your heart broke when the party died

[pummelgranite]

WHO: Persephone and anyone
WHERE: Hades
WHEN: Post Shamtheon
WHAT: moping
WARNINGS: general wicdiv warnings for self-destruction, mental illness, ED, drugs, etc


Hades is a fucking mess. The first blow had been struck by Luci- a fiery tantrum against Laura's disappearance. But the real damage had been Apep's floodwater, drained down to help the city that still blamed her. (Were they really that wrong?) the water had washed away every piece of the bar. Her throne is now a sad frame of vines with just a few scraps of petals still clinging to it. The vines and blossoms that lit the space are all but destroyed as well, dropping the cave into near total darkness. In the time between the event and when she felt the floodwater finally drain, several graffitiers had been through. Most simply left their tags, but huge letters scrawl across her stage reading "IMPORTS FUCK OFF."

Laura doesn't want to be a mess herself. She's got shit to do. She needs to clean up. She needs to issue a statement. She needs to check on friends. She needs to, needs to, needs to. But just looking at the mess, just smelling the stink of dirty water and the mildew had taken all the will for productivity out of her. It took all the will for anything out of her. The downswing hit her like an almost physical force- her body was suddenly heavy, her mind exhausted.

She needed to sit down, but every couch she checked was still damp with floodwater and sewage. She didn't even have the will to make herself somewhere to sit. Instead she just went over to the couch that used to be her favorite, and lays down next to it. After a few minutes, she curls in on herself a little more, but other than that she doesn't move.

She needs to get up.

She needs to clean.

This is stupid, she wasn't hurt or brainwashed or in danger. She needs to get up.

Comments

[queenofseers]

Cassandra sure feels like lying on the ground right now, and may or may not have spent more time than she prefers to lying in bed this morning. But fuck it- she feels like trash if she's not doing something, even if something is seeing what an absolute fucking shitshow Hades is. She almost doesn't expect Laura to be here- but where else would the girl be?

She wants to yell at her for lying on the ground like that, covered in fucking moldy watery bullshit, but for once she doesn't have it in her. What she does have is an extra iced coffee, so she puts the drink down on the ground next to Laura and starts drinking her own.

"Go on," she says. "It even has a straw, if you want to keep lying there."

[pummelgranite]

Laura stares up at that iced coffee with such earnest yearning. Like the I ced coffee could fix her home. Like the iced coffee could fix her. She looks at the iced coffee the way she used to look at gods.

“Thank you,” she all but whispers from the (at least raised enough to not be actively in the water) ground. With steady motion, she pushes herself up to sitting and hold out her hands to accept this caffeine communion.

[queenofseers]

This is something that Cassandra will actually acknowledge as a miracle, albeit a non-magical one. The look on Laura's face is almost endearing; she recognizes it, from a long time ago, and like hell if it doesn't make all this seem simple for a split second.

"This place looks like hell. Uh, not in the way you want," she says, mostly because she feels like she has to say it. "What the fuck was up with that Majority Report, by the way? What did they think you were doing?"

[pummelgranite]

Hold on, Cassandra, she needs to drain half of this in one go before she can say anything else. Once satisfied, there's a little huff.

"I dunno. Guess everyone just hates us finally."

[queenofseers]

Honestly? Relatable. She doesn't even blink at that, when normally she would.

"You know, it took them long enough. Considering the amount of bullshittery that exists around us." She takes her own sip of coffee, eyeing some particularly bad spots of the room. "You're not going to try to explain yourself? Go on and embrace the persona?"

[pummelgranite]

She ponders the question for a moment, then pulls her straw out to lick at some whipped cream and caramel sauce before plunging it back into the cup and stirring it up. A shrug.

"Why bother? Everyone saw what they saw, and they'll think what they want to think." You will be love. You will be hated. You will be brilliant. None of those were really new experiences.

[queenofseers]

Even Cass can't tell her that's a little gross. She very much wants to do that right now. Perhaps this chaos has had one good result for Persephone: Cass is, for once, too tired to judge her properly.

"If you say so. I'd rather not let people think I was purposefully trying to open up sinkholes under their feet, but it's your life."

She rubs her forehead. "How much of everyone else have you seen? Any more minor chaos I need to know about?"

[stylistic_disloyalty]

What a bloody mess.

Luci sloshes her way through Hades, her shoes in her hand, lip curled up in clear disgust. She may be one of the Underground kids, but sewers are not her thing. She could cheerfully kill Apep or whoeverthefuck trashed Hades, but part of her is a little glad she hadn't started the contractors just yet. The job just got bigger, that should make them happy-- right?

But the most important person isn't happy, as Luci realizes as she approaches Laura, laying in literal sewage. The exact situation isn't familiar, but Luci knows what this is-- and she nearly freezes up again. The reminder that she's terrible with things like this flashes like a warning light on the dashboard of her brain, but she keeps driving. All the way to laying down next to Laura and spooning her firmly. Her suit is definitely ruined.

"Come live with me while I sort this, hm?"

[pummelgranite]

Listen she's not in the sewage, exactly, though close enough that the suit is absolutely ruined.

