Work Text:
Leo had never really liked summer all that much. Summers in Houston were worse. The sun beamed down, heating up the pavement and buildings like an oven, and the humidity suffocated everything like a microwaved wet blanket. It was like having a massive, slobbering beast breathing down the back of his shirt, and he could never, ever manage to cool down.
School was supposed to be a sanctuary from, well, everything. It had AC to protect him from the late-August heat, it had readily available food to make up for the past two months, and there were no foster parents to scold him for being underfoot and kick him out until sundown. Plus, Leo was in fifth grade now, which meant he was doing actually fun math instead of just boring fractions, and Leo loved math. School was supposed to be safe.
Unfortunately, no one told Leo’s classmates that.
Jayden and Daniel had been in Leo’s class since kindergarten. They’d never been friends, but they played hide-and-go-seek during recess and Jayden had one time saved the red cupcake from a class party for Leo because he knew it was his favorite color. But then Leo’s mamá died and Leo went from being the fastest kid in class who carried around car parts to the unwanted foster kid who cried when you pushed him to the ground one too many times, and one of those was far less forgivable.
“Come on, crybaby,” Daniel ordered, towering over him. “Do it.”
Leo grit his teeth and glared as much as he could with the taste of dirt between his teeth and a scrape on his palm. “No. I’m not doing it.”
Jayden rolled his eyes and gave him a swift kick to the ribs. It wasn’t enough to bruise him to the extent that anyone would care, but it did hurt enough to make Leo suck in a harsh breath through his teeth. “Just cry already and we’ll leave you alone.”
“Leave me alone!”
“Or what?” he taunted. “You gonna tell your mom? Oh wait, you don’t even have one of those anymore.”
That actually made water sting at the corner of Leo’s eyes, and Daniel leaned forward eagerly. “Look! He’s gonna cry! Do it again!”
Jayden’s expression lit up, and he reared back to kick Leo again, but while he was off balance, Leo made his move. With more force than he’d thought possible, he surged up to his knees and shoved Jayden as hard as he could, knocking the other boy flat on his butt. Leo scrambled to his feet, panting, and glared down at the other boy. “I told you to leave me alone!”
“You can’t do that!” Daniel said. “I’ll tell my dad and he’ll call the cops!”
The hypocrisy and unfairness wasn’t completely lost on Leo, but he didn’t have an opportunity to dwell on it. Not with the threat of getting the cops involved. Ms. Stanton hated when her cases got the cops involved. So, without thinking, he ran as fast as he could. There was a gap in the fence, one Leo had used to sneak into the schoolyard during summer break, that led directly onto one of the less-busy streets of Houston.
Still though, it was lunch time and Houston was never quiet, so Leo had to find a place to hide, and he had to do it quick. Grownups were bound to ask questions if they saw a ten-year-old wandering around during school hours and nothing was ever improved by grownups asking questions. So, without thinking too much about it, he ducked into a nearby alleyway, trying to figure out what he needed to do. He couldn’t go home, obviously. Matt worked nights, so if Leo came through the front door, not only would he be caught skipping, he’d also wake the man up, which was breaking the biggest, most important rule. Quite frankly, he’d be lucky if Matt just took him back to school. Going back to school wasn’t an option, either. There was a strict no violence policy, and he had pushed Jayden to the ground. Sure, the other boy had been kicking him first, but he had no proof, so it would be his word against Jayden and Daniel’s, and he’d learned the hard way just how little his word was worth.
So, that just left wandering the streets for another four hours until he was expected back home. His first stop was the convenience store down the street from his old house. Mr. Alvarez, the old man who’d owned it since the dinosaur times, worked weekday afternoons and didn’t ask too many questions. Leo had been going there since he was little and Mr. Alvarez was friends with his mamá, so he always gave Leo some kind of little treat when he managed to make it in, assuming it wasn’t too busy.
Today was one of those days when it wasn’t too busy. Today it was just Leo, the almost shockingly cold AC and some teenagers huddled together near the drinks cooler to combat the heat. Leo ignored them and just walked straight up to the register. “Hola, Mr. Alvarez.”
