreign after all this time, yet so agonizingly familiar, was enough to reduce him to tears all over again.

So much suddenly came back to him, clear and sharp as broken glass.

“This isn’t real,” he told himself. He could barely remember how to take in air. “This isn’t her. Whatever horrible things she’s about to say to me, it isn’t really my mom saying them. It’s just the stupid goddess messing with my head.”

He wasn’t sure that was true. Melinoe was the goddess of ghosts. Who was to say she couldn’t have summoned his mother from Asphodel? Of course she could have.

And honestly, Leo wasn’t even sure it mattered whether this was really his mom. If this shade continued speaking in her voice, telling him all the things he’d quietly thought to himself over the years in his worst moments, it would destroy him anyway. 

Leo desperately wanted to run away. He couldn’t face his mom. Not after what he’d done. But even if it hadn’t been for his stupid broken ankle, his trembling body would not obey him. He’d spent so long running from this pain, and now it was staring right at him, and Leo couldn’t move. 

The ghostly form of his mom moved towards him with wide eyes, and he braced himself for whatever it was she would say or do. For her cussing him out and saying she hated him for making her die in agony. He deserved it. He-

“Oh cariño. Come here.” She dropped her ghostly screwdriver, which did the reasonable thing and evaporated. Then she kneeled down beside him, strong arms wrapping tenderly around his shoulders. “Everything is going to be okay.”

She felt so impossibly warm, and she smelled exactly like he remembered—machine oil mixing with the subtle scent of the apple shampoo she’d always used. 

Later, he’d think how odd it was that she hadn’t been cold like the ghosts he’d passed through before, but right now, Leo wasn’t doing a whole lot of thinking. His brain had lost all capacity for it. He didn’t understand what was happening.

“Mamá?” he asked, his voice breaking. The woman looked and sounded and felt just like her. It was impossible to believe that it could be anyone else, as much as he kept telling himself this couldn’t be real. Melinoe was messing with him. In a second, the illusion would break and he would die. But that didn’t make sense with how the ghost was acting. Why was she holding him? “Aren’t you angry?”

“Why would I be angry?” the shade asked gently, in the voice his mom had always used when he’d said something terribly silly. “You’ve grown so tall, Emilio.”

And that—the full name that Leo hadn’t allowed anyone to use in years because it never sounded quite like it had when his mamá had said it and he was terrified of forgetting how she had said it if he let other voices overwrite the memory—was finally enough to break Leo. He shattered into a million pieces.

Leo let himself deflate against his mom, arms wrapping around her sides and holding her close. He may not have deserved it, but he still sank into her embrace and started sobbing uncontrollably.

This really was his mom. And she was holding him, arms wrapped around him and one cheek pressed to his. 

If this was how he went, maybe that wasn’t so bad.

“Lo siento,” he said through tears, chest heaving. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for everything.”

“Oh, Leo.” She just held him tighter. One hand gently cupped his head, fingers gently combing through his curls like she’d done so many times when he’d been small. The other ran soothingly up and down his back. “What could you possibly have to feel sorry for?” 

Leo’s stomach flipped. Maybe she didn’t know. Or maybe she had known, but didn’t remember. Maybe Asphodel had made her forget, and that was the only reason she wasn’t angry with him.

That had to be it. There was no possible way she’d be holding him like this if she knew what had happened.

“I caused the machine shop fire,” he said frantically, because he couldn’t let himself have this. Not after everything. She deserved the truth, no matter how desperately he longed for her to hold him like this forever. “I lost control, just like you said I would, and I- I killed you.”

“Cariño, look at me.” His mom took his face in her hands, gently wiping his tears away. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“But-” Leo started to protest.

His mom didn’t even let him finish.

“No, Leo. Escúchame. It was not your fault,” she repeated firmly. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and then she just held him again, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, mi sol. There is nothing to forgive.”

She still said the nickname with the same easy fondness of his childhood. She looked at him with those same shining eyes, her smile never wavering. Slowly, she returned to rubbing his back. Her fingers tapped out a familiar rhythm in Morse code as she did. 

I love you. I love you. I love you. 

