Matteo

It's tough to be a god

How subtle that movement. How almost imperceptible. Yet how readily Aiden's near weak, feeble attempts to curl even tighter within himself atop that cold tile at his presence so readily plunged at that utter ache within Matteo's own chest all over again like a frigid knife. His heart near constricted with that undeniable pain that so many parents so surely knew. The desperate, agonising pain of watching their own child hurt, of being unable to take it away, of being unable to make it instantly better. There was nothing in all the world he would not do for his children and yet how utterly helpless he felt now, when Aiden so surely needed him most of all. How little he could do to take away the grief and guilt and suffering that had all but torn Aiden's very soul asunder and yet in that singular moment his desire to reach for his child was all that mattered. To hold him. To wrap his arms around him. To bring him into that safety of his embrace. His hand reached smoothly toward his son then, resting gently upon Aiden's shoulder. The other man's pale skin was near unnaturally cold, that shock and loss of blood having drained the very warmth from his figure as Matteo knelt gently down beside him, the Frenchman hardly carrying for the blood and grime and sweat that stained the floor and Aiden himself, that wetness soaking readily through his own jeans and biting at his flesh. Aiden hardly fought him, as he might once have done, those barriers no longer existing between them in a time and space where they simply had no place or meaning any longer. Matteo instead so gently wrapped his arms around his sons broken, battered figure to draw him carefully agianst himself, Aiden's head turned into his own chest.

He had hardly anticipated Aiden might have the strength to lift his own arms and yet, somehow, he felt his sons arms wrap desperately around himself with that same fearful tightness he had once had as a child. He remembered, god he remembered, those nights Aiden had so desperately begged him not to go, his tiny hands clinging fiercely to his shirt as if he believed hanging on tight enough might somehow prevent that inevitable. It had broken his heart each and every time he had been forced to leave Aiden behind, that very wound one that had not healed, even after all those years. That pain as red and raw and exposed as it had ever been in that singular moment. That very act here and now so striking but another violent blow agianst his resolve. Matteo clinging to Aiden as fiercely as he clung to his own determination not to fall apart in turn and remain strong for the other man now. As if he could hold Aiden together with will alone. He could not remember the last time Aiden had hugged him. Not like this. Affection from the WereKing was so rare, so precious. A part of the Frenchman, somewhere within that maelstrom of emotion, so desperately relishing that hug, that touch and that affection he so desired to give his son and Aiden so often flinched away from. How readily he understood why and yet to feel that very grip around him in that moment was near as glorious as it was heart wrenching.

Aiden's tears so suddenly seemed to increase then. That grief and pain and anger and guilt and heartbreak and despair and sorrow that had been for so long contained and held back veritably bursting from within. As if those very breaks in Aiden's body had acted like the cracks upon a dam wall. Matteo merely drew him closer then, as if his own arms could protect the other man from the world as he cried. Aiden so finally safe enough to allow each of those emotions out as Matteo simply held him. Those gentle, soothing words fell readily from his own lips. The Fae so entirely aware that all was surely not alright and yet here and now he sought only to offer some comfort, some gentleness, some respite from the world itself. Those very sounds the same he had offered to Aiden as a child and Dorian as an infant. As if, somehow, they chased away but some taint of sorrow. Aiden only proceeded to grip him tighter and tighter as if fearing he might somehow disappear. Nothing short of Christ himself capable of prying Matteo from his companion in that moment.

"It's alright. I won't leave you, I promise. Shhh now. I'm here."

The words, he knew, so hardly mattered as much as that gentle sound of his voice did. Matteo's lips pressed gently to Aiden's forehead then in that tender affection, his head resting gently atop the man's own before his own affinity all but burst from within himself with a ferocity and potency unlike he had ever quite mustered before. That luminous glow so readily surrounded them both. Matteo drawing from his own life and energy then to transfer it so directly into the Panther and chase away every cut and wound and burn and break. The Frenchman determined beyond all measure to obliterate any visible sign of that damage as if the idea of it upon that caramel skin so repulsed him. That return of oxygen to Aiden's lungs bringing with it that renewed flow of blood and warmth as that damage reversed. If only a soul could be so easily repaired. Matteo could feel that shift within his sons body, Aiden's breathing no longer a racking cough, his flesh already beginning to warm as life returned to him and yet he so hardly made any move to release him. The near ancient Fae determined to hold him until Aiden himself was ready to let go. The other man so at last seeming to relax ever so slightly within his arms. Matteo determined to assure him of that truth he so desperately needed to hear now that his mind was, perhaps, in a place capable of hearing it. The Frenchman holding him for several more long moments in which little save the sound of those sobs and shaky breaths echoed within that room.