“Hola, Leo.” Mr. Alvarez peered down at Leo over the top of his thick spectacles, then looked at the clock with a frown. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”
“No, sir. We had an early dismissal today,” Leo chirped. He didn’t like lying to the nice old man, but he’d learned over the years that all adults, even well-meaning ones, were traps.
Mr. Alvarez didn’t look like he entirely believed him, but he didn’t push the matter. “Well then, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home?”
“My foster dad works nights, and I don’t wanna wake him up,” Leo said truthfully. “I’m gonna go hang out at the playground until later.”
“In this heat? Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Mr. Alvarez asked, his frown deepening. “Why don’t you stay here? My granddaughter left one of her coloring books behind recently. I could pull up a chair for you back here.”
“I can’t, I’m meeting my friend at the park!” Leo told him, which he also hated doing. He would have loved to sit with Mr. Alvarez in the AC and do word searches all afternoon, but he couldn’t because someone who didn’t respect privacy was bound to notice him. “I just came in because I wanted to say hi.”
Mr. Alvarez seemed a little less worried with the introduction of another kid, probably because he assumed it meant there would be a grownup involved. “Well, in that case, thank you for taking the time to visit an old man. Would you like to go get a couple slushies for you and your friend to share?”
“Yes, please!” Leo beamed. “Thank you!”
Leo bounded over toward the slushy machine while Mr. Alvarez muttered about what a polite boy he was. He only got the small size cups because his mamá didn’t like him taking advantage of kindness, and he got one in blue and another in red. They were so cold they almost hurt to carry, but Leo held them with the utmost care as he slowly made his way out of the store. “Thanks, Mr. Alvarez!”
“Have a nice time, Leo!”
After the relief of the AC, the August afternoon was somehow even more oppressive. Leo could feel sweat already beading at his temples as he ducked back out of sight, slushies in hand. He hadn’t actually planned to go to the park before, but now that he had a way to keep cool, it wasn’t a bad option. A kid at the playground wouldn’t immediately read as weird, plus there was a little alcove under the slide that Leo liked to hide in. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was shaded and out of sight, and, most importantly, the entrance was so small that nobody except Leo could squeeze their way into it. It was the closest thing to solitude that he had access to.
Leo was almost to the park and a third of the way through the blue slushy (he was saving the red for under the slide) when he heard a melodic voice call out to him, “Oh, goodness, darlin’, where do you think you’re going?”
That should have sent Leo running for the hills. Any adult who approached him out of the blue, much less one that asked a question like that, was an automatic five-alarm fire in Leo’s head. But this lady was different. He wasn’t sure if it was the heat turning his brain to pudding or something else, but her voice was just nice. It washed over his brain in cool, soothing waves, then made it tingle like Pop Rocks. Leo shivered, suddenly chilled to the bone, as he turned to face the sweet voice. He blinked very slowly at her. “Uh, hi, miss.”
The lady standing before him was very, very pretty. She had the brightest orange hair Leo had ever seen in real life, and her face was warm and round and inviting like a diner waitress in one of the kissing movies Matt’s girlfriend insisted on watching almost every day. She smiled at him with teeth that were too sharp and she blinked sideways. For some reason, Leo didn’t think that was a problem, he just smiled and blinked back at her. “So, where are you headed off to, darlin?”
“Uh, the park,” Leo said slowly. His brain felt fuzzy, but he wasn’t quite sure why. “I ran away from school, and now I’m hiding.”
“Oh, really now?” the lady asked eagerly. “And won’t somebody be lookin’ for you?”
Leo shook his head. “Uh-uh. My teacher doesn’t take attendance after recess and Matt’s asleep.”
“Well, then,” the lady purred at him. “Why don’t you come with me? I know a shortcut to the playground that I think you’re gonna just love.”
Leo’s mind was screaming every danger alert it had available to it. Even a kid in the best of circumstances should have been wary of an adult leading them off with a promise of a “shortcut” to a destination less than half a block away. But Leo wouldn’t help it. His brain still felt fuzzy, so he just stumbled after her like he was in a trance, murmuring, “Okie dokie.”
