Chapter Text
Leo killed his own mother.
That is all he could think of as he sat in a car, taken away from his family.
A woman appeared to him, and, afraid of his mother being in danger, he used his fire against his mother's wish and ended up bringing the end of her life and Leo’s childhood.
He heard her screams, he saw the flames burning everything Esperanza loved so much and everything Leo’s known to love.
His mother died inside the very place she fought to have, alone, fighting every day while a child awaits for her.
He was eight. He was happy and he cared not about the day, but he was sure he had been celebrating his birthday somewhere close to the incident.
His aunt did not want him, no. She was stubborn, and she loved her sister more than she loved Leo. She hated Leo for taking her sister away from her, and she was afraid of the flames she learned existed.
If Esperanza died in a fire, then she died by Leo’s hand. Rosa was sure of that, and she was right.
Leo was forced to be away from the family he's grown to love and hate.
No matter what Rosa and her children did to him, he still loved them, though not as much as he loved Esperanza, the woman who took care of him instead of sending him away from home.
Leo has no home to go back to. His grandmother is terribly sick, and his aunt is the one taking care of her. His grandfather holds no memory in Leo’s mind besides the stories told about him.
So now he is being shipped away to the foster care system, and Leo knows nothing about that.
They were in the car, Leo was feeling sick and anxious. He knows not what awaits him. He is eight, barely a week of being so.
Before he noticed he was on a field trip with his new ‘family’. With a mean boy of ten sitting just besides him. His name is John, Leo thinks. The foster parents are Carlos and Margaret. It's John's birthday.
They are going to a beach, but they spoke nothing to him about it, it's clear he is an inconvenience. Leo’s not sure why he's even here if he is not wanted.
He is still eight, but it is now August, so it's been a month.
They left the car and are now walking to the location. John is whining about being tired but he is too heavy for Carlos to carry him now. Margaret is getting angry.
Leo does not like it when she gets angry.
But no matter. There is something following them. Leo’s learned to be quiet, but he is sure the group of young women are walking the same path they are for a while now.
He is not going to ask, not call the foster parents' attention, but he has a sense they are in danger.
John is asking for ice cream, and his mother is tired of his whining, so she grants him what he asks. Leo knows with certainty he would not receive that favor.
The three left Leo to wait for them right there while they got John's ice cream.
But the young women are right there and they have their eyes fixated on Leo. The young boy is sure he saw one of them bearing sharp fangs.
One blink of an eye, they are jumping in his direction, all of them having devilish fangs and their hair on fire. For a long moment, Leo doubted he had used his fire, but soon he realized their hair was on fire.
He ran as fast as he could, away from them. He tried not to think about their bronze-donkey legs.
He tripped many times on his desperate rush, his feet hurt and sweat dripped on his forehead. He promised never to use his fire.
He was not sure they could be any help.
“Come one, little boy, we just want to talk.” One spoke while running after him.
Leo doubted that, considering they were running restlessly after him, showing off her sharp teeth, but he kept quiet.
He heard the yelling of other people who saw him and the other girls, but he paid them no mind.
There's a hill just in front of him with a lone pine tree on top.
He thought nothing about it. He just ran to the top of the hill, doing his best to keep his velocity as his legs hurt and pleaded with him to stop running, but he was still being followed.
When he arrived at the top, the monsters were still chasing him, but the vision just before him was breathtaking.
He was sure a hill couldn't cower this up, not the big house just below, the volleyball court or the tables, the big wall with something close to lava, or the cabins lined like an U.
He made the mistake to stop, and when he came back to his senses, the monsters were just behind him, lunging their hands to grab him. He stumbled forwards, but ended up tripping on his own foot.
He came barreling down the hill, his arms, legs hurting and, at some point of that, his knee made harsh contact with his nose.
When he came to a stop, he was just in front of the big house he saw from afar. A teenager with blond hair and blue eyes walked up to him, wearing a necklace with two beads. He offered Leo his hands.
Leo hesitantly took it, standing up with difficulty. His nose dripped, his arms stung and his knees were certainly scratched, Leo really wanted to cry. He's been wanting to for a while now.
“I'm Luke,” The boy introduced himself, “And this is camp half blood.” He looked around, and only then did Leo realize many other children with orange shirts were watching. “Come on, let's treat those wounds, I'll explain everything.”
