Who: Hannah Washington & Hades When: Early March Where: Hannah's new place What: Hades heals Hannah's broken leg Rating/Warnings: Low/None Status: Complete when posted
Hannah wasn’t in the hospital anymore, but that didn’t mean she was out of the woods. The only positive she could claim was that she hadn’t really been made to unpack her things from the move to Josh’s old condo. The only problem was that walking around on crutches just did not really help her when it came to trying to make her own food. Sam was usually around to help and Josh had a tendency of just turning up and doing something to help her out, but today she was staring at her plate of food in the microwave before deciding it was probably for the best not to eat before someone healed your leg with weird dream powers that she wasn’t sure she entirely trusted anyway.
Sighing, she made her way back to the couch, sitting down and propping her leg up. She’d just eat later when she could figure out how to do that without falling over. That had to be possible. Probably once her leg was healed.
She was going to have to figure out a way to explain that to the people at school and work. And everyone else who knew about it. Well...maybe not Josh or Sam. She could get out of explaining it to them. Now it was just a matter of waiting for Hades to show up.
Really, Hades would have come sooner - it’s just that Oscar night was only the most important night of his life, go figure. Well, one of the most important. It was definitely up there, especially since he emerged victorious - no snafus like the Moonlight slash La La Land disaster, so that was good, and he and Meg had left for Los Angeles right about the time Hannah landed herself in the hospital.
But now he was back and glad to help, if he could. Dark magic was his wheelhouse, what he knew and lived and breathed, all that ancient godly power coursing through his veins - light magic, shit like rainbows and unicorns? As his dream self said, it didn’t agree with him. But when you came down to it, magic was magic - it was the intent behind it that mattered, and he’d find a way to fuse bones using the dark energy he was so familiar with.
He figured that her having to get up and answer the door would be more effort than someone with a broken leg wanted to exert, so he simply texted her from outside - hey, kiddo, I’m here! - and then appeared in her living room, that plume of ebony smoke his cloak when he arrived. “So wait, how did this happen again?” he asked once he was, you know, tangible. And past the door.
Not expecting someone to just appear in her place, she startled, hand pressed over her heart. She was going to have to get used to this weirdness. Part of her was glad to say that she had not ended up with some special power in addition to everything else in her dreams. Still, it might have helped with everything if she had.
“Dreams,” she said once she could manage to speak. “Something was chasing Beth and I and we fell off a cliff. Beth was holding onto a branch and she let go. Some weird guy was there.” But there’d been a version of that same dream in which Beth had let her go and then fallen all the same. This was her fate no matter what happened, apparently. “We landed on the rocks. I’m surprised I didn’t break more than just my leg.” She frowned, though. She hadn’t asked what happened to Beth because she didn’t want to know just now.
“I’m just extra lucky and I got to live it out here, too.” A pause. “By which, I mean not lucky.”
“As someone who has been in a coma, I feel your pain,” Hades snorted. It’s just that good ol’ True Love’s Kiss wouldn’t exactly fix Hannah’s problem here. But he’d come up with something - he was no stranger to the dreams throwing you for a loop, let’s just say, and yet he still managed to carry on. And why not? Hey, he had a whole life to live (soap opera references aside), and an immortal life at that.
Summoning one of his spell books, the old and weathered tome appeared in his hands with a puff of smoke as accompaniment. He opened it on the coffee table (dusty, a little, try not to sneeze) and the pages were crinkled, a little yellow and obviously worn. Maybe this book was as old as he was, who could say. “The dreams suck, we both know this - but I’ll have you fixed up good as new in a bit here. Let’s see - “ Poof, poof, poof, ingredients appeared at the drop of a hat - or rather, as he conducted the symphony of summoning. “Rosemary, sage, sandalwood oil, wool of bat - “
Just random stuff. Maybe not that last one, but could be. You never knew with Hades.
“Actually, now the last thing I need is something you touched before you broke your leg. I can always go get it, if you tell me where it is.”