She led him around a corner – in the exact opposite direction of the park, and Leo couldn’t help but notice that she walked funny, like her legs were made of two different things, causing her to limp heavily. Her steps sounded weird, too. One was a soft little clop sound, and the other a heavy, hollow, metallic sound. Leo frowned and came to a stop. “Uh, miss? Are your legs okay? Do you need to sit down?”
The lady came to a stop, and her fingers twitched at her side. “Demigods. Always make things more difficult than they need to be,” she muttered under her breath. She suddenly didn’t sound like a sweet Southern lady any more. Her accent was sharp and much, much older than Texas, and Leo suddenly got the feeling that her words hadn’t even been English. She turned and faced him properly, once again wearing that too-sharp smile. “Oh, aren’t you just the sweetest little thing for asking? I could just eat you up, but you don’t need to worry your little head about me.”
Her tone had gone soft and round again, and it was somehow even more syrup-sweet than before. But Leo had heard the truth. His body finally agreed with his brain and he took a couple steps back. “Um, I’m– I know how to find the park by myself. Thank you.”
“No! Don’t you move an inch!” the lady hissed, and Leo felt every last one of his joints lock in place. The lady didn’t look nearly as friendly now. Her eyes were molten gold, her hair an inferno, and her fingers curled into claws as she stalked forward. “I’ve been tracking you for days, if you think you’re getting away that–”
The lady, monster, thing cut herself off with a choked, gurgling noise and both she and Leo looked down to see the end of a golden javelin poking out of the center of her chest. The world stood still for a moment before she exploded into gold glitter, revealing the man who had attacked her.
He was a grownup, older than his teacher, but not older than Matt. He had fluffy blond hair that fell down around his ears, and he had the bluest eyes Leo had ever seen. He was also big, like, football-player-big. His shoulders were probably three times as wide as Leo’s and he was so, so tall. His face was twisted up in a deadly serious expression, until his gaze landed on the other person still in the alley, and his eyes went wide. “Leo?”
Without stopping to think, Leo dropped the slushies, getting his shins sticky in the process, then turned on his heel and bolted. The man called after him, but Leo didn’t stop moving, desperate to get as much distance between himself and the man he just watched kill a lady as possible. He couldn’t go to the park anymore. The man probably heard him talking to the lady about it. But that was okay, there was another spot he knew about. He’d be fine, he just had to get there without a tail.
Fortunately, it seemed like the man hadn’t actually been all that interested in following him, because Leo didn’t hear footsteps behind him as he skidded to a stop in front of a pair of dumpsters. Beyond that was a hole in the wall that hid a tiny little alcove, possibly a closet for the abandoned building surrounding it, but Leo couldn’t possibly know. It wasn’t the most glamorous spot in Houston, and certainly not Leo’s favorite, but it was the closest and also nearly impossible to find if you didn’t know where to look for it.
At least, it was supposed to be impossible to find. It obviously wasn’t though, because before long there was the sound of boots on gravel just beyond the security of the alcove. “Leo?” the man called, his tone gentle but without an ounce of pity. “You in there?” Leo went completely still and silent, not even daring to breathe. The man chuckled softly and all of the sudden two slushies appeared: one red, one blue. “Well, if you are in there, I’ve got something for you. I noticed you dropped your drinks, so I went ahead and got you some new ones. Red’s your favorite color, right?”
Leo waited a long while before he slowly, cautiously snuck a glance at the man. Leo knew that at this angle he wouldn’t have been spotted, but even if he could have been, it wouldn’t have mattered because the man wasn’t looking for him. He was just sitting sprawled out on the ground, leaning against the other alley wall with his eyes closed. His hands were empty and visible at his sides and his spear was several yards away. He was still, but not in the tense waiting kind of way, more the relaxed, unbothered way. Leo didn’t trust it in the slightest.
But he was still thirsty, and Houston hadn’t gotten any less hot, so he very carefully crept forward, reaching for the red slushy, heart hammering hard and fast in his chest.
Then, just before his fingers touched cold plastic, the man spoke and Leo froze. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said gently. “That lady in the alley, she was tricking you. She has magic that makes you do things, even if you know it’s wrong. She was cheating, and it’s not your fault.”
