#and a lot of it was my fault and i can admit it

[koffeinkaos]

AU where Arthur and Merlin do their usual homoerotic version of friendship but Uther is starting to worry. What if Arthur's reluctance in choosing a wife was rooted in the strange relationship between the prince and his servant?

The king spent many days trying to find the easiest way to get rid of Merlin without turning Arthur against him. Turns out he didn't have to worry at all, the solution was delivered by two of his oldest knights in the form of an unkempt looking man. Maybe he was handsome but between him and that word stood a long bath, an entire bar of soap and new clothes.

The man: Your Majesty I'm sure there had been some miscommunication.

Uther: I was told you destroyed three chairs, started a fight and tried to seduce both the daughter and the son of the owner of the tavern

The man actually smirked before he answered: One chair was my fault, the fight was not. And to the last accusation I can only say they were both stunning and after the girl broke my heart by rejecting me her older brother actually looked like he could cure me from my melancholy. Who am I to resist that? Unfortunately your... men arrested me before I could have a taste of this medicine though.

For a moment Uther was tempted to asked him how he dared to speak to him like that but then an idea formed in his head.

Uther: You do that a lot? Charm people?

The man: Well, I have been told I am a very charming person

Uther: How often do you succeed

The man: More often then not

Uther: You're very confident

The man: You find me charming enough you haven't corrected me about not using a title for most of this conversation

The words were followed by another cocky grin and Uther had to admit there was something about this man...

Uther: What if I ordered you to charm.. someone and in return I will pay for the damage you caused and you're free to leave afterwards?

The man: I want a horse and another night at the tavern

Uther: You get the horse

The man: Fine

Uther: So what is your name?

The man: Gwaine

Uther: Alright Gwaine. I have to think about your backstory but let me tell you about your target in the meantime. My son has a manservant...

And that's how Gwaine was hired by the king to seduce Merlin so Arthur would get over him and get ready to marry one of the princesses Uther had in mind.

[kuidore]

hi, could you do some random romance HCs with Rumi & Jinu (i think thats how you spell his name)?

i’m so late on this bc i’ve been prioritizing other ships but yes it’s time

RuJinu Headcanons!! ☆ Rumi x Jinu ☆ KPOP Demon Hunters

☆ Jinu is the type of weirdo to sleep with a top sheet. it’s honestly just because that’s what came in the set he bought and he just assumed every human used it. despite this he never makes his bed ever

☆ Rumi always does and she literally has to teach him how to do it because she’ll be damned if she lets him leave her bed all wrinkly on days she has to leave the penthouse first

☆ it took like three days for them to start sleeping in the same bed, the whole sacrificing his soul thing did soften the betrayal a lot

☆ he still had to spend those three days grovelling like a beggar for Rumi to forgive him, practically wailing about how he messed up so so so badly and would never ever let himself be so selfish again, how he’d spend eternity making it up to her

☆ she takes pity on him. cause honestly it’s getting a little bit pathetic and he does clearly feel real fuckin bad about it.

☆ and also. the soul thing. she honestly was ready to forgive him after that but Mira smacked a little sense into her

☆ “DUDE. Make him work for it at least a *little*, because if he can do that soul thing again he’s gonna think it’s a get out of jail free card!”

☆ Rumi highly doubts he can do the soul thing again, neither of them are even fully sure how he managed to show back up after having done it in the first place, but she does admit that Mira was right and she does at least deserve an apology that’s not happening while he’s actively dying

☆ Rumi sleep talks. a lot.

☆ usually it’s just incomprehensible nonsense, but Jinu will stay awake to listen to it just because he thinks it’s cute

☆ (he’s hoping she’ll say his name or something)

☆ When she finally does it sounds like she’s angry at him in her dream and he pouts about it all night

☆ she was dreaming about them playing mario kart. he beat her. that’s why she was ‘mad’ at dream Jinu.

☆ She ends up telling him this, after having to pester him for actual hours about why he seemed so pouty

☆ he was trying to hide it but. he’s not good at it. Bitch is an open book, especially to Rumi

☆ he’s double embarrassed. one because he got caught watching her sleep (she didn’t care, she kinda already knew he did that because on multiple occasions she literally wakes up to him staring at her and ignoring the book he’s supposedly reading) and two because he assumed it was some sort of serious dream about maybe his betrayal or something and got all self-hatey about it

☆ Rumi has to have a genuine talk with him about just pouting and keeping his emotions to himself because like. dude. that’s at least a little bit of what got us here in the first place.

☆ and also he’s her boyfriend and she wants to be there for him obviously

☆ emotional vulnerability ain’t my man’s strong suit but Jinu is trying. for Rumi. and he’s very very slowly getting better

☆ That woman has the patience of a saint, and it also sort of helps that she’s currently also trying to work through her own self-demon-hatred, so she can’t really fault him for taking such a long time when he’s been struggling with this shit for like. 400 years.

☆ Demons don’t technically need sleep, and Jinu in particular does not like sleeping

☆ it’s a latent guilt thing from the ‘sleeping in silk sheets in the palace every night’ – after a few months with Rumi, he finds it a lot easier to lay in bed without thinking of his own sins

☆ eventually he actually starts sleeping when she does, sometimes. But usually he prefers to read or sometimes clean but mostly watch Rumi sleep.

☆ Edward Cullen ass bitch

☆ Sitting and doing nothing except looking at his girlfriend for six to eight hours is still a thousand times more entertaining than the demon realm he spent four centuries in, so he doesn’t exactly get bored or tired while she’s knocked out

☆ Rumi has like. a sixth sense for when Jinu is about to start Spiralling™ about something, and she will literally use those kindergarten breathing techniques to calm him down because it’s the only thing that works

☆ “okay, pretend you’re blowing out birthday candles”

☆ (she has to explain what birthday candles are, but that’s exactly why she uses the kindergarten metaphor ones; not only do they calm Jinu down, but having to sit there and listen to her explain them also slows down his mind and makes him think about something other than his own guilt or hatred or whatever it is this time)

☆ For the first little while in their relationship, Jinu does the same thing we see him doing in the second half of the movie as he actively hides his demon features from Rumi

☆ all the other Saja boys have varying degrees of ‘caring about human-ness’ when they aren’t in public, Jinu is the most extreme. He will never show his demonic features if he can avoid it, and at times when he can’t (ex. excessive anger or emotion), if he’s with Rumi he still manages to force it back

☆ If for some reason he can’t do it, he will leave the room until he can. This happening is what finally makes Rumi realize what he’s been doing and why

☆ He’s ashamed of being a demon, while Rumi is tired of hiding and desperate to let go of her shame. It was honestly just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it does it’s the thing that causes their first big fight and jumpstarts Jinu’s emotional maturity journey

☆ Rumi breaks down and says something along the lines of ‘if you’re so ashamed of that part of you, then how can you possibly love me?’ and it clicks

☆ he realizes the difference between ‘not caring’ and ‘accepting’, and realizes he’s been doing the former when it comes to Rumi’s demon half.

☆ intentionally or not, he realizes that hiding and being ashamed is also telling Rumi that she has - and always had - something to hide

☆ The boy has a bad habit of being very ‘me me me’ with his emotions, not that he doesn’t care how they effect others but he quite literally doesn’t fathom that they do, after having been a demon for so long where his emotions and shame are all his own, where he didn’t have the social connections where people would care if he was hurting or care about how he felt about things at all

☆ his fight with Rumi helps him relearn the fact that his insecurities can damage other people, and he very slowly starts dialing back the self-hatred

☆ he’s not mentally ready for therapy but boy does he need it

☆ he’s also skeptical about how much a human therapist could help with ‘400 years of internalized shame about betraying your family and simultaneous indebtedness to a demon king’

☆ the compromise is little self-help books that he doesn’t want to admit are actually helping because their titles are so fucking stupid

☆ He also makes an active effort to be less weird about his demon markings and eyes, and be more vocal about how much he loves the parts of Rumi that show exactly what and who she is – demon-ness and all

☆ he becomes a little bit obsessed with kissing along her marks/‘scars’, to the point where it’s almost embarassing

☆ When Rumi gets pissed off, she does start to go through a bit of a transformation herself, similar to what we saw in the movie

☆ When this happens, Jinu is always the one to calm her down. He takes her hands and kisses her fingers and her claws, he lightly traces along the marks on her arms with his fingers, until the repetition and the familiarity helps to her calm down

☆ Talking to Rumi when she’s so pissed off she’s started transforming is almost useless, especially early on when she’s still struggling with so much hatred for herself. it just exacerbates her anger and sends her into a spiral, so sitting in silence together and letting Rumi calm down and trying to ground her with physical sensations or stimuli is Jinu’s solution, and it works really really well

☆ It eventually gets to a point where Rumi can control it similar to how the boys can, but the scars from her markings never go away even if she’s not actively making them appear. she can’t make them disappear either, they’re just there now and she has a bit of a hard time accepting it at first.

