madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-soft kitty warm kitty little ball of fur, sleepy kitty happy kitty pur pur pur-

i dunno if you guys know this little rhyme ⬆️ but I have a friend who sings it to me whenever I'm laying down trying to sleep at lunchtime under the watermelon tree so-

<3

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Teqi pulled her hands over her ears, unlooping her arm from Will's. She rolled over, cowering away from the light and the loud noises. Something hard dug into her ribs. She gave up.

People were flapping about dramatically. Her side was achy as Hades, where she'd fallen. It hurt to inhale.

"Teqi!"

"Hey buddy," she croaked, when she saw Brandon. A real smile felt nice on her face, in the least tragic way possible. She pulled her little sibling down onto the bed for a hug, ruffling his black hair. It was bright blue on one side. That was new. "Long story short... I'm not dead."

"Well, we figured that, dumbass," he said, pushing her hands away with a grin. "You're like a cockroach."

"Nice hair," she said, pushing the frame that she'd fallen asleep on, out of the way. The mattress springs groaned, and Will sat up blearly, rubbing his eyes. Teqi watched Brandon back up and drag Ollie through the door, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Brandon had grown. Wars tended to do that.

Her arm was squeezed gently, and she squeezed Will's hand back, swallowing the lump in her throat as Ollie spotted her.

"Tony?"

"Mm."

"Did Annabeth...?"

"Yeah."

"And um-"

"I know," Teqi said.

Pollux, or Ollie for short, stomped over and scooped her up in a hug.

Her feet left the ground, and she rested her chin on his shoulder. He was only two years older than her, but he was so much bigger and stronger and sadder. His arms tightened around her, and she felt the feeling wash between them like a shaken drink, one neither of them wanted and yet had endless bottles of.

The floorboards creaked as she was put back down. She was squeezed around the middle again, what were sure to be massive bruises throbbed with pain. Teqi patted Brandon's back through a grimace. "I missed you to."

"We tried to save him but-"

"Has dinner finished?" She asked Ollie, glancing outside.

The glass doors to the deck were dark. The sun had set. She'd probably been asleep for hours now, and she hadn't found Piper or Leo to comfort them as their entire world view was flipped around and thrown into a lake at top speeds from a burning Greek chariot.

He put his hands into his pockets. His eyes were dull. "Yeah, mandatory campfire though, for your new friends."

He'd dyed his hair too. His blonde roots were leaking out from beneath the layers of brown. The Dionysus ability of hive mind really was no joke. Teqi fiddled with the dead ends of her black hair. She'd got very sick of the brown when she saw someone else in the mirror.

"None of em better be your best friend," Will said quietly, swinging his hairy legs over the side of the bed. He hadn't even taken his shoes off before hopping in. To be fair, neither had she.

Teqi pushed all her hair behind her shoulder, pulling strands from underneath her hoodie where she could feel it all tucked in. Now she was too aware of her hair.

"I need a shower first, I smell like shiny teeth and lightning," she grumbled, and stood. Even her bones felt heavy. She picked up one of the towels on the back of the door and turned with a dry smile. "And no, Will, you're safe."

"Hmpf."

"Meow."

A little brown cat pawed at Teqi's feet, three seconds away from being kicked across the room and turned into a little brown splat. It blinked up at her with yellow eyes, ears pricked. She paused her emotional spiral to pick it up by the armpits. "Hello. Aren't you fluffy?"

"Dad wouldn't get me a leopard," Ginny said from behind Brandon, eyeing her warily. "So we had to get a tiny one. His name is Leopard."

"Leo, for short," Brandon said.

Teqi's Leo was going to explode when he found out he shared a name with the cutest kitten in the world. She swung the little feline back and forth. It flicked its tail at her and yawned with its pink tongue. Teqi was never going to let go of it. She hugged the kitten to her chest, shower forgotten. "What else did I miss?"

"They got rid of most of your shit," Will said, picking something out of his teeth.

"PERRY?"

Most demigods get gifts from their parents.

Electric spears that snap in half or small talking frogs that beat everyone at chess or horrible legacies or charmed one-of-a-kind armour. Six-year-old Teqi got an electric guitar. It just happened that the electric guitar was teal, and there were only three different kids cartoons playing on the box TV up at the Big House.

"We needed something to burn in your shroud," Brandon argued, "since you didn't even give us a body part!"

"How selfish of me," Teqi huffed. "Ollie! You're cabin counsellor, you're supposed to stop Brandon doing this shit!"

"Well now that you're back, you're cabin counsellor, therefore, you have to bribe the Stoll's into finding you a new guitar." Ollie said calmly, picking through the crates of clothes underneath Brandons bed. His arm was still in a sling. She'd been with him when he broke his shoulder, killing a cyclops that had Lou in its clutches.

He was also spitting facts, unfortunately.

He may be older, but now due to unforeseen and unplanned circumstances, Teqi was the oldest in terms of... camp life.

She had been here since she was about five, whereas Ollie and Castor had been dumped out the back of a smoke-filled music-booming yellow van on the side of the road years later. Brandon followed. Around the time that Clarisse departed on her quest and came back with all that shiny sheep wool and camp got an influx of heavy metal music and lightning storms.

Pollux had social anxiety. He hated the meetings. And he was studying to become a paramedic. Honestly, none of them knew how any of them were going to get out of camp. A kid of the one and only Mr D wasn't exactly top pick for a quest. Or for anything, really.

Still, they had to hope, otherwise they ended up with bed sores.

Ollie placed a pile of clothes into her arms, swapping them for the soft brown kitten. He hooked the towel over her shoulder.

When she shut the door behind her, she couldn't help but sink to the ground, pressed against the door, and put her head between her legs, squeezing it with her knees until her temples started to throb as much as her ribs. Tears didn't fall, her breath wasn't unsteady, and she wasn't clawing at her arms, she was just shaking.

Level one meltdown. She'd be fine.

"Come on, get up," she muttered to herself, and moved the spare pair of jeans, balled up socks, and her faded black and red Deadpool shirt. There was a tear down the side from that time she tried to climb the Ares cabin. She shook her hands out, cracked her knuckles, and pulled her grotty clothes over her head.

The bruises all down her side were a deep purple.

How on brand. 

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