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the seven sat around the table, tears of laughter running down their faces.
“l-leo, you cannot say that,” piper choked out, once she had finally caught her breath.
“why not?” leo demanded jokingly. “apollo- absolute smash. he’s so hot.”
“he’s the sun god,” percy said, a strange tone in his voice and a… wistful smile? leo wasn’t sure, but he seemed alright, so he disregarded it.
“ok, wait, because why have none of us even mentioned zeus,” piper half-shouted to be heard over the clamour. immediately, the table erupted into chaos.
“piper, that’s your future father-in-law!”
“i mean, all the more reason to call him daddy-“
“PIPER, shut your fuck right now, this is unacceptable.”
“yeah, you don’t have to say that zeus is a smash, he’ll smash you anyways.”
“leo, don’t get involved!”
“oh, but hazel, dear, i was involved the moment annabeth said ‘shut your fuck’. kudos, by the way, that was beautiful.”
“thank you, it felt like the correct sentiment.”
“and it absolutely was.”
“are we just moving on from the fact that piper said she’d fuck my dad?”
“technically, your dad’s jupiter.”
“that’s not the point!”
leo leaned back in his chair and smiled, observing the mess from a slightly more distant perspective.
he couldn’t even remember how this conversation had started, not really. but now they were playing smash or pass with gods. vaguely, somewhere in the back of his mind, leo hoped that they wouldn’t get smited for it.
smited? smote? smete? leo wasn’t sure. didn’t really matter though. they’d still be just as blown to smithereens if it was smited as they would be if it was smote.
even coach hedge had gotten involved, and though he pretended to roll his eyes, leo could tell that he was secretly enjoying this whole fiasco. he refused to offer his opinion, but based on some of his facial expressions, he agreed with jason that hermes was a smash.
all jokes aside, leo was happy. he’d been doing better, the past couple of days. he’d been eating better, sleeping more- he hadn’t had a nightmare in almost a week, and the cuts on his thighs were almost fully healed for the first time in months. maybe even a year.
now that the war was over and everyone was alive and well, there was finally time to rest and have some fun with friends. when piper and jason had suggested going on a trip on what had been dubbed the argo III (“for old time’s sakes, guys, come on!”) leo had jumped on the idea, as had the rest of the seven. and it was worth it. they’d seen the eiffel tower (albeit from a distance), eaten ice cream and had a food fight on deck, accidentally sending a bagel over the edge. that would be an interesting story for some random tourist. but the point was, leo felt okay.
it felt… strange, that was for sure. but strange in a good way. for once, leo finally had hope that he would get better.
he snapped back into the conversation, still centred around which gods were a smash and which ones were a pass.
suddenly, an idea popped into his head, and leo gasped between wheezing laughter. “ok wait, no, what about mars?”
piper leaned back in her seat and cackled, actually cackled , slamming her fist against the table. “that’s so bad!
frank chimed in then. “stop, that’s my dad bro, you’re worse than those kids from the ares cabin!”
and leo’s heart stilled in his chest.
sure, frank’s words had had a joking cadence to them, and everyone else ignored it and moved on, continuing with the conversation. it was probably meant as a passing comment.
probably.
but leo had heard about those kids. it wasn’t all of them, not by any means. but his little sister, only 13 at the time, had once come into the hephaestus cabin visibly upset. and when leo had asked about it, he’d been told about how some burly son of ares had gone up to her and, rather bluntly, said “you’re kinda hot. wanna fuck?”
to his sister. a 13 year old girl who had just been practicing her knife skills. minding her own business.
it had been a joke. a passing comment. but leo was spiralling into a black hole.
he was jolted out of his reverie by piper slapping his arm between her wheezes. innocent, yes, but he jerked sharply. it went mostly unnoticed by the group, still caught up in their joke, but coach hedge looked at him strangely. leo tried to ignore it, his heartbeat pounding behind his eyeballs.
he had to get out of there.
he stood up abruptly. all eyes fell on him. “uh, i don’t feel great. i’m gonna go have a rest.”
