InsaneJournal

Just before Tragos left, he'd told Marcie that being chosen for this job was a good sign, a sign that Ares didn't think he'd fucked up yet and was testing him further. Tragos believed it, too.

Though by hour six of the drive he had realised that there were parts of this that were going to be as grueling as the worst jobs Laz found for him in New York.

Everyone else had fallen asleep - it was four in the morning and they'd driven through the night. They would stop (eventually) in Cleveland where Ander was meeting a contact. Eventually (an hour and half to go) Tragos would get to sleep. For now though, the road stretched on, endless and dark, and his tired eyes summoned nightmare hallucinations at the edge of the headlights.

He could not stop himself thinking of his last long drive, Marcie at his side in the bright Hawaiian sun. Marcie's laugh as she slipped the strap off her shoulder to tempt him, Marcie's passion as they realised they were both into cars, Marcie swearing her tits off as she tried to drive the mountain road with his fingers working hard between her legs.

In a week, maybe two, he'd be back, and she'd be there. Uncursed, undying. For now, his mind warned, until next time...

He'd never had it in him to believe in an easy future. Most of his life had been taken one day at a time.

But he couldn't deny this tentative feeling of... well he wasn't going to call it hope, was he? Hope was unproductive. Hope was 'wait and see and maybe you'll get lucky'. Hope was what you had left when you could no longer fight for what you wanted, and that was not good enough. It was hollow. Unreliable. Tragos needed cold hard actions he could rely on.

But he no longer felt hopeless.

Back at home, Marcie was no longer dying. Back at home, Melpomene was working with Kaden to find a way that he could stay.

They'd met, the three of them, very briefly before he'd left town. Melpomene was delighted and intrigued to meet Kaden, Kaden was awed and nervous which made him extroverted and jokey. He'd buzzed around her apartment and checked out the view and her bookshelves and gotten really excited when he realized that she was also one of the writers for Last Song, and told her all about the watch party Kami had hosted for last season's finale and how wild it was knowing the gods in the show were real, which had been the perfect thing to say to her.

He'd quietened down a lot when they started talking about the situation, though.

Stopping and starting, and looking at Tragos now and then for reassurance, Kaden told her what the problem was, and once he got into the swing of the story it all flowed and flowed - Melpomene sat watching him with her arms wrapped around a cushion and Kaden let slip details he hadn't told Tragos about his visit to Barak in hospital, and that led him onto what had happened with Barak and the night of the shooting and the feeling of the gun in his hand, and seeing Hecate afterwards because her dog followed them home.

"What?" Tragos demanded, reeling from this confession. The fuck?

Kaden looked like a deer in headlights, before the defiance kicked in. "You were blackout drunk," he told his brother accusingly. "And I didn't think anyone would believe me. Like, ghosts? Psychic dogs?? I didn't know you actually worked for the actual god of war then, did I?"

Tragos sat back with his arms folded and face stormy and dark, anger covering up a bone deep fear.

"What did Hecate say to you?" Melpomene asked.

"Not much, just, why did we do it..." Kaden fiddled with his phone, not looking at either of them. Tragos' eyes were trying to dig into his brother's mind and Melpomene lay a hand on his forearm to try and quiet his look. Demanding a story was no way to get an honest one.

To some extent, it worked. The touch of Melpomene's fingers, warm on his arm, made him take an easing breath.

"And what did you say to that?"

"That Barak told us to. That he had orders. That's all. Truth," he insisted, looking briefly at Tragos to make sure he was believed.

"Have you seen her again?" Tragos demanded. He'd placed his hand over Melpomene's, covering it entirely.

"No but... I've seen the dog."

"I didn't think she knew," Tragos said, his voice the carefully controlled hardness that tried to disguise distress. "She was at Marcie's side a lot. She never said anything to me. Just stared..."

Melpomene's look darkened, and she dug her fingers into the muscle of Tragos' arm. "She knows." Interfering witch. "Tell me if you see her again. If she says anything to you."

"How dangerous is she?" Tragos frowned. He knew Ares hadn't automatically decimated her on his stag night. Knew he was furious Barak had taken it upon himself to take her out. This elevated Hecate above all other women when it came to being wary of them (though Aphrodite too, he didn't trust.) The quality of her, though, he did not understand.

He still found it hard to believe Athena's reading of Hecate: that she wanted to help because she felt responsible. It didn't gel.

"She's very powerful," Melpomene replied, well aware that to Tragos (and presumably to Kaden as well) dangerous and powerful were the same thing.

Tragos' skin prickled with the horror of it all, everywhere except the warm spot under her hand. Hecate had followed them home while she was dead - and worse, had talked to Kaden (while she was dead!!) and she knew he killed her. How much danger did that put Kaden in? "How do we keep her away from Kaden?" He asked Melpomene, and the same raw need she'd seen on his face the evening he'd come to beg for help was back. It all centered around his brother, moreso, even, than Marcie. Given what he'd risked for Marcie, Melpomene could only imagine what he'd risk for his brother.

