Lucius couldn't... no. There was no way. He had gotten himself all worked up over nothing? Oh please no.

But the way Feo looked at him, the confusion in his gaze. The crushed confusion. Lucius's own tears turned from betrayal and guilt to a deep wrenching feeling of drifting confusion. He felt so lost, so ... so lost. So confused. If that wasn't what had happened, why couldn't he remember?

If it hadn't happened, why did Feo look like that? Why did he feel like this? Why--the why's swirled in his head like a whirlpool of dangerously lonely thoughts. He wanted... comfort but he didn't want to tip the balance. He wanted to tell Feo it was alright but Lucius didn't even know if it was going to be alright.

Every rattling, gasping breath sent needles of pain through his arm and shoulder, all the way into his fingers. It rattled the knives in his head, scraping along his skull. A part of the tears were from the newfound pain.

It wasn't stopping.

The confusion that had stemmed from such a staunch belief of betrayal, mixed with the regret and irritation at himself for jumping to a conclusion. The frustration of the cobwebs that clung to his mind.

The emotions fueled with how Feo looked. So... so tired, so exhausted. It hurt him.

Everything was wrong. Everything was wrong and he couldn't stop it.

Finally, he choked out the quiet words; "what happened last night?"

It was probably best to be honest at this point.

"I don't remember, my head hurts, I... I can't... it's... it's like I drank. I can't drink, I... I don't want to become her. But if that didn't happen, what... what did? Feo, I don't know. I'm lost, I'm confused, you look so tired, so ... so hurt. I thought it was my fault--"

Lucius sucked in a deep breath, his chest shaking. The wince couldn't be hidden but he tried. The deep breaths to try and break up the hiccuping and lingering sobs. Oh, not the hiccups.

The jarring bouncing of his arm--the awful sensation that he couldn't stop. He couldn't even prepare for them.

His sapphire eyes searched Feo's face for any sort of answer, food and medicine largely forgotten in the rush of emotions, thoughts and the haze. The haze that refused to let him get a grip on his emotions, refused to let him pull his mask up. It was as if it had put a lock on the door to his calm and 'got a grip' emotions.

There was something he was hiding. Feo was hiding it. Lucius had yelled at him--and he had said something about it. About deserving something--and that he was pissed. It didn't... compute well in his head.

He was messed up from the crash, that Lucius could believe. If he hadn't been drinking, then it had to have been something he had taken from the hospital. She had to have mixed it with something. There was no other way.

"... I... I do remember wanting to fly," Lucius confirmed through shaking breaths. His entire being ached now but he held onto that thought, calming himself down. "I thought it was a dream."

It felt like it was all a dream... with patches and pieces. He shook his head lightly and sighed gingerly. He didn't want to shake the shards in his brain anymore than he already was with the sporadic hiccups that broke through everything.

"But where did you go?" Lucius finally asked quietly, "why--why weren't you... here?"

That was a slightly nagging question that dipped into his emotions as well. Had Lucius... been so mean, so awful that Feo had to leave? Or was there a fight with something else and he had chased it down?

The thoughts swirled in his head, hardly kept at bay through the rush of pain and the wash of the emotions still running through him.

Feo looked exhausted, tired and perhaps worried. But not in the right way. He... he looked almost ... like he was ...

Lucius couldn't find the right word. Like something ... sort of guilty but in an angry sort of way. Guilty for something, angry at it too. The type of thing where--he'd... do something to make it right. Even if it meant... doing something stupid.

"Feo, you need to tell me what happened," Lucius insisted, "come sit down, I'll... try and eat something while you explain everything. And I mean everything," he said quietly. There wasn't a part of it that he didn't want left out. He needed to hear it all, to piece through and fix what had gone wrong.

That was what he needed to do.

Eat first, get the medicine in his system, fix the issues from the night before. Figure out a game plan.

