It was too much. For one brief flash of a moment, a hot spear of regret coursed through his chest. It left a sour taste in his mouth as he thought about it a bit more. It wasn't regret for coming at all. He didn't regret getting out of there, he didn't regret going on this adventure. The regret... was bringing someone along. He should've known. He had to have known that this was going to happen--it was the constant mentions, the words, everything that Feo had been alluding to before they had gotten to this point. He should've known that letting someone in like this was wrong.

So he wouldn't take him along for the rest. This would be the one test run, so to speak. There wasn't anything he could really screw up that badly.

Lucius kept his expression the same, focused and concentrated on Feo in front of him. His arm in his hand. He didn't bother letting go, not yet. Feo knew too much to let go of him right now.

His eyes shifted, turning to the crowd and their surroundings but it wasn't enough. It wasn't going to be enough. Something inside of him was off. Lucius had a deep, dark feeling that it had to do with Loki. The regret in his chest blazed sharply with a blast of fury as he quelled it with the thoughts of just getting through this. Their flight was almost ready. It was mere minutes. It was just there. Just a few more minutes.

"They--" they're not really here. That was what he had said. Something was wrong about that sentence. "They are here," he said quietly, mostly to himself in confusion. How... would they end up not being here? People were there just as much as they were.

The murmured words caught his attention.

"You are here," Lucius confirmed with a brief nod that bounced his golden hair up and down. His free hand lifted upward, pushing through his locks, tousling most of it out of his forehead. He was fighting his own emotions to stay relatively calm and loose again. That was what people did.

They were smiling, they were strong, they didn't worry. They always had a plan and they always knew exactly what to do. People liked them.

They sort of liked him. But he just needed to be better, be more like them. That was it. So he kept a firm grip on Feo, keeping track of his reactions. "Just a little longer," he urged quietly, "just hold on a little longer. We're almost ready to board the plane. Maybe... maybe if you sleep a little bit on the plane, you'll feel better."

It was weak but it was at least something. And if Feo was asleep, Lucius could let his mask fall just a touch. It was exhausting to not get frustrated with him, it really was. But he was trying so hard, he really was. He hadn't snapped at him yet, he hadn't gotten snippy or even passive aggressive--well, too badly. There was at least a few instances in the whole escapade that he could think of. But that was minor. He just had to keep going.

Feo’s breaths steadied, though the hollow feeling in his chest hadn’t disappeared completely. He was still on edge, but he wasn’t unraveling quite as quickly as before. Each inhale, each exhale, pulled him back inch by inch, though his mind still felt like it was treading water, barely staying afloat.

His gaze remained on the floor for a moment longer, tracing the cold, sterile tiles as though they held some answer. But they didn’t, of course. The answer wasn’t here, wasn’t anywhere in this godforsaken airport. It was somewhere else, somewhere buried beneath layers of uncertainty, somewhere he wasn’t sure he wanted to dig.

His fingers unclenched slightly, and he realized with a jolt how tightly he’d been gripping the ticket. The edges were crumpled now, the paper worn from his grasp. It felt like a metaphor for himself—fragile, barely holding together, but somehow still intact. He let out another breath, slower this time, and looked up at Lucius.

Lucius hadn’t let go. That was the first thing Feo noticed. His grip was still firm, still grounding, even as his sapphire eyes searched Feo’s face with a mix of concern and determination. Feo wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure if there was anything to say. But he nodded, a small, almost imperceptible movement, and met Lucius’s gaze.

“I’m... okay,” Feo murmured, though the words felt weak, unconvincing. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure—Lucius or himself.

Feo swallowed hard, forcing himself to look around the terminal again. The crowd hadn’t thinned, and the noise was still there, a constant hum that pressed against his ears. But it felt less overwhelming now, less like it was going to crush him.

The girl’s face flashed in his mind again, and his stomach twisted. He didn’t know why she’d unsettled him so much. Maybe it was just the way she’d looked at him, or maybe it was something deeper, something he didn’t understand. He rubbed his temple, trying to push the image away, but it lingered, stubborn and unrelenting.

“I don’t know what that was,” Feo admitted quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “I just... she looked familiar. But not in a normal way. It felt... wrong. Like I was supposed to remember something, but I couldn’t.”

The confession felt like a weight off his chest, even if it didn’t solve anything. He glanced at Lucius again, searching for some kind of reaction, though he wasn’t sure what he expected to find. Understanding? Reassurance? He didn’t even know if that was possible.

Feo let out another breath, his shoulders slumping slightly. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice tinged with exhaustion. “I didn’t mean to... make things harder. I just—” He stopped, shaking his head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and raw. Feo hated how vulnerable they made him feel, how exposed. But there was no taking them back now. And maybe that was for the best.