☆ Jinu’s habit of tracing along them is one of the first steps to her acceptance of the scars as a part of her, an important one. She was never necessarily ‘ashamed’ of them, but moreso were worried that other people would think they were ugly or that they made her look weird

☆ She eventually starts smiling instead of frowning when she brings a hand up to touch the ones on her face when she’s looking in the mirror

☆ Rumi doesn’t blush easily, the only real tell that she’s flustered is the way the tips of her ears go red and she starts stumbling over her words

☆ Jinu pouts about this until he realizes he can hear her heartbeat speeding up when she gets nervous or flustered, and at that point he realizes Rumi actually gets flustered a lot more than it seems like she does

☆ Girl has a poker face of steel but inside she’s screaming throwing up punching holes in the walls desperately clawing against the urge to climb Jinu like a tree whenever he puts his hand on the bottom of her back to lead her through a crowd or something

☆ They’re not a major PDA couple, especially compared to the absolute fucking menaces that are Zoeystery and MiRomAbby, but there’s barely a moment in public where those two aren’t holding hands

☆ If a moment does in fact occur, Jinu will do everything in his power to at least keep a hand somewhere on Rumi, especially if they’re in a crowd because he’s terrified of losing her in it

☆ she could handle herself perfectly fine. neither of them have any issues with crowds, she’s not gonna panic if she’s alone. but he will, not about him being alone but about her. he’s just. weirdly worried about losing her in crowds of people?

☆ there isn’t a deep-seated trauma reason or anything he’s just a protective little weirdo who doesn’t like it when he can’t see his girl for more than five seconds at a time

☆ it’s like he thinks she’s gonna get trampled or something

☆ Jinu went back to the bridge for like a full week looking for that bracelet lady so he could get a matching one for Rumi

☆ She makes a comment that ‘maybe he’s not so hopeless after all’ and pats him on the shoulder, and he almost cries

☆ (he does. he does cry. he just waits until she’s too far away to notice)

[g00d--m0urning]

Final Destination: Your House (CH.2)

You get rejected. Twice! (somebody really needs to have a chat with Reggie)

Everyone in the house is acting weird, you can't help think it's your fault.

Everybody is stock still when you put the glasses on. You’ve got that one look you get when you’re on a mission. They’ve all seen it multiple times: Dorian when you made it a point to explore all of his forms, Betty, Kopi, and Florence when you set out to help Holly, Celia when she employed you to find out what was going on with Florence, etc, etc.

You help so much around the house, traversing up the stairs constantly, bumping into walls, going into the breaker box, going down to the crawlspace, so many times to get hurt.

You find yourself in front of Closet Dorian, staring at him with your brows raised, “Hey, dude. Are you good? You were kinda locked earlier. You’re never locked--except when the attic door used to be locked, and the backdoor, and sometimes the front door- ok, so you’re locked a lot, but not this door.”

Dorian frowns slightly, reminded of the way he accidently sent you staggering into the wall, “No clue what you’re talking about, love,” he tells you, unwilling to admit the truth.

“… Y’know, earlier? I didn’t have the glasses on, but I thought you guys could still see me and shit,” you remind, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. He may be a hard read, but you’ve been working on cracking said book open.

“Ah, that… Wasn’t locked… My door knob was stuck,” he states, internally face palming at the excuse.

“Oh! I’m sorry, do I need to oil you or something? I know I haven’t done that in…Ever,” you apologize, suddenly realizing that you haven’t broken out a can of DW-40 in a while now.

“No.. No, love. It’s fine, just- do you need something?” he stammers, sighing at your apology. Of course, you’d feel guilty.

“Oh! Yeah! I wanna check on Eddie and Volt, the power was out this morning, so I want to make sure they didn’t blow a fuse,” you explain, gesturing at the box behind him, smiling brightly at him.

Skylar winces to herself, knowing they didn’t blow a fuse, just simply turned themselves off, at her request.

“Should they be going in there? The place is quite literally a breaker box,” Phoenicia asks, watching the interaction with her app buddy.

“We can’t stop them, they’re already suspicious enough,” Skylar sighs, pouting at the fact that she’s unable to keep you from doing things.

“Eddie, Volt!” you call out, looking around the empty bar. It’s too early for anyone to come in, but one, if not both of them are usually walking around cleaning or fixing something, “I just wanted to check in, make sure you're both ok.”

There’s still no response, causing you to frown. You check the storage closets, in case they are doing stock, then the backroom. Still, nothing. You nearly bump into Eddie on your way up the stairs to their little apartment above the bar.

“Hey, are you ok?” you ask immediately, grabbing onto his arms to steady yourself from the bump.

“Am I ok, are you?” he asks back, looking you up and down in an almost panicky way, “You could’ve fallen, live wire.”

“I’m… fine. I promise,” you assure, giving his arm a light squeeze. His attitude reminds you of when you almost fell off the ladder helping him. That feels so long ago now. “Where’s Volt, is he ok? Are you ok? Did you guys blow a fuse?”

Volt’s heart aches at your questions, listening to you through the door. He and Eddie decided it’s best for you to stay away from him. He’s quite literally electric. One wrong touch from him and it could burn you or fry your nerves.

Eddie holds onto you, scared to let you go, if not to make sure you don’t fall. He’s beginning to notice you do that a lot around here, “He’s fine, live wire. We’re fine. Just tired,” he tells you, looking over his shoulder at the door.

“So, not to be rude, but could you… Go?” he asks, hating the way your face drops. As much as he jokingly offers to kick you out of the bar, he hates having to actually do it.

“Of course, yeah! Give Volt a kiss for me, and tell him I hope he feels better. I hope you do too, Eds. Don’t overwork yourself,” you lean in to give Eddie a kiss goodbye once you’re at the door, but he keeps you firmly at arm’s length.

“I’m not feeling it, sorry,” he apologizes, lightly squeezing your arms again before releasing him. He’s not as sparky as Volt is, but he’s still electric and he can’t risk it. Can’t risk you.

“No worries, feel better, both of you.”

You don’t get to say anything else before Eddie shoves you out of the bar, practically slamming the door in your face. You stare at the Breaker Box door in shock, taken aback by his behaviour. You trip on something on the floor, landing on your butt.

“Ah, shit! You ok, doll?” You look up to see Tony hovering over you, hands outstretched like he wants to help you up, but isn’t completely sure.

You laugh softly, nodding at his concern. It isn’t the first time you’ve tripped over him coming out of the Breaker Box and probably won’t be the last, “I’m fine, Tone. You know you’re really good at getting me to fall for you,” you flirt playfully, laughing at your own joke.

“A-ha, yeah, good one,” he mutters, seemingly having made his decision to lean down and help you up. He brushes nonexistent dust off your shirt, fixing the red fabric back into place.

“What, no laugh? It’s your joke,” you pout, poking his chest. He makes the joke every time you trip over him, you thought you’d beat him to the punch this time.

“Yeah, it is and I’m pretty sure I told you I like people being original,” he snaps, slapping your hand away from his chest.

You pull your hand back when he slaps it, tucking both of your hands into your pockets, “I’m sorry, I didn’t… You’re right, yeah…” you stammer, trying to swallow the growing lump in your throat.

Tony immediately regrets his actions; he hadn’t meant to snap, but seeing you act so casually about falling made him angry. You could’ve gotten seriously hurt! He’s got sharp tools on him, what would’ve happened if you landed on one, or knocked one out of him and it impaled you? He’d never forgive himself.

“No, doll…” he groans, reaching for your hand again, stopping himself midway. He shouldn’t get to touch you after that, “the bossman finally got on my ass and I’ve been stressed, ok? Ain’t got nothing to do with you.”

It’s a flimsy excuse and a worse lie because it’s got everything to do with you. He’s been working overtime to actually put effort into fixing things around the house: Celia’s drip, the rusty pipes, Florence’s loose boards, anything that could affect you.

“It’s ok, I understand, Tony,” you whisper, reaching out to touch him, probably to grab his bicep the way he likes.

