Matteo

It's tough to be a god

He had been wrong. Incalculably so and in a way he had not been in a number of years. Fooled by his own vision in a sense. He had seen that woman unleash her torment upon Tobias. One of so many possible futures. He had believed, wrongly so, that to undo that very future he need only prevent her capturing the Leopard to begin with. A task he had completed by retrieving both spotted deviant and car in Darcy's wake and yet- he had so failed to recognise his initial mistake. His own actions that had, in some way, inspired that turn of events. That vision had been truth and lie all at once. That vision of Tobias' torment had been a vision of an illusion. An illusion Risque had crafted to press Aiden's torment beyond the norm and for lack of having the real Tobias himself by Matteo's own actions. A decision she had made in those last moments, a future he had barely considered if only for its lack of likelihood and yet one that, carried out, had proven near catastrophic. Two thousand years of life and he was not infallible. Two thousands years of life and the mistake had still been his own. He should have seen this outcome, acted to prevent it before it was to late. He should have better looked into those possibilities. Alexander was wrong. His age-old companions efforts to insist he could not possibly be expected to know the outcomes of hundreds of thousands of choices that changed with the flit and flick of a persons will was an effort to appease him. To lessen his own torment and yet it hardly mattered. Not now. Such words meant nothing. He had failed to protect one of so precious few beings in this life he truly loved and that- that was all that mattered.

Matteo had returned both car and Tobias to that Ark before retreating to the Inner Sanctum and Alexanders company to wait for Aiden to be freed of that place. Those repercussions had been...expected and yet how darkly that vampire woman's mind had changed within a mere few moments. That future shifting, careening wildly into a plan far more tortuous than he had originally seen. It had been....years since Alexander had been forced to hold him back. His companions words falling on near deaf ears. That his appearance in Syn and before Risque would set in motion a chain of events that they could not come back from. Yet it had hardly mattered to him in that moment. Only Aiden had mattered and Matteo's single, near portant belief that this time she truly would kill his son. How easy it would have been to look away, to shut down those visions that so displayed his own child's torture mere seconds before it occured in some wretched, sickening play-by-play and yet to look away would almost be some disservice to Aiden himself. That neat ancient Fae so watching each veritable blow as it occured. That metaphorical knife within his own chest twisted deeper and deeper with every strike. Alexander had suffered the brunt off his own outrage and distress. Half of his beloved companions bedroom near totaled in their struggle. The Macedonian having been forced to near throw himself atop the Frenchman to prevent him teleporting to Aiden's side. Alexander releasing him only once he had sworn beyond conviction that Aiden was no longer within Syn those hours later. How very much he would owe Alexander for tonight when he thought upon it later and yet, here and now, only a singular thought prevailed.

That rush off his own affinity so saw the Fae disappear from the depths of that ruined loft within the Inner Sanctum to reappear within the dark of the Ark and Aiden's own bedroom. Matteo near desperate to reach his son in that moment. His own appearance was disheveled from that struggle with Alexander. The Frenchman largely oblivious to his own unkempt hair, askew clothing, untied shoe and slightly bruised left check nor that darkness that clung to his eyes in the wake of the power he had already spent in keeping up the vigil over Aiden for those long hours. Those emotions that turned within himself were...suffocating. All consuming. Hell itself unable to have prevented him from reaching his son in those moments as he all but blundered across that floor and toward the bathroom for what was left of that singular being he loved so fiercely. Matteo faltering at even the sight of Aiden curled upon that floor like...a child. Like the ten year old boy he had found so many years ago. Bloodied and broken and shattered into far to many pieces then he was assured he could gather up and hold together no matter how hard he might try.