"Uhm," Kaden interrupted, scrunching his mouth up. "I don't think she's dangerous."

Tragos looked at him incredulously. He wanted to snap: Followed us home while she was dead!

"She didn't do anything!" Kaden protested against the look on Tragos' face. "She knew who we were and she didn't do anything."

"She can lay a curse on you as easy as breathing," Melpomene cautioned Kaden. "You don't know she didn't do anything."

Kaden shuddered, but tried to pretend he hadn't. He wanted to believe the best of anyone a dog like Hecuba followed, but truth was, Hecate had scared the crap out of him. The uncanny feeling that seeing her changed the entire truth of the world as he understood it, combined with his sick and poisonous guilt for almost pulling the trigger on her was enough to really make him understand, deep in the most primal part of his gut, the term god-fearing.

The shrine he'd built had its foundations in fear and guilt, though the walls were built of wanting - wanting to believe something so powerful could maybe look out for him, even if he didn't deserve it. And the whole thing furnished with desperation, calling on the most powerful force he'd encountered to save Marcie's life.

And it had worked. (And the weirdest thing of all was: even before it had worked, he'd started smiling to himself whenever he saw the little willow wreath, even though he had no reason at all to smile.)

Maybe Hecate could lay a curse on you as easy as breathing but that wasn't all she could do.

Tragos and Kaden exchanged looks, Kaden trying to impart all this with his eyes, but Tragos looked away. He was thinking about her too. Did the nightmares he'd had about Hecate in his room mean something more than just his own mental weakness, then?

"Tragos?" Melpomene asked, and Tragos buried the memory with a short sharp smile like the flash of a dagger.

"It's nothing. She just gave me the creeps, staring like that. Forget her. What are we going to do about Kaden's problem?"

Melpomene was not going to just forget about Hecate, but she turned her head and her attention back to Kaden, storing this news away in a bitter box for later. She loosened her hand beneath Tragos' so she could stroke his arm, and Tragos took another easing breath, though this one had a deeper shiver to it. He loved Marcie, but sometimes when Melpomene touched him...

Focus, he told himself.

Melpomene was talking: "What does Kaden want to happen."

Kaden was thinking, defiantly, that he didn't feel cursed - and remembering, vividly that he kinda did. But Hecate couldn't've caused the social worker or anything, and Barak had made his own bed - surely none of the things happening to him at the moment were her fault? He didn't feel sick or anything, not like Marcie, and neither he or Tragos were like... Spewing frogs or whatever. So no, surely not, there was no curse here. Just real life fallout from Barak's shitty choices. "I wanna stay at home. Not be sent to some trashy group home. Or some family. No fucking way."

"And to achieve that, you need...?"

"A guardian. It was Barak but-"

"But his brain is mincemeat," Tragos butted in. "And Cy won't do it. And I can't."

"Can't, won't and can't," Melpomene said, freeing her hands to count off Kaden's three older brothers on her fingers, but returning to the middle one. "Sounds to me you need to work on won't."




The turnoff for Cleveland was upon them then, and Tragos reached across to Ander, asleep in the passenger seat, and batted his arm with the back of his hand. "Not far," he said, and Ander grunted and cracked his neck before pulling out his phone.

Not far till we stop. Not far till I can sleep.

Sleep, and check his phone for news from home. It was too late to call Marcie now (just after six in the morning by the time they parked) and as much as he wanted to videocall her, both to convince himself she wasn't still dying and to fuck her over the phone, hear her voice as her own fingers drew gasps and soft cries from her open lips... he was too tired to want to do anything but make sure his world wasn't crumbling before letting unconsciousness claim him. 

The cold, though, as soon as he opened the car door and stepped out, chomped down on him like a pitbull, locked its jaw. "Fuck!" he snapped, burying hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders inward. The others agreed, though it was Ander who reminded them all bitterly that it was gonna be a hell of a lot colder in a couple of days.

It stripped Tragos of the need to sleep and piled on him the need to warm up, burying the need to talk to Marcie under layers of those more pressing. By the time they'd checked into a motel he couldn't've held his phone in his shaking hands anyway, and crouched down in front of the blow heater, ignoring the smell of singed dust, till the ache of cold had been banished from his bones.

And then sleep.

And after sleep, on to Chicago.

Drive, sleep, Ander met with someone, drive, sleep, repeat, till they hit the Canadian border and put their passports to the test.

Tragos never did get the details of what they were doing. Things operated on a need to know basis and he wasn't deemed worthy of that level of information. He picked up enough, though, to figure they were smuggling weapons down into the States, and laying the foundations for this to become a long standing operation. The weight of the vehicle had changed as they drove back across the border,  but the guns were all well concealed - needlessly well. Ander had obviously made some kind of arrangement because a customs official waved them down, went through the motions of checking things out them shook hands with Ander and wished them all well on their stag weekend.