Over and over. Never wavering.

Leo couldn’t get a single word out. He spent the next several minutes curled up against his mom’s chest, bawling like a baby. He’d tried to tell himself it wasn’t his fault so many times. Other people had told him that, too. He’d tried to blame Gaia. Really, he had. And for a while, that had worked. But there had always been that small, vicious voice at the back of his head, reminding him that it had been his fire that killed her. 

And yet here she was, holding him gently, telling him it hadn’t been his fault. Looking at him like she genuinely believed it.

For the first time in almost nine years, Leo felt like he could breathe.

@coquettemouseevil What had happened would never be okay, but he could feel some of his broken pieces mend themselves as her scarred, calloused hands pressed tenderly into his shirt.

He remembered how she’d gotten some of these scars. The first time he’d burnt in front of his mom, he’d anxiously melted a hole into the living room carpet. He’d been small—kindergarten age, maybe. Younger than he’d been when Hera had coaxed the flames out of him. He remembered being really overwhelmed, though he couldn’t remember what had made him feel that way. Then, suddenly, his hands had started smoking.

His mother had looked at him with such fear, then. Even after Hera’s bullshit demonstration with the furnace, she’d been so afraid the fire was hurting him.

Without as much as a hint of hesitation on her face, she’d reached out and cupped his burning palm in her own hands and tried to smother the flames.

She hadn’t been afraid of him. Not even a little. She’d only ever been afraid for him.

He’d burnt her, leaving a scar that never quite healed. He hadn’t understood, then, why the flames would hurt her when they couldn’t harm him.

He remembered crying. He remembered being held and soothed like he was right now, not a single angry word between them. 

There is nothing in this world that could ever make me love you less, entiendes? she’d asked as she’d rocked him gently against her chest.

And he had. He’d understood, at that age, when he was young and naive, before he’d learned that love could be conditional. He remembered it now, knowing unconditional love to be the rare and precious thing it was, and he wept uncontrollably.

As a child, Leo had let himself be loved so easily. He’d almost forgotten how that felt—to just believe he was loved, without doubt or question. Without feeling like it must be a mistake on the other person’s part that they’d fix once he messed up badly enough. To feel like being himself was enough to deserve that love.

“Sorry.” Leo sniffed. “Here I am, all grown up, and you still have to deal with me wailing like a toddler.”

“You’ve been so, so very strong for so long.” She pressed another kiss to his head. “You don’t need to be strong now.“

“Damn it, mom, now I’m never gonna stop.” 

“Now, I know I did not teach you that language, mijo,” she teased, raising an eyebrow at him, and then Leo was laughing through his sobs.

“I love you so much.” He wiped at his eyes, slowly untangling himself from her so he could get a proper look at her. He still didn’t understand how any of this was possible. “How are you here? What was Melinoe trying to do? I’m so confused.”

The goddess of ghosts had promised to destroy him. This was… kind of the complete opposite of that. It made no sense to him.

His mom laughed. His chest stung at the sound. He hadn’t heard her laugh in such a long time. 

“Technically, I’m possessing her. This was her intention. She summoned me for this exact purpose. She just thought she would be able to control me.”

“I- what?” Leo blinked. The thought that his mom was possessing a goddess seemed absurd to him. And considering he had been possessed in the past, he’d assumed he was basically an expert on the topic. “Why would she want to be possessed?” 

Personally, he’d give that experience a solid 0/10. It wasn’t something he’d ever have considered subjecting himself to willingly.

“Melinoe cannot keep the memories of all of us in her mind at once. Even for a goddess, that would be too much. There are simply too many of us. She needs to call upon ghosts to use them against their loved ones. She does this by handing over her form and amplifying our negative emotions.”

“So why didn’t it work on you?” 

“I suppose she assumed I’d be an easy target, with how haunted you were by my death. She thought wrong.” His mom grinned at him, looking incredibly smug. “She tried to target my anger and didn’t find any. Then she tried to twist my worry into something painful. Foolish woman. Like I’d ever let anything outweigh the love I have for you.”

Her hands were still wandering up and down his arms, rubbing them soothingly.

