Chapter Text
It was a dark and stormy night...Jk I'm not gonna do that bs
It was a beautiful sunny day. Camp Half-blood was booming with the usual clamor. The Ares kids yelling at each other, The Hypnos kids sleeping on the ground...just the same boring day. Then THEY appeared. A hot new demigod has entered the picture. They got along at first but then they kinda....drifted apart...they never even said their names. maybe it was for the better. Leo didn't deserve love. Why should he get it?
Leo went to the strawberry fields and then saw that person. This time with a tank top. Zooweemama they were hot in a tank top.
The first thing Leo noticed about the new kid was the grapevine tattoo curling up their forearm—freshly inked, still red at the edges. Camp Half-Blood’s newest demigod sat cross-legged under the strawberry fields’ shade, plucking grapes off a vine they’d conjured out of thin air like it was nothing. Like they hadn’t just rolled into camp two days ago trailing the scent of cranberry sprite and unresolved anger.
Leo squinted. "So, uh. You just… grow snacks now?"
The new demigod flicked a grape into their mouth without looking up. "Better than burning everything you touch."
Leo's fingers twitched against his toolbelt. He should've known word about his fire-starting tendencies had spread. "Hey, at least I don't reek like a iPad kid."
That got their attention. Dark eyes—unnervingly pupil-less, like they have no love—locked onto him as another grape vine sprouted from the dirt between them. "You wanna say that again, FireBoy?"
A bead of sweat rolled down Leo's temple that had nothing to do with the summer heat. He'd seen what happened yesterday when the Ares kids tried to swipe Dionysus' kid's stash—how the grapevines had twisted around their ankles like living shackles until they'd apologized through mouthfuls of forcibly-fed fruit.
Leo's fingers twitched toward the gadgets in his toolbelt—half instinct, half nervous habit—but he forced himself to grin instead. "Hey, no need to get vine-y about it. Just saying, between the two of us, I think I'm winning the 'least likely to ferment someone's juice box' contest."
The new demigod—Dionysus' kid, though they hadn't bothered to share a name yet—snorted. A cluster of grapes swelled fat and purple between their fingers before bursting with a quiet pop. "You'd be surprised what I can do with a juice box."
Somewhere behind Leo, a branch cracked underfoot. He didn't turn, but he caught the scent of strawberries and sweat—probably one of the Demeter kids lurking. The grapevine tattoo on the new demigod's arm twitched, vines shifting like ink was rewriting itself under skin.
"So," Leo plowed on, rocking back on his heels, "you got a name, or should I just call you 'Sour Grapes'?"
The new demigod studied Leo for a long moment, their eyes unreadable. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, they plucked another grape from the vine and popped it into their mouth. The silence stretched just long enough to make Leo’s fingers twitch again—until they finally spoke, their voice dripping with something between amusement and threat. "Call me whatever you want. Won’t change the fact that you’re standing in my sunlight."
Leo blinked, then glanced up at the dappled shade overhead. "Uh. Pretty sure the sun’s everywhere, buddy." He gestured vaguely at the sky. "Big glowing ball? Kinda hard to miss?"
A smirk tugged at the corner of their mouth. "Not for long."
The grapevine tattoo writhed again, and Leo took an instinctive step back—just as the vines overhead twisted violently, weaving into a thick canopy that plunged their little patch of strawberry fields into near-darkness. Leo yelped, fumbling for a flashlight in his toolbelt, but before he could fish it out the demigod was gone. Jesus that person has GOT TO STOP DOING THAT
--the next day--
"You ever notice how no one *actually* dies when we blow stuff up?" Leo tossed a bronze screw into the air, caught it, and flicked it at Percy, who batted it away without looking up from his sword polishing. "I mean, statistically speaking—"
"Statistically," Percy interrupted, "you're about three seconds from me throwing you in the lake."
Leo grinned, rolling onto his back in the grass. The late afternoon sun turned the Camp Half-Blood cabins into golden rectangles, and the smell of strawberries from the fields mixed with the faintest hint of grapes—always grapes, these days. Someone had left a half-empty goblet on the picnic table nearby, and it refilled itself every time the level dropped below the rim.
"Dionysus kid's around," Percy said, nodding toward the goblet.
The goblet trembled slightly, as if acknowledging Percy's words, before a single grape rolled out and plopped onto the table with a wet *thok*. Leo sat up so fast his toolbelt clanked. "Okay, that's creepy. Also kind of cool. Also—" He squinted at the grape. "Is it... laughing at me?"
Percy sighed, rubbing his temples like he was already regretting what came next. "Just go find them before they start turning all the water into cheap box wine again. Last time Chiron almost had an aneurysm."