He never did get a chance to call Marcie, either. The schedule ran too tight, and even if he’d had a moment, privacy was an issue. The best he managed was a few texts at odd hours. She and Kaden had been spending more time together which wouldn't have worried him except Aphrodite kept giving Kaden gifts.

A brand new iPhone. What did the goddess want with him?

What did any of the goddesses want?

Kaden messaged him, once, that the dog was watching him from an empty lot across the street. He sent a picture with his new phone, and the night exposure on it was incredible. Tragos got to see in sharp relief the size of the god-dog stalking his brother. get out, he replied. go to the warmoths, go to Marcie's, don't stay there alone.

Not alone. Cy's here tonight Kaden replied. He wanted to tell Tragos he was gonna talk to him tonight too, that it was gonna go better than last time, but didn't want Tragos to flip out about it. He could already tell Tragos was flipping out over Hecuba. What on earth did he think going to the Warmoths going to do?

Fine Tragos said, definitely flipping out, and feeling every one of the sixteen hundred miles between them. Despite the fact he didn't want the War Dogs around Kaden, and didn't want to be the guy bringing his kid brother into an arms dealing operation, he wished Kaden could be with him in Canada too. Just... Away from all the god shit, god dogs and curses. Don't go outside.

Sure, lied Kaden blatantly, and Tragos did not reply because Ander came running round the corner of the warehouse and that meant it was time to get the hell out.



Eight days after they left in the middle of the night, they returned. Back at the gym a couple of hours past midnight, though hours more had passed by the time Tragos was walking the last few blocks toward home. There was a tree down across one of the main roads into the Hole, blown over by some storm that had passed through while he was out of town, and Tragos had told the Uber driver to forget it, he’d walk from here. Could use the short distance to stretch his legs, anyway. Fuck, but he was looking forward to getting back to the gym tomorrow.

Things didn’t feel different when he walked into the house. It wasn’t till he pulled his bedroom door open that he noticed anything. Kaden’s stuff: a chest of drawers older than Barak was, his schoolbag, schoolbooks – all of it was gone.

Kaden was still there though, asleep on his bed. Tragos grasped him by the shoulder to wake him up, worried about what this change meant.

Kaden jolted awake, but as soon as he saw it was Tragos he muttered in sleepy protest and tried to melt back into his bed. “Hey – no – wake up,” Tragos insisted. “Where’s your stuff – you started to move out on me?”

Groaning, Kaden dragged an arm across his face. “Nooo,” he moaned, barely able to open one eye. “What time’s it?”

“I dunno, five, what-”

Kaden’s groan was so loud it cut Tragos off. “Fiiiiiiiiiiiive? What the fuck, dude?” He was waking up a little more, entirely against his will, and cracked one eye open to look at Tragos. “Hey, you’re back.”

“Yeah, Sherlock, I’m back. Where’s your stuff?”

Kaden pushed himself up, slowly becoming less groggy. “S’in Cy’s room,” he said, which took Tragos by so much surprise the words felt like they stuck between his eyes for a few moments before their meaning sank into his brain. “He’s moving to Barak’s. I get his,” Kaden continued, before any words made it to Tragos’ mouth. “Snooze ya lose. Fuck I wish I was snoozing. Five? Ugh.”

Tragos put a hand on Kaden’s pillow, threatening to yank it away from his head. “What happened while I was away?”

“Made a deal,” Kaden said, bunching a fist in his pillow too, holding on. “He’ll do the paperwork, means I get to stay. He gets my iPhone, 'n what money I had, 'n...” Kaden looked away, muttering words that would have been unintelligible to almost anyone else, but Tragos could pick out enough of the words to make his blood run, colder than it had ever done in Canada.

“'n anything else I can get off her.”

Tragos closed his eyes. "Who's idea was that?" he sat heavily down on his own mattress.

"Mine," Kaden said, taking the opportunity to lie down again and close his eyes, closer to sleep. "Was what 'pomene said, 'work on won't'. I figured out a way that'd work on won't and now he will and I get to stay."

Tragos groaned, not unlike Kaden, and lay down on his back. He was too tired to rebalance all this in his head right now. Bed called. His body ached from driving, and the cold here was painfully biting. So Kaden was staying, for now. That put off one disaster for a while. The loss of the house still loomed, but that could be weeks away still. Who knew?

Last week he was losing both Marcie and Kaden. This week he was losing neither.

And in a few weeks time, who knew what else might have changed?

Tragos never had it in him to believe in an easy future, but so long as Kaden didn't get caught with his hands in Aphrodite's purse.

And if Hecate didn't descend on them.

And if Apollo didn't break the truce.

And if Athena's sharp eyes didn't turn into daggers.

Yeah, they might make all make it out after all.