Or, maybe, instead of focusing on going forward, have a talk about what they needed. Not physically, but... from each other. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the pair of demigods were solitary before this. Lucius might've been flashy and found it easy to socialize, but he still had points in time in which he was alone. Feo normally was alone.

To have someone constantly there, 24/7 at this point... was hard.

Feo hesitated. He knew he needed to answer, that Lucius wasn’t going to let this go, that his eyes—burning and bright even through exhaustion—were locked onto him, demanding an explanation.

But gods, Feo hated this.

He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to dig into the why’s or the what-for’s, didn’t want to admit that he’d left because he couldn’t sit still, because something inside of him had cracked too wide open, and it had made him run. Lucius had been angry, and Feo had tried—he’d tried—to hold things together, but the moment he had stopped moving, the moment Lucius had finally passed out, the moment the room had been quiet, it had all hit him at once.

The fight. The crash. The gods-damned look on Lucius’s face when he had been screaming and half-delirious.

Feo had wanted to sleep. Tried to sleep. But his head had been full of static, full of ghosts, full of old voices mixing with new ones, and the walls of the hotel room had started pressing in too close. He couldn’t breathe in there. He couldn’t stay.

So he had left.

He exhaled sharply, shaking off the tension creeping into his shoulders. He had to keep this simple. Keep it clean. Lucius was already rattled enough—he didn’t need the full mess of Feo’s brain dumped onto him, too.

Slowly, he stepped forward, setting the food and medicine down on the small table beside the bed. Then, with a stiffness that felt unnatural in his own body, he sat down in the chair next to it, rubbing a hand over his face before looking up at Lucius.

“I—” He hesitated for a fraction of a second before shaking his head and pushing forward. “You were exhausted. You passed out. I stayed for a while, made sure you weren’t—” He gestured vaguely. “Y’know. Gonna die in your sleep or something.”

That much was true. He had stayed. He had watched, just in case Lucius’s breathing got too shallow, just in case he started burning up again, just in case something else went wrong.

“But I couldn’t sleep.” The words came out tight, clipped, but honest. “My head wouldn’t shut up. The room felt… too still. So I left. Thought I’d walk for a bit, clear my head.”

His fingers tapped against his knee, betraying his nerves. He forced himself to still them.

“I didn’t mean to be gone that long.” Another truth. “Just kinda… ended up wandering. It was late. Not a lot of people out. Streets were quiet.” Too quiet. “Thought about going back a couple times, but—” He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Didn’t. Just kept walking.”

That part was mostly true. Mostly.

He wasn’t about to tell Lucius how many times he’d turned a corner thinking he’d stop, only to keep going. How many times he’d told himself he’d sit down somewhere, only for his body to reject the idea like a bad meal. He wasn’t going to say how wrong it had felt to sit still, to be stuck with nothing but his own damn thoughts.

And he definitely wasn’t going to mention that moment, just before dawn, when he’d stood on the edge of a rooftop, staring down at the empty streets below, wondering how much it would hurt to hit the ground.

No. That part wasn’t important.

He cleared his throat, looking away for a moment before dragging his gaze back. “Didn’t do anything. Just walked.” A small shrug. “Came back when the sun started coming up. Figured you’d be waking up soon.”

That was the end of it. That was all he was going to give.

His gut twisted a little. He didn’t like lying. He didn’t like hiding things. But this? This wasn’t something Lucius needed to know. Not right now. Not when he was already sitting there looking like he’d been chewed up and spit out by the universe.

Feo clenched his jaw.

He could hold onto this himself. Lucius didn’t need to carry it too.

Lucius took the bowl. It smelled... nice. Or maybe it was because he was so hungry. He didn't care either way, it was because it was food. He kept himself quiet as he ate, forcing himself to shut up for once as he listened.

There was something Feo was hiding. Lucius listened, glancing toward the Norse occasionally as he worked on just eating. It tasted... pretty good. It wasn't too bad actually, he was relatively surprised.

