Nick // Pelops (makesa_nicestew) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2008-09-02 18:58:00 |
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Current mood: | aggravated |
Who: Nick and Mel
What: Training
Where: Their house
When: BACKDATED to yesterday
Warnings: Not happy fun time.
Melpomene needed to have a chat with Nick. She'd promised as much to Hades, and it was important for all concerned that it happened soon. She waited until Helen was down for her nap, just starting it, and asked Shadow to play watch dog over her for a bit while she talked with Nick. She closed the door mostly, and headed down to the main level to look for the mortal. "Nick?"
Nick was watching TV, a horse race of course. He'd found some nifty headphones that were set just for the TV, so he could play it loud enough for him without waking the infant. Perfection! But the downside was, he couldn't hear anything beyond the headphones. So, he remained perfectly focused on the screen in front of him.
Coming down, she spotted him, and held in a small groan. The headphones were a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he didn't disturb anyone else, on the other, it was hard for anything to disturb him. But, there were important matters to discuss. She hoped this wouldn't get to ugly. Walking to the TV, she grabbed the remote and set it to record whatever it was that he was watching before turning the set itself off. There, no distractions. Mel turned and looked at him, blank faced. "Where's your phone?"
Blinking up to his girlfriend, Nick dislodged the headphones before replying, "In my pocket?"
"Pull it out, go through the inbox and the sent messages." Mel moved to take a seat at the end of the couch, leaning back on the arm rest and staring at him, waiting for his reaction.
... Okay... He took out the iPhone and looked through it. At first, his face was blank. Then, curious. Then, outright confusion, and ending finally in anger. "Someone's been using my phone!" he cried out with indigence.
"You were asleep," she explained, not really apologizing for the action.
"You did it?" Wait, who else, duh. "But why? You could've woke me up."
"Because of the message he sent me. It was easier to answer for you then risk you being grumpy to him." Or something much along that line of logic. There was also the waking up for Helen and odd sleep pattern of her own to count in.
Nick frowned at her. "So, you didn't trust me to do it right."
"Basically." She continued to stare at him blankly.
He continued to frown with a mixture of disappointment and resent. "Ah."
"You aggravate him on a regular basis, Nick," she explained. "It's important that you learn how not too."
"Well it's not exactly just him, you know," he said with a sigh, reaching for the remote to turn the TV off entirely. "He's not going to be winning Best Boss of the Year anytime soon."
"He doesn't need to. He's not your boss, he's your master." Inwardly, she was starting to brace herself, but it would be best for all involved if this one thing could be dealt with in detail, once and for all.
Scowl. No, Super Scowl. "Thank you for the reminder," he grumbled, glancing away.
"You need it." She continued to watch him. The topic wasn't about to get dropped.
"I know..." He closed his eyes and tried to remember his child, the whole reason for that mess of crap. He'd never say how hard it was for that thought to comfort him sometimes, though.
"Then remember it." Leaning forward, she touched his face just enough to get him to face her, and gave him a strong kiss to his lips. "{I love you}, [prince]," she murmured softly against them, then gave another kiss before settling back in her seat once more, no indication of what she'd just said or done. It was her reminder to him. "You may need lessons in how to be a slave, or, at least, a proper servant."
"How To Kiss Ass For Dummies?" A slight smirk returned to his face.
"You can kiss my ass just fine, I don't think my Uncle would appreciate the gesture nearly as much." Sarcasm? Why yes, and there was an urge to answer with a smirk, but she kept it under control. It was important that it be taken seriously.
The smirk fell away into a slightly disgusted grimace. "Oh god, ew." Sigh. "Okay, I can see you're serious. Sorry."
"I've lived a lot of lives kissing boots and swallowing the mud." Partly literal, partly metaphoric. Sadly. "You just need to learn your place with him."
"Which is his property," he sighed, leaning heavily into the soft couch and glancing out the window.
"In a manner. Property only has as much value as the owner is willing to put on it. Like a chair, or a rug, or a pile of dirt." She stared straight at him, looking for the phrase that would make the most impression on him.