“But- but how are you-” No demigod Leo knew could have done what she was doing, as far as he was aware. And his mom was mortal.

She should not have been able to fight a goddess and win.

“I’ve been dealing with godly nonsense since before you were born. See through the Mist long enough and you learn to handle these things.” 

She shrugged, like fighting a goddess was merely a minor inconvenience if it stood in the way of seeing him. 

“You’re like Rachel. You’re clear-sighted,” Leo realized, a lot of things about his childhood suddenly clicking into place. “You knew who Tía Callida was, didn’t you?”

His mom replied with a string of very colorful curse words, both English and Spanish, several of which Leo had definitely never heard before. With how his life was going, he’d have to write those down for future use.

“Blasted woman. I never wanted her training you. But yes, I’m very aware I banished the queen of the gods from our apartment.” His mom cracked her knuckles. “The goddess of ghosts had absolutely no idea who she was dealing with.”

Leo hiccuped, a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “I have the coolest mom in the entire universe.”

“I clearly got the coolest son, so I think that balances it out.” Her eyes were crinkled and so full of genuine love that Leo thought his heart might burst. “I knew what you’d face since you were very small. I hated that I couldn’t protect you from becoming a hero. But worried as I was, I was always happy as long as I had you. Nothing will ever change that. Not my death, and certainly not some vindictive goddess.”

Leo sniffled. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t grow up to be a very good hero,” he said quietly.

“I don’t believe that for a second.” His mom’s hands had returned to combing soothingly through his curls as she spoke. “Don’t be so terribly hard on yourself.”

“I’m not. I’m just being honest. I failed everyone. And now I’m never going to be able to fix any of it.” 

“Emilio, we talked about this,” his mom said, a touch of sternness in her voice. “Nothing is unfixable.”

“I-” Leo’s protests were swallowed by a wave of white-hot pain. He did his best to bite back a scream, though he was sure the pain must have been written all over his face. He’d been so lost in the blissful feeling of being held by his mom that, for a little while, the agony of his stupid ankle injury had faded to background noise. But he’d shifted his leg now, and it had immediately retaliated. 

His mom’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re hurt.”

“I think- argh- I think I broke my ankle.” The words came out strangled. Leo was trembling like a leaf. He was so warm and so cold and so dizzy. “Mamá, I don’t feel so good.”

“Oh, my poor baby. You’re going to be okay.” She stroked his tear-stained cheek with her thumb. “Will you let me take a look?”

Leo nodded weakly. 

She took off her jacket, and unlike with the vanishing act her screwdriver had put on the second she’d let go of it, the jacket stayed corporeal as she wrapped it around his shaking shoulders. 

Leo remembered that jacket. It had been his mom’s favorite—despite the wear and tear it showed from years of her wearing it around the workshop, or maybe because of it. It had mismatching patches all over it from all the times she’d had to fix it over the years.

He remembered the last time he’d been wrapped up in it as a feverish little seven year old. He’d been drowning in it, then. He wasn’t anymore. But the fabric still felt exactly the same.

His mom carefully lowered him onto the soft sand. 

“Do you have any medical supplies? Anything you could take to ease the pain?” she asked, brushing a curl out of his face. It didn’t sound like she was overly optimistic about the answer she’d receive—probably because the only place Leo could be stashing anything was his tool belt, and that obviously wasn’t a common place for first aid supplies to be. “We’ll make do if you don’t.”

“I- I do, actually.” He gestured towards his tool belt. “Just ask for whatever you need. It’s meant to be used for summoning tools and workshop supplies, obviously, but it can usually do bandages and stuff.”

His mom’s eyes went wide. “You have a magical tool belt?”

“I have a magical tool belt,” Leo confirmed, smiling weakly. 

“Damn, I wish I’d had something like this when I first opened the shop. That sounds really convenient and doesn’t look nearly as heavy to lug around as my actual tool belt.”

“Between this and your very imaginative description of Hera: so much for not being the one to teach me to curse, eh?” Leo joked, and his mom burst out laughing.

“Do not get cheeky with me, mijo,” she teased, and that had him laughing, too.

