Divorce | Desmond & Mona Libera (itsnotyouitsme) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2009-10-20 13:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | divorce |
Needless to say, I guess you know I hate you / You're so full of sin even the devil rates you
Who: Mona!Divorce [Narrative, but OPEN for anyone who wants to go to church or start a fuss.]
What: A bit of investigating, and then it's time for prayer. Or something.
When: Backdated to Monday afternoon.
Where: Desmond's old office, then Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church.
Warnings: None.
Divorce was messy.
By nature, Divorce was not exactly meticulous. The days of rampant hedonism, of drop-'em-where-you've-had-'em-and-walk-a
On the other hand, Mona had been called in to clean up Desmond's messes for as long as the goddess could remember. This, she told herself while rifling through his abandoned files, was no different.
There was something wrong with her counterpart, something at odds with the man he'd been for centuries. Perhaps they had always been weak toward sin -- Sins -- but what he was now went against what he had been. It made her suspicious.
Breaking into the office wasn't necessary. The lease was still in her name, so the hardest part was sweet-talking the cleaning staff; Desmond always had a fondness for hired help, liked to befriend and tinker with them like little side projects. After conversations with enamored Luisa, shy Amoy and gushing Becky, Mona realized some things about her brother-self were constant. He'd fuck anything on two legs, for example.
They trusted her instinctively. Because she told them to, because she tugged their heartstrings just right, and because Desmond left out of the blue, leaving patients hanging and the lovely flowers he received still sitting on his desk. They went in to clean, Mona was told, but in a roundabout way. The women confessed that Dr. Libera gave them strict instructions to always leave things as they were under punishment of--
Then they'd each flushed and smiled in embarrassment. Talking about Desmond's sexual escapades in front of his sister was something none of them were willing to do. It took rather a lot for Mona to not roll her eyes; he had trained them like kittens, well-stroked and full of warm satisfaction.
The flowers were a curiosity. Dried and dessicated, they still smelled rosy-sweet and buzzed faintly with immortal song. Divorce plucked a withered petal to examine up close, rubbed it contemplatively between her fingers and hummed. Curiouser and curiouser.
It was the files which wound up being most useful. Few were written in clear, concise English. Notes in French and Latin were common, but the bulk of what Desmond had typed was in the nonsense language Divorce shared with one another. Words, numbers and symbols made up the encryption they'd used to communicate throughout their long lifespans. It was all details. It was unprofessional. It was sordid as hell. It made her more suspicious than ever.
She transferred everything to a jump drive, plucked one of the roses from its vase and left, the click of her heels the only sign she had actually been there. After the fact, she went to church.
Yahweh's domain was not the most obvious place for a New God to sit and think a spell, but Divorce's feet drew her there while her mind was preoccupied mulling over other things. Holy Trinity closed in on her, ostentatious and full of Catholic disapproval. Mona climbed its stairs, dipped her fingers in holy water at the entrance (and promptly flicked it off, licking her index finger clean without a second thought), then found a pew at the halfway point.
Church wasn't new to her, blasphemous as that may have been. An absurd amount of her time had been spent sitting and visiting her own scheming little world during sermons, a by-product of being a woman throughout the ages: church or the bedroom, one or the other.
So Mona could pass for a Catholic if pressed. Inherent guilt would surface in eyes which would turn large and sad, with the faintest hint of recrimination. Repression could bubble up in an instant, the result of tamped-down urges she'd shocked more than one priest with -- the whole point, naturally. Today clergy and Yahweh's worshipers alike let the goddess be while she sat and studied stained glass and crucifixion, disinterested.
Something was still missing, something significant. Desmond's notes mentioned a neighboring doctor, an immortal -- not shocking, in this city -- and Mona made a mental tick to track down Veronica Chase. He was too busy stealing and screwing "Ronnie's" patients to worry about scruples, and Des spent half of the work hours he clocked either busting marriages on the furniture or writing to himself about all the fun he was having.
Cute, until she got to the repeated mentions of Lust.
"O God," Mona murmured to herself. "Who knowest us to be set in the midst of such great perils -- no thanks to You, incidentally -- that, by reason of the weakness of our nature -- his, not mine, I'm quite all right -- we cannot stand upright, grant us such health of mind and body, that those evils which we suffer for our sins -- as delightfully heart-thumping as they can be, particularly when they're not putting rings on my finger -- we may overcome through Thine assistance. Through Christ their Lord, not mine. Amen, etcetera."
She snorted aloud, mocking herself as much as the Christian God. The wry amusement didn't stop her from glancing up toward the ceiling. "This is a party line, isn't it? Quite all right; I can't be bothered to hear Your end of the conversation, either."
Still. For all the digging she was doing on Desmond, it did beg the question of what could be found out on Lust's end. Heaven wasn't likely to be interested enough to get involved -- unless she could find a Virtue or two to draft? -- but there was always Hell, and there were always bored immortals willing to play a game or two.
"Time for a clarion call, maybe." Mona smiled when she said the words, meeting the gaze of Christ on the cross. She ran her influence across the mortals in the church like a breeze, feeling for threads, and felt a little better. It'd be time to twist the knife soon enough.