Lia Sloane (shield_bearing) wrote in olympian_rewind, @ 2009-09-13 12:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | athena, dante lot, hades, lia sloane |
Who: Hades and Athena
What: Chatting
Where: Hades' Office
When: BACKDATED to the morning of the 10th
Warnings: None, really.
Luckily, Athena wasn't bored. The last time she paid a visit to her Uncle she ended up playing with a robot pencil sharpener. It was time for another visit, especially since she had been away for so long, and see what else she had missed. Probably something good. She always missed the good stuff.
She casually made her way up to his office not long before lunch - as he had said that earlier in the morning was better. Aside from late at night, and she had been spending nearly every evening at the shop, and needed to keep doing so. So here she was, ready to knock on the door to his office if his secretary wasn't in.
His 'secretary' was in, along with the other two paid employees of his staff, and they were all terribly bored. Bored enough to have marshmallow guns out and be at war. Hades' personal assistant was in the process of rolling along the floor to take cover under the pool table, when she caught sight of someone entering. “Time out!” she called out and put the gun down on the green felt as she stood, “Hello there. Can I help ya?”
Athena hadn't expected to walk in on a marshmallow gun fight, so stayed clear as she watched with amusement. That look didn't fade as she nodded to the door to her Uncle's office. "Here to see Dante. You can tell him Lia is here; he was warned that I might pop in one of these mornings." And it certainly looked like she picked a good day.
“Lia? Alright.” Julie said mostly to get the name into her head and quickly pulled out her phone for a quick text message. Five seconds later, there was a response. “Yeah, he says ya can go in. The door's open.”
Hades put his phone away and returned to his office chair. He had company now; he couldn't just loom over the playpen of his children, watching them peacefully sleep.
"Thanks," she said with a smile and wasted little time in moving to the door. Once she had it open, she called "Game on!" just before she slipped inside and turned to face her Uncle.
"I see things are busy and exciting around here, as always."
“Yeah. They're following office traditions to the letter.” Hades offered his niece a smile and a nod in greeting as he leaned back in his chair. He pushed a tin of mints toward her if she wanted them, “Always nice when traditions make it across the pond. How have you been, stranger?”
She shrugged lightly and moved over towards the desk. "Been alright. Working a lot on the shop, really. It should be up and running by the end of the month." Athena gave him a small smile. She finally had something to keep her occupied. "What about you? How've you been?"
“Bein' sued. Hence the marshmallow fight and mints. After three we're gonna have brandy, but that's how it goes bein' me sometimes.” Being sued by FOX was something new, but he was sure they would settle out of court. Especially when the various FOX producers he actually worked with caught wind of all of this. Hades shrugged, “Where have you been?”
An eyebrow raised at the mention of being sued, but decided not to push for information. If she really wanted to know, she could dig around later. "I've been back for a little while... but Greece. Athens, specifically. Unfortunately it wasn't a vacation."
“Should have just avoided the place,” he replied very flatly, pulling back the tin of mints to grab a handful for himself, “That's what I would have done. The place seems cursed. Sometimes I think I cursed it.”
"I was called there by my Priestess. There were problems." She said with a small frown and went to make herself comfortable. "I wasn't going to avoid it. And I can't avoid that place if I tried regardless, Hades-cursed or not."
“If ya find out I cursed it through my bitterness, tell me, yes?” Because he was going to get a plaque made to hang up if he did. Oh, that would be news. It almost brought a smile to his lips. Almost. To curse that ungrateful country... “... Is everything okay?”
"If that's the case, I promise I'll tell you immediately." Athena smirked a little before twisting her head to either side, cracking it and releasing some of the tension. She'd spent far too much time working. "Is now. Or so it seems, anyway.”
“That's all any of us can say. It seems okay.” Hades rubbed one of his shoulders unconsciously as he spoke. His whole body felt like it was in a dull ache, not unbearably and not fiery, but definitely a dull ache that he couldn't ignore. Still, he refused to venture into the Underworld to retrieve its solace. “The second you're sure it's okay, that's when it ain't.”
She watched him absently rubbing his shoulder, but nodded. "True. So it seems alright, it's holding out. I'm sure I'll hear something if that changes. How have things been here while I've been gone? Other than you being sued, that is..."
“Well,” Hades glanced over at the playpen, “Do you know about the three of them?'
Athena followed his gaze, and couldn't help but let a soft smile crawl across her face. "The twins? Yes. The third... I may have missed that memo."
“Her name is Delaney. She's my daughter with Dahlia.” Hades was very pleased that the three of them slept like rocks. It made have conversations about them so much easier, “There's actually going to be another one soon. We haven't made it too public yet, so keep it to yourself.”
"Aha," she said in thought and craned her neck to see them a little better. She loved children. She just wanted to be able to give them back at the end of the day. "Congratulations, then. And I won't say a word... not like I have many people to spoil the surprise to anyhow."
Hades glanced to Athena again and knew another tidbit of information she would probably be interested in... But he didn't know how to say it. He stood then, “Looking forward to it. Spent so much of my life wishing to have them and now they're here and I think I may have defeated the Devil maybe and now with the fourth child coming? It seems surreal to me.”
She glanced briefly to him as he stood, then back at the kids. Then blinked again. Did he just... "Wait, what? You think you may have?" Her gaze came back to rest on him, and that 'aw babies, how cute' look on her face was gone.
Turning to the windows, the outside seemed very interesting to him suddenly. Hades knew his sudden nervousness and reluctance about this confession was important. And he knew why, too. It reminded him how little he knew of the aftermath of that particular event. “... I may have helped defeat the Devil? That part?”
"Yea, that part." She stared at his back and she frowned slightly. Damn. She did miss something good. "Care to elaborate on it?"