The whole situation was so utterly absurd that he had to pinch himself just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. But he didn’t wake. Esperanza Valdez was really sitting here, laughing with him. His mom was right here next to him, and she loved him, and there was nothing to forgive.

~~~~

His mom spent the next few minutes thoroughly wrecking Leo’s right boot using a pair of heavy-duty scissors. 

It had refused to come off the normal way—which Leo didn’t really blame it for, considering everything he’d put that poor boot through—so it was coming off the hard way. Luckily, it was already pretty ruined, which made things a little easier.

Leo spent that time just kind of laying there, watching his mom as she worked. Her brows were furrowed in worry and concentration, and every now and again she let out a frustrated huff, scowling at the boot and/or the scissors like they had caused her personal offense.

“They’re very tough boots,” she sighed, and Leo groaned inwardly.

“Yeah. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

The ambrosia cube he was nibbling on tasted like the chicken pozole his mom had always made him when he was sick, which felt accurate to the current situation and almost made him burst into tears all over again. Gods, he was a wreck right now. 

“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked after she’d spent a while working in silence. “Why do you think you’re failing everyone?”

“It’s kind of a long, awful story with a lot of colossal screw-ups on my part,” Leo mumbled, not meeting her eyes.

“I don’t care if it’s long. We have time. Dime, por favor.”

He couldn’t tell her no. Not if she asked like that. There was no way in hell.

“I- After you died, things were really bad for a long time.” He wrung his hands. “But then I met Piper and Jason, and everything changed.”

Leo wasn’t sure how long he spent recounting everything that had happened. He knew he spent much of that time crying. His mom listened with a soft expression that was occasionally disturbed by her need to cuss out some deity or monster he'd encountered. 

She set and bandaged his ankle, which hurt like absolute hell. She cleaned the cuts on his arms and the bloody gash on his cheek that must have been parting gifts he’d gotten from the trees while frantically trying to get out of Asphodel. 

Once that was done, she made him drink some water and moved to sit behind him, cradling his head in her lap the way she had after that stupid modified swing incident when he’d been little.

Leo kept talking. Once he wasn’t feeling quite so dizzy anymore, he made himself sit up so he could crawl back into his mom’s lap. The world was awful and everything hurt, but his mom was right there, holding him, and a tiny, foolish part of him genuinely believed that meant he was going to be alright.

~~~~

“-and now Jason is dead, and I really hurt Piper, and I’m never going to be able to make things right,” he finished, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his borrowed jacket. 

“Shhhh. Shhh. Everything is going to be okay.” His mom squeezed his shoulders gently. “Oh, my wonderful, brave boy. I’m so proud of you.”

“But I just told you-” Leo started to protest. Once again, his mom didn’t let him finish.

“-how you saved the world? Yeah, I’d say that warrants a bit of pride from your mamá. Wouldn’t you?” She nudged him, smiling earnestly. “I wish things hadn’t been so hard for you. I hate that I couldn’t be around to protect you for longer. But it sounds like you’ve found friends that love and protect you in my place. Despite everything you’ve had to face, the world is still in one piece. And here you are, alive. I couldn’t be prouder, cariño.”

Yeah, Leo was pretty sure he’d cry himself to serious dehydration at this rate.

“I don’t feel particularly proud or brave right now.”

“Being brave has never meant that you aren’t afraid. I would be terrified to face even a fraction of the things you’ve stood against. But you don’t seem to let that stop you. You’re still standing, and still fighting for your friend. That’s the bravest thing in the world—if a little more reckless than I’d like.”

“I guess.” Leo let the words wash over him and let himself deflate against his mom again. He hadn’t even realized just how much he needed to hear this. “Though I don’t know about the whole standing thing, considering my whole broken ankle situation,” he joked weakly. The bandages and the ambrosia had helped, but it still hurt. He seriously doubted he’d be able to put weight on it again anytime soon. “I don’t really know what to do now.”

“Yes, you do.” His mother’s voice was kind, but there was a firmness to it now that brooked no opposition. “You know exactly what you came here to do.”