Leo felt his breath hitch because no one had said those words – not your fault – since his mamá died. Everything was always his fault and he didn’t really know what to do without that weight on his shoulders, so he retreated a bit, still keeping his eyes on the man. He swallowed thickly. “You killed her.”
“I did,” the man confirmed simply.
“Why?”
“She was going to hurt you, and I didn’t want that.”
It wasn’t an excuse, exactly, just an explanation of motives. The man wasn’t sorry, and he wasn’t trying to justify himself. He just gave Leo the facts, and the facts were that he’d rather kill a monster lady than let said monster hurt Leo. Leo picked at the skin around his fingernails. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason why I didn't want her to hurt you?”
“Yes.”
The man was quiet, probably not expecting that answer, and he took his time thinking. “You’re a kid,” he said finally. “I’m a grownup. It’s my job to make sure kids don’t get hurt, especially kids who don’t have anyone else helping them.”
Leo considered that answer for a while before deciding that he was satisfied with it. It sounded true enough, at least. With that in mind, Leo cautiously reached out again for the red slushy. “I only want this one. You can have the blue one.”
“Thank you,” the man said genuinely. He waited until Leo had retreated back into his little bunker before he crept forward to claim his own drink.
Once they were both settled and quiet for a minute, Leo spoke. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jason V- Grace. Jason Grace,” he said. “I’m… a hero, I guess.”
Leo considered his words again, and found no lie. “That monster lady called me a demigod. Is that what you are?”
“Yes.”
“Is that how you know my name?”
The man– Jason winced, like he’d been bracing for that question but still wasn’t ready to answer it. “Not exactly.”
“How, exactly?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to tell you,” Jason said. “There’s a lot of danger that comes with knowing stuff too early. If I explain everything, you’re going to see more monsters like that lady. Is it okay if I keep some secrets?”
Leo didn’t like that at all. He hated knowing that there was information being left on the table and he simply had no way to access it. But he also recognized a golden opportunity when he saw one. “Okay, but I want secrets, too. You can’t ask me questions I don’t like. Deal?”
“Deal,” Jason agreed easily. Which was… very odd. Grownups didn’t like it when Leo kept secrets, even if they were keeping secrets from him. He half expected Jason to try and trick him into revealing something, but the man just relaxed against the wall, sipping on his slushy.
Leo stuck his head out of his hiding spot, and nearly retreated like a turtle in its shell when Jason’s eyes immediately snapped open, but he just smiled like he was genuinely happy to see him. Leo felt a little bashful all of the sudden, but kept his walls up. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t really know,” Jason admitted “I was in the middle of doing a… job. For my boss, but I wasn’t anywhere near here. Then all the sudden I saw that monster lady about to attack you, and I just moved.”
“Oh,” Leo said quietly, stirring his slushy. “Well, you’re in Houston, just so you know.”
“Thank you,” Jason said, though Leo suspected he already knew where he was. He cocked his head to the side. “Can I ask you one question?”
Leo’s hackles went straight up, and he narrowed his eyes. “What question?”
“Are you okay?”
Leo froze and just blinked at him. “Huh?”
“Are you okay?” Jason repeated. “You’re not at school for some reason, so something must have happened there, and then you were attacked by a monster. I just want to know if you’re okay.”
“I’m…” Leo stared down at his hands, the word fine dying on his tongue as his eyes started to prickle. He swallowed hard again. “Why does it matter?”
“Because I care about you.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t help it. You remind me of my favorite person in the world.” Leo whipped his head up and blinked wide eyes and Jason’s smile went toffee soft and molten with affection. “My husband. He’s a demigod like me, and he’s the smartest person I know, and he’s really funny and very sweet, but he likes to pretend that he’s too tough for that.”
Leo felt himself giggling behind his hand and Jason smiled at him. “Are you best friends?”
“We are. Have been since we were fifteen,” Jason confirmed.
“Wow. That must have been a hundred years ago.”
“Hey!” Jason protested loudly, but he was smiling so Leo decided it was fine if he laughed. “Come on, I’m not even thirty yet.”
“You don’t look it.”
Jason gave him a very fondly exasperated look. “Brat.”
“Old man,” Leo shot back. Jason rolled his eyes, but said nothing, letting the silence settle between them again until Leo broke it. “What’s your husband like?”
