WPOV

"Relax, I'm not here to chide you about your absolute awful series of choices in life." Leo sighs as he plows down into the leather seat of the Roman Room, boots landing on the little saloon table before us with a harsh thud. We walked all the way towards it in silence, the crunching of frost beneath our feet the only thing breaking this whirlwind of silence in my mind. 

"Then what are you here for?" I ask as if I could find it in myself to care.

He stretches his arms out like a pesky cat before pulling them back to his side with a heavy sigh.

"To chide the Roman Room about their absolute awful series of choices in life." 

A puff of annoyance, a hint of a smile as I glance sideways to him. I like Leo, I really do, he's so unapologetically himself that I just simply have to. I admire it about him. 

Oh dear Will, you just can't resist the boys who tend to be a handful can you?

A husky voice whispers somewhere far away in my thoughts as the sheen of brown seems to flicker before my eyes. I squeeze them tightly closed as I force him out of my mind. 

He has no place in my mind.

He has no place in my heart.

And he, has no place, in my home.

"Earth to Will!" Leo's hand waves impatiently up and down in my vision, almost hitting my nose on accident. One bony fingers pokes my forehead as he grins almost manically. 

"Oh I see him," his eyes narrow, "there's a stubborn Italian running around in there." 

Another deep poke before I slap his hand away in annoyance. 

"Leave it." I snap, "what did you need to tell me?" 

Leo grabs his bobble hat and slides it tiredly off his head before tossing it next to his resting feet. 

"If you two would just talk," he mutters underneath his breath while crossing his arms. I act as if I didn't hear him, ignoring that sharp pang sliding in between my ribs. 

"I'm here for the yearly subsidy of the government," Leo explains dryly, "last year the Roman Room won the sum of money, mainly because our favorite social worker was somewhat in an existential crisis at age sixteen and our best doctor was buried underneath a smoldering building but anyways," Leo's eyes stay trained on his fingers as they flick some icy sand of the soles and I'm glad for the fact that I don't have to look at him as he continues explaining. There's a big chunk of sadness and regret stuck in my throat that seems to grow larger every time I hear Nico's name. 

"This time we miraculously scored equally as high and there is only one month left to go." I didn't notice Leo was staring at me until the silence became to long to stretch and I had to glance up. 

"So?" I ask with a deep frown. His eyebrows disappear behind his brown curls as he wordlessly keeps looking at me.

"So," he draws out expectedly but I don't continue. He sighs deeply, annoyed by my confusion. 

"So," he drags his feet off the table and shuffles closer to me, "you kind of derailed our highest scoring worker." he gives me a knowing look, "fix it." 

I scoff while shaking my head in disbelieve, "it's not my fault he decided to lie Leo, you know that. I'm sorry for that subsidy of yours but I assume the Roman Room will use it as equally well."

I glance around me in search of my coat while Leo desperately keeps rambling. 

"Oh come on! What he did was indeed wrong, we all knew that but... you know what he's like!"

I abruptly snap my head back towards him, anger building up in the pit of my stomach like a volcano warming up, ready for explosion. 

"What he's like?" I hiss, my face only inches away from his, "there comes a certain age Leo where the phrase; you know what he's like, simply doesn't cut it anymore as an excuse." 

I jump out of the seat. Leo looks at me with narrowed eyes as he tries to hide my jacket behind his back. 

"Doing bad things has nothing to do with what you're like, it's only a matter of bad choices and can't be waved away by putting a characteristics label on it." 

The last bit of denim jeans disappears, squeezed between the couch and Leo's back as he nods his head quietly. 

"You're not listening to me!" I wave my hand in frustration, a deep sigh vibrates through my chest, "look..." I glance away from his blank expression, "I just want to leave it behind me and I'm sorry alright, even though I shouldn't be, I am. But you can't decide for me whether or not he hurt me, because he did." 

I wish those words didn't rip open the wounds that they did. I tilt my head up to the ceiling while hastily blinking the burning feeling in my eyes away. 

"He lied to me, you all lied to me." I can't hide the small crack in my voice and even more so the thousand other ones in my heart, "a sorry is not going to change it, a hundred ones aren't either." 