“I can’t save Jason. It doesn’t matter that I want to. I’ll never make it to Hades’ palace. Hell, even if I did, why would Jason follow me?” Leo asked, his heart aching. “I’d just get us lost or eaten or take a wrong turn somewhere and land us both in Tartarus. I always mess everything up.”

“The thing about being an inventor,” his mom told him, cradling him against her chest and pressing a kiss to his hairline, “is that your projects are going to blow up in your face half the time. You make a mistake somewhere in the process, and nothing works the way you wanted it to, and sometimes you really just want to throw the whole thing out of a window and never look at it again. Remember that drill-bit design I was working on?”

“Of course I do.”

“I saved most of the cussing for when you were at school, but dios mío, you wouldn’t believe how many times I started over because it didn’t work the way I intended.” His mom laughed. “The important thing isn’t that you never mess up, mijo. Messing up is a normal part of the process. What’s important is that after you’ve cursed and cried and maybe thrown your unfortunate project at the wall a few times, you pick up the pieces and you keep trying.” 

“Well, I’ve got the cursing and crying and throwing things at a wall covered.” Leo sniffled. Gods, there weren’t enough words in all the languages of the world to convey just how much he loved his mom.

“Of course you do. I think we’ve got a Valdez family patent on it somewhere.” She pinched his cheek and smiled at him. “So, what do you want to do now? Think you’re ready to try and pick up the pieces?”

“Maybe.” He rubbed at his tear-stained cheeks. “Will you tell me what to do?”

She shook her head. 

“Absolutely not. No more training wheels. I’m just the assistant today.” She ruffled his hair. “Take a moment to breathe, and then tell me what you’re thinking. How do you want to solve this? Because I know you can.”

And really, now that Leo wasn’t in the middle of a devastated breakdown and the pain had ebbed a little, thinking wasn’t quite as hard. Maybe his mom was right. Maybe he did know how to move forward.

He took a deep breath and tried for a proper smile. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

~~~~

A few minutes later, he’d arranged all the tools and materials he thought he might need neatly on a tarp in front of them.

Even without catastrophizing about how everything he did was inevitably going to end in horrible failure, Leo knew that walking as much as a few steps on his messed-up ankle would be a challenge. A track halfway across the desert? Yeah, that wasn’t happening. 

He needed something to take the weight off it. He dithered between crutches and a cane for a moment, but a cane was the obvious choice. Crutches may have been better to keep all weight off his ankle, but he wasn’t sure how practical it would be to have all his weight on mobility aids when he was walking in sand that might slip underneath them without him realizing, and he also much preferred the thought of having one hand free in case he needed to use his fire to protect himself.

Since there would be some weight on his ankle, he also needed a way to stabilize it so he didn’t make the injury even worse. He needed some kind of ankle brace.

Both the cane and the brace were more of the medical than the engineering variety and therefore outside of his usual field of expertise, but Leo had figured out how to reconstruct a celestial bronze dragon almost from scratch and built a giant flying warship in six months. This was far from his most ambitious project. He could do this.

His mother didn’t correct him or give any advice on how he could improve the brace. She just listened to him, handing over tools and parts and snacks, like he’d done for her when he’d been little. It felt weird to have the roles reversed like this, but not in a bad way. 

While they worked, his mom asked him to tell her more stories about his friends—not of their heroics, but tiny, casual adventures they’d had together. Good moments. Leo was more than happy to provide. Thinking about all the ways he’d messed up was still painful, but the pain wasn’t as biting now. And besides, he wanted his mom to know about his friends.

He talked about the food fights, and Jason with half-melted marshmallows stuck in his hair. He talked about the movie nights and the campfire and Jason cheering him up in the sewer. He talked about Piper and the Wilderness school pranks he could remember. He joked about her absolutely abhorrent pronunciation from when he’d tried to help her with her Spanish homework, and about the time they’d bickered and capsized a boat in the lake because they’d both leaned out too far out in an attempt to splash each other. 

He also got to show his mom the Polaroid picture of him, Jason and Piper that he’d pulled out of the Styx. It wasn’t a real memory, obviously, but that way she could see what they looked like, which was at least one thing that particular traumatizing experience had been good for.

Then, he talked about the remaining crew of the Argo—about Hazel’s connection to their family and Frank turning into an iguana to get out of a finger trap and late night engineer/architect arguments with Annabeth. He talked about how Percy had immediately been down to yell at the gods with him.

He talked about his siblings back at camp, and about Emmie and Jo taking him in. 

After all the bad things Asphodel had shown him, remembering the good was exactly what he needed.

The whole time he was talking, his mom was smiling so widely that it made his heart squeeze in his chest.

“That sounds like a wonderful life you’ve got, mijo. I hate that I can’t be there to see it, but it sounds like you are so, so loved. That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

And he was, wasn’t he? He hadn’t polished the story for his mom. All these things really had happened. He really did have that many people who cared about him, despite everything.

“I’m not sure I deserve it,” Leo admitted quietly. “I’m not sure I deserve any of them.”

“Of course you do. You deserve every single good thing you have in your life, mi sol.” His mother handed him a screwdriver so he could fasten the support structure around the padding of his makeshift brace, then gently squeezed his shoulder. “But you’ve been through so much, and I know that me saying this isn’t going to magically change the way you see yourself, no matter how much I wish it did. The only thing I can give you is this: at the end of the day, we do not get to decide whether other people love us. I felt like I was failing you so many times when you were growing up. But you still hugged me goodnight every evening before bed.”

“Mamá, you weren’t- that wasn’t-” Leo stopped what he was doing and hugged her again. “Te quiero. You were the best parent I ever could have wished for.”

“You deserved a better life than I was able to give you,” she said simply, squeezing his shoulders. “But you still love me. Your friends seem wonderful. I have a feeling they will love you regardless of whether you think you deserve it. The only thing you get to decide here is whether you continue to shut your eyes to this fact or face their love with your eyes and heart wide open.”

Leo sat with that for a very long time.

