━━━━GREAT GODS!
❝ but do you feel like
a young god? ❞
( the blood of olympus )
( multiple characters x ocs! )
( "heroes of old" book three )
( heroes of...
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tw: talk of a toxic relationship, mention/hints of sexual assault & forced pressured sex
━chapter twenty-two, ❝and you're tied together with a smile, but you're coming undone!❞ 『L E O』
☆
━━━Leo pretty much hates his life.
He hates what he has to do. He hates how he's going to hurt everyone he cares about by doing it. He hates that he's keeping secrets and that he's lying to everyone he knows━most of all, he hates lying to Valentina.
She doesn't deserve this. He knows that. He wishes he could tell her━tell all of them━but if they knew... They'd never let him go through with it.
The others don't see the full picture. To storm or fire the world must fall. Storm or fire. Jason or Leo. In Olympia, Nike had warned that one or more of the six present demigods would die: Percy, Hazel, Frank, Valentina, Romeo, and Leo. Only one name overlaps in those two lists: Leo. And, if his plan is to work, he can't have anyone nearby when he pulls the trigger.
But Leo is convinced there is no other way. Like Annabeth always told them: fighting against a prophecy simply didn't work. It just created more trouble. He has to make sure this war ends━once and for all.
Once he is in the engine room after dinner, with only Buford the Wonder Table for company, Leo takes a deep breath. He reaches into his tool belt and pulls out the real physician's cure━not the trick-of-the-Mist version he'd given to Piper (courtesy of Hazel, of course).
Buford blows steam at him.
"Hey, man," he says, "I had to."
Buford activates his holographic Hedge. "PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!"
"It's gotta be like this. Otherwise, we'll all die." He thinks of Valentina. His heart aches at the mere thought. This is for her.
Buford makes a plaintive squeal, then clatters into the corner in a sulk and deactivates for the night.
Leo stares at the engine. He'd spent so much time putting all of this together. He'd sacrificed months of sweat, pain, loneliness, and countless tears. Now, the Argo II is coming to the end of its voyage. Leo's whole life ━ his childhood with Tía Callida; his mother's death in that warehouse fire; his years as a foster kid; his quest with Jason and Piper and Ajax; his months of working on this ship; his weeks adventuring with his friends and his amazing girlfriend Valentina Maximus ━ all of it would culminate tomorrow morning in one final battle.