He shut his mouth. No more words for him today.

He'd already said enough stupid shit for Annasia to throw him in a mud bank with the beggars. He didn't need to feel any worse.

Lucius hardly felt like he was trying to convince him that he was okay. It was a little obvious that he wasn't. But as he looked around again, the demigod looked more present and less like he was going to disappear somehow. His hand slid from his arm, rubbing his own shoulder absentmindedly as he glanced out the window toward the plane once again. His eyes scanning along the machine as he shrugged.

That--the whole thing that had started this thing was a woman? Lucius felt a small stir in his chest, a touch of distaste. How on earth was he supposed to get through this whole thing if the look of one person, the appearance, was going to throw him into a frenzy or a panic?

Lucius shrugged loosely. "Maybe it was Deja vu, a person you saw in campus one year or something like that," he waved one hand lightly, "no real need to worry about it right now."

Deja vu or something similar to that light.

His lips pulled into a loose and lopsided smile before he shrugged lightly. "It's a lot and it's new for you," Lucius replied to his last few comments. "Wrong? Maybe not. But just overwhelmed. There's just... too much at first. It happens sometimes."

He had yet to find out what that would be for himself. If it could happen at all. A part of him had doubts that he would be able to ever experience anything similar. After all, that was something for smart people and he was... not.

"Just take a moment to breathe, relax, lean back, and settle in," Lucius lifted his shoulders and sank his back against the fabric of the chair, his legs out in front of him, one ankle tucked over the other. "Don't worry about anything right now, if it comes to you just push it out and think about something else. Just be right here, nowhere else, just right here. You can watch the planes take off from the window, watch them come in for landings too," he gestured to the window. "We've still got a few minutes before we go and take off."

His eyes flicked to the board where the woman stood, she flipped a paper, signaling the time left before they were set to board.

"It takes a bit of work and practice," Lucius admitted, eager to finally break the silence that had been driving him insane. "It's mostly about pushing out the thoughts that you don't want to think about right now and focusing on one thought at a time. That's ... that's what someone told me once at least. They said it helped them."

He paused for a longer moment.

"And you don't worry about what anyone else would do or say or nothing, you get to do what you want to do. If you wanna talk, go for it. If you wanna sleep? Who's gonna stop you? I'm not," Lucius looked toward Feo with a lopsided grin. "Just take a little chance and be what you want to be right now."

Feo listened, his head leaning slightly against the chair as Lucius spoke. The sound of his voice was grounding, like the weight of a heavy blanket on a cold night. It wasn’t so much the words themselves—though they carried a kind of easy wisdom Feo hadn’t expected—but the cadence, the way they filled the air without pressing too hard.

“Deja vu,” Feo repeated, testing the words out like they might fit into the puzzle somehow. Maybe it was that. Maybe it wasn’t. Either way, the edge of panic was dulling, and the simple suggestion felt like a lifeline he could grab onto. “Yeah. Could’ve been.”

His eyes followed Lucius’s gesture toward the planes outside the window. The sight of them brought a strange mix of emotions—anxiety, curiosity, a faint whisper of awe. He watched as one plane lumbered across the tarmac, its wings outstretched like some ungainly bird preparing to take flight. For a moment, he let himself focus on it, the sheer magnitude of the machine, the idea of it lifting off the ground and defying gravity. It was easier than thinking about himself.

Lucius’s casual posture beside him made Feo’s own tension feel exaggerated, almost ridiculous. He tried to mimic it, leaning back into the chair and letting his legs stretch out in front of him. The movement felt foreign, like putting on a suit that didn’t quite fit, but it was something. He exhaled slowly.

“Just be right here,” Feo muttered under his breath, repeating the words as though saying them aloud would make them true. It wasn’t easy—his mind was still tangled, still full of half-formed thoughts and images that refused to settle. But there was something comforting about the idea of narrowing his world down to just this moment, this place.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been good at that,” he admitted after a long pause. His voice was quiet, almost lost beneath the hum of the terminal. “Being... here. My head’s always somewhere else. Always thinking about what’s next, or what I’ve already messed up.”

The admission came without warning, slipping out before he could stop it. Feo tensed, the vulnerability of the statement hanging between them like a thread about to snap. He glanced sideways at Lucius, half-expecting some kind of judgment.

He shifted in his seat, his gaze drifting back to the window. “I used to think... if I kept moving, I’d figure it out. Like, if I could just keep going, I’d outrun all the stuff I didn’t want to deal with. But it doesn’t really work like that, does it?”