He doesn’t like the way you hesitate, and he hates it even more when you pull away completely, like you’re scared of him. You should be, but it doesn’t make it any better.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” you murmur, leaving him with that soft smile that always softens his heart (and hardens something else).

Tony closes his eyes, running a hand down his face, “Fuck, fucking, fuckity, fuck,” he swears, kicking his toolbox.

“Would that be considered self-harm?” Volt inquires in jest, peeking around the corner, looking around to make sure you’re truly gone. He steps out of the Breaker Box, Eddie close behind him.

“Buzz off, zap-head,” Tony scoffs, adjusting his tool belt around his waist to busy his hands.

“Don’t get pissy, you’re not the only one who’s doing this, y’know?” Eddie cuts in, glaring at the tool box.

“Well last I checked, you weren’t the one who almost made them cry,” Tony retorts, stepping closer to Eddie, almost toe-to-toe with the taller man.

“Both of you knobheads need to knock it off,” Dorian states, stepping between the two and pushing them apart, “we’re doing this for their own good.”

Neither of the black-haired men argue with that, scowling at one another, but returning to their respective jobs.

You curl up with Mateo and Koa downstairs, trying to keep your tears at bay. You figured you’d be tougher by now; after managing to make the concept of rejection love you and your existential dread tolerate you, you should have tougher skin. It’s not like Tony was purposefully mean, he said it himself: a.) you stole his joke, b.) he’s stressed out. It’s also not your fault that Eddie rejected your kiss: he’s tired, he’s allowed to reject affection.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Koa coos, carefully brushing his thumbs over your cheeks to catch the tear you didn’t realize had fallen, “Do you want to talk about it?”

That makes you snort; the couch who lives for comfortable silence and not talking, asking if you want to talk, “No, not really,” you shake your head, running a hand through Mateo’s hair, “Ok, maybe a little bit.”

“Talk away then, buddy,” Koa urges, gently rubbing his hand up and down your back in a soothing manner.

“It’s just… Everyone seems to be acting so weird since last night and I don’t get it!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up, your bottom lip wobbling, “was my choice in movies really that bad?” you ask, more sarcastically than not.

Koa and Mateo both look at you sadly, knowing that your movie choice was, in fact, that bad. Neither of them know how to explain it to you, if it’s even theirs to explain. Mateo snuggles closer into your side, while Koa continues rubbing your back while you rant.

“It’s not your fault,” both of them tell you, glancing at each other before trapping you in a big hug. They may not be able to tell you, but they can certainly do what they do best: comfort.

You can’t help but giggle as you’re squished between the two of them, wiping your nose with your sleeve. You want to think that they’re telling the truth, but the thoughts can’t help but linger.

“Thanks,” you yawn, rubbing your eyes. The dateviators beep at you, almost dead already, “Do you mind if I sleep here?”

“Not at all, buddy, you know I love napping with you,” Koa promises, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“So do I,” Mateo chimes in, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

The affection makes you melt, it’s the first bit you’ve gotten from anybody today and it’s nice, “Thanks guys,” you return the chaste affections, then take the dateviators off.

You set the glasses on the side table, laying down fully and pulling the blankets up to your chin. You fall asleep quickly, though it seems you have a visitor this evening.

[babygirlphil]

https://www.tumblr.com/babygirlphil/788375958644277248/why-does-someone-always-feel-the-need-to-chime-in

i would argue that you are wrong only because it feels like dan and phil again and again are telling us that it wasn’t our fault? they say our invasiveness was difficult and at times wildly inappropriate, but they never really blame us for their lives being anything negative at any point. the shipping was largely bad for them because they weren’t ready to admit things about themselves to themselves let alone the public. the invasion of privacy was bad for them but they always frame it as frustration with the lifestyle they chose, like when talking about how fans would crowd them and follow them outside the bbc they talk about bbc’s failure to provide adequate security rather than us needing to know better. they’re always the first to say that the people who were particularly perverse were such a small minority that they were always overshadowed by the millions of lovely people. so more than dan and phil saying they forgive us, it feels like they’re telling us there’s nothing we need to be forgiven for and all the past troubles are just that - past troubles.

I agree that they don't blame all their difficulties back then on us and that they know that the ones who harassed them and their families were a very small percentage of their audience. However, the idea that the invasive shippers were a tiny minority is a bit of revisionist history imo. I remember screenshots of dan and phil's airbnbs and hotel rooms with thousands of notes. I remember when centipede gate happened and my entire dash was people screaming about how it was proof that dnp share a bedroom. I remember phan proof compilations with more views than some gaming videos get nowadays. You're lying to yourself if you say that those things weren't invasive. Playing detective and trying to out them was a fun game to a lot of people. It's a huge reason why they were so popular. I participated in it too, and I regret how I acted at times, but there's nothing I can do about it now. All I can do is be careful not to cross the line again.

I don't think the point of TIT was to absolve us of our guilt, but to be forthright about how our actions hurt them and to acknowledge that some of theirs hurt us as well. Dan very intentionally baited us into apologizing to them at the end of TIT when he said "maybe they'll say sorry to us". So clearly they felt we had something to apologize for. You are right though that all of that it is in the past now and Dan and Phil want us to move on from it and stop beating ourselves up for the way we behaved back then. So there's no need to mention how terrible we were every time the past gets brought up. They've moved on, we've moved on and it's all good, healthy fun now for the most part. It's just ex-phannies and casual fans who are stuck in the past.

[poppitron360]

- I’ve not really got as much to say about this chapter as it’s very early in the morning and I’m tired and just trying to procrastinate tidying the house, but I read the prev chapter last night and needed to know more as soon as I woke up.

- Oh man, I’ve been dreading the Caleo bit because I know this is gonna be a tough read, but I have no doubt that you’ll handle it well.

- I’ve already talked about how much I like the way you’ve written Caleo. Leo’s feelings of being misunderstood by his partner is a common neurodivergent experience that I felt to my core, which is why it always bugged me that when that happened in canon it was played as charming, adorable banter.

- Dam that argument is a difficult read. You’ve done everything right, but I hate that canon has backed you into a corner and forcing you to admit that Leo’s kind of an asshole when it comes to Calypso. It’s an interesting exploration as to what grief can do to a person, and you’ve done a fantastic job at addressing the nuance of the situation, but it’s still not fun to see your favourite character behave that way.

- I love how neither of them are in the right, but they both have reasons for their actions.

- Oh, Jo and Leo’s relationship is just the best. Also, I love that you included the importance of asking, and that physical touch might not always help. I am touch-averse myself, and often times people assume that touching me when I’m upset would help, despite the fact that it often makes it worse, and when I’m in that situation I’m usually too shut down to say “stop”. I wish that refusing touch wasn’t always seen in the media as “oh, so broken, so sad, must comfort, must fix” and that actually it can often be a sign of someone getting healthier if they say no, especially to people they “should” say yes to, i.e loved ones and family. Touch-averse people are people who just express affection in a different way, and should be treated as such. Anyway I love love love love love that you emphasised how important it is to ask in times like this. Normalising it one fanfic at a time

- And I love how you didn’t specify if Leo said yes or not, leaving it open to interpretation. I feel like that’s the best way of doing it, actually. If he had said “yes” it would have seemed like it was framing that finally letting someone touch you even if you don’t want to is a sign of “healing” and him “being fixed”, not that there’s anything wrong with characters saying yes, it’s just that often that seems to be the message when it happens in media. If he had said “no”, readers might misconstrue it as “oh no how sad don’t worry we’ll fix him.” Even though I’d know that wasn’t your intention. The important part of that scene was that Jo ASKED. Leo’s “healing” moment was not that he finally felt “safe” enough to be touched, but that he was finally in a safe environment with an adult who was considerate enough to ask.

- Anyway, that was my TED talk on “problems with how touch-aversion is presented in the media and why this fanfic handled it beautifully”

- If it’s not the box under the bed, this “distraction project” could be the catalyst for Leo’s mission I’m calling it right now.

- “Why couldn’t he seem to change himself into a person he actually liked?” Ooooh brother I ask myself that question every day.

