Shadows Fall to Flames. {{valdangelo}}

Chapter 11

TW (again)

Nico's feet landed heavily on solid ground, the surroundings blurred around him as he threatened to pass out.

Then he heard it.
A broken sob echoed around the vast room.

Nico remembered why he was here, clearing his head instantly.

He stumbled towards the sound, bumping into benches with every step. Sweat trickled down his temple, his breath was ragged.

'Leo?' He called, absolute exhaustion evident in his voice.

A few seconds later another anguished cry reached his ears.

Nico stumbled around another workbench, stacked high with windup bulls.

The boy he'd worked so hard to find knelt in a puddle of blood, tears and metal shavings.

Leo didn't seem to notice the presence of the other boy.

His hands were pressed on the floor in front of him, his entire body shook violently as he struggled to breath.

The Italian watched with utter shock and horror before he fully realised the severity of the situation.
Leo was loosing a lot of blood.

'Shit' he hissed, his exhaustion quickly replaced with an adrenaline rush.

Moving to Leo's side, he squatted down next to him, ignoring the metal chips stabbing into his feet.

'Shh it's ok Leo, calm down, it's ok' he whispered, to the obviously very not ok teen.

Nico didn't want to touch him just yet for fear of startling him and making it worse.
He was surprised when Leo answered him.

'Nico I'm going crazy!' He sobbed

'Leo it's ok...'

'No! It's not, it's not, it's...' he struggled to find the words 'I'm sick of letting people down. I'm sick of causing people pain. I'm sick of being me!'

'Oh Leo' Nico said softly as he pulled his boyfriend into a hug. He noticed how much the Latino was shacking.

Leo melted into the touch, wrapping his arms around Nico's slightly smaller frame 'I'm s..sorry, I didn't mean to, it's...all my f..fault'

'No it's not I'm sure you can fix it' the Italian said having no idea what the other boy was so upset about,

'No I can't, it's t..to late. N..now she's g..gone' he sobbed harder 'I killed h..her! I deserve everything that's happened'

Oh

Oh no

Nico new very little about Leo's past, relying mostly on word of mouth. The son of Hephaestus was an orphan as far as mortal social services were concerned. He'd moved around a lot.

He was talking about his mum.
She must've died in a fire (Nico was just connecting the dots).

The son of Hades said nothing, just hugged his boyfriend tighter.

The two boys sat there in each other's arms, the silence only broken by Leo's sobs.

'Leo' Nico whispered after a few minutes 'I'm going to need to wrap up those cuts ok?'

Nico had left it as long as he deemed safe, but he couldn't leave the deep gashes in his boyfriends forearms any longer.

Leo took a shaky breath 'O..ok'

The small Italian separated himself from Leo.

Both teens were covered in blood.

'You'll need to go to the infirmary...'