His fingers played absently with the edges of the crumpled ticket, smoothing it out only to let it wrinkle again. “Maybe... maybe that’s why this feels so weird. Being stuck in one place like this. It’s like I don’t know what to do with myself.”

The words felt heavy, but also strangely freeing, like letting out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He glanced at Lucius again, the faintest flicker of a wry smile on his lips. “Guess that’s something else I’ve gotta work on, huh?”

Stop, the tiny Loki in his head told him. This is not what I taught you. Stick to what I taught you. Be strong, be vigilant, strike first. Trust nobody.

Feo picked up the tiny Loki and threw him out the window.

Lucius felt his smile grow just a touch as he found Feo looking out the window as well. His eyes scanning their reflection for a moment. He looked just so rigged and tight, like a crumpling statue waiting to crumble to pieces. The way he adjusted his posture, mimicking his own, was telling. He was trying, he was getting there. That was something. But even then, it wasn't the same. Lucius was far more used to being loose and carefree. To be rigged and serious? That was where he looked out of place. Just being right there, without a care was the most important thing he figured he could do at that point in time. There wasn't anything else that really mattered.

"It takes a little time," Lucius responded, noting his admission. The latter bit was where he caught on though. "Mess--well, I don't think you've messed up at all. I think that's what a godly bully keeps telling you. It's not like you can believe anything Loki says, right? He's a liar--he's the god of them too."

He snorted lightly and shook his head, amused mostly with himself and his words. This was the kind of thing that usually got him in trouble with the teachers or other demigods or whatever.

"I mean, sometimes it can work like that," he addressed the next thing he had said. "Sometime, you can run from the stuff you don't want to deal with. But sometimes, it's more important to just deal with it right then and there. It takes a long while of figuring out which is which and, guess what, it's okay to make mistakes," he grinned back at him with a lopsided smile. His head tilted to the side, almost resting on his own shoulder.

"That's the thing that sometimes... we forget that we don't have to be perfect. We aren't the gods, we aren't pressured to be perfect--especially when we're just young," Lucius hummed lightly, his eyes soft and warm. "We're just learning how the world works. We don't have to run it, we don't have to worry about that. We just have to worry about learning how to be us."

His hand settled back under his head as he looked toward Feo with a loose flash of a smile. "We're not immortal. Why should we try to be what they are? I guess, why should we try and be better than them at this point? Y'know? Aside from basic laws and whatnot. Which they can't even follow but y'know. It is what it is."

His blue eyes lifted toward the ceiling, closing his eyes.

"So what exactly were you doing at the campus anyways? What was your major or trade or whatnot?" Lucius adjusted his position again, keeping an ear out for the ruffle of people and the sound of the steward calling out to board.

"We aren't pressured to be perfect."

Lords, if only that were true.

Feo knew he wasn’t perfect. He’d known it for as long as he could remember. But knowing he didn’t have to be? That was another story entirely. In Asgard, where creatures that were nearly akin to angels walked among mortals, perfection wasn’t just expected—it was demanded. It clung to the air like a heavy perfume, suffocating anyone who dared to falter. Feo had grown up under its weight, every step measured, every word scrutinized, every mistake amplified. He had been pressured to be perfect in ways that weren’t always spoken, but he felt them deeply all the same. And the worst part? It wasn’t like he could help it.

“My major? Psychology,” he said, the word spilling out with more disdain than he intended. He rubbed the side of his face, his fingers lingering over the faint line of a scar that only he seemed to notice. “Which, frankly, I have no interest in. But what else am I supposed to study? I’ve spent so much time doing what others wanted—what he wanted—that I can’t even tell what I want anymore. What about you? Aerodynamics?” He let out a soft, humorless laugh, trying to lighten the mood with a touch of sarcasm. The attempt felt hollow even to him, but it was better than letting the silence press down on him like everything else.

Feo glanced out the window, the endless sky outside both vast and unreachable. Clouds drifted lazily across the horizon, their freedom taunting him. He watched them for a moment, trying to ground himself in their movement, but the thoughts in his head were louder than the stillness of the view.

“I’m working on getting better,” he said, his voice quieter now, as if admitting it aloud made it more fragile. “You know? I can’t just… throw it all away the day after I cast him out of my life. It’s not that simple.” His fingers tightened around the edge of the chair, knuckles whitening as the words tumbled out faster now, raw and unfiltered. “He built me this way. Everything I’ve ever done—everything I’ve ever been—it was all for him. I was born for one purpose, and that purpose was to serve him. I didn’t think about anything else because there wasn’t anything else to think about. It was him. Always him.”

