Chapter Text
Leo was used to being lost.
As far as his career as a pizza delivery guy went, he was not about to get a glowing review from his manager. Tardiness, grabbing the wrong order in a rush, and the occasional stint of reckless driving left Leo's record tarnished to hell and back. In fact, the only reason he wasn't kicked to the curb yet was because the manager owed a favor to his foster mom, or something like that.
Leo's foster mom was doing him a favor, which was the nicest thing he could say about her. The only nice thing, really. Susan was a distant woman, often sending him to do her grocery shopping, chores, and taking care of all the other rowdy kids. At least at work he had an out, a momentary escape. Compared to Susan's place, the average shitty job was paradise. If he was lucky, despite making minimum wage, he could scrap together a meager savings and make a real escape plan.
That would make plan, what? Six or seven?
Leo wondered why people only seemed to care when he ran away. When he was caught, they all turned away again.
Leo shook his head. It didn't matter, because he couldn't make an escape savings if he couldn't deliver this pizza. And right now, he couldn't find the address for this person.
He had gotten the call and wrote it down on a napkin, though he had trouble getting certain addresses right sometimes due to his dyslexia. 1112 Birdview Road turned into 1121 Birpeiew Raod, which was frustrating to no end. Still, Leo had double and triple checked that the spelling was correct.
3.141 Farm Road.
Maybe he was being pranked. Even though that would be stupid, because they had pre-paid for the pizza over the phone.
Leo was at the crest of a hill.
His car—the company car, rather—was pulled over to the side of the road. There wasn't even a driveway, a building, or any indication that there was a living soul up the hill.
Assholes.
To be fair, these sorts of things weren't unheard of. People did things like this all the time with no warning in advance. With a sigh, Leo trekked up the hill, his shoes squeaking in the frosty grass with every step.
Then, once he reached the top of the hill, the grass was miraculously dry. Not only that, it had no coating of frost.
Leo didn't notice it at first, but as he looked down to make sure he didn't trip, he saw the difference. It was a line drawn in the sand. His brows furrowed as he moved his foot from one section—hearing the water squeak against his rubber soles—then the next, the grass not shining in its dryness.
Now, it was easy for Leo to get distracted. He was ADHD, to put a cherry on top of his dyslexia. His train of thought was driving at illegal record speeds on a constant basis, and he was used to making boring situations fun with his overactive imagination.
But this was different. It seemed almost supernatural, how wet the land was in one spot, then completely dry a step away.
That was when he spotted the sign.
Of course, Leo had been so distracted by grass that didn't look up to see the towering wooden sign that read Camp Half-Blood. Somehow, he didn't struggle to parse the words; it were as if the font had been made to cater to dyslexic people. That is, until the letters started to fade in and out of place, replaced by some ancient characters. Latin, perhaps, or Greek—like some kind of frat house. Frat-camp, rather. In the winter.
A pile of multi-colored cables rested at the bottom of a large pine tree. As much as Leo wanted to investigate them, he figured he'd stalled long enough. The last thing he needed was to be yelled at for a late order. He headed in under the sign, immediately spotting a large blue house just past a volleyball court. About a dozen small cabins dotted along in a U towards the west, along with some half-constructed outliers.
Leo hesitantly walked up to the big blue house, stepping onto the porch and knocking on the door. His legs felt strangely weak, like that time he had delivered to a sorority party. Unfortunately, he was not met with a dozen hot girls having a pillow fight, but instead a mob of drunk girls who screamed at him for no reason.
His entire body seemed to want to seperate from his mind in that moment. The house seemed uncanny valley to say the least. Leo wanted to leave the food on the porch for the occupants to figure out. His heartbeat skipped in his chest, his fingers brushing and tapping against the still-warm pizza box. His stomach began to coil uncomfortably; if he didn't leave, something bad was going to happen.
There was a light on in the window, and Leo could hear some hushed voices inside. After a considerably long moment, door opened to reveal a boy around Leo's age, sixteen. Seeing a kid his own age calmed Leo for a moment. The boy had curly brown hair, freckles across his nose, and a sly smile—like he was used to charming his way out of trouble. He looked like the kind of kid Leo would want to be friends with in school, if he still worried about that sort of thing.