“Well, I told you that he’s really smart and sweet and funny,” Jason recounted, ticking things off on his fingers. “But one of the coolest things about him is the fact that he has fire powers.”
Leo’s world immediately narrowed down to those two terrifying words. Suddenly, he was eight again and his hands were ablaze in a desperate attempt to get his mamá out of the warehouse she was trapped in. He was screaming and crying and choking on smoke and she was tapping out that she loved him for the very last time. “Fire powers?”
Jason seemed to know instinctively what Leo was thinking because he went very soft and his voice gentled. “Yeah. He’s had fire powers since he was little. He was scared of them for a long time because there was an accident and someone he loved got hurt, but it wasn’t his fault. Now he uses his powers to help people. His powers are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Fire isn’t pretty and it doesn’t help,” Leo said firmly. “It just makes everything worse.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jason challenged, raising an eyebrow. His hands started unbuttoning his shirt and he opened it just enough to reveal a large, terrifying scar in the middle of his chest, just like the one the monster lady would have had if she wasn’t dust. “One day, when I was helping someone, I got hurt really, really bad. I would have died, should have died, but my husband was there. He used his fire powers and he saved me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for fire.”
Leo felt his breath hitch at the thought of a world without Jason in it, which was silly because he wasn’t even really friends with Jason, but he still felt it. Without really meaning to, he crawled out into the open, bringing his slushy with him, until he was sitting next to Jason. He carefully reached out for the scar, but pulled back at the last second, looking up at Jason with wide eyes.
“You can touch it,” Jason assured him. “I won’t get mad.”
Leo’s fingers shook just a bit as he traced them around the scar. “Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes,” Jason said. “But most of the time, like now, I can’t feel it. I like having it though.”
“Why?” Leo frowned. “It’s ugly.”
“Because it’s a reminder,” Jason explained, his smile going a little distant as he thought about a man far away. “It’s proof that my husband loves me enough to break all the rules in the world to keep me safe.”
“Oh.” Leo chewed on his lip a bit before he pulled his hand back and settled down next to Jason. “I guess that’s fine then.”
“So glad to have your permission,” Jason teased, and Leo stuck his tongue out. He lifted one arm in invitation, and Leo tucked himself there like it was an instinct he’d never let himself recognize. With Jason’s arm falling around him in a half hug like the bar on a rollercoaster, Leo felt his body relax in a way it hadn’t in a very long time. Jason gently played with his curls for a moment before he spoke, voice soft. “Do you want to tell me why you’re not at school? You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. We can just sit here forever if you’d like.”
Part of Leo definitely liked the idea of just sitting there forever and pretending that Jayden and Daniel and Matt and Ms. Stanton and his teachers just didn’t exist, and the only grownup in the world was Jason. But his chest felt very tight all of the sudden, and he pressed his face into Jason’s shirt sleeve. “I got in a fight at school.”
“A fight?” Jason repeated, but he didn’t sound judgemental or upset, just like he was clarifying the facts. “With who?”
“Daniel and Jayden,” Leo reported. “We used to be friends, kinda, but now they’re just mean.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said, gently petting Leo’s hair, just like his mamá used to. “They shouldn’t be mean to you.”
“They do it all the time,” Leo said bitterly. “They like to push me down and Jayden kicks me until I cry. I didn’t cry today.”
“No? What happened?”
“I pushed Jayden down.” He felt frustrated tears stinging in his eyes, so he pushed his face even harder into Jason’s arm. “I’m tired of crying because they’re bigger than me and push me around. They made fun of my mamá today, so I made them stop.”
“Oh, Leo,” Jason said, sounding like his heart was breaking. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s whatever,” Leo dismissed, even though it was the least whatever thing imaginable. “I had to run away after, though. Daniel said his dad was gonna call the cops and Ms. Stanton said that if she has to talk to the cops about me again, I’m gonna be in trouble.”
“She said that to you?” Jason asked, aghast.
Leo shrugged. “It’s the rules.”
Jason pressed his lips together and took in a deep breath. “What about your teacher? Can they do anything about Jayden and Daniel?”
