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Who: Leo and Dany
What: Showing just how little they know about relationships.
Where: Cabin 9
When: Backdated to a day or two after the Red Room incident.
Why: Because brother/sister bonding over being totally confused.

There were some days where Leo loved what he did, and other days that he was really frustrated by it.

But it wasn't the machines' fault. Not at all! The resentment was more directed at his father, Hephaestus. Sure, the guy was a genius when it came to machines. Leo liked to think he'd inherited that trait, in addition to the lame "blessing" of fire. It balanced out well enough, right? Well, tack on the social ineptitude and the scales tipped a little.

Not that he was always bad with people. Leo liked being around everyone, and he was friendly. He liked making them all laugh. But when it came down to the important stuff, like feelings and thinking and stuff, he didn't have the slightest clue what was going on. Sometimes, he didn't want to know what was going on. It was all too complicated; losing yourself in a machine, with math and logic to explain how it worked, was so much easier.

So after dinner that night, while he was lying on his back on top of the bunk's pile of blankets playing with Caelum, he asked Dany hesitantly, "Did you ever talk to Enjolras?" It seemed to come out of the blue, but they never did really talk about that after the dance, and he's got some questions about his own situation, too. That was the best way he could think of to approach it.

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That was it. That was the question she was waiting for, almost, but conspicuously avoiding. She rolls herself up into her blankets a little more like a burrito, almost as a defense. It was something she was still hurting about, especially since they only recently had to deal with almost losing so many campers. Still, Leo had tried to help her in this matter. She nods a little bit, straightening up.

"I have. It...did not go as I'd hoped."

He winced. Not exactly what he'd hoped for. Enjolras is a huge Debbie Downer and all, but if he made Dany happy...

"How bad was it?" Not too bad, he hoped. She was a good sister, and he was sort of hoping that someone in his godly family of theirs might have a clue when it comes to these things. He certainly wasn't. Just thinking about all this made him even less eager to ask her about him and Natalie.

She's quiet for another moment. She can tell that Leo may be using this to lead into something, but she's not sure what. She pushes some of the hair out of her eyes before speaking again.

"We are remaining friends. It is...hard, but it will be better for both of us this way. He's said...it was Aphrodite's tricks, nothing more."

He rolled his eyes at the dark ceiling. Aphrodite's tricks. Sure, it's easy to write it off like that, but Dany said she'd had a crush on the guy for a while before that. He had said the same thing to Natalie, but she told him that wasn't the only reason she'd kissed him.

"Did you tell him what you told me?" he asked dryly.

She shoots her brother a Look at the eye roll - even in the dark, she notices your mannerisms and knows them, Leo. She nods a little and gathers up her blanket burrito, moving to sit in Leo's bunk with him.

"I had. I told him of my feelings, Leo.•

He shifted, sitting up and making room for her on the bed.

"And he still didn't get it." Leo thought Enjolras was smarter than that. But, he supposed, just because Dany liked him never meant the feeling was mutual. It's lame, but it happens; he knows that from personal experience - many personal experiences. "I'm sorry, Dany."

"I suppose it makes sense."

She flops over on his bed and makes herself comfortable in her blankets, curling up and looking up at him.

"While he can be kind and good, Enjolras is...very driven and goal-oriented. I should think he thinks very little about romance and the like. It was...foolish of me to think otherwise."

"No, you're not," Leo protested. But the fervor he said it with faded almost instantly, remembering all the rejections he's dealt with over the years. "That's normal. Not fun, but... normal." Everyone went through that at some point, right? Isn't that what everyone says?

Enjolras was an idiot, as far as he was concerned. Dany was one of the best girls at this camp, and Leo didn't think that just because she was his half-sister. He saw how she was with everyone around camp, as well as her dragons. Good luck to Enj, trying to do better.

"At least you're still friends, though, right?" Awkward friends, maybe, but friends. He wasn't sure how that worked, exactly; most of the time the girls who turned him down did so by outright ignoring his existence. Being friends was rarely in the equation.

"Right. I cannot expect everyone to share the same feelings I do." She gives Leo a small smile, placing a hand on his leg reassuringly. It sounds like he may be speaking from experience, and while Dany can't imagine why a girl would not want to date Leo, she assumes their situations must have been similar.

"I have known the boy for over three years. I can't imagine a world in which I am not at least close friends with him."

"Yeah." He returned the smile weakly. Looking down, he recalled their talk at the Apollo dance... how Dany had described the hurt she'd felt at the guy avoiding her, how he'd wondered if Nat had felt the same way. Leo had missed her while they were going out of their way to stay out of each other's way, and if things had gone the same with the two of as with Dany and Enjolras? He realized that he couldn't imagine a world without Nat as a friend, either.

"What would you do if it were the other way around?" he asked suddenly, fingers playing with the edge of the blankets restlessly. He was always moving, one way or another, but tonight, it wasn't simply from ADHD. Leo was confused, and he wasn't sure how to talk about it.

Dany reaches out to swat her brothers fingers away from worrying at the blanket, holding them still. Leo is strong and good - whatever he is anxious about, he has no reason to be. She's tempted to ask him, but he does not seem quite ready yet. She'll give him a moment.

"I...suppose I would do just the same. I would try to explain to him firmly that I did not return his affections, but do my best to understand where he was coming from with those feelings. It's what any good leader would do - we must not only focus on our own emotions, but on those of others as well."

