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The forge never really slept.
Even at night, when most of Camp Half-Blood drifted into the kind of quiet that came with chirping crickets and distant waves, Leo Valdez kept the flames alive. Metal rang against metal in uneven rhythms, sparks snapping into the dark like tiny, furious stars.
“Leo.”
He didn’t look up. “Busy.”
A sigh. Long-suffering, familiar. Boots crossed the threshold. “You’ve been ‘busy’ for six hours.”
“Time is fake,” Leo shot back, squinting at a half-finished mechanism. “Also, I’m on the verge of greatness. You can’t rush greatness, Sparky.”
“Mm.” A pause. Then, closer: “Dinner bell rang ten minutes ago.”
Leo waved a hand dismissively, already reaching for another tool. “Tell it I said thanks but no thanks.”
He didn’t see the look Jason gave him: fond, exasperated, entirely unsurprised.
“Okay,” Jason said.
Leo frowned. That was too easy.
He turned-
-and immediately found himself hoisted off the ground.
“HEY-!”
Jason had him slung over his shoulder like he weighed nothing, one arm hooked securely around his legs. Leo flailed, a wrench clattering to the floor behind them.
“Put me down, Grace! I’m serious! I have fire! I will use it!”
“You won’t,” Jason said calmly, already walking out of the forge. “Because you’re hungry.”
“I am NOT-”
His stomach growled. Loudly. Traitorously.
Jason didn’t even have the decency to laugh. “Right.”
“Okay, that was one time,” Leo muttered. “One. Biological anomaly.”
“Every week is not an anomaly.”
Leo crossed his arms, upside down over Jason’s back, trying very hard to ignore how…easy this felt. How normal.
“I hate you.”
“Sure you do.”
“…You better not let anyone see this.”
“We’re already halfway there.”
“JASON-”
It became routine.
Not planned. Not discussed. Just…inevitable.
The forge would hum with heat and noise, Leo disappearing into it like he always did-losing track of time, of meals, of everything except the next idea, the next fix, the next spark.
And like clockwork, the dinner bell would ring.
And like clockwork-
“Leo.”
“No.”
A pause.
Then the sound of footsteps.
“Jason, I swear-”
Too late.
Every time.
Sometimes Leo put up more of a fight. Sometimes he tried to dodge, darting around workbenches, grabbing onto doorframes, bargaining like his life depended on it.
“Five more minutes!”
“You said that twenty minutes ago.”
“Time is fake!”
“You said that last time.”
Other times…he didn’t resist as much.
He’d grumble, sure. Kick his feet a little as Jason hauled him out. Complain about dignity and personal space and how this was definitely a violation of some kind of ancient Greek law.
But he never actually made Jason put him down.
Because Jason always brought him to the pavilion.
Because there was always food waiting.
Because someone-Piper, usually, would slide a plate in front of him with a knowing smile.
Because Jason would sit across from him, like this was the most normal thing in the world, like Leo was someone worth dragging out of the fire for.
“Y’know,” Leo said one night, mouth half-full, “one day I’m gonna invent something that stops you from doing that.”
Jason raised an eyebrow. “Stops me from making sure you eat?”
“Stops you from picking me up like a sack of potatoes.”
“You could just walk here yourself.”
Leo pointed a fork at him. “Counterpoint: no.”
Jason almost smiled.
It happened enough that people stopped reacting.
The first few times, the entire pavilion had gone quiet when Jason walked in with Leo slung over his shoulder, like he’d just captured some rare, loud species of demigod.
After that, it was just-
“Oh, dinner time.”
“Did Leo forget again?”
“Yep.”
“Called it.”
Leo would groan into his arms. “I’m never living this down.”
“Nope,” Piper said cheerfully.
Jason just set him down, steady and careful, like he always did.
The last time, Leo didn’t realize it was the last time.
It was the same as always.
Hammering. Sparks. The world narrowing down to heat and noise and the steady rhythm of making something work.
“Leo.”
“Busy.”
“You’re always busy.”
“Thank you, I try.”
A pause.
Then, softer, “Dinner.”
Leo hesitated.
Just for a second.
Then, “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”
He turned, expecting-
Jason was still there, but he hadn’t moved closer yet. Just watching him.
“You sure?” Jason asked.
Leo snorted. “What, you don’t trust me?”
Jason’s mouth twitched. “Not even a little.”
“Wow. Rude.”
But Leo set the tools down anyway.
Wiped his hands on his shirt.
Walked out beside him.
No shoulder carry. No arguing.
Just…side by side.
“Don’t get used to this,” Leo said.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
The bell rang.
Clear. Familiar.
Leo froze.
For a second, just a second, his brain filled in the rest.
Footsteps behind him.
A voice: “Leo.”
Hands grabbing him, lifting him, the world tipping sideways as he complained and protested and secretly-
Silence.
The forge was too quiet.
The bell rang again, echoing across camp.
Leo stared at the doorway.
“...Jason?” he said, like it was a joke. Like he’d walk in any second, roll his eyes, and say something about Leo being dramatic.
Nothing.
The silence pressed in, heavy and wrong.
The bell kept ringing.
Leo’s chest tightened.
“C’mon,” he muttered. “Very funny. You’re late. That’s new. Congrats.”
Still nothing.
The realization didn’t hit all at once.
It came in pieces.
In the empty doorway.
In the lack of footsteps.
In the absence of that steady, patient voice that had become as much a part of this routine as the fire itself.
The bell rang again.
Leo’s breath hitched.
“No,” he said, quieter now. “No, no, you don’t- you don’t get to break the routine, man, that’s your thing-”
His voice cracked.
The forge blurred.
And suddenly he couldn’t stand there anymore.
Leo sank to the floor hard, back hitting the workbench as his hands came up to his face.
The bell kept ringing.
And ringing.
And ringing.
But no one came.
No one was going to come.
Not anymore.
A broken laugh slipped out, sharp and small and wrong. “...I didn’t even fight you last time,” he whispered. “I just- went. I thought-”
His throat closed up.
He dragged in a shaky breath, but it didn’t help.
“I thought there’d be more,” Leo choked.
The bell rang again.
And Leo-
Leo broke.
Not loud, not at first.
Just quiet, shaking breaths, shoulders curling in on themselves like he could make the world smaller, like he could undo something that couldn’t be undone.
Then the sound came.
Raw. Cracked open. Grief spilling out in a way that didn’t care who heard.
The forge, for once, had no fire to drown it out.
Only the echo of a bell.
And the space where someone should have been.
That night, someone else came to the forge.
Not right away.
They waited until the bell stopped ringing.
Until the camp settled into a quieter kind of grief.
Then…
“Leo?”
He didn’t answer.
A pause.
Then softer, “Hey. You…you should eat something.”
Leo let out a weak, humorless huff, face still buried in his arms. “Yeah?”
A hesitation.
“…Yeah.”
It wasn’t the same voice.
It never would be.
Leo swallowed hard, forcing himself to breathe.
“...You gonna carry me?” he asked, the words fragile, barely holding together.
Silence.
Then, gentle- achingly gentle:
“No.”
Leo nodded, even though they couldn’t see it.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Didn’t think so.”
Another pause.
Then footsteps, stopping just beside him.
Not lifting.
Not forcing.
Just…there.
“C’mon,” they said quietly. “I’ll walk with you.”
Leo stayed still for a long moment.
Then, slowly, very slowly, he pushed himself up.
His legs felt unsteady. Everything did.
But he took a step.
Then another.
And even though the space beside him felt wrong- too empty, too quiet-
He didn’t stop walking.