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scattered-winter · 1 year

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ok winter...it's my turn now: jaykyle. i am intrigued, and i'd like to know as much as is feasible to tell me. (it's killing me to send something this open-ended but i feel like i don't actually know enough about them to be more specific.)

TEEHEE <3333 SOOOO GLAD YOU ASKED BECAUSE I CARE THEM <33

jaykyle is a ship between two of my favorite dc characters, jason todd and kyle rayner. they're both sooo fascinating on their own AND as a pairing and I just <3333 this is gonna get long because 1) they both have very long and complicated stories that's gonna take a bit to unpack and 2) I love them <33 and I love to talk about them <333 a bit of forewarning, but comics storylines are RIDICULOUSLY complicated and pretty much every single character has more origins, timelines, and personalities than you can shake a stick at. in the comics fandom we take marie kondo's words to heart because if we tried to stick to What Canon Says, we would be running in circles all day because everything contradicts itself. everything is canon and nothing is canon and if it doesn't spark joy, it isn't true <3 I'll explain everything to the best of my ability but it's gonna get Real Complicated Real Fast

tw for death (child and otherwise)

jason todd (playlist) is part of the batfam (group of vigilantes associated with batman) and he's also part of the wayne family (by adoption). I looked everywhere for the panels to show how he was introduced because it's objectively the funniest way to introduce any character but alas, they have eluded me so I'll just tell you: he grew up in the poorer parts of gotham city with his parents, catherine and willis todd. willis got caught up in two-face's gang (because gotham city as a whole has a trend of eating its people alive/forcing them to do crime because they're desperate and have no choice etc etc) and ended up getting killed because of it, and catherine died of an illness, leaving jason to fend for himself on the streets.* he is brought into the story by jacking the tires off the BATMOBILE, and getting caught by batman himself. in response to this he hits batman with a tire iron, calls him a big boob, and runs away (and in the process making bruce laugh out loud in the same place his parents died which makes me SOO OUGHOUGHOUGHOUGH)

*catherine and willis both loved jason very much, but recent comics have portrayed willis as abusive/catherine as neglectful, which doesn't spark joy for me personally so I tend to ignore those ones and stick to the others where they were genuinely loving parents who fell on hard times.

the original robin, dick grayson, recently moved on from the mantle and went to live somewhere else,* so bruce adopted jason and started training him as the new robin. he was a very bright, very loving boy who enthusiastically went to school and read books and loved bruce so so much and bruce loved him because that was his KID.**

*I can't remember if he went to live with the titans or went to gotham's sister city, bludhaven; but in any case he ends up in bludhaven eventually and operates there as nightwing

**In more recent comics, jason's robin days are portrayed as him being brash and violent (new drinking game: take a shot every time a comic describes robin jason as "angry" or "reckless" smfh) and of course while being a vigilante involves violence, and being a well-rounded character, jason did indeed have moments of anger, I strongly dislike this way of thinking because it takes so much away from his character and you'll see what I mean by that in a minute.

however, the happy days weren't gonna last. jason discovered that catherine todd wasn't his biological mother, and he had found some evidence pointing to who his birth mother was. (I think it was a birth certificate that was partially damaged so he couldn't see the whole name but it's been a while since I've read the comic where that happens so don't quote me on that) but regardless of how he found out, jason set out to find his real mother. he'd narrowed down the list of possible mothers to a few different women, so he found them each in turn and ruled them out as he went. he ran away from home to go on his little self-discovery mission, and the only reason bruce didn't go after him was because the joker had a big scheme with a nuclear missile that kinda took precedence. but by pure happenstance, they ran into each other and decided to work together for both their goals (stopping joker AND finding jason's mom). eventually jason and bruce narrowed the list down to one woman: sheila haywood. they travelled to ethiopia to find her, and jason actually did, but moments after meeting her, sheila betrayed him and handed him over to the joker, who proceeded to beat jason within an inch of his life with a crowbar while sheila watched.

