#Leo is constantly switching between wanting to impress the older kids

[pezhead]

The age difference between 10 and 12 or 13 can seem massive to children of those ages, even if it isn't actually that big. Do Casey, April and Karai consider Leo in their peer group or as more of a little brother type figure? How does Leo feel about not being the oldest? 2012 Leo is kinda bossy (affectionate) and very much likes to be in control - is this an issue when he is younger than his human friends?

Leo definitely falls into the little brother category, because you're right. Kids think 2 years is massive. But they also enjoy including him in their peer group because this is Casey, Karai, and April we're talking about. All three are misfits with few to no friends, so they eagerly attach themselves to the boys despite the age gaps. Leo becomes an honorary big kid simply because he's the only one they can convince Splinter to let outside of the lair. Like, into the sewer tunnels or along the subway tracks (though Casey and Karai have zero issue taking Leo to the surface in secret, and while April won't encourage this, she won't stop them either). Leo doesn't care about them being older except when they try to boss him or his baby brothers around (he's pretty possessive of his lil bros and can get real snippy if he feels one of the older kids are overstepping their bounds).

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 4

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: Leo makes a deal with Piper and Jason.

A/N:  Time to introduce more characters! I'm currently reading The Burning Maze (yeah, wish me luck) so I'm not gonna lie, I'm feeling for Jason and Piper more than before and that will probably show in this fic too. But worry not, no body is dying in my story (yet). Anyways, I had a lot of fun with this chapter and Leo's pov and I hope it shows! As usual, thanks to the lovely Cris for noticing my silly mistakes! Feedback would be really loved as it's the only way for me to know what you guys think of this (and it really motivates me!)

Characters in this ch: Leo, Piper, Jason

Words: 2100+

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort (in the future chapters)

Warnings: none

previous chapter / next chapter / AO3

...

“You know, when you told me you’d be moving out of our flat, I didn’t realize you’d be switching our modest mancave to… basically a mansion.” Leo whistled. He was visiting Jason and his girlfriend Piper’s new home for the first time, only to find out that the place was a new two-floor, 5-bedroom house with a big yard and a garage. Leo knew Piper’s dad was a famous movie star but even so, he couldn’t help but be surprised by the size and the fanciness of the place.

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, ruffling his short, spiky hair awkwardly. He knew about Leo’s background, the part about no biological parents and having to live on the streets for weeks between different foster homes until the police finally picked him and made him go to another family. That’s why Jason didn’t like to make a big number of living in such a place and about the fact that both his and Piper’s dads were rich and well known. As a matter of fact, Jason has moved away from his childhood home already at 16, living with his sister Thalia and working after school to pay for his living because he didn’t get along with his father well. Having Piper’s dad fund the new place had not been an easy thing to swallow for him and Jason swore that once he had gotten a job, he would pay him back. “I told Piper’s dad that we’d be perfectly happy with something smaller, but he refused to listen,” he told Leo too.

“Must be pretty great to have a father like that,” Leo mumbled under his breath, and Jason didn’t miss the tone of his voice.

“I know what it sounds like, but believe me, both of us have had our own issues with our parents.” It wasn’t a lie. Jason’s mother had died of a severe illness when he was young, and his father had always expected him to take over his business when he got older. However, Jason had never wanted that, which led to a huge argument and his father telling him he’d disown him entirely if Jason didn’t listen to him. 

Piper’s dad again was almost never home, being busy with his work, and her mother had left her family when she was a young kid. Piper had visited her occasionally until her teenage years, but these days she only saw her about once a year. From what Piper had heard, she was constantly running after new men and busy with her beauty business. All that meant that Piper was basically raised by a nanny, and she was suspecting that her dad had gotten the house mainly out of regret. 

Either way, even though Jason and Piper’s experiences hadn’t been quite as traumatic as Leo’s, perhaps the problematic family backgrounds had been an important uniting factor for the three of them when they learned to know each other. It was also a big reason why Leo wasn’t actually bitter towards his friends about this new luxury. He knew they deserved to have good things in their lives after what they had gone through.

