soulmates ⋮ heroes of olympus au

six.

"I'd give it another couple of days. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with the car, but once I do the repair should be pretty simple."

Calypso frowned, and Leo found himself wishing could fix the car in an instant. When she noticed the guilty expression on his face, Calypso felt worse about her disappointment. "Don't worry about it too much!" She said with a good-natured grin. "Despite thinking otherwise, my dad's horrible with cars and he's even worse with explaining things to other people."

Leo breathed a sigh of relief and felt himself relax. "That sounds about right. His explanation really frustrated the owner Burt. I'm pretty sure that's why he assigned me to do the repair."

A small laugh escaping her lips, Calypso then said, "Thanks for the update anyways. I'll see you in Physics tomorrow, Repair Boy."

Leo probably should've been focusing on the fact that the two shared a class together and he hadn't noticed in the slightest, but the only thing going through his mind was the last part of Calypso's sentence. "I have a name, you know," He teased.

"I know who you are," Calypso replied with a grin as she turned around and began to walk out the shop. "I think you're on fire, by the way."

Looking down, Leo noticed that his sleeve was in fact on fire. Cursing, Leo patted out the small flame until it was no more. "That happens a lot. Never really know why."

Calypso had stopped at this point, and now had turned her head so she was looking at Leo once more. "Interesting," She eventually said, her amusement evident in her smile. "I'll see you tomorrow, Repair Boy."

Holy. Shit.

☼

"Boys," Leo began the following morning when all his friends had arrived at school, leaning his back against Percy's closed locker. "I think I'm in love."

Jason groaned as he pulled his textbook out of his locker next to Percy's, asking, "Again? Seriously? You've 'been in love' with at least ten girls since the start of high school."

He wasn't entirely wrong. Leo had always been the one to fall fast and hard, fully believing in the idea of love at first sight. Unfortunately, it usually ended in one of two ways. One, he lost the crush just as fast, which was the thing that happened more often. Two, the one that was fortunately more rare, Leo would get rejected and he'd have his heart broken.

Shrugging his shoulders in a nonchalant sort of way, Leo's grin remained despite Jason's doubt. "What can I say? I am a man of romance."

"I swear, the day you actually meet your soulmate you won't actually fall in love with her at first sight," Frank replied, chuckling in amusement over the situation.

"Or him?" Percy offered. "We support you either way."

"Percy, I'm not gay."

Percy shrugged as he pushed Leo off his locker before opening it. "We'd still support you."

"Life out of the closet is pretty great," Nico teased, a sly grin crossing his features as he nudged his shoulder with Leo's. "Very liberating, if I do say so myself."

"I'm not gay, you guys!" Leo exclaimed, earning a few stares from people passing by in the hallways. His friends began to laugh loudly, finding Leo embarrassing himself like that in front of other students pretty entertaining. Lowering his voice, Leo continued on. "Her name's Calypso, I met her yesterday, and she's absolutely amazing."

"Is she in any of your classes?" Percy asked. He didn't seem entirely focused on the conversation though, instead staring at Annabeth, who was passing by in the hallway. Leo didn't point it out, however, because he knew from experience how embarrassing it could be to be teased by a girl.

Next time Leo saw it happened, however, it was fair game.

"She's in my Physics class, but I hadn't really had a full conversation with her until I was working in the workshop yesterday. I accidentally rammed into her legs as I was sliding out from under the car."

Jason coughed in a fake sort of way that suspiciously sounded like he was saying "Idiot."

"I heard that!" Leo glared. "It's not like you can say anything about acting stupid in front of girls. You do it all the time."

"Hey! This isn't time to talk about my many embarrassments in front of Piper," Jason argued, the tips of his ears turning a bright shade of red when he noticed Piper pass him in the hallways and go into the nearby Physics classroom. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice the conversation, much to Jason's relief.

"Also, it's not like Leo doesn't embarrass himself enough as it is," Nico chimed in. "It's a pretty normal thing at this point."

"You know what? You guys are rude, and I'm leaving now."

Turning on his heel, Leo was just about to walk away from his laughing friends when he crashed into someone, causing both of their books to come crashing to the floor. "Shit, I'm so sorry," Leo apologized frantically, leaning down to pick his textbooks off the ground.

"Don't worry about it. It's not the first time this has happened to us, right Repair Boy?"

Leo looked up, wanting nothing more than to die in that moment. Behind him, he could hear his friends fighting back laughter, and Leo hoped Calypso wouldn't notice it too much. "Can you call me by my actual name for once?"

"Not a chance. It could be worse. I could just straight up just call you a klutz."

"Repair Boy is good!" Leo blurted out, earning a small giggle out of Calypso. "Repair Boy is just fine."

"Well, I'm glad that's settled," Calypso stood up and shot Leo another one of her stunning smiles. "See you in class!"

Leo couldn't help but stare at her as she walked away into the nearby Physics classroom, trying his best to ignore how loudly his friends were laughing now. Once Calypso was out of sight, Leo turned around and shot his friend a glare. "Don't even start."

Frank held his hands up defensively, still shaking with suppressed laughter. "Wasn't even going to."

The conversation thankfully turned to the upcoming swim team tryouts, which led to all of the boy teasing a nervous Percy, calling him a fish in the water – or Leo's personal favorite nickname, Ariel – and saying he had nothing to worry about.

But while all of this was happening, Leo's mind couldn't help but think back to Calypso. And while he had really only shared a few small moments with her, Leo had the strange feeling that his crush on Calypso was going to stick around for a lot longer than just a few days.

☼

a/n:

so sorry about how long this took!! the holidays threw off my updating schedule big time.