Arsonist's Lullabye ──── Leo Valdez

𝟒: 𝐀𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭

─────"𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬?" Leo asked excitedly.

"Snuck out of the second floor window and I landed on my arm and broke it." Vincent recalled with a fond smile on his face.

Every second he spent with Vincent was like reliving a life he thought he had forgotten. Sure, Piper was fun and all, but Leo had forgotten how much he missed this, how much he missed Vincent.

"The Millers?" Vincent shot back.

"We stole their cycles and tried to ride to Kentucky cause we wanted KFC." Leo snapped his fingers. He just couldn't stop smiling.

They were playing a sort of Trivia, seeing what they remembered, what they didn't. Leo really hoped Vincent hadn't forgotten him.

The moment it clicked for him, why the guy in front of him was familiar, Leo had to physically hold himself back from flinging himself into Vincent's arms. Watching Vincent fall out of the chariot should have been his first clue, the guy was unnaturally clumsy. And then Vincent had pulled him into a hug and he felt the exact same.

Sure, he was taller now (Leo wasn't bothered about that, okay? He wasn't!) and sure he had his weird scary friends and was apparently the son of a Greek god (What the heck is a Phobos?). He even smelled weird, like gunpowder and pine cones, a very weird combination. But it was Vincent and Leo fit right in his arms. 

When they broke apart, he had grinned and did that awkward little Vincent thing he always used to do— rubbing the back of his neck as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, almost like he was worried what others would think of him.

All in all, Leo's tour was going great.

One of his best friends had amnesia, maybe had fake memories, his P.E. coach turned out to be a half goat (satyr, Vince had corrected), Dylan the asshole turned out to be a monster, pegasi were real, he met his first best friend after years and Leo got claimed. Life was weird, just the way he liked it.

Everything Vincent showed Leo was so amazing, it should've been illegal. Real Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts & crafts sessions where you could make sculptures with chain saws and blowtorches? Leo was like, Sign me up! The woods were stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone? Nice! And the camp was overflowing with fine-looking girls. Leo didn't quite understand the whole related-to-the-gods business, but he hoped that didn't mean he was cousins with all these ladies. That would suck. At the very least, he wanted to check out those underwater girls in the lake again. They were definitely worth drowning for.

Vincent showed him the cabins, the dining pavilion, and the sword arena.

"Do I get a sword?" Leo asked, eyeing the sword strapped to Vincent's side.

The other boy looked at him like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or to say no, "You'll probably make your own, seeing as how you're in Cabin Nine."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Vulcan?"

"Usually we don't call the gods by their Roman names," Vincent said. "The original names are Greek. Your dad is Hephaestus."

It was still completely wild to Leo that not only was his childhood best friend also a demigod, but somehow after three years they managed to reunite. He seemed a lot older than what Leo remembered (duh), he walked through Camp like he had lived here for years (which he obviously had) and Leo couldn't help the twinge of sadness that came with it.