(batman: a death in the family)

he then tied up sheila and left them both to die in the warehouse because he rigged it with a bomb. jason, despite being betrayed by her literally minutes before, stopped to untie her to get her out instead of saving himself. but the bomb went off with them both inside, just in time for batman (who had been frantically rushing to the warehouse as soon as he heard that jason had been captured) to see the explosion <3

(batman: a death in the family)

and the thing that REALLY fucks me up is that even after everything she did to him, jason still used himself as a human shield to try and protect sheila. these two panels have literally caused me lasting damage

(batman: a death in the family)

this is also why the narrative of jason being reckless makes me so angry. he didn't die because he was a reckless idiot who rushed into danger without a thought, he died because he tried to save a woman who nearly got him killed. he died shielding her with his own body even though she betrayed him literally a few minutes earlier. some comic writers have rewritten the scene to take out sheila entirely, but that takes away a huge part of the story!!!! jason didn't die because he was reckless!! he died because he was trying to save someone!!!! I will literally fight people on that to my grave smh

bruce brought jason's body back to gotham and buried him, and was never really the same after that (but that's a topic for another ramble because this is about THE BOY <3)

this is where things get a little trippy <3 first thing you gotta know about comic books is that death is RARELY permanent. the exact details are lost on me since I tend to avoid the big crisis events (and the headache they give me) but basically superboy-prime punches the fabric of the universe and kinda .. breaks some things. and jason wakes up in his coffin (slightly zombified), six feet underground. after clawing his way out of his own fucking grave, jason gets hit by a fucking CAR and is then taken in by talia al ghul (one of bruce's past lovers, daughter of ra's al ghul [leader of the league of assassins]). talia put jason in something called a lazarus pit, which is basically a pool of green bubbly goo that can resurrect someone (ra's al ghul is hundreds of years old and keeps himself alive with the pits). jason came fully back to life and stayed with talia for a time, during which he travelled the world to be trained by some of the best/most notorious fighters and assassins all over the globe. at this point, he'd been dead for quite a while (a year AT LEAST) and so when he finds out that the joker is still fucking ALIVE, it's .... a shock, to say the least. it's a very complicated issue because batman's deepest-rooted rule is to Never Kill, and there were a lot of underlying circumstances preventing him from killing the joker right after jason's death (despite really, really wanting to) but the thing is. the joker just keeps killing and hurting people, and he gets put in arkham asylum, and escapes and kills more people, then gets put in arkham again, and it's just a vicious cycle where the joker just keeps hurting more and more people. and like. jason got murdered by the joker and the guy is still fucking alive and murdering more people. so he heads off to gotham with a huge plan to confront bruce and make him choose once and for all: kill the joker, or let jason die. this whole arc is my very favorite comic book of all time, batman: under the red hood <333 basically jason becomes a crime boss called red hood (which was the joker's old alias before he became...well, the joker) and plots CIRCLES around bruce, joker, and the other crime bosses. they're literally his pawns the entire time <3 but this all comes to a head when jason traps batman, the joker, and himself in a room where he finally reveals his identity to batman and gives him an ultimatum: kill the joker, or kill him. he had the whole place rigged with explosives so that no matter what bruce chose, they would still blow up (as a form of insurance? as a form of suicide? who knows!)

I'd like to point out the obvious and say that jason was NOT in a great state of mind during this whole thing. like. this post highlights it very well imo, but tl:dr jason didn't really...make a plan for after the showdown. it was clear that he had a single goal in mind, which was facing off with bruce and the joker once and for all, and it was also clear how it would end because he knew deep down that bruce would never kill the joker. so he knew he would die going into it but he didn't really care. he did in fact die at the end of under the red hood, since he was originally meant to be a one-off character, but he was so popular that dc sorta erased his death at the end of utrh and established him as a main batfam player.

jason's post-resurrection characterization is REALLY inconsistent, but really at his core, he's deeply traumatized and angry, and his driving motivation is to save gotham in what he deems is the "right" way: killing criminals so that they're no longer a problem. which, considering how many times supervillains break out of arkham and wreak havoc, isn't really that far of a stretch. but because of batman's firm moral stance on killing, the two have a very .... complicated relationship. but regardless jason has one of the coolest designs in the entire batfam in my opinion <3

(batman: three jokers)

(red hood and the outlaws) (I hate this comic for what it did to the other characters but the art was pretty at least)

sometimes he's drawn with a white streak in his hair (a side effect of the lazarus pit) which is one of my FAVORITE looks for him <33 and he's a regular contender for my icon because he's my blorbo bingus blob boy <3333

BUT ANYWAY <333 ON TO KYLE <333

disclaimer: I haven't been reading kyle's comics as long as I have jason's (jason was my gateway character who first got me into comics in the first place so I had a lot more time to really dig into his comics and characterization) and there's a lot of info about each character that's kind of...absorbed over time. because there's so many different stories and comics about each character, it's hard to find everything they appear in, and since I haven't been reading kyle for as long, I don't consider myself an expert on him in any way but I'll do my best to talk about him because he's my favorite green lantern <3

