Author's notes: I was not expecting to love Calypso and Leo has much as I did in House of Hades, but they were so cute and now I have new OTP. Thanks Riordan, I hate you. (But not really.)

Someday, I'll actually get around to writing an actual reunion fic, but for now, enjoy this.

Spoilers/Warnings: Obvious spoilers for House of Hades. There's some adultish content toward the end, but it's nothing explicit.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Heroes of Olympus series.

with your heartbeat slowing down

She feels it each night, the strange rhythm his fingers tap out against her skin — the tap, tap on her hip, on her breast, against the small of her back.

Leo's hands are always in motion, grabbing tools to get to work or fiddling with odds and ends out of his tool belt, so Calypso hardly paid any mind to tap taaap tap tap of his fingers at first, figuring even when he's on the cusp of sleep, he just can't keep them from moving.

It takes her a few weeks to realize there's a pattern to it, that the taaap taaap taaaps are the same length and speed each time his fingers are in motion, and another week or so to realize that it might actually mean something. No matter how many times he does it, it's always the same, and she's never seen him drum this rhythm on anything else but her — as if her skin is the sole repository for all of the little tap tap tap taaaps contained inside him.

She wonders if he realizes he's doing it, or if each tap has become so encoded in his nerves and muscles that it's just reflex at this point. She's almost afraid to ask him about it, afraid that she's imagining things and reading too much into what could very well be a simple tic. Afraid that she'll embarrass herself and him, or that, worst of all, the taaap tap taaap taaap does mean something, but the message is not meant for her.

Calypso knows her place in the world. Leo may be with her now, but there were undoubtedly others before her in the years they were apart, others whom he perhaps cared for more and knew better than the girl on an island he met when he was fifteen. Calypso has loved a handful of men in her time and although none of them have been like Leo, sometimes… sometimes she wonders if he only stays with her because of the vow he made. She doesn't doubt he cares for her in his own way, but old fears are hard to subdue, and there will always be someone else in her lovers' lives.

Eventually, however, curiosity overwhelms those simple fears and one night while they're in bed, she props her chin on his chest and begins, "Leo?"

"Yeah, Sunshine?" he responds, his voice a low rumble. His dark eyes tilt toward her, lips tugging into a sleepy smile, and his fingers going taaap taaap taaap on her shoulder.

Leo shifts under her. He is no longer the scrawny imp of the boy who crash landed on her island years ago. His muscles have developed through hard work in the machine shop and shoulders broadened into those of a man's. His hands have remained the same, though, rough and a gentle simultaneously, and those ridiculous ears of his still poke through the curls of his hair.

She, too, has changed since she left Ogygia. The island's magic kept her frozen at such a young age for some many years and, although she could alter her appearance if she wished, she doesn't mind aging alongside Leo.

"This may sound strange," she says slowly, "but why do you touch me like that?"

Leo's brow crinkles in confusion, his fingers pausing. "What do you mean? Didn't you like —"

"Oh, no! I mean, yes, I liked that. I liked that a lot," Calypso replies, blushing furiously. Perhaps bringing this topic up after a particularly lusty round of sex wasn't one of her brighter ideas; Leo hands aren't just good for fixing things, after all, and he'd gotten very creative with them tonight.

"I meant this. The tapping." She drums her fingers on his sternum in a poor imitation of his movements; she hasn't quite got the hang of the rhythm of it yet. "You do it quite often. Usually just before bed."

Leo stiffens, a panicked look momentarily crossing his face as he recognizes what she's doing. His face flushes and his chest grows gradually warmer under her, like it always does when he gets embarrassed.

"Oh. That," he replies after a moment, clearing his throat nervously. He directs his gaze toward the ceiling. "It's Morse code, a mortal way of communicating. My mom taught me. It — it's just stupid thing we did together before she died."

Calypso can count on one hand how many times Leo has willingly discussed his mother in their time together. Esperanza Valdez's death is permanent sore on Leo's heart, and talking about her is still hard for him. Leo is very much a person who lives in the present, but she's seen the rare, quiet moments of melancholy when he misses his mother most.

"If she taught you, it's not stupid. I promise," she says, touching her lips to his chest reassuringly. "Does... does it mean anything in particular?"

Leo's chest is uncomfortably warm now, and if he gets any more embarrassed, he may start to smolder. Not for the first time, Calypso is glad for the fireproof sheets on their bed and her own imperviousness to flame.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," she continues when he doesn't respond. "I was curious, is all."

"No, it's okay! It's just… I've never done this before and I thought it'd be all romantic and shit — and shit, forget I said that, " he replies, running his hands over his face and through his hair. "Ack, this is not going how it's supposed to go."

"Imagine, you screwing something important up," Calypso teases, earning a playful glare from him in response. "Would you like a do over?"

"Oh, definitely. Let's start like this."

Leo hitches his leg over her hip and she lets out a little laugh as he rolls them over, making her bounce against the mattress. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, mouthing at her pulse point, and she sinks her fingers into his curls, shivering with delight as his campfire scent washes over her.

"Don't think you can distract me that easily, Valdez," she murmurs, although with where his hands are right now, he is doing quite a good job of it.

"Oh, all right. Just remember, I haven't done this before..."

He kisses the tip of her nose and then pushes himself up on his elbows so he's hovering over, surveying her with an ardent expression that makes her heart clench miserably. He reaches out to brush her hair behind her ear, his touch gentle and a reluctant at the same time.

"It means," Leo says softly, dragging his hand down her cheek and pressing his palm to her chest, just over that palpating organ. He gulps, glancing down, and his pointer finger begins to tap out the rhythm in time as he speaks. "I... love... you."

He repeats it again, ending on a slow tap tap taaap, and shyly peeks up at her through the dark fringe of his bangs.

Calypso has all but forgotten how to breathe. That's what he's been imprinting on her skin over and over again, those three impossibly important little words? No one, not in the three millennia she's been alive, has ever told her that before and meant it. Not a single one of her cursed lovers, not even Percy Jackson.

And yet Leo — the boy who destroyed her dining table and every foolish idea and hope she'd carried about love, the man who came back, even if she wasn't waiting on Ogygia for him, and found her again — has told her it a thousand times and more, and meant it each time.

I love you.

He has left his them all over her body, in his sleep, while he's with her in the shower, when they're curled on the sofa or relaxing in the garden; he loves her from the tips of his pointed ears to the calloused ends of his fingers that have conveyed his heart's words for months at a time.

"Like this?" Calypso asks, her voice rough with emotion as she touches his cheek with her palm and taps the code back to him. "I love you?"

She taps it against his lips, down his neck and on his chest, her rhythm faltering only when his lips descend on hers at last; drums it on shoulders while his mouth raining kisses on her stomach and lower down still; whispers against the shell of his ear when he's inside of her, the movement of their hips creating an entirely new cadence of passion; gasps it out when she comes, stars dancing behind her eyelids.

And when they're through, when their bodies are sweat slicked and aching, and hearts throbbing, she touches his cheek once more.

Leo leans against her palm, closes his eyes and smiles. "Yeah. Exactly like that."