"I'm completely in love
with you and you haven't
even realised but I'm totally
fine with the crippling
knowledge that you don't like
me back. That's fine, I'm fine.
Totally fine."
[ LEO VALDEZ x FEMALE OC ]
[ HEROES OF OLYMPUS SERIES...
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0006. | EVEN IN HER ABSENCE SHE'S THERE
They walked in silence and Leo was glad of it. The weight of the fortune cookie in his tool belt was massive even though it shouldn't have been. He couldn't stop thinking about it and he couldn't stop thinking about what Nemesis had said. Was Di really keeping secrets?
Leo knew he had spent the majority of their relationship hidden away in Bunker 9 damn-near killing himself to get the Argo finished but he didn't think Nadia had minded. He rolled his eyes. He was being stupid, of course Nadia minded. Jason and Piper had spent nearly every second together and Leo had distanced himself from his girlfriend as much as he could. It was a wonder she was even still with him.
But Leo had still fallen in love with her.
He wondered how utterly devoted he would be if they had spent as much time together as Jason and Piper. He knew already he would turn to gold for her, walk through fire, and fight a goddess just to keep her safe but still, he worried if it wasn't enough. For him, Nadia had destroyed a giant and an evil sorceress, and a pack of dangerous werewolves and enchanted Gaea herself with a spell. Leo feared that whatever he did, it wouldn't be enough. That him loving her wouldn't be enough.
It never seemed to be enough for anyone else. Leo had learnt through the years that his love wasn't worth much. Not to Aunt Rosa, not to Tía Callida, not to any of his foster families - but maybe it could be enough for Di. Maybe, just maybe, if he loved her enough and as much as he did, then she would love him too.
Unfortunately he knew what a slim chance that was. If the only person who had ever loved Leo was his mom, then what did that say about him? Was he as unloveable as he thought? Was Nemesis right?
He couldn't bring himself to finish those thoughts in fear of the answers.
"Who's Aunt Rosa?" Hazel asked, thankfully breaking Leo from his depressive thoughts but with an even worse question.
"Long story." He answered shortly. The only person he'd told about his aunt was Nadia, and he wasn't going to share that story with a girl who he barely knew and only looked like his girlfriend. "She abandoned me after my mom died, and gave me to foster care."
He had told Nadia one night back at Camp Half-Blood all about his childhood. Everything that happened with his mom and his family shunning him because he was to blame. He had cried - a lot. But Nadia hadn't minded, she had just held him close and wiped away his tears. She had listened to him because even though she came from a family with an alive parent and a powerful grandmother and an attentive aunt, and she couldn't really relate, she still listened to him. And it was sad how easily Leo loved her for being the first person in his life to ever listen to him.