- I’m starting to definitely think that the way Calypso and Leo’s breakup is presented here is bringing up a lot of feelings about a recent falling out I’ve hand with some life-long friends of mine. I won’t go into much detail but every time I try and have a conversation with them about it they’re just closed off and shut me out. Neither of them are particularly emotionally mature people who are very good at talking about their feelings, and I find it incredibly frustrating as someone who is hyper-honest to a fault and who can’t read their behaviours to figure out what I did wrong on my own. And I’m very much worried that I’m kinda being the Calypso in this situation, which is a very difficult revelation for me. Anyway this is what happens when you cathart all your emotions through fanfiction

- And we’re starting to sew the seeds of Leo having romantic-styles feelings for Jason. I was wondering how you were gonna do that considering that Jason’s not around for Leo to catch feelings in the present and now, but I like the direction this is going and would love to see more

- I hate writing both breakup and getting-together scenes as they’re something I’ve never really been very good at in real life, so I’m glad you enjoyed writing this one. I don’t think it’s mean at all, as I find writing something as nuanced as this to always be a fun challenge.

- By how you talk about them in the notes, I’m interested to see your take on Caleo if they ever reach a kinder, more understanding point post-breakup. You are so right about everything you’ve said about them.

- However, I am glad that she won’t be featured in a major role going forward, as Valgrace is where my heart is at.

- Idk if any of this made sense, but still. Love this fic

- I always start these rambles with “I’ve not got much to say about this chapter” and end up actually saying a lot. Whoopsie.

The choiceless hope in grief (chapter four)

Leo’s relationship with Calypso had been a wreck since he’d gotten back. Most of their interactions dissolved into arguments. It wasn’t entirely Calypso’s fault. Their relationship had been hanging by a thread for months at this point, and that thread had been frayed and on the verge of snapping even before Leo had left. Everything that had happened since then had just made it worse. If things had been different, maybe they could have fixed this. If leaving the island hadn’t robbed Calypso of her powers and her immortality. If Leo hadn’t come back from his best friend’s funeral, barely a shadow of his former self, unable to make good on his promise of a normal life. If they were both a little better at communicating and empathizing with each other.  If. If. If. But things weren’t different, and they were exactly who their respective experiences had shaped them into, and so things were a mess. They fought about school. The thing was: Leo did not like school at the best of times. Him and school would never be friends. Honestly, them ever becoming amicable acquaintances seemed like a stretch. He deeply did not feel like dealing with classes on top of trying to deal with Jason’s death. So he just didn’t go, regardless of what he’d promised Calypso. They fought about Leo holing himself up in his room. They fought about Calypso’s powers. They fought about Leo’s sense of humor, and the amount of Iris messages he sent to Piper and the fact that he talked to her but would not talk to Calypso. They fought about a bunch of really minor garbage because they were both angry and on edge and none of this was working.  It took two weeks of arguing back and forth for Leo to snap at her that his best friend was fucking dead, and could she please back the hell off? To Calypso’s credit, she did try to comfort him, then. Tried to apologize. Tried to at least cut back on the number of fights they were having. But it didn’t work. Things between them didn’t improve.  Calypso just didn’t get Leo—not when it came to this, and not when it came to anything else. That the problem was mutual also didn’t help. They were two bent, broken gears that fit together so poorly that it had really only been a matter of time before the entire machine exploded.

Rating: Teen and Up

Chapter Word Count: 5.6k

CWs: Breakup time! General themes of isolation and self-loathing, which feels like business as usual at this point. It does feel slightly worse to me personally than the previous chapters did, which is probably related to the fact that Piper isn’t around. Also, mild warning for people with emetophobia. Being sick is just mentioned briefly (skip the first paragraph of the section that starts with the sentence “Leo forgot about fixing the stupid pipes that had started the argument.” if you want to be safe, it’s just that very tiny section) and isn’t described but I thought the warning probably couldn’t hurt just in case.

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Chapter 4: Calypso breaks a pattern

It was mid-April by the time Leo got back to the Waystation. 

Honestly, he felt like he deserved props for not just bolting the hell out of Tahlequah in the middle of the night after the horrible vision he’d had.

Granted, even if he’d wanted to, that would have been kind of difficult considering he’d managed to startle Piper awake with his screaming, but still.

Piper hadn’t pushed him to talk about his dream, but they hadn’t gone back to sleep after. Leo had joked that maybe this was a sign from the gods that they shouldn’t waste their last night together sleeping, but really, he’d just known that even if he’d tried, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep another wink. He was too terrified of waking up to his hands on fire and smoke curling around his ankles.

Instead of sleeping, they’d spent the night kicking each other’s asses at Mario Kart.

When she’d hugged him goodbye, Leo had very bravely not spent the whole time thinking about the fact that he might set Piper on fire by accident.

He didn’t know for sure his dream had been a vision, but some of the details seemed too random for him to just make up. Why an underground parking garage? Why would Piper use a blowpipe? And the voice he’d heard… he’d been dealing with this nonsense long enough that he was sure it had to be some kind of deity.

Besides, Leo knew it was more than possible for him to lose control like that. It had happened before. Who was to say it couldn’t happen again?

As much as that sucked, it did seem like a sign that going back to the Waystation was the right choice. If Leo wasn’t around Piper, he couldn’t explode into a firestorm in an underground parking garage and hurt her—or worse. That was pretty sound logic, in his opinion.

Piper had known something was up, but he’d played it off by saying he was just worried about what would happen with Calypso when he got back, considering she hadn’t exactly been happy with him during their call. Piper had accepted that explanation. A tiny, awful part of Leo felt grateful that she had never been able to read him quite as well as Jason.

His return to the Waystation was a bit of a mixed bag. Jo and Emmie seemed happy enough to have him back, asking for help in the workshop and with dinner. Georgina hugged his knees and then promptly bolted again. Lit gave him a semi-pleasant nod—or whatever qualified as semi-pleasant from someone who’d tried to kill you at one point.

Calypso, though… yeah, she wasn’t Leo’s biggest fan right now.

She was in good company, considering Leo wasn’t too happy with himself, either.

Calypso really wanted to know the reason why he’d ditched her. Leo, on the other hand, still didn’t feel like talking about what had happened. This, maybe predictably, didn’t mix well.