~~~~

When they surveyed the end result, his mom glowed with obvious pride.

“Look at this. You did so well.”

The tools weren’t anything fancy—it was just a padded boot and a relatively simple cane made partially out of a branch from one of Asphodel’s trees—but while they were much less impressive projects than Festus and the Argo II had been, they were functional, and that was what mattered most right now. Besides, he’d made them with his mom. How could he do anything other than love them?

“We’ve always made a great team,” Leo said, grinning.

His mom shook her head.

“This was all you, cariño.” She smiled at him. “I just gave you the tools.”

She helped him fasten the brace around his ankle and stood when he did. He leaned heavily on the cane for support. 

“Wow, I am so glad you got to see me live all the way to 80,” he joked as he tested his grip on the cane.

Putting weight on his ankle didn’t feel great, but it wasn’t awful, either. It was a world away from how he’d felt after stumbling out of Asphodel.

His mother laughed, her eyes glinting. “You always loved making people laugh when you were little. I’m glad to see that hasn’t changed.” 

The unabashed joy in her expression made tears prick at the corners of Leo’s eyes again.

“Oh, it definitely hasn’t. My sense of humor drives Piper absolutely nuts sometimes, but Jason always, always laughed, even at my really terrible jokes.”

His mom nudged him gently. “Marry that one, yeah?”

Leo did shed a few more tears, then. This feeling—his mom seeing and loving all of him, unconditionally, without hesitation—had the power to crack him wide open.

“Resurrection first. I can still get rejected after,” he joked back, but this time his mom didn’t laugh. She pinched his cheek, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“Don’t sell yourself so terribly short, mijo. There’s so much to love about you.” She ruffled his hair, then inspected his brace and cane with a critical eye. “So, what are we thinking?”

Leo tested taking a few steps. It still hurt, but not too badly. He’d dealt with worse before. “Not bad. I think this just might work.”

“Good.” His mom was still smiling, but it seemed strained now. “Because I fear it might be time for me to go. I may be pretty great, but there’s limits to how long I can possess a goddess without my soul coming apart. It’s honestly a miracle she’s tolerated me being here for as long as she has.”

The smile slid off Leo’s face. 