But the words caught him. Die?

Not likely. Lucius knew he wasn't mundane enough to die in his sleep. Oh he was absolutely going to be going down in a blaze of some sort. He just hoped it was glory and not stupidity.

But the walking, that caught his attention. It was an allusion to something more than he said out loud.

He took in a breath and let it out again. The shrug was out of place considering how Feo looked.

The food had helped with the headache, but the aspirin and anacin would help far more. It was a slow deep breath that steadied himself.

Calm. He was coming down, he was calm, he had a grip now. Food. Warmth, the wrap and a few more pieces to the puzzle of the night before.

"Feo, you said I was pissed. You said you deserved... 'it' it's good to hear what you did. But I need to know what was said. We need... we just need to talk. And I don't mean... about the future. We know what we're doing," he said quietly, setting the bowl down.

"We need to talk... and ... and open up. We can't keep doing this dance. We can't keep waltzing with the other only to let go when we think the other isn't ready. That's... not how this works. And I know, I'm guilty of it. I know. But it... it isn't helping. I might not remember last night but I do remember the day. Once Aera showed up, we began ... this sort of tiptoe around each other. It's not healthy, it's not really helping each other like we said we would."

His sapphire eyes finally pulled from his hand to Feo's face, searching his gaze. "If you don't want to talk right now, and you just want to sleep, that's fine. But we've got to talk. We need to talk about how to help each other instead of ... avoiding it. It's... you said it yesterday. Ignoring the problem won't help. We're good at that but it's not helpful right now. We need to actually... face them and ... work on a solution."

Lucius sighed, lowering his gaze to his hand and then to his arm.

"... we got nothing better to do anyways."

Feo’s hands gripped his knees tighter, fingers curling into fists as the words slowly found their way out. They scraped at his chest, but he pushed them forward, forcing himself to speak them aloud, even though every single syllable made his stomach twist more painfully.

"You were pissed. At me," Feo said quietly, the words feeling wrong in his mouth. He swallowed hard, looking down at his hands, forcing himself to continue. "You hated the way I was treating you, coddling you, like you couldn’t handle anything. You thought I was babying you, and you hated it. You thought I didn’t trust you to be strong enough to deal with your own shit."

He took a long, shaky breath, feeling his chest tighten with each passing second. The words were rushing at him faster than he could stop them, but as much as he hated to admit it, he needed to get it out. It was eating at him. That look in Lucius's eyes from the night before, the anger, the resentment that had been there when he’d yelled. Feo could still feel it, burning in his chest like an open wound.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his mind drifting back to the night before, to the long, restless hours he spent walking the streets. The silence of the bar had felt suffocating as he watched men try desperately to drown their misery in whiskey. He had walked around aimlessly, passing alleyways, glancing up at the cloudy sky, his mind churning in a storm of its own.

That damn toad. He remembered picking it up, holding it in his hand, feeling its tiny, frantic heartbeat as it looked at him. But he wasn’t looking at the toad. No, he was staring past it, into the distance, his mind tangled in the mess of Lucius’s words, his own guilt, and the overwhelming urge to do better, to fix the mess he’d created.

“Honestly, I probably deserved it,” Feo continued, his voice growing quieter, almost distant, as the weight of it all pressed harder on his chest. He could still see the bar's patrons, the way they were hunched over their glasses, barely aware of the world outside. That feeling of being alone, even in a crowd, had never been clearer. He didn’t belong there, just like he didn’t feel like he belonged here, sitting across from Lucius, staring at the ground, unable to face him fully. “I mean, I was trying so hard to keep you from being uncomfortable, from feeling like you were a burden, and I was making it worse. I wasn’t helping. I wasn’t listening.”

The words were tearing through him as if he were laying himself open, exposing every vulnerable part of himself. The guilt cut deep—cut deeper than it should. He had made a choice, walking away last night, but he hadn’t understood the consequences of it. Not fully. How could he have known that every hour of distance between him and Lucius would eat away at him like this?