It took all of three minutes of him being back for them to have their first fight. Things did not get more pleasant from there.

~~~~

The next month passed in a grief-heavy haze, most of which Leo only vaguely remembered later.

A lot of those days, he operated purely on autopilot. 

Leo gave Festus his promised repairs and upgrades and Tabasco sauce and was graciously forgiven with a few nuzzles and another fire shower. 

Afterwards, Leo threw himself into a bunch of projects—anything Jo said she needed help with. Anything that could use fixing and improvements around the Waystation. He worked and worked and worked relentlessly because things were kind of okay as long as he didn’t have time to pause and think and miss Jason.

When he wasn’t working on any of his other projects, he had one of his own he was fidgeting with. He wasn’t sure what it would be when he started. It was just a mess of wires and strings and anything else he could think of. There wasn’t a purpose to it. He just needed to keep himself busy when there was nothing else to work on, and for some reason this was the nonsense blueprint his brain had picked—one that was metaphorically upside down, with all of the instructions in a language Leo couldn’t speak. 

Well, he supposed distracting himself was easier when he had no idea what he was doing. Maybe he’d find a brilliant use for whatever this was supposed to be once it was done. That had happened before. And if he didn’t… well, it didn't really matter. At least it kept him busy for now. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t take the thing apart and rebuild it into something new if it turned out to be useless.

Leo kept to himself a lot more than he had when he’d been with Piper. Being alone with his thoughts still sucked, but it sucked less than having to explain things to people who fundamentally didn’t get it. People who might try to make him talk about events and feelings he’d rather keep between him and Piper or put back in the box and never acknowledge again.

Being at the Waystation wasn’t bad, for the most part. Jo and Emmie gave him space when he asked for it. They clearly knew something was wrong, but they seemed to accept that he wasn’t ready to talk about whatever it was.

Leo was made to help with meals on the better days, and on the worse days someone brought food up to his room.

When Jo realized being busy seemed to help him, she gave him additional little projects to work on. She asked him to come into the workshop and then let him work wordlessly by her side if that was what he wanted, occasionally trading tools or asking for advice if he was up for it. It felt a little like it had with his siblings. Not that that was a thought Leo allowed himself often—missing Camp Half-Blood was an express train to thoughts about why he couldn’t bear to go back, and he did not need to take that right now.

Leo wasn’t as close to Emmie, who was more focused on the gardens, which really weren’t his area of expertise, but when they did interact, she was kind.

As an additional way to keep himself busy, he made little toys for Georgina. She always got super excited about them, and if nothing else, that at least temporarily managed to put a smile on Leo’s face.

Things with Lit were kind of weird, but they managed to make dinner together in amicable silence, which was more than Leo could say about Calypso.

Leo’s relationship with Calypso had been a wreck since he’d gotten back. Most of their interactions dissolved into arguments.

It wasn’t entirely Calypso’s fault. Their relationship had been hanging by a thread for months at this point, and that thread had been frayed and on the verge of snapping even before Leo had left. Everything that had happened since then had just made it worse.

If things had been different, maybe they could have fixed this. If leaving the island hadn’t robbed Calypso of her powers and her immortality. If Leo hadn’t come back from his best friend’s funeral, barely a shadow of his former self, unable to make good on his promise of a normal life. If they were both a little better at communicating and empathizing with each other. 

If. If. If.

But things weren’t different, and they were exactly who their respective experiences had shaped them into, and so things were a mess.

They fought about school. The thing was: Leo did not like school at the best of times. Him and school would never be friends. Honestly, them ever becoming amicable acquaintances seemed like a stretch. He deeply did not feel like dealing with classes on top of trying to deal with Jason’s death. So he just didn’t go, regardless of what he’d promised Calypso.

They fought about Leo holing himself up in his room. They fought about Calypso’s powers. They fought about Leo’s sense of humor, and the amount of Iris messages he sent to Piper and the fact that he talked to her but would not talk to Calypso.

They fought about a bunch of really minor garbage because they were both angry and on edge and none of this was working. 

It took two weeks of arguing back and forth for Leo to snap at her that his best friend was fucking dead, and could she please back the hell off?

To Calypso’s credit, she did try to comfort him, then. Tried to apologize. Tried to at least cut back on the number of fights they were having.

But it didn’t work. Things between them didn’t improve. 

Calypso just didn’t get Leo—not when it came to this, and not when it came to anything else. That the problem was mutual also didn’t help.

They were two bent, broken gears that fit together so poorly that it had really only been a matter of time before the entire machine exploded.

Right! Leo’s machine metaphors. They fought about those, too.

It wasn’t that they hadn’t had their good moments. They’d bonded when she’d first helped him to get off of her island. They’d had a few good weeks after he’d come back for her. But the longer and more frustrating their journey had gotten, the faster that initial honeymoon phase had worn off, the nice moments sprinkled far and few between.

Leo couldn’t pinpoint what the first crack had been—when the pointless arguments had become their normal, growing more heated with time. Had it been the nightmares? The constant monster encounters? Had it been something specific one of them had said or done?

Maybe it didn’t actually matter how they’d gotten to this point. Maybe all that mattered was this: in the end, the choice he’d made to sacrifice himself to rescue her like the hero in a romantic epic couldn’t make up for the fact that they were terminally incompatible people. 

No, sorry, not rescued. He’d just collected her. She hated when he called it a rescue.

That they cared about each other didn’t mean a thing when they couldn’t seem to understand each other to save their lives.

Leo didn’t know how to support Calypso through the loss of a steady home when he hadn’t had one of those since he’d been eight. He didn’t know how to handle the resentment she very clearly harbored towards the fact that he’d gotten her off the island, despite having asked for it and happily agreed to it at the time. He didn’t know what to do with the guilt he felt over her having to trade her immortality and most of her powers for her freedom.

Calypso didn’t know how to handle him, either. This maybe shouldn’t have come as a surprise—few people in his life ever had. She’d grown weary of his jokes over time, down to interrupting him and apologizing for them to other people when Leo felt like joking was the only way he could remember to breathe. She wanted emotional sincerity, which he’d always been terrible at. She usually didn’t understand the way he saw the world, and when she did understand, she didn’t seem to like it very much. 

Calypso’s desire to settle down in a quiet place like this was fundamentally at odds with everything Leo had been for so long.

Even that would have been far too much for most relationships to handle. But they’d tried to make do. Decided to settle down at the Waystation and figure out what their relationship could be in a safe environment. And Leo really had wanted to try and make this work.

Except then he’d had to leave to help his friends, and he never fully came back.

This, it turned out, was finally too much. More than anything, their already fragile relationship could not handle the death of Jason Grace. 

Six months of cracks and fissures tore wide open, and suddenly they found themselves screaming at each other from across a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

As much as she tried to, Calypso did not understand mortal grief that wasn’t clean and obvious. She’d been isolated for so long that this maybe shouldn’t have been surprising. 

She kept cornering Leo in the workshop after dinner, apparently determined to bug him into one of the emotional conversations that seemed to be her cure-all regardless of the fact that he would much rather explode himself a second time than talk about this particular topic.

“Why won’t you let me help you?” Calypso asked for the umpteenth time, trying to reach out to place a hand on his shoulder. “I could if you would just let me.”

He despised that she didn’t take no for an answer on this. Every day for the past week, she’d tried to start this exact same conversation, and it just didn’t get through her fucking skull that he didn’t want to have it—especially not with her.

Leo didn’t know how to make her understand that he didn’t want the kind of help she was offering. That it just wasn’t how he operated. 

Hades, even if it had been, Leo was pretty sure there was no helping him. Trying to help him was how people ended up dead.

“I need to be alone right now,” he snapped, pulling away from her. “I have work to do.”

He gestured to the work bench, which was covered with a collection of faulty pipes in various stages of decay that needed fixing almost as desperately as Leo needed a distraction.

For a moment, Calypso’s hand lingered in the empty air between them. There was a kind of hurt in her eyes Leo didn’t get at all. He was the one with the dead best friend, for fuck’s sake. Heneeded to figure out how to deal with it. What gave Calypso the right to make him feel like shit about the way he was coping?

“No one should be alone during a time like this,” she insisted, trying to reach out again. “I can see that you’re hurting. I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me, but it’s still obvious you need-”

Leo had had it at this point.

“No. You have absolutely no clue what I need. For someone who’s always telling me to talk about my feelings, you’re doing a shit job listening to me.” Leo gritted his teeth. “You wanna hear what happened to Jason? Fine! It’s the same thing that always happens to me. I get distracted and lose things, courtesy of my ADHD. Sometimes it’s screwdrivers, or the box of crayons I bought for Georgina’s birthday. Sometimes it’s my best friend.”

It was barely a joke. His laugh sounded forced and bitter even to Leo’s own ears. But it was the only way for him to not drown in it all.

Calypso’s almost hopeful expression fell, replaced immediately with utter disbelief.

“Can you not be serious for fifteen seconds? Not even about this?” She sounded exasperated. “When I try to bring up what happened, you avoid me. You throw yourself into a new nonsensical project and refuse to talk to me. But the next second, you’re fine joking about your friend’s death like it’s at all comparable to misplacing a box of crayons! Does it make you feel good to let yourself care for him so little?”

Leo felt like he’d been punched. He wanted to throw up. He couldn’t think. Everywhere he looked, he saw some memory of Jason smiling back at him, and he couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t rewatch any of the movies they’d seen together, or listen to the kind of music Jason liked, because doing so would snap him clean in half even if he’d been having a good day. He couldn’t even make a blasted joke without imagining Jason’s eyes crinkle, his serious expression softening into a laugh that Leo would never fucking hear again. 

Calypso had never made much of an effort to understand how and why Leo used his humor. Who the hell did she think she was to tell him he didn’t care about the person who had mattered most to him in the entire world?

“I’m just saying it like it is!” he snapped. The vortex in his chest swallowed everything, scraping him raw and bloody and leaving only his nastiest parts. “I got distracted. You distracted me! I wish I’d left you on that fucking island!”

The thought had been drifting around in his mind since he’d gotten back—burning, festering, building up pressure before finally erupting out of him like from an active volcano. He knew the second he let the words explode out of him that he would never be able to take them back.

If it hadn’t been for Calypso, Leo wouldn’t have left his friends. He would have had six more months with Jason, if nothing else. Six months that he’d foolishly wasted, thinking they’d have all the time in the world once he got back. Maybe he could have been there when it happened—could have changed something, or at least said goodbye. 

Instead, he’d sacrificed all that for a girl he’d barely known—a girl who wasn’t even sure she wanted to be away from her island prison.

And now here Leo was, desperately trying to find some way to keep himself going after Jason’s death, despite feeling like an automaton with half the pieces ripped out. And there Calypso was, trampling all over his feelings and Jason’s memory like she knew better than Leo how he was supposed to be feeling right now. How he was supposed to be handling this.

Calypso looked horrified, then furious, and Leo couldn’t find it in him to care at that moment. She’d hit him in his sorest spot, and in that moment he wanted her to hurt. Wanted her to know exactly how she’d made him feel.

“If what you’re saying is that an eternity of isolation might have been the preferable fate if the alternative was your company, I’m beginning to agree.” Calypso’s hands were clenched into fists at her sides. “All I did was try to comfort you, in a way no one ever bothered to do for me, and this is the thanks I get?”

“Your idea of ‘comfort’ is apparently stepping all over my boundaries until I give in and do what you want, so no, gratitude isn’t the word that comes to mind! Screw you!” he shot back. The spark of his fury, now that he’d finally let it loose, hit kindling. And before he could think to stop it, it was a forest fire. “What right do you have to get mad at me for saying that when you’re not even sure you want to be here half the time?! Besides, you’ve made it pretty clear you hate me for getting you out of there!”

“You never even bothered to try and understand why I felt conflicted about leaving! You just decided that I shouldn’t, so you could continue to feel like the grand hero who rescued me! I chose to go with you, yes, but it was not the easy choice you clearly think it should have been!” Calypso scowled at him. “Trapped as I was, Ogygia was also the only home I knew for an eternity. I made the furniture you destroyed. I planted the gardens—watched them grow from the first seeds. Do you have any idea how it felt to leave all that?”

She was right, of course. Leo didn’t understand. He got cabin fever in most places if he stayed too long. If someone had trapped him somewhere—anywhere, even in the coolest place on earth—for years, Leo would have jumped at the opportunity to leave and never look back. 

He also didn’t really care to understand at this point.

“My best friend is dead!” Leo shouted back. “Sorry if I can’t find it in me right now to care about you missing your fucking tomato plants!”

“It’s me you don’t seem to care about! You let me think you were dead for weeks!” He could see the tension in her hands as she clenched them even tighter. “I’m sorry about Jason. I am. I’m trying to help you, but you won’t allow me to. And somehow that’s my fault, too!”

“I told you exactly how you could help! It was by leaving me the fuck alone!”

“Unlike you, I don’t intend to make a habit of leaving the people I love to their pain!”

They spent the next several minutes screaming at each other, both of them spiraling, the full extent of their bottled-up hurt and resentment glad to explode in their faces. 

“You know what?” Leo yelled finally, his voice raw. “If you really hate me that much, maybe we shouldn’t be in a relationship.”

“We aren’t in a relationship,” Calypso said, like this wasn’t a discussion at all. Like she was merely stating a fact. “You can’t even talk to me. You’ve spent the past several weeks avoiding me. That is not a relationship. I’m beginning to think that it never was.” Over the course of the argument, all the fight had drained out of her. Now, she just sounded hollow as she spoke. “I’m done with this, Leo. I’m not waiting around for you to leave me again.”

“Great! We’re done, then!” 

That was it. Six months tumbling into the chasm like it was nothing. Like that was where they were always destined to end up, sooner or later.

Despite everything, Leo kind of wanted to curl up and cry.

“I’ve watched hero after hero leave me over the years. I was a fool to think you’d be any different.” There was a bitterness to her voice. A hurt that was somehow both fresh and much, much older than Leo was. “The others at least had the decency to be kind about it. They all left me for noble causes. But you? You had the cruelty to promise you’d stay with me, knowing full well that you already had one foot out the door. Because that’s not who you are, is it? You don’t stay.”

“Right. Gods forbid you spend ten minutes not reminding me I’m not the perfect hero you always dreamed of.”

“It’s not about whether you’re a hero, Leo Valdez. I cared for you because I thought you understood. Because you spoke of not belonging with your friends, and it sounded like you knew what it was like to be left behind. Because I saw a kindred spirit, and believed that you would keep your promise to come back to me.” Her voice was watery. When Leo forced himself to look up at her, he realized Calypso’s eyes were brimming with tears. “But I understand now that the problem was never that you did not fit in with your friends. Your real problem is your cowardice. You run from your friends and you run from your feelings and you run from any place that might accept you as you are, because if you just burn all your bridges indiscriminately, you never have to find out which ones might not hold your weight. But you also lose any chance you have of finding the ones that will.”

Then she turned and headed for the door, leaving him standing alone in the middle of the workshop, exactly like he’d wanted.