Leo used the back of his hand to wipe his dripping nose, looking at his own blood for a while before wiping his hands in his shirt and following Luke.
“What is there to explain?” Leo asked softly, looking at the ground.
“Many things.” Luke chuckled. He said nothing more, at least not until they entered a room. Leo assumed that was the infirmary. He gave the short boy a piece of some food. “This is ambrosia. It'll heal you.”
Luke then proceeded to sit on a chair. Leo took a small bite. It tasted like his mother's food. Leo took another bite quickly, his eyes stinging with unshed tears.
“What is your name?” Luke asked, but Leo ignored him. Camp Half-Blood is a safe place for demigods.” Luke said, successfully getting Leo’s attention. “You are a demigod. Half god, half mortal.”
Leo scrunched his face, swallowing the ambrosia he was given. “What do you mean?”
Luke smiled reassuringly, “Have you noticed strange things happening with you? Weird creatures following you or attacking you?”
Yes, Leo thought. His fire is a great example. A woman full of dirt sounding asleep is another good example. Those monsters with fire for hair following him until he invaded the place.
Leo nodded.
“That means you're a child of a god.” Luke said that slowly. Like Leo was some scared, stupid animal.
“This is stupid.” Leo crossed his arms. The scratches were gone, and his knee wasn't stinging anymore. It made a lot of sense, Leo hated to think.
Luke nodded. Leo was tired.
“I am a son of Hermes.” Luke admitted, after a while. “The god of thieves.”
Leo frowned, then relaxed. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. That makes sense.” He admitted, looking at his own feet. His legs were not hurting anymore. “I’m Leo.”
Luke laughed, but it was quiet and ended as soon as it began. “Okay, Leo. Do you have a mortal father or mother, then?” Luke asked, his eyebrows raised.
“I had a mother.” Leo hated to say that, ‘had’. It just made her death a lot more real. Luke just hummed, as if that was normal, and it made Leo’s blood boil.
“That 's fine.” Luke smiled gently at him, and Leo looked away. “We'll bring you to Chiron, then someone will show you around the camp.”
Leo frowned. “That 's it? I'm just forced to stay?”
Luke sighed, standing up. “This is a place for demigods to train and get stronger. A summer camp, so you can leave at the end of the summer, or stay year round.”
Leo looked up at Luke. The guy was much taller than him, yet he looked so kind, Leo wasn’t afraid. Luke wasn’t like Margaret, not in any way.
“‘Kay.” Leo mumbled, looking away from the guy. Luke walked to the door, and Leo followed him, his eyes on the ground, his hands moving restlessly.
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They had a long talk with Chiron, in which Leo was asked about his mother much more times than he would wish to. Luke was the one to show him around. The guy was cool, though he scared Leo.
He showed him every bit of the camp, warned him to walk through the woods alone. No one can walk around at night without being snitched by a good creature.
There were cabins for the twelve gods in greek mythology, and Leo felt a pull towards both the Hephaestus cabin and the Hera’s cabin. The Hera’s cabin was empty, as she was the goddess of marriage, she had no demigod children. Zeus's and Poseidon’s cabins were empty because they swore to never have demigod children again. But the way Luke spoke, there was much more to that, but Leo wasn’t told much about that.
Leo was then free to go anywhere as long as he stayed inside the borders, but he would stay at the Hermes cabin until he was claimed by his godly parent. Leo would bet it wouldn’t be so fast.
Many demigods were unclaimed for months, no matter how long they were there or how obvious their godly parents were.
There were two boys from Hermes, Connor and Travis. When he first saw them, he thought they were twins, with a slight difference in height. They were quick to talk with Leo and they were fun, Leo got dragged in a prank easily on his very first day here.
Annabeth Chase was a daughter of Athena, from cabin six, yet she was always seen besides Luke. They acted almost like siblings, even though Luke was from cabin eleven.
That seemed to happen a lot around here, actually. According to what Luke told him, a few demigods arrived at camp together, and the challenges they went through shaped their friendship.
Leo wished he was one of those who have someone for them, but he knew he wouldn’t have the courage to run with them.
