REMEMBER ME ---- BOOK I / Heroes of Olympus / Leo Valdez Fanfiction

carino, please tell your bro to fuck off before I snap his neck 90°

THE WHOLE CAMPFIRE IDEA AMAZED LEO. The only bad stuff? The fire. It made him think of his mom stuck in the warehouse that Leo had set ablaze when he was a kid.

Leo skipped around with Nyssa, his scary-half-sister, to the Hephaestus banner emblazoned with a huge hammer on fire. He spotted Jason in the front next to Annabeth. Piper was nearby, sitting with a bunch of good-looking people under a stylish pink banner with a dove. Standing in front of the fire, half a dozen campers with guitars and strange, old-fashioned harps—lyres?—were jumping around, leading a song about pieces of armor, something about how their grandma got dressed for war. Everybody was singing with them and making gestures for the pieces of armor and joking around. It was quite possibly the most fun thing Leo had ever seen—one of those campfire songs that would've been completely embarrassing in daylight; but in the dark, with everybody participating, it was kind of corny and fun. As the energy level got higher, the flames did too, turning from red to orange to gold.

Leo excused himself from the crowd to walk on his own. It was still evening and a few campers were grabbing last minute dinners, sandwich's in hands running with friends to the campfire Leo had just walked out from. He roamed around looking for someone. 

Penelope. 

There, near the cabin that shined gold on the last rays of sunlight. She stood next to that guy who had toured him around the camp and told him all those months with her weren't real. He now stood next to her wearing a white button up with black Nike shorts and black shoes. What hit Leo hard was how he looked. All the time Leo hadn't noticed his features, but now he did, and he was awestruck. They looked so similar, and so good together.  He had his arms around her, considering the height difference, and, well, they were just perfect...

Snap out of it Leo! A part of him thought. She was way out of your league anyway!

The other out-of-sense part made him tumble on a twig and fall, on nothing. Penelope heard the noise as she snapped her head where the noise came from. Fuck you Leo! He thought to himself. She and the other guy rushed towards him. Up close, Will was even taller, making Leo a little self-conscious about himself. It made sense why girls could ignore him. Girls would obviously prefer tall 6 foot guys, with a lot of muscles and handsome looks, like Will, not scrawny Latino 5'6 boys who hadn't had their growth spurt at the age of 15.

"Leo are you fine!" Penelope asked as she kneeled down and checked his knees for any scratches. Gosh he hated those annoying, stupid little butterflies dancing in his stomach.

"Yeah carino, all fine for you" Leo smirked as he looked down at her who helped him up. Thank the Greek gods for making her short! 

"You know you're making me regret helping you up." She stood up as that Will guy put his arm around her shoulder Again! Boy he'd better wait until he hit all his puberty lines, boy would he set the guy ablaze. But what if, she had a crush on him by now? Well obviously that would be true. He looked to good to be true anyway.

"I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself properly back there." Will said, giving his hand out for a handshake. "William Solace, Son of Apollo, but call me Will!"

Leo accepted the handshake. He rough hand-shaked as a few flames flickered from his palms, which went unnoticed by Will but not Penelope.

She pulled them apart, and held Leo's wrist and told Will "We both will meet you later okay? You can go pull Austin out the music room by then." Will nodded as he hugged her bye.

Penelope walked with Leo back to the campfire, her hands still on his wrists, that tripled, no— quadrupled the amount of butterflies in his stomach.

"Leo!" Penelope pulled him behind a tree. He would totally not mind losing his first kiss here right now. "Did you realize you're hands had started flickering with flames when you gave Will a handshake? You could've let you're secret out!"