InsaneJournal

Gotta sober up Ariadne thought, slapping herself three times on the cheek and trying to force herself to think clearly; Asterion needed her to think clearly.

She'd woken in bed with a woman named Aisling – in her forties, smoking hot – and one of the naiads, and they'd had a liquid brunch while the naiad (who was only answering to Clover, these days) did their hair. Aisling had been staying at the house since St Patrick's Day, which incidentally had been the last time Ariadne had seen Dionysus. The last time Aisling had seen him, too, apart from the pictures he'd sent Ariadne later: partying with the dancing girls, wearing Aisling's uniform after marching the entire parade with them. Aisling was stubbornly parked at their house, purportedly till she got her uniform back, but Ariadne had seen enough people get a taste of Dionysus and need more to know that Aisling was looking for something in her life beside a uniform (which Ariadne knew she was never, ever getting back; but Dionysus would get her something better.) Half way through their second bottle of brunch-wine Cait had shown up with cream donuts which they'd descended on, voraciously; Cait was the woman in her sixties that Dionysus, back in January, had mistaken for his maid after breaking into her house. Both nipples and her navel pierced, now, she'd become a familiar sight around here.

Ariadne appreciated the donuts, soaking up the wine. A bit, anyway. They weren't sobering her up more than the thought that Asterion was hurting, though. She couldn't stand the idea he thought everyone hated him, though she could see perfectly why he'd jumped straight to that conclusion before considering any others. He'd lived a certain way for so long that those thought patterns were so deeply engrained, of course he couldn't see the way through on his own.

Ariadne adored what he had going with Erato, though. She made her brother smile and he so deserved to smile. And Ariadne didn't think that Erato would hurt Asterion on purpose but perhaps she might be being a little careless with his feelings? Perhaps some new love had swept her off her feet and she'd forgotten about her sweet monster? If that was the case, well, then she and Ariadne were going to have a talk and figure out some kind of damage control, minimise Asterion's oncoming hurt.

She was absolutely certain Erato didn't just have a cold and was embarrassed about a snotty nose. The Muses were so rarely ever sick, especially not while living in the same city as Apollo, but the suggestion had been something to say to keep Asterion from believing that anything was his fault.

But when Erato didn't respond to the knocks on her door, and when Ariadne dropped to her stomach to scan under the door for movement and saw none, Ariadne considered the other possibilities. From the other side of the door she could hear the sound of Erato's cats, and you didn't need to be married to a patron of cats to recognise their cries as lonely ones.

Erato was a muse, after all; they rarely got colds, sure, but on the other hand, they got kidnapped a lot. It was a raw deal those goddesses wound up with.

Still, she needed to get into that apartment and find out more before jumping wildly to any conclusions. Ariadne climbed to her feet and searched around the door with her fingertips, incase Erato was trusting enough to hide a key along the top of the frame. No luck there, so Ariadne tried knocking at Erato's neighbors door instead; Erato was friendly, the kind of friendly that would get to know her neighbors even in New York, but said neighbors, on both sides, weren't home.

Plan C then. C for crime. Ariadne lay herself back down on the floor in front of Erato's door, poking the ends of her hair through underneath it so the cats could play with it, and dialed her favourite outlaw lover.