Dirt. Because he so loved to be compared to dirt. He gave her a look that conveyed that thought pretty much.
"Does a chair ask it's owner if they really want to sit down, or think that's a good idea?" she questioned, not seeming bothered by the glare.
"Chairs don't talk."
"Nor does any other kind of property."
"So you're saying I should be a robot."
"I'm saying you are a servant. You don't question your master's choices. You don't try to advise. You don't argue." Now, she slightly quirked an eyebrow. "Think about your hand. It's a slave to your brain. It might react with a twitch if you force it too close to the flame -- part of self preservation -- but it never argues, or talks about, it never considers what you tell it to do."
"A hand doesn't have a brain. It doesn't have a soul," retorted Nick before he could stop himself. "And I still care about whether or not my hand is taken care of."
"And Hades still cares about whether or not Helen has her father." Now her lips twitched down in a minor frown. "He's not telling you to wait on him hand and foot, or grovel before him. He's telling you to do errands for him."
"Or humiliate myself for him." Puppet show, anyone? Oh yeah. Nick remembered.
"Did you do something to annoy him?" Time for the truth.
"I had to go talk to Apollo and missed some call," Nick sighed with a shrug. "So what did I have to do? Re-enact the whole damned thing. With hand puppets!" He looked away, still ashamed.
"How did you talk to him when you did answer his call?" she asked, wondering if she was missing something. Hand puppets really didn't seem that bad to her.
"I was pissed, of course. Apollo was being a dink."
"So, because someone was pissing you off, you got snappish with someone else. Not just someone else, but your master."
"Who doesn't? Whenever he gets pissed, everyone within a ten-mile radius knows it," he pointed out.
Mel frowned at him. "So if you piss me off, I should take it out on Helen?"
Nick immediately scowled. "She's a child. He's an adult." Or so said his age, anyway.
Mel rolled her eyes. "The point is that you shouldn't punish one person because of another person. Do you want me snapping at you because of something your family said?"
"I didn't say I did it on purpose," grumbled the mortal, feeling increasingly like he needed to just escape this conversation.
He could try, but Melpomene wasn't easy to avoid. "The puppets was his way of snapping back at you and putting you in your place."
Nick shrugged and continued to stare out the window.
"Nick..." She frowned slightly, watching him.
Sigh. "What?"
"Can you talk to him without getting him annoyed? The way a servant would?" That was the entire point.
"I can only do my best." Which, apparently for Hades, wasn't quite good enough. But the former prince was pretty used to that already.
"Then remember you are a tool. You don't question, you don't argue, you only ask for clarification, and you keep everything as polite and straight forward without sarcasm as possible." She said it in the most serious of tones, spoken from one servant to another. She knew the tricks. It was crucial he learned them.
Nick's scowl was deep enough to possibly hurt. "Whatever, I'll do it," he grumbled, standing up.
Not yet he wouldn't. From her spot at the end of the couch, Mel drew her feet up into a crouch and used it to launch herself at her boyfriend, tackling him back into the couch with her on top as she looked down at him.
"Ahh!" Nick struggled and, girlfriend or not, gave her a jab in the chest with his elbow. "Get off!"
Ack! Boobs with milk! That was a sensitive area, and not a good place to hit her. "[Frog kissing bastard!]" she snapped on reaction as she rolled off him, wrapping her arms over her breasts, now scowling.
He scowled right back and stood, feeling bad for the hit but still not enough to apologize. She'd tackled him! "You shouldn't talk about yourself that way, [love]."
It was into the couch and not the floor at least. She glared at him, her gaze nearly cruel now, and snapped something at him in Lakota before looking away and pushing herself from the couch.
Good enough for him. He returned the glare and, without a word of his own, began to march toward the door. The sooner he could get out of the house, the better.
Let him. She didn't bother to look at him again as she crossed the space to the guest room slash art room. It would be just as good a door for her to slam.
Summary: Mel decides to let Nick know about the use of his phone, and attempts to follow Hades' suggestions. It does not go well at all.