“No.” He moved forward and grabbed onto his mother’s arms like the desperate child he was. “I just got you back. I can’t lose you again.”

“I can’t stay. But you will never truly lose me.” She pressed her hands to his chest. “I will always be right here, Emilio.”

“Can I stay here with you?” he asked, feeling himself coming apart at the seams all over again. He couldn’t do this. He wasn’t sure he’d ever remember how to make the tears stop if she left him a second time.

“What kind of mother would I be if I told you yes, hm?” she said gently, looking right at him. “You have a life waiting for you out there, with your second family. Go and live it. The last thing I want is for you to stay in the shadow of my ghost.”

The words hit Leo right in his chest as he realized how much he had been doing just that—how much of his life had been centered around the fact that he hadn’t been able to save his mom, and how even the smallest sign of failure meant he obviously wouldn’t be able to save anyone else, either.

“But what if I- what if I can’t keep trying? What if I can’t save Jason and never make it back to my friends?” He kept clinging to her, like that might keep her soul pinned in place. “I need you. Please.”

“Of course you’ll make it. You have all the tools you need right here.” His mom smiled at him, gently tapping his head. She was still glowing with what he knew to be pride as she brushed his curls out of his face. One of her hands remained on his cheek. “My bright, capable boy. Look at everything that is already behind you. You’ve beaten more impossible odds than this, haven’t you?”

Her ghostly form started to flicker, and Leo realized neither of them could do anything to stop this. It was just happening. His mom was going back to Asphodel. They got no say in the matter.

He couldn’t waste his final moments with her trying to stop something that was entirely out of his control. Not again.

“Will you be okay in Asphodel?” he asked. As scared as he was of her answer, he needed to know. “It seemed terrifying to me, and I wasn’t even there for very long. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to be in pain.”

“I’m not in pain, te lo prometo. Asphodel is not what you think. I do not dread returning there. But I’m so grateful I got to see the person you’ve become. You’re everything I always knew and hoped you would be.” His mom pressed one more kiss to the top of his head. “Mijo, te quiero y siempre te querré. Now go save your friend. And please, let yourself be loved.”

Leo looked at her flickering form, trying to commit her features to memory. Her gentle smile and kind eyes. The dimple on her chin and the way her nose scrunched up when she was thinking. Some of her hair had come loose from her braid as they’d worked, the dark curls hanging partially in her face now, and he tried to memorize that, too.

Then he pulled her into his arms for the final time, wishing desperately he could keep her right there forever. Trying to soak in the way her arms felt around him, the way her chin felt gently pressed against the top of his head. Clinging to the once-familiar smell of motor oil and apple shampoo. Trying to keep however much of his mother he could, and trying to learn how to let her go at the same time.

“Te quiero,” he said, again and again and again, because if this was the last time he ever saw her, he wanted to get his final words to her right this time. He kept saying it, like a desperate prayer, because if she went back to Asphodel and everything else faded, that was the last thing he wanted her to remember.

“You’re a gift, cariño,” she said, holding him tightly. “Never forget that.”

Her fingers drummed against his back, shaping familiar words in Morse code for the final time.

And then she was gone.

“Goodbye, mom,” Leo whispered, letting the tears flow freely as the figure in front of him changed back into the goddess of ghosts. “Nos vemos.”

He wanted to believe that, more than anything.

Losing his mom again hurt like hell, but Leo was startled to discover that the pain was different from the first time. It wasn’t the raw, bloody mess his heart had been after the first time he’d lost her. It wasn’t the dull ache that had refused to leave him in the years since, either. Seeing her again—getting a proper goodbye this time—had fixed something in him that he’d convinced himself would remain broken forever. It was the pain of a broken bone being set. He knew it would sting for a while, but for the first time since his mom’s passing, it felt like a wound that might actually heal.

He tried to blink the tears out of his eyes and registered with a start that he was currently clinging to Melinoe. Oops.

Leo felt so absurdly okay for the first time since he’d been eight years old that for a second he’d forgotten he was still at immediate risk of getting his reckless wish to join his mom in Asphodel granted.

He should have scrambled back.