Feo exhaled sharply, leaning back in his chair as though the weight of his confession had physically drained him. “So yeah,” he continued, his tone softening just slightly, “it’s going to take me a while. To change. To figure out what I want. What I want, not what he wanted for me. I don’t even know where to start, but I guess that’s the point, right? Starting. One step at a time.”

He glanced back at his companion (friend? No, probably not), forcing a weak smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Anyway,” he said, his voice lighter, though the effort it took to make it so was evident, “enough about me. What about you? Are you out here chasing dreams, or have you figured it all out already? Because if you have, I might need some pointers.”

Lucius tilted his head in return. Psychology? That was a large task, especially now. The mind was an intricate thing to learn about--he couldn't blame him for leaving classes. Learning about the mind of mortals was one thing, but demigods and then gods? Ugh! That was a large ask. Lucius wasn't surprised that he didn't have any interest in it. Aerodynamics--that caught Lucius off guard and he let out a bubbling cackle of a laugh.

It escaped without much thought and he let out a giggling breath. That was--that caught him off guard and it tipped his senses in a good way. Even if it felt hollow to him, it was something more to him. It was a way of breaking the tension and silence.

He shook his head winding down and gave Feo a lopsided smile in return. His eyes softened as he kept talking. Lucius had figured that most, if not all of what he had done so far was for Loki. It made sense, he had seen it before in a sense. His hand hesitated before reaching out and set his hand on Feo's shoulder, briefly. It was a sort of comforting motion rather than anything else and he set his hand back in his lap after a few moments.

"One step at a time. We can start with hobbies and stuff, that's sort of the fun of it right now. You get to try a little bit of everything and see what you like best," he hummed warmly and settled down in the chair again.

His smile was weak but weary at the least. Lucius nudged his arm, a smile far brighter than Feo's glittered back as he thought about him.

"Chasing dreams? Nah, well--kind of now, I guess. But I was there to finish a teaching degree. I'm looking into teaching flight for demigods and creatures. I was there to kind of keep an eye on the flight class, see how they teach it and apply it to secondary education--high school or senior school occasionally. Depends on where I end up," he waved slightly. "It... I mean, it feels a little like a dream chasing. Being able to be somebody for kids that I never really got when I was growing up, y'know?"

Lucius waved one hand. "That's all mushy gushy stuff though. It took a little bit but figuring out that helping others helps me feel better."

Granted, that was exactly what he was doing with this plan as well but that was a matter for another time. His eyes flicked toward the steward again and then back to Feo. "It takes a little while. When I was little, I wanted to be a lawyer... and then a mafia boss--like Al Capone. Then a cop who would catch them. But it changed to something a little more ... realistic, I suppose."

Lucius shook his head lightly, pushing one hand through golden hair once again. His sapphire eyes turning to look back at Feo briefly. Something had changed, he wasn't quite sure what it was but something about his features had been adjusted. He'd figure it out later. His sapphire eyes glittered with a warmth, a glittering delight.

This was what he felt far more comfortable in, this loose environment, chatting and yapping. The serious type environments that he was thrown into without really being prepared for it? Absolutely not. He often tried to avoid those as much as physically possible. But this?

This was... elating. It was energizing and giddy.

You'd be a good teacher.

Lucius couldn't help his smile turning to a little bit more of a wane and perhaps vulnerable twist. "You--everyone says that, y'know?" He commented lightly, his eyes flicking down to his lap as he leaned back again. "I hope they're right at least. That's the thing, I don't actually know if I would actually be a good teacher. Can I handle the kids? Even the rough ones? I mean, every school is different but still, like the bullies, the ones that are bigger than me--because you know there's gonna be a few. Or am I going to be able to handle when they're injured? I took a first aid class--I had to. But like... that's a class, y'know? Am I actually going to be calm and collected enough to handle... stuff like that."

He waved his hand lightly. "Ah, who knows. That's in the future and, honestly, thinking too far in the future gives me a headache. I prefer to stay here," his hands gestured to them, "where I am. Less headache inducing."

The steward cleared her throat, opening the door and smiled. It was a far more business-like smile, something transactional. "Gate 8 is now boarding! Tickets here!"

Lucius nudged his arm again, standing up and stretching out for a brief moment before fishing in his pocket for the ticket--he also snagged the bottle of water before he could forget it. That would be a poor waste of money to leave it behind. The man took the ticket, dipped his head and gestured into the plane.

It wasn't terribly large, just something to get folks here and there. Of course, usually only the rich flew places. Most people still drove or, if they were traveling continents, they'd use a boat. Cruise liners were still very much a thing.

Lucius glanced back at Feo with a lopsided smile. "It's going to be fun, don't you worry," he settled down in the seat. "Besides, I've heard that planes are safer than cars. So, technically, we're even safer now than we were in the taxi."