How idly the world spoke of love. As if were some romantic, blissful, beautiful notion. As if it were nothing but joy and wonderment. The kind of love that was easy. The kind everyone desired and surely deserved to feel even once in their lives. How rarely anyone spoke of the pain of love. A double-edged sword that so came with care. Love was heart-wrenching, soul shattering and utterly infinite in its hold when it so came to that of a parent and child. The sort of love that made it impossible not to ache because the one you loved did. That made it impossible not to feel their own pain. That wracked the soul with guilt for being unable to prevent it and protect them from it no matter how illogical. How he had loved Isabella, loved her with every part of his heart and soul. Until her he had so hardly known the meaning of the word beyond those idle fantasies and fleeting interests of easy pleasures and one night stands and yet.....he loved his children more. More than he ever had his lover. He had known it since the Dorians very birth and yet the mere sight of Aiden here and now so made that awareness all the more stark, all the more potent and all the more painful. What he would not do for them. How desperately he wished he could take that pain away from Aiden now. That Tobias was still alive that perhaps single and only small mercy.

"Oh, Aidun."

Those very words were hardly more than a whisper in the darkness, Matteo's feet treading silently across that floor and onto the bathroom tiles slick with blood and grime. His hand reached to rest upon Aiden's shoulder, his own legs bending to ease himself down and onto his knees. Matteo long since suspecting Aiden had neither the will or strength to push him away even if he desired too. How readily his arms wrapped around the other man then, as if he were no more than a child once more. Matteo shifted just enough to allow Aiden to turn his head into his chest and sob into his shirt, one hand so merely coming to rest agianst the back of his son's head and nestled within those thick, dark locks of hair. His arm remaining around that thoroughly broken body as if- somehow- he could hold those pieces of Aiden together.

"Shhhh now, shhhh, it's alright."

How desperately he fought that battle to keep his own voice from breaking. Matteo fiercely blinking back that wet, glassiness that threneted at his own eyes. His lips pressed ever so softly to his son forehead then before merely resting his chin gently atop Aiden's head and so holding the boy to him. The very last thing needed here and now was any breakdown from himself. Matteo refusing to be anything but that very pillar for Aiden to lean on. Those normal boundaries of sorts he so often respected when it came to 'closeness' for the other man all but obliterated. There was no place for them here and now. He had not seen Aiden this way in years. The damage, this time, far, far greater then it had been before. As if those very pieces of Aiden had been shattered again into even smaller, finer fragments and that believed loss of Tobias- one of the few beings in all the world that Aiden loved. Whether or not those pieces could be put back together again he so hardly knew, whether or not he could spark that fierce determination and will to live in the man again as equally precarious and yet for that single moment it simply did not manner. Aiden was dying- in his very arms.

The sheer force of his own power so struck even him in that moment. That near unearthly glow surrounded his form and Aiden's own. That ability to restore rampaging from his system and into the Were's own, seeking to undo every fracture and break and bleed with a potency simply unused before. Driven by his own determination and utter loathing for the woman whom had caused that damage. Matteo nothing short of determined to erase each and every mark, as if she had ever touched him at all. As if he could obliterate every memory in turn as he so desperately wished he could. Aiden, he knew, incapable of hearing him, of processing that truth, until he was healed and his body had ceased to fail him. Matteo so afforded the other man his own strength then. The Fae unable to recall a time when Aiden had needed this much healing. Matteo simply holding him for several more long moments as those bruises began to fade, those marks began to heal and those ribs realigned to chase away that bloodied cough that racked his body until only those sobs were left. Matteo hardly cared for the blood and tears that stained his own clothing now. There was little to do save for hold him in that dark bathroom until Aiden was ready to let go.

"Aidun?"

Whether or not the man had heard him he hardly knew. Matteo leant back every so slightly to glance downward at the man whom reminded him so, so much of the child he'd once been in that moment. A shadow of the man he was. That Alpha replaced with that terrified small child Matteo so desperately desired to protect. The Frenchman's voice was wholly gentle once more, whether or not Aiden was ready to process those words remained.

"It wasn't Tobias, Aidun. It wasn't him. You did not kill him. I brought Tobi and your car home. He is alive and safe and well in his room. She lied to you. It was an illusion."