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“Why… Lady Aphrodite,” Leo looked up at her, then stripped himself of all pride and laid bare before her, dropping to his knees with his heart still bleeding between his hands. “I– I have spent my whole life trying. I have tried so hard, so so so hard, why is it that I can never get what I want? I just– All I want is for someone to love me, can't someone love me? Am I unlovable?”
Aphrodite stayed silent for a few seconds, swallowing thickly and looking away. Leo's head hurt from strain. She gently —so gently— guided his face upwards, wiping away a couple stray tears with her thumb. Leo leaned into it like a starved child, like someone who had never tasted a lick of warmth and now couldn't step away from the hearth, who wanted nothing more than to stick their hand in the flames despite what everyone said, because how can something so beautiful hurt? How can it mean harm if the dancing fire is nothing more than inviting? Asking him to get closer, and closer, and closer, and closer–
“You… So many warriors have come to me with the same question; Hero after hero they have sat on these same floors and asked me if they really are rotten work, like the mother said or the father said or the country said or the people said,” She slowly came down to meet his eye level. It felt odd, like God taking off his sandals to lend for your bare feet. “Every mortal believes they are this… wretched being, a disgusting creature no different than the creatures the warriors before them slayed, but they only reveal this agony that terrorizes their nights when they are asking someone to love them. Undressing is no different than this matter, it is peeling layers of the soul and bearing the core between bloodied hands to the one they desire.”
She sat down on the stairs, her long curly hair dripping down the steps like bronze glaze and her robes pooling around her in a way that should feel unnaturally beautiful. She urged him to lay his head on her lap, so he did. He felt this ugly thing in his chest for a second, like he was taking something that wasn't rightfully his. Piper should be the one here, he thought this is her mother. The thought was cut short as Aphrodite continued.
“Gods… we do not feel the same way mortals feel– similar? Yes, in many ways, but we do not feel this urge to strip the soul bare and hand all power over ourselves to another, it is… a wonderful thing you have, all mortals but you specifically,” She smiled, wiping away another tear and softly carding her fingers through his hair, it felt blissful. “You feel with such intent up there we sometimes fear your devotion might overthrow us, that's why you are kept at bay by such earthly bounds; the sadness, the loneliness, the exclusion, it is all product simply of your–”
The doors busted open, and through them came an out-of-breath Nico, pulling his sword out of what looked like a monster as some kind of smoke poured from behind him. The son of Hades was pulled taught like a spring by the sound of some kind of roaring, bringing his tired body to pull the sword out (which went flying, directly at Leo's feet) and shut the doors with an amount of noise that rattled Leo's ears like nails against chalkboard.
“Valdez–” Nico's eyes fell on him, seizing up the situation. Leo knew how it looked: him, teary eyed, tears-streaks down both his cheeks, draped over the lap of a goddess like some kind of off-brand Cinderella instead of doing what they were there for, the net. “Lady Aphrodite, I– Sorry to interrupt, but we have to leave, now”
Leo sat up straight, his eyes still strained on Aphrodite’s kind eyes. She trailed her hand along the side of his face, then with a soft smile flickered her wrist– and there it was, the net used to capture her and Ares.
His perfect weapon, the one he would capture Gaea in. All he was missing now was the physician’s cure.
He barely had time to register it was in his hands before Nico was yanking him to his feet, throat still raw from sorrow and eyes overflowing with tears, many still remaining unshed.
"Are you okay?" Nico whispered, grabbing his sword again and eyeing Aphrodite like she might suddenly turn into a monster.
Leo nodded, scrubbing his eyes nearly raw as he chuckled. "Yeah, I was just overwhelmed when Aphrodite looked at me and I saw my own image."
Nico didn't laugh, only pulling Leo's hand away from his eyes with a quiet stop doing that, dragging him to the exit behind Aphrodite's sanctuary with a wary look and a strong grip on the hilt of his sword. Nico looked back a couple of times, almost as if to make sure he was okay and not about to burst into tears again. Leo was not that big of a crybaby for Nico to be looking at him like that, at least not in public. And just as Nico urged him to go through the door--
“And– young hero?” Aphrodite smiled, sighing softly with her eyes on Leo. “all you have to do is look around if what you seek is a true answer to your question.”
All he had to do was look around.
If only he knew what that meant.