“Dahlia was in trouble and for a long time I didn't do anything to help her,” Hades began flatly and a little shamefully. Knowing all his once-wife had endured, it was shaming how unhelpful he had tried to be toward her. “But David eventually convinced me to try to help her, even if it was throwing my life away. Him and me went into Hell to rescue her, while Elton remained outside. He didn't fancy being in Hell and it was probably the right idea as I probably would have left him there...”
"I would have left him there, too," Athena muttered under her breath with a slight scoff before turning her brain back onto the part that mattered. "What then?"
Ah, Hades knew there was a reason him and Athena got along. And there it was. He continued to look out the window, but he didn't pay attention to anything going on outside of it. His vision was consumed by the memory of it all. “We rescued her, but it didn't look like we could rescue ourselves. D was surrounded by gargoyles and penned in by Cerberus, a squad of fallen angels stood on the ready and the Devil had grabbed me.” Only then did he glance over his shoulder, “You see, I had a plan. [I really did. It just wasn't the one that I did. I had this drug that would make the divine into a normal human mortal. I was going to use it on myself when the Devil was about to kill me but... Persephone called out to me to use it on him. He picked the wrong time to be corporal, I guess.]”
Athena was listening intently, and if he could see her when he looked over his shoulder it would show quite clearly on her face. She was still sorry she missed it. "[So you nailed the Devil with a mortality drug. Congratulations. Did it work?.]"
“[His angels took him away and some of his magic seemed to stop...]” Hades was pretty sure that could be construed as 'yes'.
"[Well that's a good sign, and all of you made it out of there.]" Or so she assumed, as here Hades was, Persephone was pregnant, and she saw D a little while ago. "[But... you don't know for sure if it worked. Did you follow up to see if it stuck?]"
And there was the question, but Hades knew how to answer it. “[How do you define 'follow up'?]”
Athena simply stared at him. "[Go back. Check up on him - see if his powers continued to fade, see if he's mortal. What he might be doing to attempt to counter-act the drug...]"
“[Well,]” Hades returned to his chair, giving another glance to the playpen in the corner, “[I do know his powers have not come back over me, Persephone or Delaney. And it's been months.]”
"[But other than that you've done nothing to see what state he is currently in.]" She didn't ask it; she stated it as her eyes followed him to his chair.
Hades nodded a little. “[I know its not the best route, but its the only route I can see taking.]”
"[And since when is not taking any action to further ensure safety the only route?]" Athena did not like what she was hearing. The Devil's power was lost over Hades and his immediate family and that meant everything was just peachy? "[It's when you turn your back and think all is well that it comes back to bit you in the ass, Hades.]"
Hades didn't care for the scolding tone she was taking with him, even though he had thought he had been braced for it. Clearly he wasn't. “[And how should I check? Go into Hell and look? There is either a legion of fallen angels waiting to destroy me in vengeance or not. I have a 50/50 of being destroyed by peeking my head in. Bad enough I will eventually be forced to go there anyway. Should I hasten it? Are you going to be the ones to explain to my children why Daddy was made into a fine black mist?]”
"[So come up with some other way. We have prophets in the family, try there. Or use your natural tie to the Underworld to, I don't know, feel it out...]" Athena said simply. "[If his power is fading, or has faded, don't you think you'd feel it if you concentrated on it? He'd be losing his hold on the Underworld - right?]"
Hades closed his eyes, “[It does feel different. Before, it would have felt like I was being burnt alive from the inside if I stayed away this long. I woud have heard the Underworld howling in my head and beckoning me to come. I don't hear it anymore and I don't feel the flames...]”
"[Good. Great. Take some time at some point and try to hone it, maybe. I don't know if you felt it before but feel out his hold on the realm.]" She sighed a little bit and leaned in, glancing to the children and back. "[I just think you should have some idea of where he stands so that he doesn't catch you or your family off guard.]"
Hades was quick to open his eyes. Trying to feel out the Underworld on the fourth floor of an office building was probably not going to work for a number of reasons. He sighed a little bit. Trying to anticipate the Devil felt like trying to catch water with a net. “[Even when I thought I knew where he stood he managed to catch me offguard. Completely.]”
"[Yes but now he's handicapped. Severely, if the drug really worked.]" She let out a little sigh and shook her head a little bit. Athena knew what should be done, but that didn't mean he was going to do it. So it was better to just let it drop. "You eat lunch yet?"
He would eventually. He just wasn't in a hurry to possibly throw away his life to get the most positive answer. “Not yet. You?”
Athena shook her head a bit. "No, I haven't either. Want to grab something or order in?" She nodded to the kids, as she wasn't sure that he wanted to wake them. Assuming he wanted lunch, anyway.
Hades didn't have to look over at them to remember their anchoring like nature. “Probably best to order something in. I know a good Indian takeaway place. “
"Sounds like a plan. I haven't had Indian in awhile." She agreed, and the more she thought about it, the more Indian sounded like a good idea.
Oh good. Because Hades had the place on his speed dial. “Do you need to look at a menu?”
Athena thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "Nah. Chicken tikka masala, mild. Ooh, and samosas." No, she hadn't wanted Indian food at all.
That was a relief. Hades wasn't overly sure he even had a menu and if he did, it would have been in Hindi. Sure, Athena probably spoke Hindi, but it would be his luck that she wouldn't. “Not a problem. I'll order and then try to catch you up on the other goings on... like the Greek-Norse wedding we had a little while ago.” If she hadn't heard about that yet, that would make good lunch conversation.
"Sure. And while you order, I'm going to take a good look at these kids," She said with a smile and stood, walking carefully to look down at them. Aw, babies were so cute~
And damn. She just missed too much.
Summary: Athena pops by Hades' office to catch up and see what she might have missed. He fills her in on a few things (and gets scolded a bit) before they get some Indian takeout.