Breaking

The Deep Abyss

Leo awoke in the morning looking positively horrendous, the living dead. His eyes were devoid of the spark of life, dark circles shadowed underneath ; his dark hair was even messier than normal. Leo neither seemed to notice nor care though, as he simply brushed his teeth quickly and threw on clothes before slipping out of the house. His father was still not home; he felt thankful for that. After that threat last night, he did not think that he could bravely face him. Leo wished that he could stay at home, but he realized that his father would kill him if he did that.

Leo came into school, the moment Nicholas saw the boy, he ran over:

"You look like you have just been hit by a bus!" Leo just shrugged and tried to keep walking. Nicholas grabbed the boy's wrist, Leo flinched. "Come on, you are not going to class like that. The literature teacher in second period would be livid if he saw you look like that. Come on, let's fix you up." The other boys and Nicholas dragged the poor boy to the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" Leo worried about the other boys seeing his lacerations, Nicholas allayed his worries:

"We're just going to fix your hair and just help with your face, make you look a little less like a zombie, and back to being a human being." With that, he pulled out a comb from his bag, who knows why he had one. He began to tidy up Leo's hair, however, every time Nicholas swept up Leo's hair from his eyes, Leo would always pull his hair down on at least one side. No matter how many times Nicholas tried, Leo would always put it back. At last, Nicholas gave out an exasperated sigh:

"Leo, I'm trying to help show everyone your handsome face. How are you supposed to get any fangirls if you don't even show your eyes!" Leo just shook his head, one hand holding his hair down over his eyes. Nicholas sighed and moved on, not without a small jesting shot, "Gosh you're so stubborn," he tried to be serious and angry, but he couldn't help but chuckle. Leo looked up at him, his dark eyes curious. Nicholas then took the cleanest washcloth he could find from his bag and wet it under the sink. He carefully helped Leo cleanse his face before applying a few skin products just to get rid of the bags under Leo's eyes. Nicholas, being the meticulous care taker that he was though, took a while to finish up, as he wanted to make sure that Leo's skin was healthy, and to be completely sure that the bags were gone. The other boys just stood there and watched; they knew not to mess with the care taker when he was on the job. Which also meant that they should not interrupt him to inform the two of the time.

When the six finally came out of the bathroom, they had missed the first period. The moment that Leo looked at the clock, he realized that there would be a lot to answer for when he got home, and more than he dared think about. For a moment, fear flickered across Leo's face; a fear whose reason was misinterpreted by the other boys.

"Hey, don't worry too much, it was only piano class, the teacher isn't really that strict anyways. You probably wouldn't have missed much anyways." The moment Leo heard that he had just missed piano class, he knew that he was really in deep trouble. The other guys wouldn't understand though, so he just had to further shove his feelings in the closet so as not to let them show. It was difficult to just keep himself from being a sweaty, shaky mess. He missed a whole period of piano class, what would his father do to him?

Leo sat there the whole next period, barely able to make out the words of the literature teacher that was the reason for the missed class. His mind was practically paralyzed with panic, replaying memories of different punishments that he had had over and over again like a broken record. What would it be this time? What would be done to him? Leo didn't want to think about it, but his mind would not let him. He had no control, it was as though his mind was on a runaway train, the only destination to be seen was a crash, but there was not escaping it even when knowing that. Leo couldn't shake himself out of it, he just sat there, his eyes glazed, body motionless except for his breathing. Chase, out of concern, poked him once or twice to get him to focus on the lesson, but Leo didn't notice it. Leo was finally snapped out of it, when as the other students filed out of the class after it, Chase took both of Leo's shoulders in his strong hands and shook him. Leo's eyes focused up at the other's dark blue eyes.