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Leo Valdez, and Nico di Angelo. The class clown and the weird kid. Of all the people in the school, these two were quite possibly the most unlikely pair to have become friends.
Afterall, Leo was liked by everyone. He was the class clown afterall. The teachers weren't fans of his antics, but they found that much more favorable to him using that same chaotic ADHD energy he had to cause trouble.
Nico on the other hand was that kid that dressed in all black. The kid that sat alone at lunch, and would move away whenever anyone came close. Not that that happened a lot. He was the type of kid who everyone was convinced had the potential to shoot up the school.
But really, they both had a lot more in common than their behaviour might have suggested. The only difference was that unlike Nico, Leo hid his pain. He made others laugh and hoped that noone would notice he was the only one not laughing. Nico, however, had stopped trying.
Leo and Nico had never given each other much thought until that creative writing assignment. His therapist had told him to try and open up to the world. Let someone else know his pain, rather than try to drown it out in laughter.
Of course, what Nico wrote was pretty much what one would expect from someone whose wardrobe was 90% Hot Topic. Not edgy for edgyness sake. But gloomy.
When it was Leos turn to present what he wrote, everyone expected some funny bullshit, the type of thing that Leo Valdez would always pull. What he did write however would end up confusing the class.
"Sparks.
Starting points.
Harmless, though they may seem,
Escalate. Originate.
Flames.
Force of Life.
Source of Death.
Like a double-edged sword.
Destroys as it creates.
Consumes as it produces.
Embers.
Leftovers.
Still hot and glowing.
Give off light, yet still make heat.
May start the sparks again."
Everyone looked confused. Not at the story itself, but at Leo, who was unusually stiff and serious as he spoke it. He didn't look like he tried holding something back, but it was still clear that he was. And Nico realized quickly what it was. He had gone through it, too.
After class ended, Leo walked out of the room. He didn't join his classmates though. He walked the other way, past the stairs, right towards the music rooms, and right again, past the entrance to one of them, then outside through the door, and down a stairwell at the side of the yard, at the bottom of which was a small room. God knows what was on the other side of that door. He could probably find out if he so desired, but that was not his intent.
Another student, however, had followed him there. Nico. "Leo, are... are you okay?" he asked, carefully, in a tone that Leo had not expected. A caring tone, almost.
Leo nodded, but he knew Nico wasn't an idiot. "Listen, i don't know what happened in that fire, but bottling your emotions up will only work for so long." Leo was taken aback. Had he been that obvious? Then again, how else could Nico know about the fire? Leo hadn't ever told anyone save for his therapist about what had happened that day.
"Trust me, i should know." he told Leo. "Look, i don't wanna talk about that." Leo replied. "Whatever." Nico said, "But if you ever change your mind, let me know. I got a lot of time on my hands."
Figuring out which Instagram account was Leo's wasn't a challenge for Nico. He knew roughly where Leo lived, and he knew his social group. Plus the flying metal dragon might have been a clue to Nico as well.
Leo thought about Nicos words.
Talk to him?
If anyone knew what losing someone feels like, that would be Nico. At least, thats what his intuition said.
He had made the offer.
His therapist told him that opening up could help.
Don't talk to him?
He is the weird kid.
He barely even knew him.
His phone shook.
'Made a decision?'
It was Nico. How had that boy managed to find his Instagram profile. Okay, honestly, that would've been easy.
'Yeah'
'Let's meet at mine'
Nico knew to find his way around town; Over the years, he had learnt to use every passageway he could find. Using a footpath, he crossed from one street to another. The street he was in was arranged in a rectangle, with only one road leading in. Then, 5 houses down from there, he arrived at a playground, opposite of which was Leos house. It was one of these houses that, while still the same building, was seperated into two independent houses so that different families could live there. Two entrances and all. Leos half was aligned with that playground, at the entrance of which stood Nico.
'Look at the street'
Leo looked out of his room on the top floor, which really was the entire top floor, incredulously. Down at the playground stood Nico, who had gotten there in a surprisingly short time. One more reason that kid freaked him out. Leo went down to the entry hall. His foster parents in the room just across were watching TV, so they didn't notice their visitor. "How'd you-" "I can explain later." Nico interrupted him.
The house was, well, not claustrophobic, but a bit tight at least. Half of the entrance was a hallway leading to what looked like a kitchen. Through a small window on the left side, he could spy that past the kitchen was a dining room, and behind that a pavilion with a garden past that. He didn't peak into the part of the room that he couldn't see from his position, but based on what he heard, he guessed it was the living room.