(playlist) in order to explain kyle, first I need to explain hal jordan. he's the Original green lantern (meaning when you think of the dc superhero green lantern, he's probably the one who comes to mind despite there being more lanterns than I can count. he's the most well-known by FAR) but basically, the green lanterns are an intergalactic military/police force led by the guardians (a bunch of really tiny blue guys). they use green power rings that are fueled by willpower, and so only someone with a lot of willpower (specifically, the will to "overcome great fear") can be a green lantern. (there's a ring for every color on the spectrum, but that's another ramble for another day). hal jordan had been losing faith in the lantern corps for a long time, but the last straw was when his hometown, coast city, was destroyed. hal basically went into a massive grief spiral and tried to bring back the entire city and didn't have enough power to do that, so he took on the name parallax and murdered pretty much the entire corps, and most of the guardians to absorb the main green power source to get enough power to Resurrect The City. but one guardian managed to escape to earth, where he found kyle rayner and gave him the last green power ring.

being practically the only green lantern left, kyle had to defeat parallax and restore the corps practically by himself. and the thing about kyle is that he's the GOOFIEST guy on the planet (affectionate). upon finding out that he's now a superhero he proceeds to immediately go tell his ex-girlfriend about it (alex <333) and they have a photoshoot of him in his suit. I fucking love them <333

but alas!!! happy days don't last <3 kyle leaves alex alone for literally only a few minutes to go be a hero, and while he's gone, one of green lantern's biggest enemies breaks into her apartment and murders her. kyle comes back to find her dead body stuffed inside the fridge (fun fact: that's actually where the term "fridging" came from <3) and he proceeds to. torture and almost kill the guy who did it. we love an unhinged icon <3

(green lantern #55)

it's been a while since I've read his origin comic, but kyle eventually defeats parallax. further down the line, he becomes a white lantern (mega-powerful because it has the powers of all the colors in the spectrum, not just green) and in my personal favorite comic, also becomes ion (basically the living embodiment of green lantern power. also basically a god) and tbh it's his BEST look of all time

(ion: guardian of the universe)

like I said, I don't really have as clear of an idea of kyle's timeline since there's a few gaps in my reading, but the essentials is that he literally can't keep a girlfriend because they keep dying, and he continuously gets the power of a literal god and is so humble and heroic about it that it never goes to his head. but he also consistently tortures and kills without really showing any remorse whatsoever <33 he has the range <33

BUT. AT LAST. WE GET TO JAYKYLE. THE THING YOU ASKED ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. there's only ONE comic that I know of where they actually interact on-panel, and that's countdown presents: the search for ray palmer. it's tied in with countdown to final crisis, which is one of the biggest dc events of all time, and I haven't read it and probably never will because the big crises always give me SUCH a headache to try and understand </3 but I HAVE read search for ray palmer because <3 of them <3

essentially it's a story where the atom (ray palmer) gets lost in the multiverse and so 3 people who are already kind of...Outside the Mainstream Timeline embark on a multiverse journey to find him. those 3 people? jason todd, kyle rayner, and donna troy. jason is only alive because the timeline shattered, kyle was literally a time-and-reality-altering god not just once, but multiple times, and donna troy has also died and come back and like. is the only comics character with Self Awareness (remember when I said every comic book character has a gazillion different origins and reboots? donna remembers ALL of them <3) and so all three of them are affectionately referred to as "cosmic mistakes" because. they're literally irregularities in the cosmic timestream. and I love them for it <3

the reason I'm a jaykyle truther is because. they're so fucking funny in that comic. they argue in pretty much every single panel they share, but their internal monologues are....very, very homoeretic.