“Yeah, I know,” Leo replied to Jason. “Don’t worry man, I was just surprised, that’s all. Now you have some space to invite Uncle Leo over sometimes too, right?”

“As long as you remember to pull your head from your machine clouds sometimes,” Jason jabbed back. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard anything from you. How are things going?”

“Busy busy,” Leo answered. “You know, the usual: the profs being a huge pain in my ass, people lining up to get me to fix their things that in reality would take them like 3 minutes to fix and… oh, I have a new flatmate.”

“You do?” Jason asked curiously. “What’s he like?”

“First of all, she’s a she and it’s a long story so I’d prefer to tell it when Piper is hearing it too so I don’t have to tell it twice,” Leo said, so that Jason wouldn’t ask more questions. The blonde boy simply nodded and gestured towards the entrance of the house. After that he gave Leo a quick tour on the first floor. 

“You have this much space here and no workshop? Holy Hephaestus, dude, you need to sort out your priorities!” Leo exclaimed once he had seen most of it. 

“Hephaestus? That’s a new one,” Jason said with amusement. 

“Yeah, well… my new flatmate is into Greek mythology… and Hephaestus is the god of blacksmiths… so that’s kinda cool,” Leo explained as nonchalantly as possible. 

 “Yeah, but did you really pay attention to the mythology lessons? I thought you only care about sciences and handicrafts,” Jason pointed out.

“Fine, you got me. Everything I know about Greek mythology is through my childhood nanny.” Jason couldn’t help but snort at that. 

Leo had to admit he was rather impressed by what he had seen even though the house was still lacking a workshop. Besides, Jason had already promised the guest room would be open for him any time he wanted, which was an offer he would definitely be using soon enough.

“Hi, Leo!” a brown haired girl greeted him happily as soon as he reached the living room. 

“Pipes, hi!” Leo greeted back, throwing her a high five as was their usual habit every time they met. “Would your dad be willing to buy me a place too so I could move away from that old, dusty building?”

“He’s a nice guy, Leo, but he has his limits too,” Piper noted, knowing that Leo wasn’t asking seriously. “Trust me, Jason and I don’t like owing him either. But I thought you liked it in your current flat? What’s the issue?”

“I guess it just isn’t quite the same without you guys hanging out there all the time,” Leo shrugged. “And my new flatmate seems to think after 10 PM is not an appropriate time to fix people’s machines. Go figure.”

“Yeah, why would anyone want to sleep at night?” Piper replied sarcastically but then smiled at him. “So, you do have a new flatmate?”

“Yeah,” Leo nodded, not elaborating more.

Jason couldn’t help but tease a bit: “And it’s a girl and he refused to tell me anything about her.”

“Oh,” Piper said, a curious gleaming in her eyes, “Is that so, Leo?”

Leo punched Jason on his bicep, which however only made him laugh. “Your boyfriend here is changing facts. I only told him that I’d like to tell the full story when you’re hearing it too because I don’t care about going through it any more times than necessary.”

“You’re being quite grumpy about it, though,” Jason retorted. “C’mon, we’re curious.”

“Fine.” Leo sighed. “Her name is Calypso and she’s a history student,” he said simply.

“Wow, I feel I basically know her already,” Piper replied sarcastically. “There must be something else too,” she urged with an encouraging tone that usually never failed to make Leo talk. “What about the long story?”

Suddenly Leo blurted the whole story from their meeting to her cold attitude to Festus breaking Calypso’s desk and to him fixing it and finally cracking her shell a bit. Not much, Leo felt, but at least she greeted him now when they were in the common area at the same time and didn’t seem quite as angry at him anymore. She had even smiled at him the other day. Briefly. Leo tried to shake that thought out of his head. Damn it, why did he always have a thing for girls who were way out of his league (and who hated his guts)?

“Tough luck, man,” Jason said when Leo finished his story. “Maybe she will come around, though.”

Piper, who was very good at reading people’s emotions, though, reacted quite differently.