But Lucius had been so angry. Feo could feel it like a hot burn in his veins. He had seen the way Lucius looked at him, the way his jaw clenched, the way his fists trembled when he couldn’t control his frustration. It had all been aimed at him. He had pissed Lucius off, and Feo couldn’t bring himself to blame him for it. He deserved it.

“But you were hurting, Lucius. You were in pain, and I didn’t know how to help with that. I didn’t know what the hell to do, so I tried to make it easier for you, and I ended up doing the exact opposite.” Feo shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together. He stared at the floor, his mind flicking back to the moments when Lucius had yelled at him, his words cutting through the fog of their tension. He had been desperate to avoid showing Lucius the cracks in his own resolve, afraid that if Lucius saw them, it would break everything. Feo hadn’t wanted to seem weak, not when Lucius was already struggling. He hadn’t wanted to be another burden.

The night before... after Lucius had fallen asleep, Feo had wandered out like he'd asked, unable to keep still, feeling trapped in the room, trapped in his own head. He hadn’t wanted to wake Lucius, didn’t want to add to the chaos. But walking around had only made everything worse. He had wandered the streets, unable to find a clear path, the cold air biting at his skin, the shadows of the alleys feeling like a constant reminder of how far off-course everything had gone.

And then, there had been that damn toad, his tiny body pressed against Feo's hands. He had stared at it, as if it held the answers he couldn’t find in himself.

The guilt had been overwhelming. He hadn’t known what to do with it. Hadn't known where to go.

“I should’ve known better,” Feo mumbled, the words thick in his throat. "But I was too caught up in... in trying to protect you. And I fucked it up. I’m sorry.”

He was quiet for a long while after that, unable to say more. The silence settled heavy between them, and Feo fought back the tightness in his chest, willing himself not to break down right there.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He hadn’t meant for things to get this far out of hand.

“I—” Feo started again, but his voice faltered. He looked at Lucius finally, just for a moment, before turning his gaze down again. "I'm sorry for walking away last night. I shouldn't have. I should've stayed. I shouldn't have let it get that bad. But.. but you asked me to go, told me to breathe.. said I should take a walk.. I thought you didn't want me there, I thought I should just go, and for a while I considered leaving you alone and not coming back and letting you do it on your own like you asked," His words slowly sped up as panic crept into his voice. "I'm sorry.. should I not have gone? Would you have preferred I had stayed, even though you said.. you were so mad at me, Lucius, all of this.. shit.."

His tone dropped to a whisper, but he shoved down the tears.

One of them crying was enough.

The first bit was something Lucius already knew. Feo had said he was pissed at him. That he had deserved it. The rest of the words made ... sense. It had been something he had danced around internally for days.

He wasn't wrong. Lucius knew that. It had started... started with Atlas. The collector. Aera. The emotions had accumulated over the days and Lucius had ignored them, figuring it was just his past. He hadn't had anyone to really care. But something about the incident last night, the bike--and just before the hospital, he could remember. The demigod had gotten angry at the cyclist, even though he had no chance to avoid Lucius. Lucius was trying to help himself feel better, to remind himself that he was going to be okay. He had done it a thousand times before. It was a routine and it had worked. He had been fine.

But on the complete opposite side, Feo had clashed with that routine. He had panicked, flustered and instead of letting Lucius handle it, had tried to take over. Lucius knew how he wanted it to go, he didn't want to make a fuss. It was fine.

He wasn't listening. Lucius exhaled softly. That was probably true. But it was the clicking of the sigh. Feo had tried to make it easier for him, which was kind of him. He had tried. But Lucius could remember the shaking that Feo had. In a sort of ... slightly ironic twist. Feo seemed to be in more shock than Lucius had been. But the underlying truth was Lucius was used to it. It wasn't his first and wouldn't be the last either.