For some reason, he didn’t. He untangled himself from Melione’s arms, but he did so slowly. Then he took her strange, mismatched hands and squeezed them briefly before letting go, letting his cane hold his weight again.

The goddess remained utterly frozen in place, just looking at him with an uncomprehending expression on her face.

“I know you were, like, trying to destroy me and shit, but thank you. I really needed that, actually.” He sniffled. “Screw you for all the other stuff you put me and my friends through, and especially for the Piper thing, but I’m grateful I got to see my mom. I missed her like hell.”

Melinoe stared at him, pure disbelief written all over her face.

“After everything that’s happened between you…” She gulped, and Leo’s eyes went wide as saucers when he realized what was happening. The goddess of ghosts was trying not to cry. And she was failing. “She… she just held you.”

“Fuck, I know.” Leo wiped at his face. “My mom is the best.”

He felt a little sorry for Melinoe, suddenly. She spent so much of her time in the Fields of Punishment and around restless ghosts. Most of the emotions she felt had to be raw and negative and haunting. 

He supposed it was no wonder that witnessing a bit of genuine love would turn you into a wreck when you were surrounded by misery constantly.

The first time Piper had hugged him, Leo had also felt like bawling—not that he’d ever have admitted that out loud.

“You good?” Leo asked, and it was maybe the most absurd thing he’d ever said to any deity. “Not going to, like, dissolve me into smoke or something?”

Melinoe shook her head very slightly.

“I should talk to my parents,” she said, her voice cracking, and then she was gone, leaving behind nothing but a cloud of thick fog.

Leo stared at the place she’d disappeared from for a moment, trying to process everything that had just happened. A part of him wondered if maybe Melinoe had let his mom stay for as long as she had—if maybe she’d needed this, too.

Fuck, this whole situation was absurd. Him and his mom had just defeated a goddess with a hug.

“We just defeated a goddess with a hug,” Leo yelled into the desert. Saying it out loud just made it sound even more absurd.

He let himself fall back into the sand and started laughing hysterically.

———

Notes:

So! How are we feeling? …I’m gonna need to hand out tissues, aren’t I? Whoops.

Did the art help at all? Did it make things worse? In either case, please go check out @coquettemouseevil who made the gorgeous commission for me! :)

I hate that Leo never really got any real closure about his mom’s death in canon, so the second I decided I was writing this fic I knew I had to do something about that. And then the Sword of Hades story with Melinoe summoning people’s parents on them came along, and well… the rest is history :) I know this is a tiny bit different from how it works in the short story, but this is my fic and I can do what I want, so shhh.

I’ve had this chapter planned out for an incredibly long time and edited it half to death, but (barring my Spanish related anxieties) I’m really, really happy with how it came out. Leo may be going through it in this fic, but there are at least mom hugs, so maybe the world isn’t fundamentally bad <3

I went back and forth on whether to include translations for the Spanish parts but ultimately decided against it because I think most of it is pretty clear from context. The two exceptions I’m making are the last bits, one because I’m worried I messed it up since I had to use a tense I haven’t technically learned yet and the other because the literal translation is a little different from the figure of speech you’d translate it with and I think the distinction matters here “te quiero y siempre te querré” roughly translates to “I love you and I will always love you” (or at least that’s what I was going for, apologies if I messed it up) “nos vemos” you’d probably translate with “see you”, but in the literal sense it’s more along the lines of “we’ll see each other” :)

Some of you may be wondering why Esperanza is in Asphodel rather than Elysium because she’s a wonderful person, and it’s partially because Elysium is pretty widely considered hero-exclusive, and partially for thematical reasons. As for whether she’s going to stay in Asphodel long-term… well, who knows ;)

Also, I am still doing the Piper fic, I’m just way busier than I expected to be and it’s kind of turning out longer than I was planning for it to be so it’s taking me longer than I hoped.

As always, hope you guys enjoyed it, and thank you so much for reading!

Tag List: @poppitron360 @lilyfrey @lady-silkwing @intenebrisobscurat @manygeese @ann-rex @jvneseries

[demigod-shenanigans]