“Try to think about it from her point of view. She has, based on what you just said, just moved to a new town where she knows no one, and then the first person she meets was – don’t take this as an offense - maybe a bit different than what she expected and then he also breaks what little she owns… I’d probably be pissed off too. So instead of firing back – if she’s still angry – you could try a different approach. You know, actually being nice to her and not making jokes at inappropriate moments.”

Leo frowned. “Hey! It wasn’t like I was intentionally trying to be rude or break anything! I did apologize and fix the desk! She just makes it so easy to be snarky sometimes…”

“Have you really tried to get to know her, though?” Piper asked. “She could be happy if you showed some actual interest in her.”

Leo blushed a bit at the word ‘interest’. “I’m really not so sure about that… To me she seems the happiest when I just let her be.”

“But you’re gonna live together for a while, you can’t just avoid her forever,” Piper pointed out.

“I hate it when you’re right, beauty queen,” Leo rolled his eyes at her. Jason decided to change the topic.

“Hey, how about a card game? If Leo wins, we’ll let you withdraw into your tinkering cave for one more week. If you lose, then we are challenging you to talk to her within the next 24 hours.”

“Sounds like a pretty unfair deal,” Leo muttered. “But knowing you guys you won’t be giving me a choice. However, if I win, I demand to get to live here from next Friday to Sunday, free food and foot massages included.”

“I’m not gonna touch your dirty feet!” Jason protested.

“But if I’m gonna have to talk to her either way, I feel it’s a fair deal.” Leo grinned as if he had won already. 

“Alright. You can spend here even a whole week if you want and we will buy your food BUT we are not gonna massage your feet,” Piper tried to compromise.

“Bummer. I was really looking forward to that. But fine, I’ll accept the deal.” Leo shook both Piper and Jason’s hands to seal it. “Now, let me show you what a real card master can do!”

…

Leo turned out to be an amazing card mixer (his hands always fiddled with something so he had definitely practiced card mixing too) and a good strategist (his main strategy was trying to distract his opponents with bad jokes) but Piper and Jason weren’t bad either. After playing for over 30 minutes, the winner still hadn’t been decided so the trio decided to go all in, the next round would decide the winner.

Piper dealt the cards this time, Leo and Jason taking theirs. A wild grin spreading to Leo’s face when he checked his cards.

“Woah. Sorry, Grace, but I’m afraid I won this game.”

“Is that so, Valdez?” Jason asked, rather confidently as well. Leo glanced at him with confusion only for a moment before he smashed his cards on the table.

“Quads!” he exclaimed happily as he spread the cards on the table for the others to see. Jason’s mouth twitched.

“Not bad, Repair Boy,” the blonde boy said, using the nickname Piper had come up with. “But I’m afraid that won’t win this.”

He showed his cards, revealing five hearts, numbers 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Leo’s face paled a bit and the grin disappeared.

“Straight flush! That’s impossible!” he yelped.

“It’s not!” Piper said. “But don’t worry, I think this is a win for both of us. We don’t have to buy your food and you get to stop being stubborn a bit faster. C’mon, this could be a good thing. You might have formed your opinion on her too fast.”

“Hmmph. But fine. I’ll talk to her. Tomorrow. Today, my pride has been wounded.”

Jason and Piper both muffled their giggles. Not much later, Leo decided to go home as he supposedly had homework to finish (in reality, he had already finished his physics exercises in class while bored of listening to the professor talk about something that was way too obvious to him) but the other two knew he was simply making excuses. When Leo had decided he didn’t want to do something, it was /really/ hard to get him to do it, because he was that stubborn. And clearly talking with that girl was one of those things.

Once Jason and Piper had waved Leo goodbye and watched him strut farther on the road, Piper asked quietly: “Should we have told him that the dealer may have been a bit partial and she’s also good at card tricks?”

“Nah, let him think it was a fair game. Otherwise we’ll never hear the end of it.”

“Yeah, you’re right there,” Piper admitted and the two burst into laughter.