This isn't fair, the way her body and heart react to Luci. One minute she's wallowing comfortably in numb exhaustion, then just as suddenly she's wide awake and feeling. Her eyes were already watering, but now her lips are quivering too. God damn it. Still, she reaches up one hand to hold onto Luci's arm- not clinging, exactly, more a small reciprocation of contact so there can be no confusion on how much she wants exactly this. She nods.

[stylistic_disloyalty]

"Good," she says softly, nosing aside some of Laura's mane to put a kiss behind her ear. "My queen needs her castle, and she'll get it. Exactly how it was. I remember well enough."

Sort of. She'll probably have to look up some BluTube to get everything right, but it's the thought that counts. Isn't it?

"Until then, you'll sleep in my bed, I'll get that disgusting ice cream you like, we'll see each other all the time. That will be nice, won't it?"

[pummelgranite]

She's had a million people call her a goddess, but for some reason it can't compare to one person calling her queen. It warms her and sooths her, and paradoxically lets a few tears fall. She sighs at Luci's kiss.

"Double Dulce isn't gross," comes out a little wearier and less petulant than she'd hoped. Whatever.

[stylistic_disloyalty]

"It is too gross. Anything that basically translates to 'double sugar' is going to make my teeth fall out. Can you imagine what that would be like? Me with no teeth?"

To demonstrate, Luci pulls her lips over her teeth and starts mouthing at Laura's neck. Quality distraction.

[pummelgranite]

She stiffens immediately, and then shudders, "Luci what the shite."

Well done.

[stylistic_disloyalty]

"Ah-ah, this is the life you've chosen, Laura Wilson," Luci grins, squeezing the squirming Laura to her front and continuing the weird attack on her neck. "Life with a toothless serpent. It's wild and weird, no takebacks now."

[granddevil]

Of course the week didn't go unnoticed by Satan, though cares little about the causalities. Humans hardly make his list of things to worry about, but to be fair, some crazy imPort with godliness inflating his head doesn't either.

Though, he knows said imPort is from Persephone's world and knows Woden is not really one all the others would consider a friend. So, eventually, Satan decides to check on her, to see how she's doing and chat for a bit if she wants to, but once he teleports to Hades and sees the damage, he knows she won't feel like chatting.

he finds her near a couch curled up, and for a second he says nothing. When he does, his voice is soft.

"It has been a rough month." and it just started.

[pummelgranite]

She can feel when he arrives. In the still air of the Underground, even a little disturbance is noticeable, and he is no little disturbance. There's a flare of shame in her chest- what will he think? Mr Millions of Years In Hell, with her wallowing in her tiny mortal misery. But she's too tired to put up a front. Let Satan figure out how pathetic and fake she really is, she thinks, after all, everyone else has.

"Satan . . . ?"

[granddevil]

Satan does not care about how she looks. depression is something that exists even within him, and he too wallowed in his own misery. In fact, he made it worse when he could, so Satan is very self-destructive when he gets the chance too.

He moves closer to the woman and eventually sits down close to her, hand reaching for her head. "A rough year, perhaps?"

[pummelgranite]

Her eyes close and her expression softens just a little, when he touches her. Words are always hard. Touch is usually a little easier.

"Rough incarnation, maybe."

[granddevil]

"I know of those." he says softly, hand still touching her head gently and then petting her hair.

He doesn't say much else, but as he continues to pet Persephone, he offers his own energy to her. It won't help her feel better emotionally, but at least physically, it will.

[pummelgranite]

The energy does help. Emotional and physical well-being have a complicated relationship in normal humans, which is to say nothing for the unknowable rules to the magic she. Woden's pantheon had been more than a match for the real deal, it had felt like draining the filthy flood into Hades invited contamination into herself as well. So yes, it does help.

She enjoys his silent company for a while. It's nice in it's way, their unspoken understanding of hopelessness. There's no clear reason why or when she finally does speak.

"Aren't you going to tell me how stupid it was? Trusting people, trying to help?"

[purple_reign]

Inanna is reasonably sure that laying on damp and cold stone is not a good idea at all, but the past few days really have not left much room for anyone to have good ideas left. It also occurs to them that they probably should have brought along something for her—a meal or a drink, maybe—but it had taken considerable effort on their part to even leave their own apartment. Like Laura, just getting up felt like a monumental task to Inanna now. Remembering anything else would have been a bonus at this point.

So, they only sit down beside her with a soft, weary sound. They settle a hand on her hair, stroking lightly in an attempt at offering comfort, and gaze out at the ruined cavern around the both of them.

"...I can hire a cleaning crew for this. You shouldn't have to worry about it."

[pummelgranite]

"Inanna?" She asks, as if she didn't know who it was by the light of their arrival, or the sound of their voice, or the way their touch plays across her skin like electricity, even here and now.

"I think uhm, it might be pretty bad. Like, dangerous bad, maybe." Yeah, the smell makes that pretty clear.

[purple_reign]

"The one and only," they answer, as if she really needs the confirmation. It feels a little more like a normal conversation this way, rather than the miserable commiseration it was.

"Do you think it needs a construction crew?"

[pummelgranite]

"I . . . have no idea." This is something adults knew, right? How did they know it? Where did the knowing come from? She's stumped.

[purple_reign]

"Well...I can ask someone to come do an assessment. They'll tell us what it needs." That seemed like as good a place as any to start. Assuming Inanna knew anything about picking a good company.