"I have an order for, uh, Connor Stoll?" Leo asked, reading off the napkin from his pocket.
"That's me, thank you!" The boy happily took the pizza from Leo, turning to the others in the house. A group of kids ranging from twelve to nineteen sat around a ping pong table, accompanied by a middle aged man in a wheelchair. They seemed to be talking with serious expressions until Connor turned around, pizza in hand. "What?" He asked. "I paid for it..."
The people around the table froze, not looking at Connor, but at Leo. Great.
"Look," Leo started. "I'm just trying to do my job. I'm sorry if something's wrong, but—"
"How did you get past the barrier?" a girl at the table asked lowly, her eyes narrowed. She looked to be a bit older than Leo, with brown hair and green eyes. She was pretty, though Leo thought it was a little odd that she sported a straw sunhat indoors.
The teens around the table broke out in whispers:
"Could he be—?"
"Ask about his parents—"
"The barrier didn't block—"
As difficult as it was for Leo to parse the flurry of whispers, he honed in on one word: barrier. Was it the wooden sign, with its strange ancient characters? He didn't see anything that explicitly said Keep Out.
"The b—" Leo started, glancing outside at the sign again. Seeing no answers, his heart started to race again. "Look, if this is some kind of cult or something, I didn't see anything. You don't need to kill anyone or perform any experiments or—"
"Enough," the one adult at the table held up a hand, and the teens around him fell silent. "Clearly, he is no threat, as no mortal or monster may cross. He seems to be a lost demigod, lucky to come across our camp in such a coincidental manner. What is your name, young hero?"
Leo felt the eyes of everyone in the room on him. He stood still, brows furrowed, eyes shifting from one face to the next. His mouth felt full of cotton. It were as if he had an oral presentation and only got three sentences in before being told he'd picked the wrong subject and would now have to improvise.
The word hero stuck with him, though. Hero? Leo was no hero. He'd caused more harm—a colossal amount of harm, more harm than he could make up for in a lifetime—than good for anyone.
And so, Leo turned to Plan A. He laughed. He deflected. "Okay, I get it now. This is how you indoctrinate people to your camp! You tell them they're heroes, that no one else could walk through the super-special magical border, then you ask for their parent's credit card number. Well, Mr. depressed English teacher, that is not going to work with me, because I am a broke pizza delivery guy for a reason. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back..."
Leo turned on his heel and started out, walking a little quicker than he'd like to admit. Of all the weird situations he had stumbled into, this had to be up on the list, and that was saying something. Faces in the wind, huge men in trench coats trying to sneak into his classroom, inhuman noises in the shadows; Leo was no stranger to these sorts of occurrences.
If there was something going on that Leo didn't understand, he turned to Plan B—and not the kind that could be bought at the pharmacy. His Plan B was to run. It worked great with weird sightings, foster "families" that treated him like dirt, pop quizzes, you name it.
Of course, there was the other thing. The thing that Leo couldn't run from, the thing that followed him. When his emotions began to rise, so did the smoke, curling elegantly to greet the flames that danced along his fingers. That was something that no amount of deflection could smother.
But it didn't matter. No one needed to know how Leo kept the pizza boxes warm for so long. The way he used it was nothing more than a party trick—not that he was invited to any parties. The only way things would get worse would be to explore the flames.
Now, all Leo had to do was get back to the car and get back to work. He would probably hear it from his boss for being out so long, but this place was pretty far out, and—
"Wait," a hand landed abruptly on Leo's shoulder.
Leo jolted, shrugging the hand off instinctively before turning. He met the eyes of one of the boys from the ping pong table. He looked to be about fifteen, but his eyes—his whole complexion, really—told Leo that there was something off about him. He had shaggy black hair—long, like how Leo's own hair got before foster mothers got the scissors out to keep him from looking "degenerate". Dark circles under his eyes appeared stark against pale skin, his eyes so brown they seemed almost black in the darkness. He had on one of those big aviator jackets and a black shirt with dancing skeletons on it.