On the right, there were stairs. One staircase went down, while the other went up. Leo went up, and Nico followed. The upper floor was more homey than the lower floor. Whereas the lower floor had been built from tiles on the walls and the floor, the upper floor had carpet and wooden walls. There were also several doors, but Leo also went past those to what Nico would have assumed was the attic, but was actually Leos room.
The room was painted white. Posters were hanging on the sloped walls. Ahead of the stairs was one window, two more were further to the right, alongside most of the room. Though not physically divided, the room was kind of split in two by a part of the wall jutting out left of the window.
The left side, and by far the smaller, mainly contained a wardrobe, a shelf, and all kinds of stuff lying about.
The right side in the meantime looked just like the place that Nico had imagined someone like Leo would live in. On the far end, there was a small tv and music setup. The lefthand wall had a shelf full of what he assumed were DVDs for the most part. The righthand side had a matress. Not even a whole bed. Just a matress lying on the floor with a pillow and some covers on top. At the foot end, next to the wall that jutted out, was a desktop PC, albeit not a very modern one by the looks of it. The desk was also full of all kinds of small parts that he guessed Leo had been using to tinker with.
"Welcome to mi casa." Leo said. Not exactly a homey place for Nicos taste, but it looked like the kind of place that someone like Leo would be happy in. He sat down on his matress, and gestured Nico to join him, which he did.
"Isn't there supposed to be a bedframe under your matress?" he asked. "Well usually." he said, "But i'm fine just like this." Then, there was a moment of awkward silence. Both of them knew what they were here to talk about. The one thing that they both had tried to not think about. The death of loved ones.
"So..." Nico began. "What happened that day?" Leo looked as serious, yet as vulnerable as he had ever seen him look. "So, my mom used to take me to her workplace, since she didn't have anywhere else to take me." he began. "Her boss understood, they'd let me stay in the lounge. I'd sit there and draw or something. Then, one day..." Leo visibly teared up. "One day there was a fire. My mom died in it. It started on the other side of the wall I'd been sitting." He was just barely holding back his tears. "Sometimes i wonder if... if she would still be alive if i had just noticed anything."
Leo saw no point in holding back anymore. He just let the tears flow. Nico almost instinctively hugged him. He had almost forgotten what that felt like. "And eversince then," Leo continued, after his tears subsided, "I've been pushed around between foster families. My dad is somewhere in Mexico, and noone knows exactly where, and my aunt always hated me."
Nico wasn't sure what to say. He knew how empty things like 'My condolences' felt. He knew it all too well eversince his sister had died. He broke the embrace eventually. Weirdly enough, both of them had found that moment relieving.
It now dawned on Nico however that he would now have to tell Leo his story. "My sister and i were out flying a kite." Nico shivered just thinking of that day. "There was a bit of rain, but nothing major. And the wind was just perfect. Everything was perfectly normal. We had done this a billion times before." Leo found the image of Nico flying a kite hard to imagine. "And then, out of nowhere, lightning struck. Literally."
Leo didn't need to hear the rest of the story. He knew enough science to figure out the rest of the story for himself.
"The doctors said she was most likely dead before she hit the ground." Nico said, "And i'll never forget that smell."
Leo knew what Nico meant. Though the smell he would never forget was probably entirely different – that of burning machine shop – he understood perfectly well what Nico meant by those words.
"And my dad is always busy and my mom... she doesn't get me. Bianca and i had a special type of bond, even for siblings."
Leo was more and more beginning to understand why Nico had made that offer. Their stories weren't fundamentally different. It was very similar, actually. He said nothing. He just hugged the boy. He felt like that boy needed a hug. And Nico, he just began crying. Letting out all the frustration he had built up over the past 5 years since that day.
Seeing Nico cry, that was new. The opposite of what that boy wanted to be. Always trying to seem like he was invincible. Like there was nothing in the world that made him care. But really, he was just like Leo. Only that Nico hid behind isolation, not jokes.
"Why did it have to be her?" Nico wailed, "Why did she have to die? And why like this? It's just not fair! She deserved better! A longer life! I shouldn't have been the one to survive her!"
Leo kept Nico tightly embraced, until he himself let go. Based on how much Nico avoided touching others, that was probably the most anyone had touched him in years.
"Thanks, i guess i really needed that." Nico said. He was far from smiling. The hurt was still in his face. Maybe moreso than usually. And had Leo looked at himself in a mirror, he would have seen the same thing was also true for him. The only difference for the two of them was that now, at least they knew they were not alone in their pain.