“No,” Leo said simply. “I’ve tried, but they only do it where nobody can see, so when I tell the teacher, they just say I’m lying. Mrs. Lomax said it’s two against one, so she can’t do anything, and then Jayden and Daniel are worse because I tried to tattle on them.”
“That’s not fair.”
Leo went stiff at those words, and looked up at Jason, whose eyebrows were pinched in frustration and his mouth turned down in a tight frown, though his hand on Leo’s hair stayed soft. “What?”
“It’s not fair,” Jason repeated. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this, any of this, at all, much less by yourself. You’re a kid, and someone needs to treat you like one, not just like a problem or a target.”
Leo blinked at him in shock. “I’m a kid?”
“You are,” Jason confirmed, his eyes very, very sad. “I’m sorry that anyone ever let you forget that.”
As the words sank in, Leo felt his throat swell up. Every awful feeling he’d pushed down from the moment the doctors had told him that his mamá was dead started bubbling to the surface. Every time he’d been pushed down, every time a foster family decided he wasn’t worth the effort, every time Ms. Stanton or a teacher had frowned at him like he was making their lives harder on purpose, every night where all he wanted was for someone to hold him and tell him the world was going to be alright one day. His breath hitched and a couple tears rolled down his cheeks.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Jason breathed, reaching for him. “Come here.”
For the first time in two years, Leo felt arms wrap around him with nothing but kindness and he tipped his head forward and sobbed directly into Jason’s chest. He was being a crybaby again, just like Daniel and Jayden said he was, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was the fact that Jason was hugging him like he never planned to let go, and was rocking him back and forth while he said nice things into Leo’s hair.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” Jason soothed. “Just let it out. I’ve got you, don’t you worry. I’m right here.”
“It’s not fair!” Leo wailed into Jason’s shirt. “I want my mamá!”
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Jason pressed a hard kiss to Leo’s hair. “It’s not fair and I’m so, so sorry.”
They stayed like that for a long, long time. So long that Leo wasn’t really sure how long it actually was, he just knew that he was tired and his throat hurt and he had a headache. He’d run out of water for tears at one point, so he’d regressed to just screaming into Jason’s chest, but Jason still held him through every second of it. Even now, with Leo completely exhausted and feeling like a deflated balloon, Jason kept him cradled close to his chest, rocking him softly as Leo’s eyes drifted closed.
“Sorry,” Leo mumbled, hiding his face in Jason’s shirt.
“Don’t ever be sorry for needing help, Leo,” Jason said. “That’s what grownups are here for.”
Leo sniffled. “Are you gonna make me go back to school now?”
Jason checked his watch, then shook his head. “School’s almost out anyway. I am gonna take you to the store and get you some water, though. You need it after all that. Then I’m gonna take you home, okay?”
“Okay,” Leo agreed softly. He would have agreed to anything Jason suggested at that moment, but this idea actually sounded like a good one. He was very thirsty.
Jason carefully got to his feet, Leo still in his arms and looked down at what remained of their drinks, which had melted into puddles and had been kicked over at some point. “Looks like I’m getting you a new slushy, too. You want another red one?”
“Yeah,” Leo said, resting his cheek on Jason’s shoulder and letting himself start to drift off. “I’d like that.”
Jason chuckled and pressed a kiss to Leo’s forehead. “Red it is. Then, after I take you home, I’m going to go have a talk with your principal about Daniel and Jayden.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’ll take care of it. Just trust me.”
Surprisingly, Leo did. He didn’t think Jason would be able to fix everything, but at that moment he believed that Jason would make sure he didn’t have to deal with Daniel and Jayden anymore. “Okay. Can you pick me up from school tomorrow?”
Jason was quiet for a moment, and Leo already knew the answer. “I don’t think so. I’ve got to go home.”
“Oh.” Leo sighed glumly, but he was just too exhausted to really and truly get upset again. “Am I ever gonna see you again?”
Surprisingly, Jason chuckled and squeezed Leo up in a hug. “I know for a fact you are. You’re my favorite person in the world.”
The words were oddly familiar, but Leo didn’t think too hard about it, he just hummed, satisfied with that answer, and fell asleep in the arms of his hero.