“feel better, leo,” hazel said, forever the thoughtful one of the group. the sentiment was repeated by the others. he wished it wasn’t. he didn’t deserve that.
disgusting.
he stumbled out the door blindly, almost running into the wall. behind him, he heard the laughs start up again. they didn’t need him. they didn’t want him.
twisted.
he was sprinting down the corridors. you’re worse than those kids from the ares cabin . he was quietly pushing the engine room door shut. worse than those kids . he was curling on the ground, fingers twisted tightly in his hair. worse .
worse .
worse .
worse .
the word stuck in his head. he felt as though it was branded on his forehead, like it was all everyone who ever looked at him would see. it was all that he ever was. all he ever would be. worse. worse than perverts. worse than creeps. worse.
his heart was slamming against his ribs, hard enough for his chest to ache. or maybe that was just the effect of frank’s words. either way, something was wrong. with him. something was wrong with him, deep inside his brain. something sick and twisted, perverted and disgusting and dangerous . and he didn’t know how to fix it.
that was a lie. he knew exactly how to fix it. he just didn’t want to do it.
but now that the idea had slipped into his mind, he couldn’t get it out. it would fester and grow like mould until it poisoned him.
no! he made a promise. he swore to jason that he would never do it again. leo remembered that day in horrible detail, the way jason had choked on leo’s name, had fallen to his knees and desperately held the wounds on his arms as if trying to force the blood back into his body, had immediately thrown out the blade and made leo promise to never harm himself again. how every day after that, they’d had a serious conversation, as per jason’s instructions. jason had checked his arms, treated them tenderly, held leo as he finally let himself cry, and for a short while, leo had allowed himself to feel loved.
but that was in the wilderness school. none of it was real. no one could ever care for leo like that. he was unlovable, deservedly so, because he was worse than the ares kids, a creep, dirty and filthy and spreading his disease to innocent people with the poor luck of knowing him.
he thought… he really thought he’d be able to escape the cycle of abuse.
the first time leo had heard the saying “the abused becomes the abuser”, he was 11 years old in yet another shitty foster home. his foster father had been using it against him, teasing him relentlessly to make him miserable.
“don’t you want to hit me?” he’d goaded. “after all, the abused becomes the abuser.”
the worst thing was, leo had wanted to hit him. he’d wanted to scream and yell and beat him within an inch of his life. and later that evening, when he’d been lying between soft sheets with calloused hands roaming all over him, thinking about how some day, he might be doing this to some poor innocent child, he’d never wanted to die more. to end his life so that he wouldn’t ruin someone else’s.
but no. all that work, all that effort he’d dedicated to being someone he needed when he was younger and not someone he feared, it had all been wasted. because he wasn’t like them. he was worse.
that promise to jason was never made. it never existed. so leo wasn’t doing anything wrong when he took up the sharp blade in his toolbelt and pulled his pants down, ready to get to work.
it took him a moment of staring at the scar-littered skin to decide where he should start cutting, to find a piece of skin clear enough. but as soon as he did, leo wasted no time in viciously attacking his own body.
in the past, when he first started cutting, leo made a rule. no more than 20 cuts in a day. that kept them nice and controlled, in one spot and easy to hide. he’d long abandoned that rule.
red smeared across his skin and dripped onto the floorboards, forming small pools around him. he noticed droplets of blood landing on his pants. damn. that kind of ruined the point of pulling them down before he started cutting.
before long, his thighs were stinging brutally, so he switched to his arms. this was probably excessive. he knew he could stop whenever he wanted. he’d probably had enough for one night. but that was enough to make himself calm down a little. now he needed to punish himself for the careless comment. so he drove the blade into his arm again and again and again, not cutting all that deep but doing it so many times that it didn’t take long for trails of red to drip their way down his arms.
suddenly, leo heard a bang on the door. “valdez? open up, i wanna talk to you.” coach hedge.
panic filled his throat. what was he meant to do about this? make an excuse? what would excuse this?
oh yeah, i just tripped and cut myself a billion times with a knife, no biggie!
contrary to popular belief, coach hedge wasn’t stupid. he’d see right through that. anyone would.
he’d been thinking too long. coach hedge knocked in the door again, more insistently this time. “valdez, i’m a satyr. i can feel your emotions. i can smell the blood. let me in.”
fuck!
fuck!
fuck!
leo had totally forgotten about that. like, totally. well, there was no point in trying to hide it now. feebly, weighed down with exhaustion and guilt, leo pulled up his pants, in a hopeless attempt to retain a shiver of his dignity. he watched as the blood slowly seeped through the fabric, blossoming like smoke from a campfire.
finally, he gathered the courage to call out to coach hedge. “you can… you can come in.”
before he had even finished talking, hedge was inside the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
“damn it, valdez, what have you done to yourself?”
leo forced a chuckle. “‘s really not as bad as it seems. i’m just a little cut up, ya know.”