He got to be friends with the Stolls, but he barely talked with anyone besides them and Luke, and it was his own fault. He kept either snapping or glaring at anyone who tried to start small talk, even if he knew they were not wrong.
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Due time, Leo became a constant at camp. He was there year round, much like the Stolls, Annabeth and Luke.
It was in the next summer that Leo was finally claimed by his father, Hephaestus, after many moments of doubt. He had started forming bonds with his siblings way before he got claimed, and Charles Beckendorf, just as many others, had expressed Leo’s obvious parentage.
A child of Ares, Clarisse, seemed close to full on hating him, but that was only Leo’s fault that he kept messing with her and her siblings. It wasn’t his fault they were fun to anger- until they tried to kill him. That was not very funny. Leo also wasn’t a fan of the Ares children; in his opinion, they were much of a pain in the ass, getting crazy angry at silly things like a idiotic joke or a flirt.
He was close friends with the Stolls, and everyone at camp knew. But he wasn’t their permanent sidekick, no, they had each other for that. But he did help with some pranks. Like the one time the brothers were particularly angry with a child of Demeter, they asked him to make a harmless bomb of glitter to get back to her.
Very simple, really, but the brothers didn’t know how to do that and Leo did.
These helps to the Stolls were known, and the campers made sure to ask if Leo was involved in the pranks most of the time.
Most of the time, no, they weren’t. The two just asked Leo to make something for them, and Leo did gladly, never asking much of it, so he wasn’t really involved if he didn’t know what they were going to do, except they were the Stolls and Leo obviously knew they were scheming something.
Luke was a very present figure in his life, as the one who toured him around camp in his first day, but in Leo’s second summer at camp, Luke was sent on a quest and he seemed different when he came back.
First was his new scar, that, yeah, looked pretty sick, but still was born of a fight. Whenever the gods were in the conversation, Luke got more recluse. Which was fine, the gods weren’t the best parents, they weren’t even there most of the time.
Leo had to wait until the next summer to get claimed by his father, and there were children that came before him still unclaimed, and even so, most of them had barely talked with their parents.
Clarisse was one lucky girl to have a gift from her father, all Leo had was his cabin determined and that was already too much to ask. Leo was lucky just from being claimed.
Time does wonders to someone, because he somehow managed to ‘befriend’ Clarisse, the angry child of Ares. She was actually a cool kid, despite her short temper. Leo never knew how it happened, really. One night, Leo had sneaked out of his cabin, just to take a break from everything and just breathe. Clarisse took a seat just beside him, and Leo knew he was scared of being alone with her when she could kill him with one move, despite all their training. But they just sat there quietly, sharing a moment of silence.
From that point and beyond, they had been away from each other's throats. Didn’t mean Leo ever stayed away from children of Ares or stopped messing with her, but with Clarisse, it seemed more like playful banter.
Ask anyone else, though, and they would say both Leo and Clarisse hated each other.
Leo saw his father’s ugly face for the first time at the winter solstice of his fifth year at camp. And apparently the god had completely forgotten to speak to Leo and, for that, he apologized. He also told Leo to tell the people at camp about his fire, to let them know. Leo wanted nothing of that, all he wanted was to let his father know just how much of an asshole he was.
He was taught not to. Everything at camp was about never angering the gods, so Leo stopped himself before he could even start.
But Hephaestus was right, Leo should be able to tell somebody, and he was thinking of that. Maybe the Stolls; they were really good friends and they could keep a secret and lie if he asked. Maybe Charles, his brother, would understand. Maybe even Clarisse, but knowing her, she would ask him to fight with her using his fire. Maybe Luke would be a great choice to tell, since he was so understanding, and he was also pretty good at lying.
But when Leo turned around to look for Luke, he was stealing Zeus’s master bolt.
Leo looked away. He was not good at lying, but he was good at pretending, at faking his emotions.
He made small talk with Clarisse, the closest to him. Might as well take someone out of the suspect list. Their small talk quickly evolved to bickering, then to a whispered yet loud fight.
Leo's small plan went right and soon Chiron was breaking them apart, yet Leo still stayed close to Clarisse.
It was when they were back at camp that Leo heard about the stolen master bolt.
Both him and Clarisse were out of the suspect list, most of the campers and some of the gods saw their fight.