(kyle, about jason) (countdown: search for ray palmer: wildstorm)

(jason, about kyle) (countdown to final crisis #33)

and honestly, it's about how fucked up they would be together. they would tear each other apart and also tear apart everyone else and it would be a horrible time for everyone involved <3 there are ships for cute cuddles and then there are ships for fucking killing each other and jaykyle is the second one <3333

#i kind of. ran out of steam by the time it came to talk about jaykyle which is. funny. given that it's what you Asked about #but listen. they're so so messed up. it compels me <3 #i wrote a lot of fic for them and tbh i didnt really lean into the fucked up-ness of their relationship as i could have <3 #but like. they do care about each other in their own ways but they're both so headstrong and almost...Too different that it wouldn't last #like. jason is Very repressed. my mans is batman's kid he's learned from the best when it comes to Not Feeling Emotions #and kyle has literally mastered the entire emotional spectrum to the extent that he could wield the white ring.#you have one guy who's ruled by his emotions because he can't express/truly feel them on one end #and you have a guy who's ruled by his emotions because he wears his heart on his sleeve and follows his heart with everything he does #and factor in how they're both so stubborn? and how they're both so damaged and traumatized in their own ways??#they're a disaster <3 #anyway. i lomve them <3 #tysm for asking this literally took me hours to write but it was the BEST few hours of my life #typing with the biggest goofiest look on my face <3 #jaykyle #leo 🌻#jason todd #kyle rayner #fun fact! for a while i was one of the top jaykyle blogs <33 #probably not anymore since my 911 blogging has kinda taken over my dc blogging for the moment #but still. for a while there i was winning <3 #there are also quite a few mutuals of mine who definitely could have explained this better but alas.#very very glad you came to me with this it made my day <3333333

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nepobabyeurydice · 6 months

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Rosas Blancas

Summary:

Rosa Valdez is dying and Leo goes to see her one last time with Calypso there to mediate. It goes better and worse than expected.

Read on Ao3

.x.

“Do you know what you’re going to do?” Calypso asks as they approach the ranch. Her cinnamon hair is pulled into two of those bubble braids that the Aphrodite swore by as fashionable and comfortable, and her mouth is set in grim determination as she gazes at the door like she’s about to fight off her own father. Leo is grateful she came with him, Piper and Jason would’ve been too overprotective and jumpy, Calypso at least could keep herself serene and blank unlike his friends.

“Not a fucking clue,” he admits as he climbs the steps, his boots make noise on the porch, and suddenly he feels nostalgic remembering the dances they used to have on this porch when the night grew dark and the only light was that of the porch. His hand hovered over the door, already in a fist to knock it, but Leo couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

His hand shook, and he put it down slowly, taking one breath, and then another. Calypso lays a supporting hand on his shoulder and knocks on the door for him. He shoots her a grateful look and tries not to tremble as the door opens.

“Esperanzita’s boy,” Tio Concho grunts, reaching out a hand to ruffle Leo’s hair as Leo blinks back tears and Calypso places a hand between them.

“Hello,” Calypso greets serenely, “I’m Leo’s foster sister, Calypso Atlasides, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Tio Concho eyes her, his huge mustache quivers in thought, and even that’s nostalgic to Leo. “You’re whiter than you sounded over the phone.”

Leo doesn’t even twitch, he had heard worse from other kids at school and from his own family after the funeral. He still intervenes before Calypso can get outraged. “Tio, it’s nice to see you. Where’s Elena and Carlos?”

Tio Concho sobers. “Out back with your abuela. Come, I’ll take you.”

He gestures for them to enter, and they follow, Leo doesn’t dare pull out any pipe cleaners or rubber bands to fiddle with. The ranch house was meant for twelve children to each have their own room and play. Out of all of them, Leo’s Abuela Ximena had inherited the ranch in lieu of her brother Kevin and thus, Tia Rosa and his Mama as her only children were meant to inherit the ranch. Now it’d probably fall onto either Elena or Carlos to take care of Visabuelo’s Sammy’s ranch. Leo stops, feeling a smile tug at his lips, at least he finally knows now why Abuela Ximena’s middle name was Hazel. He wonders how she’d react if she met her namesake and decides it’s not best to test it, she’d have a stroke.

Leo and Calypso walk into the backyard deck and his breath hitches at the sight of his family. Elena as is always perfectly put together the same way she had always been since she was ten and lorded her two years over Leo. Her glossy black hair had been cut short sometime between then and now, but she still looked the same. Carlos had a beard now which made Leo feel frozen in time, he was a year and five younger than Carlos, yet Carlos clearly had his life even more put together than Leo had ever even in Camp Half-Blood.

He tries for a winning smile, shoving the little Molotov cocktail of anger into the pit of his stomach. “Primos! Como les va?

Elena smiles and embraces him, she’s as scrawny as he is. “Leonidas,” she says, and cups his face in her hands, she frowns seeing the cut he has on his cheeks from the shrapnel coming off the Argo II. “It’s so good to see you. And who is this?”