Regret is written all over Leo's face. I glance back at him with regained control, hands curled into fists in my pockets. 

"Still," Leo's voice is more steady than I thought it would be, "In case the one-hundredth and one might ease the pain, sorry."

it stays quiet between the two of us for a while. 

"I mean it." 

A gentle smile, like a watery sun after a storm breaks through over my face. 

"I know." 

For a moment we just stand there as the seconds tick by. Trying to heal in the moment while the world around us keeps spinning. I glance down at the small corner of my jacket peeping behind Leo's back and just in a snap of my fingers, the small moment between us has passed again into the familiar brawling. 

"Now give me back my jacket, dang it!" 

Leo grins as he throws my jacket as a fumbled lump of heavy cloth against my chest. I roll it open begrudgingly before sliding my arms through the sleeves. 

"Go talk to him," Leo urges and I grunt. 

"I'll talk to him when I'm ready to." 

Leo falls onto his back with a sigh. "Please?" 

I roll my eyes into infinity. 

"Leo I said what I said." 

Leo bluntly ignores me.

"Please?" 

I don't bother to answer as I lift every cushion in search of my gloves. 

"Did you hide my gloves?" I grumble in annoyance. 

Leo opens one eye to look at me, hands supporting his head as if he's lazing at the beach. 

"If you promise me you'll talk to him, I'll tell you." 

I push his legs to the side to scan the surface beneath them, "I don't need to promise you a thing." 

Leo's arm bonelessly falls back to his side as I let it slip out of my hand. 

"God, you're both so stubborn, it's almost physically painful to me." 

I keep my lips tightly pressed onto each other while glancing over my shoulder at the saloon table. My face brightens as I spot the grey gloves. 

"Nevermind, I found them." 

Leo buries his face into the leather couch with a smothered groan. I dive for the gloves, eager to get away from here and end this useless discussion when I spot Leo's bobble hat next to them. It's halfway turned inside out and on the brim of the green cloth is a dark brown stain. I lower myself until I'm on my knees, hanging over the table while my fingers trace the undeniable smudge on it. 

"Did you drop your hat into something?" my eyes don't dart away from the warm piece of clothing, a queasy feeling tingling under my skin. 

Leo doesn't lift his face as he speaks but instead just keeps laying there like a dead fish draped on the couch, "Mno why are you zaying thaf?"

I hold the stain up to the lamp on the ceiling. A reddish glow shines through and I feel my fingers freeze in place. 

"Leo did you hurt yourself recently?" 

Even with his face down, I know he's frowning. "Mmmmh mno?" 

"There's a bloodstain on your hat... a fairly large one actually." 

I try to keep my voice monotone but numbers of statistics race by in my thoughts. Minutes before brain damage, average death curves, amount of concussions causing heart failure...

I shuffle on my knees towards him as he sits back up again. 

"Did you hit your head?" I so desperately try to not sound neurotic but I can see that my nervousness rubs off on him. He traces the back of his head with his hand while carrying a worried expression.

"Not that I know of at least. As far as I can feel there's nothing there. I've worn this hat for years surely I would have noticed if I left a stain in it, I mean, it was fine when I grabbed it out of the closet. I even wore it this morning when I-"

His rambling abruptly falls silent. 

"Oh man." 

His hand drops lifelessly on his lap. I nearly jump into his arms, my hands grasping his shoulders. 

"What, what is it?! Did you find a wound?!"

His eyes find mine once more. "Yes." his voice is just plain flat, "but it's not on my head." 

My grip on him wavers for a bit as I stare back at him with eyebrows drawn together and an obvious worry etched on my face.

He sighs tiredly as if considering what words to use next. It only makes me shuffle back and forth in anticipation.

"What do you mean?" 

He takes the hat out of my hands and slides it over my blond curls. 

"This," He gestures between the two of us, "I wasn't the only one wearing it today." 

A sense of dread fills my stomach. 

Don't tell me it's...

"Who?" I swallow thickly.

Leo wordlessly pokes my forehead.

"Nico."