~~~~

Leo forgot about fixing the stupid pipes that had started the argument. For a while, he just stood there, frozen in place, tears pouring freely down his face. He felt empty and disgusted with himself. It got so bad that the nausea became physical. His lunch came up. Then he spent several minutes dry-heaving, wishing he could disappear. Wishing he’d just died correctly the first time.

Jo found him like this—a trembling heap on the bathroom floor. She made it worse because she didn’t scold him, despite the fact that Leo was sure the screaming match must’ve been audible throughout the entire Waystation. She didn’t call him a horrible person. 

She just helped him back to his room and asked what had happened. 

There was no pressure behind it, no coaxing. It was just a question. He didn’t have to tell her anything.

But the fight had rattled all of Leo’s broken parts loose, and now he came apart, dissolving into sobs. He didn’t tell her everything—there were many things he didn’t think he could ever tell her, or anyone else for that matter—but she got the CliffNotes version of his recent epic screwups, half-swallowed by his pathetic wailing.

Jo still didn’t look at him like he was a horrible person when he was done. Not when he talked about how he’d messed up with Jason. Not when he talked about his fight with Calypso, or after his shameful admission that he couldn’t stand to be around her half the time because all it did was remind him of every moment with Jason that he’d wasted rescuing a person who apparently couldn’t even stand him.

Leo hated himself for these thoughts. Hated that he’d yelled at Calypso that he wished he hadn’t gotten her off the island. It didn’t matter how mad and hurt he was right now—no one deserved to spend their life in that kind of solitary confinement. 

…okay, maybe not no one. Leo could openly admit that he would wish it on Gaia and Caligula and Jason’s mom, if they’d still been alive—for them to be so far away from any living being that they could never hurt anyone again. 

But Calypso didn’t make that list. She wasn’t even anywhere near that list. What kind of horrible person would say something like that to someone they cared about, even when they were fighting?

“Neither of you handled that very well,” Jo determined when he finished. “She shouldn’t have said the things she did, and you shouldn’t have lashed out at her. But you’re both hurting, and grief is a messy creature. Apologies may be warranted, but from both sides. Please don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I think we broke something we can’t fix,” Leo admitted quietly, his shoulders trembling. “I’m not sure I want to fix it.” 

He felt awful admitting that out loud.

“You don’t have to stay in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy. Not for any reason,” Jo said, gentle in a way Leo wasn’t sure he deserved. “It doesn’t sound like either of you were very happy.”

And they hadn’t been. Not for a long time. So why did this breakup still suck so much?

Leo didn’t have the strength for any more words in him. He just pulled his knees to his chest and sobbed.

“If you’d like, I could sit on the bed with you and put an arm around you,” Jo offered. She’d pulled up the chair from his work bench instead of just sitting next to him initially. “I know physical comfort sometimes helps. I also know that sometimes it doesn’t. Just tell me what you need.”

Leo had never had a foster parent like Josephine before. 

He’d had ones who would have tried to hold him regardless of his comfort, like a stranger smothering a traumatized child who had just lost the only family he’d ever known was going to help anything. He’d had others who had yelled at him to shut up and get over himself. Once, Teresa had locked him in her storage closet for three hours because he hadn’t cried quietly enough.

None of them had ever thought to ask.

Jo wasn’t Jason or Piper. She most definitely wasn’t Leo’s mom, whose arms had always felt like the safest place on earth. But she was kind, and patient, and being held by her actually did help a little. Leo hadn’t had an adult like that in his life since he was eight years old.