Leo scrambled to his feet, dusting off his jeans—not that it helped much, given the permanent grease stains—and made a show of saluting. "On it, boss." He spun on his heel, nearly tripping over his own shoelaces, and started toward the Dionysus cabin with the kind of exaggerated swagger that suggested he was *definitely* about to make things worse.
"Wait they're like Jesus..." Leo said
The cabin itself looked like it had been designed by someone who'd had one too many glasses of Dionysus' special vintage—lopsided columns, grapevines creeping up the walls like they were trying to strangle the place, and a door that hung slightly off its hinges. Leo paused at the doorpost, tapping it with a grease-streaked finger. "Knock knock," he muttered, then immediately regretted it when the wood groaned like an old man waking up from a nap.
Inside, the air smelled like cranberry sprite and something sharper—rubbing alcohol, maybe, or regret. The floorboards creaked under Leo's weight as he stepped over a scattered pile of playing cards, their edges singed black. A half-empty goblet wobbled on a nightstand, liquid sloshing ominously. Then, from the shadows near the back bunk, a voice said, "You ever think about how weird it is that I *don't* have a wine god sibling? Like, statistically, there should be at least one. My dad,'' Theres an obvious grimace in their voice. " Has done the deed with at least one other girl right?"
Leo nearly jumped out of his toolbelt. "Okay, first of all, stealth mode is *not* cool when you're in a cabin that smells like a frat house after finals." He squinted into the dimness, finally spotting the figure lounging on a mattress with no sheets—just a rumpled Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and a pair of jeans that had seen better days. The grin was familiar, though. "Second of all, *statistically*, you're stealing my bit."
They sat up, stretching like a cat that had just been woken from a nap, and Leo caught the glint of something metallic looped around their wrist—a bracelet made of tiny, interlocking metal grapes. "Not stealing. Improving." They plucked the goblet from the nightstand, took a sip, and grimaced. "Ugh. Tastes like regret and bad decisions."
Leo snorted, snatching the goblet from their hands and sniffing it experimentally. The sharp tang hit his nose—something citrusy, artificially sweet, with an undercurrent of something distinctly medicinal. "Oh my gods," he said, voice cracking halfway through the sentence. "Is this *cranberry Sprite*??"
They shrugged, plucking the goblet back and swirling the contents like a connoisseur inspecting a dubious vintage. "Dionysus kid perks," they said, deadpan. "I ask for wine, the magic cup gives me whatever my dad thinks is legal. Last week it was Mountain Dew and the week before that it was pickle juice." They took another sip, wrinkled their nose, and passed it back to Leo.
Leo hesitated, then downed a gulp—immediately regretting it as the carbonation burned his throat and the cranberry aftertaste clung to his tongue like syrup. "Okay, yeah, that's vile," he coughed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "These tastes so expired"
"They do," they muttered, fiddling with the grape bracelet on their wrist. The metal links clinked softly, like wind chimes in a breeze. " But dad's a good guy when he's not ignoring my existence."
Leo felt that one like a wrench to the ribs. He knew that tone—the too-casual, too-bitter lilt of someone trying to sound like they didn't care. He'd used it himself enough times talking about his mom. "Yeah," he said, quieter now, rolling the goblet between his palms. "Guess godly parents suck at parenting, huh?"
"Yeah.." They hold their arm.
Leo was mid-sip of the abomination in the goblet when his brain finally caught up with the visual details he'd been unconsciously cataloguing since he stepped into the cabin. The loose Camp Half-Blood t-shirt draped over sloping shoulders, the way fabric pulled slightly across—wait. He choked, spraying pink-tinged Sprite across the singed playing cards. "Holy Hephaestus," he wheezed, wiping his chin with his sleeve, "you're a *girl*."
Leo's entire face went hotter than a malfunctioning forge. The goblet slipped from his fingers, hitting the floor with a *clang* that echoed way louder than it should have in the cramped cabin. The cursed cranberry Sprite pooled around his sneakers like some kind of neon pink betrayal.
"Uh," he said intelligently, because apparently his vocal cords had short-circuited along with his brain. The girl—*the girl*—just raised one eyebrow, her fingers still absently twisting the grape bracelet around her wrist. The silence stretched. Leo could practically hear Dionysus laughing at him from wherever he was.
"Okay," he squeaked, then immediately cleared his throat like that would undo the mortifying sound. "Cool. Great. Awesome. I'm just—" He took a step back, realized too late he was about to trip over the scattered playing cards, and flailed wildly before catching himself on the doorframe. "Gonna go. Now. Immediately."
He bolted before she could respond, nearly shoulder-checking the doorframe in his haste.
That was the last the girl saw him that day.