“This,” he says, motioning towards Calypso, “is my foster sister, Calypso Atlasides. She came with me since Nyssa wouldn’t let me come alone.”

Nyssa had tried to convince him to stay at the camp until she could tell Jason and Piper who were in Rome and Oklahoma respectively for June, but Leo had argued that Calypso was more than fit to take him and that they'd go to California after for her to speak with Atlas. She had given in although not before sending a message to one of their siblings in Camp Jupiter to be on stand-by to pick Leo up.

He loves Nyssa, he really does, but she feels like his mom sometimes instead of his slightly older sister.

“A pleasure,” Elena says, offering her hand to Calypso, who daintily shakes it. “Where have you been, Leo?”

Leo shrugs, trying to seem affable despite wearing the nicest clothes he had in his closet at Camp which had been a gift for Piper last Christmas. “Texas mostly, last year though they found me a place in New York that’s more my style and that’s my permanent home, apparently. Our foster dad, Chiron, runs this summer camp, so we get to socialize with a ton of people.”

“Summer camp?” Elena asks, curiously. She looks over Leo’s shoulder and gives a small shake of her head, probably to Carlos. “Is it like the movies with canoeing and zip-lining?”

“Yes and no,” Calypso intervened smoothly. “We do canoe races, but we also do metalwork, architecture and have historical projects like building replicas of Greek triremes. A lot of rich people like sending their children away during prime tour season, and they make their way to us.”

Elena’s eyes widen, her smile becomes more real, and Leo feels grateful that he can still read her easily. He glances back to Carlos, who’s speaking with Abuela. Abuela isn’t looking at Leo but instead out into the plains, and Leo’s heart sinks. She still blamed him for his mother’s death then.

Elena follows Leo’s gaze and her excitement dies down. She motions for them to follow and Leo tries not to throw up as they approach his grandmother, somehow he didn’t think that she’d appreciate that.

Leo stops, just in front of Carlos, who shakes his hand but says nothing else. Abuela doesn’t speak, she never makes the first move.

“Abuela Ximena,” Leo says, trying to sound dutiful and respectful instead of sad and resentful. “It’s nice to see you.”

Abuela Ximena sighs, turning to look at Leo, and he’s struck by how much she and he look like Sammy Valdez. The same impish face, eyes and sardonic twist to their lips. Leo’s face was a bit uglier due to his father’s nose and his too big ears, but beyond that he and Abuela shared an uncanny resemblance.

“Leonidas, they said you ran away twenty times, I’m surprised you're still alive.”

“Tia Callida made me tenacious.” Leo replies without missing a beat and to his surprise everyone in the room flinches. Abuela Ximena guiltily adverts her eyes, and Carlos and Elena share a look.

“Callida is dead.” Abuela says she sounds sad.

“I know,” Leo lies, “she had a letter sent to me after her death.” If he never had to see Hera again, it’d be too soon.

Abuela nods, straightens up and Leo unconsciously straightens up with her, ready to steady her like he did when he was a child. He hates himself for it. They had abandoned him, told him he killed his mother and left a nine-year-old to duke it out with the foster care system, and he still wants their approval.

“Calypso, was it? Come here, child.” Abuela says, and Calypso stands in front of his grandmother, probably using her magic to peer into her soul or something. “Tell me, do you know what Leonidas did?”

No, Leo thinks, dread trickling down his spine. No, no, no, it’s been nine years.

“Of course,” Calypso says unflinchingly. “He survived when your daughter did not, I’d think you should be more grateful a piece of your supposedly beloved daughter lived instead of despising it, but then again we’re all entitled to our own opinions.”

The deck goes silent. One beat, then two. Abuela turns red in embarrassment and fury, and Calypso is unmoved. Leo remembers with some amusement that Apollo and Hephaestus had been one of her few regular visitors to her island, and she’d likely thrown even more acidic quips in her direction.

“What do you know about that?” Abuela demands.

“My father tried to kill me, and my siblings locked me in a manor for ten years until Leo finally broke into said manor and helped me escape.” Calypso replies, going with the official ‘rich family with dark secrets’ story she and Chiron had concocted while creating her identity. The sad part was if you replaced the manor with an island and ten years for two millennia she had changed basically nothing, and it was perfectly believable. “In that time I’ve learned one of my sisters is dead, the other two are in jail and my brothers are missing. It has not been an easy adjustment.”

Everyone is silent for a moment. Then, Elena speaks. “Is this why you're a foster kid?”