"I don't really remember asking you to leave," Lucius said quietly. "But I'm sure... if I did... it wasn't because I didn't want to see you. It was probably because I thought it would help you... because I... couldn't think right. This... this is good. It's... it's good to talk about this," Lucius agreed quietly, taking in a breath. "Just... take a breath and slow down. If we go too fast, we... we can't get anywhere."

The young man closed his eyes and let out a small reluctant sigh. How to start? Start with the biggest thing? No.

"Do it--I think, I meant handle my injury," Lucius clarified, using his past experiences. "I know you don't want to hear it, but I am used to this kind of thing. It came with the wings... and just being a kid. We... well, as a kid, my old friends and I were kinda dumb and reckless. We learned how to handle broken bones real quick."

Mostly his.

"I don't... I'm not used to having someone there like this. The biggest burden I feel now is... being dumb enough to not look both ways before crossing the street. We can't exactly travel right now. But it's alright. We're learning how to deal with things in the future and how to help each other right now."

He took in a breath and let it out again, keeping his voice calm and steady. It was much easier with the edge of the pain gone. It was a dull ache but that was something he could handle.

"But I'll be honest, I have felt a little smothered. Not a lot, but just a bit. I know you want to protect me and I'm thankful for that... but there are some things you can't control. Life ... is life. It's a part of life to break bones, get hurt, do some dumb stuff. We're just human and that's okay. I don't mind the protection from threats--especially godly ones. But little things like this? You don't have to worry about it, I'm used to handling it. I... probably didn't word it well," he said quietly. "I'm sorry for yelling."

Feo stayed quiet for a long moment, staring down at his hands again, his fingers curling and uncurling against his knees. The tension in his shoulders refused to ease, like his body had locked itself in place, unwilling to release the weight pressing down on him. His mind felt slow, like he was wading through thick, murky water, unable to fully surface.

Smothering.

Lucius had felt smothered.

Feo had known it. Deep down, he’d known it, but hearing it out loud still made his stomach twist. He hadn’t meant to make things harder. Hadn’t meant to take away Lucius’s agency. But he had. He had tried to control something he had no right to control.

His nails dug into the fabric of his pants, and he exhaled sharply through his nose, the sound barely audible. He couldn’t blame Lucius for it. Couldn’t even be upset at the fact that he’d yelled. The night before, it had felt like a slap in the face, but now… now it was clearer.

Feo had been in shock. Lucius was right. It wasn’t that Feo had been prepared for the worst—it was that he had expected it. It was that moment of sheer, gripping panic, that raw fear, that had cracked through his usually cold, controlled exterior. He had never been good at watching people get hurt. Not when it was someone he cared about.

He could still feel it—the weight of the night before pressing down on his chest. The water under the bridge, dark and swirling. The feeling of standing on the rooftop, staring down at the city streets below, watching the headlights of the small amounts of passing cars, the neon glow of bars and shops. The sound of muffled music bleeding from the bar he had stood outside of for what felt like hours, watching as life moved on without him.

The world had felt distant, and yet he had been so aware of it.

The toad had stared up at him, small and insignificant, like it held some kind of answer to a question he hadn’t been able to form. He had let it go eventually, watching it hop away, disappearing into the grass, and all he could think about was how easy it had been for it to just leave. How simple it was for it to just… go.

He hadn’t felt like he could.

But he had wandered anyway.

His jaw clenched, and he let out a slow breath, trying to ground himself in the moment, in the sound of Lucius’s voice, in the steadiness of it. He could feel the ache behind his ribs, the raw edges of exhaustion pulling at him, but he forced himself to push past it.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Feo finally said, his voice low. “I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what I was expecting. I know you’re used to it. I know you’ve handled worse.” He shook his head slightly, lips pressing together into a thin line. “But I don’t like seeing you hurt. I don’t like feeling useless. I don’t like feeling like there’s nothing I can do except sit there and watch while you bleed.”