“valdez, please do not make a pun right now,” hedge begged. he pulled some supplies out of a first aid kit leo hadn’t noticed he was carrying, and knelt down next to him. “i’ve been your protector just as long as you’ve known me. we’ve had more than one conversation about this kind of thing.”
right. those late night conversations between leo and coach hedge they’d shared on the roof of the dorm building in the wilderness school. leo hadn’t been entirely sure if those were real or fabricated by hera. at least now he had proof that they were real.
they’d started when leo got his hands on some vodka and a cigarette from one of the older student. it had been a tough week, and leo figured he deserved to blow off some steam. well, he supposed he was blowing smoke, technically. he’d been sitting on the edge of the roof with his legs dangling over the edge when the coach had come and sat next to him, silently taking the bottle of vodka from his hands and flicking the cigarette off the roof. that night, leo had found himself too exhausted to keep up the smile. hedge had discovered a whole new side to the boy.
although, looking back on it, it was likely that he had already known, what with his satyr skills and whatnot. but at the time, leo hadn’t know that.
still, they’d never discussed the topic of self harm. coach hedge must have known. with this new information about the demigod world, leo was certain that he hadn’t been imagining the worried glances he’d feel the night after a relapse. but he’d never brought it up. it had just been a silent third party in their adult protector-idiot child relationship. until now.
“sorry,” leo found himself saying.
coach hedge paused in his search for bandages. “now what on earth are you sorry for, kid?”
leo couldn’t bring himself to explain what was going on in his mind, instead leaning against the wall behind him. “sorry,” he whined again, like a lost puppy. “sorry.”
hedge exhaled slowly. “it’s alright, valdez. you got nothing to apologise for.”
he crouched next to leo on the floor. “i might have to apologise real soon, though. i gotta take off your pants to treat your injuries. this is gonna sting.”
without warning, he produced a pair of scissors from his first aid kit and sliced through the leg of leo’s pants.
leo’s brain short-circuited.
suddenly, he was back on the streets, cornered by something with a pair of scissors.
well, if you ain’t got no money, i’m sure you got something else you can give me, you know what i’m gettin’ at?
leo thrashed violently, trying to get him off. but instead of the cool steel against his throat he was expecting for daring to fight back, he felt warm hands pressing down on his shoulder.
“you gotta calm down, kid, there’s no other way for me to help you, other than to go to the infirmary, and i’m not sure you want the others to see you like this.”
that broke through. he definitely did not want the others to see him in this state. he fought his instincts and stilled under coach hedge’s firm grasp, allowing him to start cleaning the wounds on his legs.
“gods, you really did a number on yourself, huh?” coach’s voice was softer than leo had ever heard it.
they sat in silence, save for the occasional hiss of pain and murmured apology when hedge was a bit too rough with his injuries. when his thighs were treated and wrapped up, they moved onto his arms.
once his wounds were fully treated to the best of coach hedge’s abilities and the blood on the floor had been (somewhat carelessly) mopped up, hedge sat next to leo on the floor, staring straight ahead. after a moment’s hesitation, he lifted up his arm and rested it around leo’s shoulder.
it sent an electric shock through leo’s body. he hadn’t realised just how touch-starved he was, and found himself resting his head on the coach’s shoulder.
this felt strange. the coach wasn’t affectionate, not at all. maybe having a child had changed him. maybe he’d always been like this, simply suppressing it to look cool. or maybe he’d been forced to push it down, too afraid of losing the children he cared about.
leo was jostled out of his thoughts by coach hedge gently clearing his throat. “valdez, i know that what frank said bothered you.”
the mental walls leo had subconsciously let down slammed straight back up. coach perhaps realised his mistake, and backtracked. “i’m not saying you were wrong to be bothered by it. it was insensitive and it would bug me too.”
leo bit his lip. “i just-“ he cut himself off. his voice cracked. “i just thought i was better than them. you know. thought i’d break the cycle. guess i’m just doomed to be like the people that raised me.” he chuckled dryly.
hedge wasted no time. “you made a joke, just like the rest of them. less than a minute after you left, one of them said hephaestus was a smash and no one batted an eye. frank never meant to hurt you, but he took the joke a bit too far. he didn’t realise how much it would affect you. that’s not his fault. it’s not yours, either.”
“i just feel so dirty,” leo croaked, tears springing to his eyes. he hated this. feeling so vulnerable, opening up so much. it was horrible. but this was coach hedge. it couldn’t be too bad. right?
coach was silently, rubbing leo’s shoulder. he squeezed him tightly. “well, let’s go get some food in you. see if that helps, yeah?”
at leo’s hesitation, coach clarified, “all the others have gone to bed. it’s been a good couple hours.”
leo nodded slightly. “ok. thanks, coach.”
“you’re a good kid, leo,” coach said. “don’t forget that.”
with that, he left the room, gesturing leo to follow. tears pricking at his eyes, leo obliged.
it was the first time coach hedge had ever called one of them by their first name.