Basically, he looked like every goth kid in school Leo strived to avoid before they tried to get him into Evanescence.
"I know how this sounds, but I promise you, it's not a scam." The boy started. His eyes were so intense, Leo felt rooted to the spot. "There's no way you could have gotten past the border without being...special. Think about it. Your parents, do you know your family's history? Do—"
"Hey!" Leo cut him off, his cheeks flushing. It was rare when something truly pissed him off, though that question from a stranger was beyond uncalled for. "I have foster parents, okay? Happy? Not that it's any of your business. I'm really not interested in joining whatever pyramid scheme you have going on here."
A thick, heavy silence filled the biting winter air. The boy opened his mouth, calculating his next words, when a growl sounded out from the darkness down the hill.
"Okay," Leo started to cool down—he had to, because he was literally smoking at the hair, never a good sign. If he was lucky, it could pass for mist curling off his warm skin in the winter air. "So...you have a dog. Cool..." he sighed, meeting the boy's eye. "What's your name, anyways?"
The boy peered down the hill, his lips pressed in a thin line, his eyes still calculating. Leo couldn't deny his curiosity; this boy seemed to be in the know about many things, some of which Leo was convinced might actually impact him. He couldn't help but loathe the concept of how lost he was.
"Nico di Angelo," the boy finally replied, his voice calm and even. "What's yours?"
"Leo," Leo replied, trying to replicate that calm with mixed success. "Leo Valdez."
Nico nodded, looking around at the camp, which was hard to really make out in the darkness. "I've been in-and-out of here for about five years. I leave whenever I want without restrictions. I had a lot of questions about my past before I came here. Who my parents were, why...mysterious things seemed to happen around me. It was a confusing road, and admittedly, I still have questions, but it was worth it. Far more worth it than toughing it out in the mortal world."
"The mortal world," Leo ehcoed faintly, his breath fogging in the winter air.
Admittedly, the things Nico said were starting to make a lot of sense. He thought about the grass, how one part was wet, and one was dry right next to it. The barrier. He shook his head. "I'll admit it, I have questions about my family. My...my dad. But this stuff you said, about having to be "special"? I'm not special. If anything, I'm worse than everyone at what matters, like school. And work. Speaking of, I have a job to get back to."
Leo started off towards the sign. Other than Nico taking one or two hesitant steps after him, he didn't stop him. Strangely, his heartbeat off-kilter in his chest, Leo felt bad for walking away from Nico—especially considering his own unanswered questions. Still, he figured a shitty normal life in the mortal world was better than this uncomfortable, confrontational camp.
"I..." Leo turned around reluctantly, his shoes squeaking awkwardly in the grass. Nico was a weird guy to look at, though to add to the uncanny valley, Leo couldn't help but look at him. His eyes appeared black and white in the darkness, large and almost doe-like. He looked more like a cryptid than a kid, though Leo didn't feel afraid of him any more than the implications he brought with him.
"I'll come back," Leo settled. "Maybe. If I get so broke that I want to join your pyramid scheme." He tried for a smile, though Nico appeared so solemn that it quickly faded.
With that, Leo started towards the wooden sign. As soon as he passed under it, Leo found frost under his sneakers once more. He really didn't know how Camp Half-Blood, whatever it was, drew that dividing line.
Leo moved down the hill slowly. He allowed himself to glance back for a moment as he wondered if he was making the right call. In either direction, for the remainder of his days, he would probably ask himself that question.
Leo's thoughts were derailed by the rustling of nearby trees. Another growl pierced the air—deep, large, and guttural. Leo took it that the camp didn't have a puppy as their mascot. He liked dogs well enough, though he didn't want a wolf from the woods to tackle him for not paying the $199.99 starting camp fee. The sooner he got back to the car, the better.
Too late.