His throat tightened. He swallowed it down.

“I know I can’t stop things from happening. I know I can’t just… wrap you in foam and make sure nothing bad ever happens to you. I know how stupid that is.” He let out a bitter chuckle, shaking his head again, his gaze still locked downward. “But when I saw you on the ground, when I saw the blood, I didn’t think. I just reacted. And yeah, I panicked. I fucking panicked. And then I made it worse because I kept trying to take control of something that wasn’t mine to control.”

His hands clenched into fists. His knuckles went white.

“I shouldn’t have left last night,” he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. “I shouldn’t have walked away. I thought—I don’t even know what I thought. That I needed space? That you needed space? That maybe if I just went, I could figure it all out before I said something else that fucked things up? It was what you wanted, after all.” He let out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Didn’t work.”

It was stupid. It was all stupid.

He had spent hours staring into nothing, searching for answers he was never going to find.

Lucius had been right—this was good. Talking. Getting it out. They had been avoiding it, dancing around everything that had been boiling under the surface, too caught up in their own self-inflicted barriers to just say what needed to be said. And Feo had been just as guilty of it.

He forced himself to look up, to meet Lucius’s gaze, even though everything in him screamed to look away. “I’m not gonna stop trying to protect you,” he admitted, voice softer now, raw around the edges. “But I can stop getting in your way. I can listen instead of assuming I know what’s best.” His fingers flexed slightly before he let his hands rest flat against his thighs. “And… I’ll try not to smother you. Just… tell me when I do. If I do.”

He let out a slow breath, the tension still there, still wound tight in his chest, but looser than before. More manageable.

“I’m sorry for not listening,” he said finally. “And for leaving. And for… everything, really.”

He wasn’t sure if words would ever be enough. But it was a start.

Lucius glanced toward Feo, watching him. He looked awful. There was a tired nature behind his eyes, a rough sense of exhaustion that mingled with the ghosts that hid behind that brilliant mind of his. Lucius wanted to see that bright light, the laughter, the smile. But every one was haunted by something. His eyes lowered to his hands.

Watch while you bleed.

The words caught in Lucius' chest, hitting him like a train. It took his breath away, tangling everything up in chains to his relentless imagination. It gripped his chest in a cold iron grip, seeing himself--as he was--broken in front of the golden eyes of the gods. Bruised, bloody, destroyed. The twisted limbs, scattered and stained white feathers--tinged with gold and red blood, the ichor of life--but the image twisted in his head. The golden gaze--those godly golden eyes lifted from staring down at him... to beyond him.

It was never him. They never... looked at him. But someone did. Someone would care about that scene, what they saw. Someone... couldn't see it.

The dry laugh caught his attention again, blinking the imagery away from his mind.

Control.

Everything anyone did was about control. Whether it was to control themselves, the actions of others, the circumstances, everything was about control.

He swallowed thickly, pushing through the thoughts and focusing on the last bit of what Feo said. Didn't work.

"Sometimes, we have to find what doesn't work before we find what does work," Lucius finally said, avoiding that image in his head. There were some things that should be talked about. That was not one of them. "We're both... rather stubborn. We think we know what's best and... well, we don't always know. I mean, clearly..." he let out a small and quiet laugh, gesturing to himself.

"You don't have to apologize," Lucius said quietly, reaching his good hand out to brush along Feo's arm. "You don't have to apologize for leaving. You came back, that's all I need. We... we're not used to this sort of thing, being around somebody all of the time. I mean, as confident and bubbly as I am, I still had ... time to be alone. We haven't really had that with each other."

Lucius took in another breath, pulling his hand back.

"It's hard. But sometimes, we have to be okay with being separate. Even... even if we don't want to admit it."

He didn't. He really didn't want to be alone. But he had to give himself space sometimes to tackle the tough things. The rough emotions, he couldn't always ignore it.