Anti-Hero || Leo Valdez

23 - Leo Gets The Feels™️

The next two days went mainly the same way the first day had: waking up, Leo eating breakfast before hitting the road, fly for five or six hours, then set down and rest for the night. Leo felt a bit bad sleeping and leaving Via alone with her thoughts for hours, but when he told her that, she rolled her eyes and said, "You're allowed to sleep, Leo. It's not your fault I can't. Besides, it gives me time to practice picking stuff up."

Leo snorted. "I still don't believe you actually did that."

In response, Via actually picked up a pinecone and chucked it at him. Leo was so shocked that he hadn't thought to move out of the way and got hit in the face with a very prickly pinecone.

Via smirked smugly at him whenever he looked at her for the next hour.

When they made it to Pittsburgh and made camp for the night, it was mostly quiet for fifteen minutes, during which Via picked up bigger things like rocks and large branches. The only noises were the crackling of the fire Leo had built and the occasional click or puff coming from Festus.

Leo had been doing okay the last few nights, but tonight he started overthinking things. His brain went on overdrive thinking about things he'd been trying to avoid the past few days, things he knew he shouldn't have been thinking about.

Like how despite all the traveling he and Via were doing, despite the two of them getting closer and closer to Camp Half-Blood at a much better rate than last time, there was no guarantee that Nico would be able to help Via. The thought was eating him up inside, and he didn't dare voice it, because he didn't want Via to be upset. When she was upset, she was quiet, and a quiet Via seemed wrong.

He glanced over at her from where he'd set up his bedroll by the fire. Via looked kind of cute with her eyebrows furrowed and her nose scrunched in concentration while she tried to practice picking things up.

Leo shook his head as if trying to shake the thoughts from his brain. That was another thing he knew he shouldn't be thinking about it. While he and Calypso technically weren't actively dating anymore, Calypso had made it sound like she intended to get back together with him after he got back from his trip with Via. Leo hated to admit it to himself, but there was a part of him that didn't really want to get back together with her.

Dating Calypso was like dating the moon. She was gorgeous and powerful and there was something about her that made him gravitate toward her, and it was like they were in their own little orbit. However, she could also be cold and it seemed like she was always hiding a part of herself, no matter how many phases she showed him. Seeing only the moon for so long kind of made him miss the sun.

And if anyone was the sun, it was Via.

Wow, that's deep, Leo thought, congratulating himself on having such a poetic train of thought. Then he realized he was thinking about exactly what he shouldn't have been thinking about and actually slapped himself. Leo shot up into a sitting position on his bedroll, extremely annoyed with his brain.

"Gods, I can't sleep," He said, then realized Via had heard him.

She looked over at him and gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, no melatonin gummies here. But if you want, I can ramble about anatomy. Pat usually makes me do that when he has trouble falling asleep."

Leo raised his eyebrows. "He does?"

"Yeah, he says it's so boring that it puts him right to sleep." She sighed. "He's such a shithead. I miss him."

She stared at her hands, which seemed a little less transparent to Leo, though maybe that was just his imagination. She seemed a little sad, thinking about her brother, and Leo didn't want her to be sad. Unsure what to do, he looked around until his eyes landed on a pinecone. For some reason, his first instinct was to throw it at her, so that's what he did. Of course, she wasn't solid, so the pinecone went right through one shoulder and out the other. Via blinked, looked at the pinecone that had just flown right through her, and then gave Leo an indignant look, which made him crack up. Via was so funny when she was exasperated.