Out of the trees stepped a colossal black mastiff the size of a monster truck. Its paws were like trash can lids. The earth trembled under each step as if unable to handle its weight. Its teeth—as it bared its teeth, each leathal, sharpened tooth appeared longer than Leo's torso. Beady red eyes peered into Leo's soul. He could see only its hunger; this thing had eaten someone before, and it would spare no hesitations to eat a human again.
Up past the hill, Nico ran past the border sign, grasping—no way in hell—a three-foot-long sword. The blade was black as night, only reflecting the light of the moon.
"Do I even need to say I told you so?" Nico asked, exasperated.
The commotion seemed to distract Mr. Demon Dog for a moment. Leo, as the guy without a sword, was perfectly okay with this arrangement. He backed away slowly, heart pounding in his chest. The mastiff bounded towards Nico, mouth opening wide as it pounced—
Nico lunged, charging into action as if he'd done this a thousand times before. He effortlessly slashed across the monster's neck in a perfect arc, like something out of a movie. The beast cried out, keeling over into the earth as it exploded into a burst of sparkling gold dust. In the chilling wind, the dust sprinkled all over Leo. He was sure he looked like he'd just been given a five second makeover by a couple queens on Ru Paul's Drag Race.
A hefty silence filled the air as Nico caught his breath, his hands on his knees. Leo opened his mouth, closed it, tasted some of the golden dust, and gagged. It tasted like baking soda and rotten eggs.
"You guys didn't even leave a tip," Leo shook his head, running a hand through his curls. "You...assholes, and your messed up camp, and your massive glitter dogs—"
"I just saved your life," Nico pointed out, brows raised as he stood straight. He crossed his arms. Even with his hair now more unkempt, he had an intensely mature aura for a fifteen year old. It unsettled Leo to say the least. "And you're complaining about a lack of tip on your pizza delivery? I didn't even order it. Connor got pepperoni and meatball, I would have gotten Hawaiian—"
"Hawaiian?" Leo managed, nausea churning in his stomach. He couldn't help but feel flabbergasted and relieved to see such petty debates like pizza toppings still existed in the same world as massive deadly mastiffs. "That's...ridiculous..."
"Hey," Nico started, his voice soft as he placed a gentle hand on Leo's arm. Leo didn't pull away this time, though his face flushed. He felt a sudden strong urge to study his shoes and the ground around them. He didn't even know this kid, but he had an undeniable, powerful aura. He could be one of those...demi-whatevers, like that adult in the cabin said. A Not-Mortal. "Come back with me to the Big House, okay? We'll explain everything...and maybe we'll get you that tip..."
Nico's tone eased Leo's racing heart, like someone who had been through as many shitty things as he had and genuinely understood. Still, he also made Leo feel as if he were in trouble—the feeling being as familiar as the back of his hand.
Leo took a deep breath, gazing at the big blue house in the distance. Regret coiled his stomach further, the feeling like an old friend to his nervous system. He had probably alienated himself from any and everyone in there already. Then again, knowing himself, he would not stay long if he could avoid it.
Besides...what did Leo have to lose at this point?
"My boss would eat me alive," Leo laughed incredulously. He couldn't help but be baffled as to why he even cared after being that close to death.
"Maybe not as much as that hellhound would have," Nico replied, his smile crooked and fleeting across his lips. "Unless he's a monster, too."
As much as that was supposed to be a joke, part of it made Leo's limbs tense. What if certain people in his life were monsters, just waiting to destroy him?
Leo thought back to his suspicions of the camp. Nico said he'd been here five years, coming and going as he pleased. The depressed-English-teacher man said no monsters got past the barrier. At the camp, he was promised safety, even if it was temporary.
Safe. Leo didn't hold much stock in the word.
Leo took a deep breath, glancing down the hill at the company car that seemed to be from a distant life. He looked back up at Nico, who was looking at him expectantly. Leo had the strangest thought, then: Nico looked as if a hellhound was a person. Leo could only hope that didn't mean he would eat him when his back was turned.
Nodding to seal his decision, Leo started back up the hill with Nico di Angelo, leaving the world he once knew far behind.