When Flames Go Dark [A Leo Valdez Fanfiction]

Chapter 1

Festus circled Camp Half Blood before they landed.

Nico quickly started giving out queue numbers for Slapping Leo Session 1.

"Aye Leo, good to see you back! We got your scroll! Where's Calypso though?" Percy's face was lit up with the excitement of being able to see his old friend again. His smile faded once he noticed Leo's silence.

"Oh gods... no..."

"She's gone." Leo confirmed. "The gods told us her that the curse wasn't lifted, and then they... she..." Leo choked up. He willed himself not to cry. Nico stopped giving out numbers and the campers silently handed the slips back.

"Oh my gods... Leo... I'm so sorry..." Annabeth's expression was sorrowful.

The line disassembled. Everyone had gathered around them, and each one of them offered Leo their condolences.

News travelled fast, and soon enough everyone knew that Leo had lost his loved one. Hazel received an Iris message from Annabeth about this tragedy, and travelled from Camp Jupiter to give him solace, bringing messages from Reyna and Frank as well.

They all gave him his space, and the crowd soon thinned out until only his close friends remained to comfort him. Before long, night fell.

Leo, after heading back to his cabin with his cabin mates, fell into a fitful sleep, too exhausted from the day's events to mourn any more that day.

~.~

Leo was back in the forest, near Calypso's makeshift grave. There were footfalls approaching him, and he turned.

It was her.

"Cal?"

She stared at him. The light was gone from her eyes.

Coldly, she said, "It's your fault that I died. You chose the wrong side, and look what you've done. It's killed me."

"No! I'm sorry! I--" Leo reached towards her, but she morphed, her skin darkening, her face maturing.

"Mijo... how could you hurt someone else again..." Leo's mother's expression was one of disappointment.

"Mama..." Leo lunged desperately for his mother, but again she morphed, this time into Gaia. She smiled.

"You made the wrong choice to stand with the gods. Now there's no turning back."

"No!"

Leo woke up in cold sweat. He didn't even notice until a few seconds later that his entire body had been trembling, shaking like a leaf. Trying to calm his wildly palpitating heart, Leo took deep breaths. His skull felt like it was about to split open.

Eventually, Leo managed to shake off the dream, repeatedly telling himself, "It's just a dream. Just a dream." He pushed the contents of the awful dream far, far away from his mind.

~.~

It was only when Leo had done this that he realised that his fellow cabinmate, Jake, had been calling his name for a while now.

"Hey, Leo! Are you okay? You seem out of it. I heard about... What happened to you, and I'm so, so sorry about that. If you ever need any help, I'll be here, okay?" Jake said.

"I don't need any help."

Leo left Jake inside the cabin, slamming the door shut. Outside, he breathed in the cool fresh air, soaking in the still-dim sun rays.

~.~

Leo continued to behave like this for the following week, saying things with a barely hidden jab, acting standoffish, glaring at everyone and generally being grumpy and mean.

To Leo's frustration, no one spoke up about it, all of them wordlessly agreeing to let him off the hook because of the incident.

He stewed even more, and instead of being able to release all the tension and anger with a good ol' fight or argument (no one wants to pick a fight with someone who'd been through a bad time), the bad feelings were kept bottled in, boiling and growing.

Sometimes he would sneak into a deserted part of the forest with spare clothes and burst into flames from all the pent up rage, before the tree naiads complain and he shut off the flames. When he finished this almost-daily activity, he felt empty and drained of all feeling, until depression took over and he avoided everyone.

Leo knew all his friends were worried about him. It wasn't just the fact that all of them were always inviting him out to do something, from having a picnic to playing a sport.

It was also from the concerned glances they all kept on shooting him, the offers of lending a shoulder to cry on or an ear.

"Hey, Repair Boy! Wanna go play some basketball?" Percy asked as he jogged up to him.

Speak of the devils and one of them shall appear. Leo cursed his bad luck and heaved a sigh.

"I'll pass, Jackson. Can't be bothered to play with you." Leo dismissed him coldly before rising from where he'd been sitting on one of the benches.

He walked away, blowing off Percy's call of "Next time!".

Later, as he was taking a walk around the camp, avoiding anyone who tried to talk to him, he stumbled across the basketball court.

Forgetting that Percy was probably in there, he entered the court, wanting to be alone and hoping that it will be empty.

Alas, Percy and Jason were occupying the court, taking turns to shoot and defend. They heard his footsteps and turned around to see Leo storming out.

~.~

"Bro... Leo's been kinda moody lately." Jason remarked, passing the ball to Percy.

"No shit, Grace." Percy shot, and the ball fell straight through the hoop. Jason caught it. "He probably just needs his time and space for now. I'd be pretty dam mad if Wise Girl was killed by the gods."

"Yeah man, I know... It's just that he's my best friend. And well... I've never seen him like this. He's not even making stupid jokes any more. Leo... isn't Leo without the stupid." Jason's eyebrows were creased.

"It offsets me. And makes me really really uneasy." He dribbled before throwing the ball, but it bounced off the rim. "Gah. I can't even shoot properly now."

Percy frowned, sympathetic to Jason's plight. He stayed silent for a while. When he shot the ball in the direction of the hoop, the ball ricocheted off the backboard and into Jason's waiting hands. Percy let out a sigh.

"This is starting to affect my game too. You wanna stop?" Percy asked, and Jason hummed. They sat down against the wall.

"I can't understand what you're going through right now, but I'm gonna try to tell you what I see. Leo... It doesn't feel like his personality is ever going to revert back to his bubbly self."

"In fact, I feel like he's never going to go back to being Leo again. That this is just the new Leo, the bitter and grumpy one. Everyone else is so hell-bent on trying to get him to become himself again, but I think Calypso's death... It might have ruined him. Forever. It was like Nico's case - once Bianca left... BOOM... that happy energetic kid who loved Mythomagic died... It took him a year before he opened up again... but he was never the same as before." Percy finally spoke up, his expression dead serious.

Jason soaked in Percy's words. He didn't like it, but... "Maybe you're right. Maybe Leo is going to be like this forever. But that doesn't mean we can't try to get him to see the brighter side, right? After all, we've all lived with sacrifices and dark things. We can just be supportive."

Frowning, Percy got up, dusted himself off, and said he was going to see Annabeth. Jason waved goodbye, staring at Percy's figure until he was too small to be seen, lost in his own thoughts.