That soft, gentle utterance of Aiden's name seemed to promote some measure of recognition within the man. Matteo shifting just enough to glance down toward the Alpha still clinging to his figure, those sounds of grief having quietened, if only a little. Aiden seeming to process those very words he offered then. Matteo insisting that Tobias still lived. That the crime Aiden was sure he had committed did not exist. That it had been nothing more then the illusions of a mad, loathsome woman for whom any ounce of pity Matteo had once held had long since fled to leave little save for his own violent resentment in place. As if he had not already loathed her enough. Risque would pay, somehow, for what had been done tonight. Even if she never knew from whom that revenge had come. Such thoughts for now however were cast far from his mind. Aiden his singular and only priority as the man's forehead reamined agianst his chest. Aiden's head shoke in disbelief, his hand lifting to touch at his neck. Matteo's own head shaking softly then.

"She does not need that venom for illusions. I didn't know until tonight either."

He offered those words simply, softly, helping to breech that desperate lack of understanding within Aiden's terribly worn mind. The Were still struggling to perceive that truth as he protested weakly that he had eaten Tobias. That if it had not been Tobias then who was it? Aiden's emerald gaze so at last turned up toward him. That fragility within that gaze so clutching at the Frenchman's heart all over again as that near weak simper found his own lips. That it had not been Tobias was a mercy and the very thing that would surely prevent Aiden fracturing beyond repair and yet.....someone had still died tonight. Matteo's silver gaze so met his sons evenly to at last offer that truth.

"When Darcy came to get you and Tobias from the desert there was a girl, a female snow leopard, you remember? She cowered for much of the fighting. She drove the car on the way home. Darcy reported her as a failure to Risque. Risque used her to craft the illusion you saw. It was her, that girl."

How readily he could argue that it was surely Darcy who had slain that girl, not Aiden, not really, yet how feeble such words felt to offer. Aiden inclined to blame himself all the same. Matteo already aware that the joy of Tobias' state of living would forever hold that taint of the death of another all the same. One hand lifted but slightly away from Aiden then, the Frenchman so readily summoning that blanket from Aiden's bed within his own home in France. The blanket so inlaid with the very scents of that chateau and Matteo himself, those scents he knew to be comforting to his companion. Matteo gently draped that blanket around the Were's shoulders then in an effort to prevent him getting cold. His other arm remaining around Aiden still.

"Tobias is entirely safe, Mon Fils (my son). Feel for that pack bond, you will find him right where he belongs. Do you want me to get him for you? He has been....distraught without you."

A faint simper tugged at his lips now. Matteo falling silent once more to allow Aiden to consider those very things and feel for that bond that so tied each pack member to its Alpha. Tobias so destined to find them shortly, the boy sure to wake the moment he realised his beloved companion had returned. A soft exhale echoed from within the Frenchman then. Those words barely a muted whisper.

"She was trying break you, once and for all, by lying to you."

Just how far Risque had succeeded in that plan he so hardly knew. Not yet. Aiden so balanced precariously upon that edge that would see him fall either into that utter ruin of giving up in the wake of this assault, else rallying with a renewed sense of anger, perhaps. Matteo wholly determined to press him towards that will to fight and yet- not tonight. Not now. Not with those wounds so raw. Matteo affording his son another, gentle hug. His gaze meeting the younger man's own with that genuine care once more as his right hand lifted with a purposeful, soft slowness to rest agianst Aiden's cheek, his thumb gently wiping away those tears, first the left, then the right. His hand withdrawn back to himself then.

"Aidun? Do you want to come home with me?"

His chateau, after all, was far from Risques reach. The vampiric woman incapable of summoning him there, affording him that chance to heal away from anything and anyone he did not desire to see. Matteo already well aware of just what would surely come next. Aiden so prone to following that same pattern he had in near all his life. His son likely to retreat from that world and into himself over those next few weeks. Aiden, for as long as he had known him, inclined to disappear into the fathomless depths of his own mind in the wake of those assaults, as if so requiring to sort out those pains and struggles alone, to re-arm himself agianst the world and bury that heartache all over again before facing it. Aiden, in that place, so often unreachable even by himself. This a trait they....shared. To pretend the world was alright, until it wasn't. How long it would take Aiden to recover from this he so hardly knew. Matteo desiring to afford him that place to do it. That ability for teleportation so ensuring Aiden could move back and forward as he desired all the same to assure his pack need not go without him. Matteo, tonight, wholly determined to take his son home.