What's he supposed to do with his hands now? Even at his calmest, Leo always had something - even if it was just pipe cleaners and a bit of tinfoil. And Dany's right, and he would have expected nothing less of her... except that wasn't exactly the question he was asking.

"No, I mean - what if it were the other way around, and you thought it was just Aphrodite, but you kind of... felt the same way?"

Dany gets that - her hands usually go to her dragons, but Leo has always been better with building things, after all. Sometimes, she worries that because she is not as great at tinkering as their siblings that she may be a disappointment to their lord father. She rolls off his bed and goes to get a piece of blueprint paper and a pencil for him. He may as well put his energy to good use.

"I suppose I would take him somewhere...quiet, private. So that we might better work out what this meant for us."

He smiled appreciatively, touching pencil to paper as soon as it was in his hands. Though he had no idea what project could come of it, he simply drew lines while he thought about it, figuring something would come together before he was through.

Quiet and private? They'd done that, but they hadn't... worked anything out. Not that Leo was aware of. The avoidance thing was over and done with, thankfully, and they were still friends. But like he'd told himself many times after the events of Aphrodisia, you don't kiss your friends. That was something for girlfriends and boyfriends (and one night stands, he thought drily, knowing how some of the Aphrodite kids can be, among others). And yet, he and Nat did, and they both enjoyed it well enough to keep doing it. But she wasn't...

Was she? Leo frowned at the drawing that was starting to take a shape, indistinct though it was at the moment. As usual, he was clueless.

"Something's troubling you, Leo. I can see it in your line work."

She touches a hand to the blue paper, looking up at him again. It's easy to tell when hems having difficulties - his hands start moving, he tinkers away or draws out his ideas - something to get his mind off of it. She knows the feeling well.

"You're in good company. Please, speak your mind."

Looking back at Dany, he hesitated for only a moment. The pencil stilled, the line it was drawing tapering off, and he said simply, "It's Natalie." To him, at least, just those two words explained everything.

She's quiet for a moment, as if she's trying to process it. Enjolras and Natalie were close, just as close as she and the Apollo boy. Perhaps she was the one who he had felt an attraction to all along, perhaps he was right that the moment they'd shared was just one of Aphrodite's tricks. Her face falls a little - how could Leo not tell her earlier?

And then she stops for another second. Maybe this is not about Natalie and Enjolras having a relationship at all. Maybe...

No. It couldn't be. Leo...

"Leo, what do you mean, 'it's Natalie'?"

"Aphrodisia," he told her, the words spilling out. "I warned her not to - but she said my name anyway, and then she kissed me, and I kissed her back, and I thought it was just the love spell. We both kind of... avoided each other after that, until the dance -"

He hesitated, taking a deep breath.

"We danced, and then she... Natalie told me it wasn't just Aphrodite's spell that made her like me."

And then he insulted her, she ran away, he found her, he kissed her, and then Percy attacked them with soda and ice. Dany had to have caught that; they were still sort of close to the pavilion then, and a person on fire wasn't exactly the picture of subtlety.

Well, the moment when Leo had caught on fire made a lot more sense, now. Dany can only assume that if Enjolras had returned her affections, much the same would happen to her. Not being in control of the Blessing was a curse in and of itself.

She sits up a little, straightening herself out. Leo had been harboring feelings for Natalie all this time, and she was so selfish to go on about her own problems, now and at the dance, when someone she loved was clearly hurting. A good leader did not do such things - a good leader put the needs of others before their own.

"You must speak to her about this at once, then. Tomorrow morning, after breakfast. Take Natalie somewhere quiet - calmly, you do not want to startle her - and sort this out. I feel you both will fare far better if you do."

"Well, we, um... sort of... did?" He wasn't sure if it counted. "I kissed her," he said lamely. And it wasn't as if they were on bad terms or anything. He just didn't know where they stood anymore. Friends, or... something else?

"I think you very well know that is not what I mean, Leo."

She gives her brother a stern look, straightening up a little. If they didn't discuss what they were to do about these feelings, well, it just wouldn't be beneficial for either of them. They're both counselors, and their worries may cloud their judgement.

"You need to have a discussion with her, a proper and calm one. I can even mediate it, if you'd like."

Dany is not one to interfere in the romantic affairs of others - she would make a horrible child of Aphrodite. But if they bring someone who she is close to difficulty or pain, she can't help but act out.

He made a face, going back to his drawing. Dany knew how hard it was for him to talk about that stuff. The thought made him want to hit the button to retreat to the private room under his bed and never come out again.

In a mumble, he admitted, "How do you even start a conversation like that?"

Oh, she absolutely knows that, but she'd be more upset with Leo if he went to the secret room than if he never was honest with Natalie about his feelings towards her at all.

(Really, she should work on a secret room like that for the dragons. Keeping them chained away in the Arena still unnerves her, even though Chiron said that would be for the best , but some of the trainers of old kept their dragons in special dragonpits under their houses...)

She sighs a little, taking Leo's free hand.

"Start at the beginning. Calm yourself, be polite, apologize when warranted, but explain to her why you made the choices you did and when your feelings for her began."

"That's the thing, though," Leo said. "I don't know when things changed. And I'm pretty sure she knows they're there."

They just haven't discussed what that means. Did they really have to, though, or would that confuse them about an already complicated situation?

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