It was almost comforting that he got to have this. Unfortunately, it also made him miss his mom with a fierce desperation he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

Why was he never able to keep any of the people he loved?

~~~~

After Jo left, Leo stayed up all night tinkering with his distraction project. He didn’t want to sleep—to deal with the nightmares that were bound to come like clockwork after a day like this, in case sleep even managed to find him at all. He just wanted to keep his mind off everything for a while. 

For once, tinkering didn’t help. Leo couldn’t shut his brain off. He wasn’t even sure what he was building, but none of it seemed to fit together quite right, and more than once he had to screw pieces loose again. In the end, it looked like this misshapen… whatever it was had exploded all over his workbench.

“Well, at least that makes a decent metaphor for both my relationship and my life, I guess,” he groaned, briefly considering tossing the entire thing out of his bedroom window.

So much for keeping his thoughts off the breakup. 

He kept thinking back to all the awful things he’d said, replaying them in his mind like the world’s nastiest YouTube video stuck on loop. 

Almost worse than the breakup itself was the fact that the weeping breakdown he’d had with Jo afterwards was exactly the kind of conversation Calypso had been trying to have with him for weeks. Probably not to the degree she would have liked, but it had been something. So much more than he’d been able to share with anyone who wasn’t Piper.

Why hadn’t he been able to just give Calypso what she wanted? Why couldn’t he seem to change himself into a person other people actually liked?

Part of him wondered if love always felt like this—raw and awful and aching, forcing you both to twist parts of yourself into a different shape until you fit together, even if it didn’t feel right or comfortable for anyone involved. If it was always like hammering broken machine parts into place to very barely keep things running, with everything constantly on the verge of coming apart.

A more treacherous part of him knew that it didn’t. Remembered the way Jason had laughed even at his lamest jokes, and the way his eyes lit up whenever Leo rambled about some new device he was working on—obviously not quite understanding what Leo was talking about most of the time, but making up for it with all the genuine enthusiasm he had to offer. The way Jason had seemed to trust him so instinctually, even when Leo felt like he didn’t deserve that trust. How Jason had always had a kind of confidence in Leo’s plans that Leo himself distinctly lacked.

He remembered Jason just showing up to help with the Argo II, despite the fact that he had no clue what he was doing—dropping by with snacks and water bottles and tricking Leo into taking breaks by bringing up movies he’d never watched or things he needed explained to him or complaining about how sick he was of sitting alone at dinner.

Sometimes Leo had fallen asleep on the bunker floor working late into the night, but he’d always woken up in his bed. Nyssa had given him endless shit about the fact that Jason had kept carrying him back to the cabin like some fainting damsel.

“You’re sure he’s dating Piper? Because I’ve never seen him carry her around like that.”

“Yeah, well, unlike me, Piper has a reasonable sleep schedule like a complete bore.”

Jason had never made a big deal about it when he’d asked—he’d just said that the floor was cold and hard and he didn’t want Leo to get sick or hurt himself by accident. He’d said it like it was the most natural thing in the world to him.

Leo knew that meeting Jason had changed him. It had changed Jason, too. But that had been different. It hadn’t felt like bending out of shape. It had been like him hammering away on heated metal, working out the kinks on two pieces with gentle precision until they fit together to make an even better whole.

Leo hadn’t recognized it, back then. Hadn’t questioned the way seeing Jason and Piper together made his chest hurt. They were the first real friends he’d made in a long time. Of course it ached to feel like they’d found each other and didn’t need him anymore.

That truth was easier. It was instinctual, almost, to cling to it. If Leo had recognized what his feelings were—clung to all the ways love could be when it was Jason—then he might have lost him. He might have made things weird between them, messing up the two perfectly good friendships he had in the process.

Leo had been losing people since he was eight years old and so very rarely allowed himself to get attached to others so completely. He’d never been able to stand the thought of losing Jason or Piper. Maybe he’d subconsciously decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

That kind of love had always been for other people, anyway. The way Jason had looked at him—awe and joy and utter trust—didn’t matter when Leo couldn’t be loved like that. He’d been content with Jason just continuing to love him the way someone loved a best friend, because even that had felt like more than Leo thought he’d ever be able to have. More than Leo deserved.

Because the Fates were cruel, Leo had lost Jason in a way that was far more awful and permanent than the ache and awkwardness of unrequited feelings. And if his shitty nightmare visions were anything to go by, there was still a pretty decent chance he’d lose Piper, too.

———

Notes:

…is it mean of me to say that I actually had a blast writing the breakup scene? I don’t think I’ve ever written a messy breakup before this (pretty sure this was only my second ever breakup scene, and the first one was the amicable jiper breakup in Fate verse, which has completely different vibes), so I was super nervous before writing it, but I ended up enjoying it a lot.

Calypso and Leo actually kind of fascinate me, ngl. I don’t care for them romantically at all, but there’s something to be said about two broken, traumatized kids whose defining traits include that they’re both desperate to be loved and so they latch onto the first person available, despite the fact that they’re objectively a terrible fit. Let’s put the girl who has massive trauma surrounding abandonment with the guy whose go-to coping strategy has been running away for half of his life and see what happens! And the thing is they want to love each other. They want to love each other so badly. But their personalities and traumas are so diametrically opposed to one another that even in their attempts to care they cannot help but press down on each other’s bruises. It is so, so important to me to stress that neither Calypso nor Leo are fundamentally bad people. Neither of them is the person the other one needs, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be loved. They both need kindness and time to heal. That being said, they should preferably do that healing far, far away from each other. (This is the only chapter of the fic that Calypso plays a major role in, and there is a reason for that.)

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Leo’s understandably having a bit of a Time right now, but we did get him to a point where he could admit his crush on Jason to himself, so… progress? …is admitting you were in love with your dead best friend progress? Who knows! But since this is a valgrace fic, I hope at least you readers got a kick out of it, because Leo sure as hell isn’t having a fun time with it at the moment! Something something love that requires you to be someone you’re not vs. the way you cannot help but be changed by the experience of loving someone with your entire heart and soul.

Comments of any kind are, as always, super, super appreciated. I’m kind of having a Time myself right now and I do thrive on feedback, so! But either way, thank you for reading! See you guys next week!

Tag List: @poppitron360 @lilyfrey @lady-silkwing @intenebrisobscurat @manygeese @ann-rex

[qoldenskies]

i feel like out of everyone april would be the worst with self-deprecating humor. the boys have self-esteem issues but they're literally all the types to play up confidence or double down instead of addressing them (raph the least, but he can be pretty stubborn at times), but april's momentum only takes her so far and she is pretty willing to admit defeat if her usual methods dont work. the speed at which she falls back into the idea that she cant do anything right,,, there's probably a point where she jokes about it before it even happens to prepare herself for disappointment, right?

[tohruies]

ha! 💌 ! except that i’m doing uno reverse and sending one to you! (and especially since you’ve already written it once for me and i even printed it out!!!)

dear coco, so i know how you always want to bring even the tiniest smile to people’s faces! you are the sunshine that peeks from behind the clouds during the cloudy days ⛅️ but i’m smacking you affectionately because oftentimes in your selfship dynamics you mention that your dear beloveds soothe your heart after you give it away to everyone around on an open palm — and you should listen to that inner voice! ✨ treat yourself first, be a little selfish, make sure to feel comfortable before you comfort others ❤️‍🩹 let me tell you again — i am shaking you and telling you this because a happy and healthy coco guarantees even more happy people around her! 🥺 i love your prose, love your poetry that you sneak so elegantly in between sentences and paragraphs — it’s been a while since i’ve read anything from you and i understand that there are things that you must focus on first, but no matter the passing time, yours will always be one of the styles that inspired me the most in my writing journey on here! 🥹 your presence here has been influencing my life in the most positive way ever since becoming mooties with you! you always put so much thought into remembering everyone’s personalities, lives, preferences and stories! 🌸 but i wanted to make sure that you know how it also feels to be on the receiving side of love (though i know i’m not the only one adoring you so much and certainly there are so many others who would stand right beside you if you only needed a shoulder to lean on) 🩷

༼ﾉ ´༎ຶ ﹏ ༎ຶ༽ ﾉ *: ·ﾟ💌 when manu wears the biggest ever size of meanie pants ever... /silly

(i will acknowledge & respond to your own 💌 to me in the tags, if that's okay!! 🥺 oh my goodness 🥺🥺)

3 days later and i think i have finally collected myself enough to respond to this WAH... I AM SO SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING MANU! 🥺 i am uno reversing your uno reverse >:3 hehe, i remember that i wrote you one of these last year, in april!!!! it's always been a difficult month for me, so it made me really happy + meant the whole world to be able to write something for you and have you receive it with all the love in your heart 🥺 so much so that you even printed it out (i cried tears of joy last year when you told me that AODKJFAJ i am so sorry 🙈). i hope you don't mind that i give last year's message a sibling LOL, with what i am about to say to you now!!!! (⁄ ⁄>⁄ω⁄<⁄ ⁄) 