Calypso nods. More silence.

Leo sighs and decides to be the peacekeeper for once in his life. “What do the doctors say? About Tia Rosa?”

The mood plummets even further.

.x.

Tia Rosa looks old as Leo waits for her to wake up. Calypso sits on the other side of the room towards the windows and stares out of them. But Leo can’t pull his eyes from her pale face.

She looks so much like his mother it hurts.

Leo drums his knees with his fingers and tries to think of what he should say to the woman who ruined his life.

Hey guess what, I didn’t kill Mom and I hunted down her murderer and burned her alive and killed myself in the process? They’d send the cops after him, again. Leo licks his lips and tries not to bolt from the room, instead finally pulling out his pipe cleaners and twisting and twisting and twisting, until they resembled the knot in Leo’s stomach that consumed him whole.

“Esperanza,” Tia Rosa breathes out, and Leo freezes. “Your boy is here, Esperanza, will you forgive me now?”

Leo can’t speak. Tears prickle in his eyes, and he isn’t strong enough to do this. He moves to stand up and feels a weight on his left leg. He stares down and finds that a wind spirit is gripping his leg tightly to the chair. He meets Calypso’s gaze from across the room and begs her with his eyes to let him go. She shakes her head and another wind spirit forces him back down into the chair.

“Tia Rosa,” Leo says, and his heart feels numb. “I’m here.”

“You are. See Esperanza, I brought him back, after all he did I brought him back. Can’t you forgive me now?”

“Tia,” Leo hesitates and takes her hand. He’s overwhelmed for a moment with the urge to burn it, but the moment passes and all he feels is sick. “Tia, do you need something from me?”

Tia Rosa’s eyes focus on Leo, hazel like his mother’s and Leo nearly vomits at the sight of them. She always looked too much like his mother for his memories to be comfortable being blameless.

“The ranch,” she slurs out, she pushes herself up and Leo helps her. Leo always helps her. “It’s yours.”

“Tia, that doesn’t make any sense—”

“It was supposed to be Esperanza’s, now it’s yours. Elena is too in love with the stars to take care of the horses, Carlos is too young to think of such things. You are a practical little boy, Leo, like Esperanza, like Papa, the ranch will be yours like she wanted.” Tia Rosa says. Her eyes are like flint and stern, the same way they were when she described him as his mother’s killer.

Her eyes wander the room and land on Calypso. “You're from my dream.” she mumbles. “Leo on that dragon and you behind him as you wandered lost.”

Leo looks at Calypso hopelessly, and tries to process everything. The ranch, Sammy’s ranch, was going to him? No, Abuela would not have it, Tio Concho would not have it. Leo couldn’t take care of it, not even if—

Esperanza’s Repair Shop and Ranch, a little voice in his head whispers. Hazel could come and pick up horses for Camp Jupiter, Jason could drink out on the porch, Piper could sing the new Cherokee lullabies she was learning from her cousins in Oklahoma. Nyssa and Harley could come help out with the rest of his siblings. Calypso could pop in for special offers of food and drink for the regulars. Festus could live in the four acres of land that they owned instead of the monster infested woods of CHB.

That dream is poison, he reminds himself. That dream is poison, that dream is poison, that dream is poison.

Then why is it so sweet?

Leo swallows the hope rising in his chest and instead lets go of Tia Rosa’s hand. “I hope you get better,” he lies. “Bye, Tia.”

“Hasta el final y hacia delante, Leo.” Tia Rosa says, her gaze focusing on Leo. “May Esperanza forgive both of us.”

Leo swallows the lump in his throat and nods. Calypso lets the wind spirits off him and they both stand. Calypso exits first and Leo bows his head in some semblance of respect to the dying.

“Que Dios te bendiga, Rosa.” Leo says. He takes Calypso’s hand and they exit the room.

They wait outside the door. Leo looks at her, she looks at Leo.

“California?” Leo asks, already pulling out a drachma.

“California.” Calypso agrees, a rainbow forming in front of them.

Leo smiles, giddy and maybe a little freely. He left Elena and Carlos his number for Camp, Abuela Ximena had refused to speak to him and Tio Concho was probably helping on the farm. Leo had finally had the chance to clear the fucking air and nothing, not even the gods themselves would keep him from achieving his dreams now that he had.

They walk out of the hospital, already planning their trip back to New York.

#heroes of olympus #leo valdez #calypso #my writing #🌻.fic #queue for the queue god

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