dearest manu mousie, manu the great, my manumimii!

where do i even begin with youuuu ;w; /pos!!!!! maybe i can start with how much i love (and also fear /lh, because you are truly so... omniscient lol!) how perceptive you are... the way you make people feel seen (exhibit a, the contents of this ask asdfghjkl) and look so deep into their hearts... i think you are incredibly excellent at analysing people and charaters /POS and i feel like this is very evident in your fics and character studies!!!!! it is due in large part to your introspection which is another thing i love about you :D and why i think i find a great deal of comfort in you 🥺 because i am always especially drawn to these kinds of people!! people who you don't need to wear a mask around because they will be able to see through you anyway... it's very soothing in a sense to know that you are like this 🥺💗 and it only inspires me to be more perceptive too!! i hope i can be as caring and kind as manu is some day, heheh (๑•̀ᴗ•́๑)  💗

which brings me to my next point—i love all the ways in which you are quietly kind and looking out for your friends—again, as evidenced by this ask, wah... BUT ALSO!!! in how you do other things for them! 🥺 little blurbs in their mailbox (i revisit that xiangli one you wrote me not so long ago) or even drawings!!! perhaps i don't ship with haitham anymore, but the doodle you gifted me last year has always been a widget on my phone :3 and it will continue to be!!! that was the very first time anyone had ever drawn me something just out of the goodness of their heart, let alone gifted me anything of the sort!!!! 🥺🥺 so it is something i hold really really close. it makes me smile SO BIG!! and kick my feet all excitedly to see you do that for your other friends here too HEHE—when i look at femi's pfp... vana's pinned... i am reminded of just how big and bursting with love that your heart is 🥺💗

i love how much you have grown on here over the past year. ⭐️ in terms of your writing—which has been such a pleasure to witness over time how you've grown into a style that is so distinctly manu!! 🥺🥺 because like! 🥺 i remember so distinctly a certain post you made last year about wanting to improve your writing and your vocabulary and finding your 'own writing voice' 🥺 look at you now!!! with your lush descriptions and rich prose and dynamic characterisation, IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!!!! AND PROUD!!! and i hope you too, are proud of yourself friend 🥹💖 even aside from your writing, i'm so glad that you have grown more comfortable here in sharing more personal posts about yourself hehe AND OF COURSE YOUR SELFSHIPS!!!!!!!!!! :3 i am also very glad about how you have lots and lots of friends on here now!!! that all love and cherish and uplift and reassure you in the way you deserve to be 🥺

i'm just really happy you are here with us, babie. i hope you won't take it the wrong way when i say this, but i really do believe that you are so much stronger, kinder, and easy to love than you think yourself to be! 🥺🥺 i hope that you can continue to work on being less hard on yourself, and i hope that all your friends here can help with that in any way you'll let us!! i hope you will continue to share more of your heart with us here and let us cradle it and soothe it when you need it. i hope your studies will treat you as kindly as they can, and that you will succeed in them :3 i hope you know that all you need to do is try your best!! you have a beautiful brain and a tender, loving heart—so i am sure in due time that all the good karma will be returned to you 🥺💗 making you a steaming cup of pink chai with a dollop of condensed milk in it, and gently rubbing your hands in mine to warm them up 🥰 we love you so much manu, not just for all that you do for us, but for just simply existing as you are, and letting us bask in the warm light you radiate 💖💖💖

[paceypeternathanslawyer]

I don't feel like people call JJ out for the mistakes he makes as much as they should. People say that everyone was such a bad friend to JJ in S4 but friendship is a two way road. What did you expect them to do? Ignore their lives and only pay attention to JJ? Did you expect them to wrap him up in a blanket, coddle him and act like everything he does is fine because he's got a shitty father? I'm not saying that they were always the best friends but neither was JJ. JJ betting the last of their money and then blaming everyone but himself was a bad friend move. Again friendship is a two way street and you can't expect everyone to be perfect friends if you don't treat them in the same way.

Like I think the way he talked to John B after he found out that John B was gonna be a Dad was truly terrible. JJ knows that John B's fears is that he will become like his father and instead of encouraging John B... he puts him down. And I'm not saying that John B can never be called out but this is different. It would be different if John B was acting like his father and JJ called him out for it. That could be construed as encouragement. JJ is just being a mean drunk in that scene. He finds that his bro is gonna be a Dad and instead of being nice and encouraging he tries to make him feel as bad as he feels. And I'm not saying that John B is always perfect but as John B's lawyer I must defend him. John B does not get enough slack. Had it been John B saying that shit to JJ ya'll would have absolutely crucified him. As is John B is given such a hard time by fans. Chase Stokes is also a really underrated actor. The emotion he is able to put even in the smallest lines or scenes is insanely good. And then he also slays the big dramatic scenes like when Sarah almost dies for instance.

JJ is generally a ride or die friend and I don't believe he would have said those things if he weren't drunk as a skunk. But it bothers me that he would have even thought that because John B is gonna be an exceptional Dad and it makes me sad that JJ may have made him doubt himself for even a second. I feel like JJ can be a mean drunk at times. Pope is like a funny and sweet drunk. For instance that scene in 4x03 where they're all partying and drunk and Pope astutely realizes that John B is insecure and he makes a point of encouraging and telling him that he won't be like his Dad. JJ is very ride or die but Pope is an underrated friend. The way he can be such an emotional rock for his friends. And then also the scene when he finds out that Sarah is pregnant. Pope does point out how ill equipped they are right now (because they're broke and stuff) but he also says it's fine "because they will help them". Now that is an encouraging way to respond.

[t-u-i-t-c]

sometimes think about how incorrect people were about michinaga and i know critical thinking was not a factor in their analysis

[laniidae-passerine]

I’m finding that the laziest moments of Doctor Who’s writing are the ‘retroactive twists’ - when the show runner reveals something happened way back over there, in the past, before they were even running the show. And we swear it happened, way over there, far back, and you didn’t see it because of reasons but it’s definitely been happening! And it totally makes sense and I absolutely didn’t just pull it out my ass to justify my paper thin plotline! All this kind of writing does is make me miss self contained season length plots. We’ve had people complaining that Moffat was guilty of the “this thing is big and scary and it’s going to happen, oh god it’s showing up, we’re going to discover what it truly is….. next season!!!!!!” plotline (and yes. he was. twelve is my fav doctor but yeah Moffat loved a mysterious horse and a big stick) but now suddenly when RTD gets out his own mysterious horse and a big stick, it’s got to be genius! everything is eventually going to make sense! and we’re absolutely not being had by a man who used to be able to write this show and is now a hack!

[acaciapines]

guys what if i told you ive been thinking about dess and actually i think dess/chara might be able to work out in the drkau...like ive been doing some thinking into dess and her reasons and why she does what she does and how she cares about people and im starting to nail down the role i want asriel to play, and. and.

guys i think dess is actually going to be able to change. i think dess figures out how to change but asriel never does....

[sysig]

idontwannabeyouanymore (Patreon)

[defectzim]

TaTr is real and good. <- have a whole story in its head that would NOT fucking happen in canon.

[dravidssideblog]

In Furaffinity's kink writing community I provide two essential services: I show a word count for all my stories, and I write stories with less than 5k words

[july-19th-club]

one thing about getting sick for me is that before covid (the first time) my colds and flus and whatnot all went in a very specific pattern: i would get a sore throat for a day or two, then violently congested for three or four days, then a runny nose/drainage for three or four days after that, and finally a cough, which was my favorite part of the cold (if a person can be said to have a favorite part of a cold) because it meant it was almost over AND that the problem was largely not in my face and neck anymore. but any illness i've had since that first covid has been all over the map - either i don't get the sore throat at all, just straight into the congestion, or the sore throat happens at a different time, or longer, or worse, or i have to spit a lot because otherwise i get so nauseous from sinus drainage that i throw up, or the congestion and the runny nose happen concurrently with not just each other but ALSO the sore throat (which is what's happening right now and i hate it) and like. because it doesn't follow the pattern i spent twenty-six years of my life getting used to, i'm always freaked out. which i would be anyway because ever since i had the first covid getting sick freaks me out. and it should freak more people out if im being honest. but this is a weird one bc like. i dont know how it did that but it disrupted MY trusty sick pattern

[avpdgirlfriend]

i feel bad that i constantly defend my actions idk lke . maybe i really am always the one in the wrong . and i can admit a lot of the things i do are bad and i shouldnt but no one ever gives me grace for anything im always immediately assumed to be acting maliciously and demonized and no one else defends me or considers how i feel so of course i have to defend myself. but i dont know if im just excusing my actions at this point . i dont want to do that