Hannah arched an eyebrow. “A coma?” She must have missed that, but then again, Hades knew her brother better than he knew her. In the end, that was the truth of the matter. But still...being in a coma did not sound fun. She didn’t know that she wanted to ever experience something like that. If she'd known about what was coming, however, she might have reconsidered.
Apparently things popping up out of thin air was a specialty of Hades. She guessed that shouldn't have been so surprising. He was a god apparently and had weird magic powers. She reminded herself that the weird magic powers were going to help heal her leg, so she probably shouldn't call them weird...even if it was only in her head.
“In or out of the dreams? Because in the dreams, it was Beth’s hand and out of the dreams, probably a pillow or something? The only dream things I have are Beth’s coat, my diary, and the tattoo. So I don't know?” She pointed back anyway. “My room is the one on the left.”
He was just kind of flying by the seat of his pants here, but hey. It seemed like everything would fall together. “Out of the dreams is fine,” Hades got up to go retrieve the aforementioned pillow. Because he didn’t know what it looked like, and he couldn’t exactly summon something he wasn’t familiar with. Overall, it was a quirk of the magic and seemed like a bad idea regardless.
But he was back a moment later, carrying the pillow. “Go on and get comfortable - I also hope you don’t have an attachment to this, because I kind of have to turn it into some kind of magical dust.”
It was a thing. Sorry, Hannah - but necessary if you wanted to bypass the ‘healing broken bone’ and ‘waiting weeks, forever and ever to play tennis again’ parts.
Hannah shifted a little to be more comfortable. She didn’t know what to expect, but this was...well, it was something. “I guess it’s as good an excuse as any to get a new pillow.” But it seemed a little strange to be overly attached to pillows of all things. She guessed everyone had something, though. She probably held onto things she didn’t really need to.
“So are there any unusual magical side effects I should be expecting besides pillows turning into magical dust or anything? So I’m prepared for it.” Because the only thing worse than magical side effects was not expecting them. “Also thank you for this. I probably could have made it through this whole thing and healed like anyone else would have, but I guess I was kind of dreading it, too. And it does kind of make being by myself more difficult.” And she really didn’t want to make someone stay there with her all the time.
“Nah, no side effects,” Hades assured. At least not for her. There was always that magic came with a price bullshit, but he felt like he had already paid that price with who he was - Lord of the Dead, constantly wheeling and dealing in souls and the muck of the Underworld. And even so, he couldn’t help what he was or where his magnanimous brother had once decided to banish him.
The other ingredients were sort of combined, but they weren’t the main focus - obviously, the star of the show was the pillow, or, what Hannah had touched before she became injured. Kind of a weird thing to add to a spell but he didn’t make the rules, okay? Sure enough, the pillow began to disintegrate over her prone form, dust in the shade of onyx, until it ceased to exist. Then, with a wave of his hand, the dust disappeared too - was actually absorbed by her, even if it looked like it poofed away.
“There, give it a second,” he instructed. “Now how does the leg feel?”
Hannah hadn’t expected to be showered in pillow dust, but she stayed still. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be around a volcano with ash falling all over you. Only that didn’t disappear for no reason. Though, there was probably a reason. It felt weird. Or maybe it was the slowly lessening pain that felt weird.
“Less...painful?” She scooted herself up into a seated position and wiggled her toes. “That’s so weird,” she said after a moment. So weird.” She looked at the cast on her leg and carefully stood. “So do you do this a lot? Or is this just something you’re winging?”
Well, damn, it worked. Not that Hades thought it wouldn’t - but this was really his trial run with the healing spells, so, he was glad that it turned out alright. “Pretty much winging, but at least I know for next time,” he grinned. “In case someone else needs something fixed.” He probably couldn’t do jack for severe stuff, like Asian bird flu or decapitation or whatever (not many things were able to live without a head anyway - and the ‘lighter’ side of magic really just wasn’t meant to be his thing), but broken bones and sprains, cuts and bruises, were easy enough to handle.
“Might want to get rid of that too, unless you need to walk around with it on for the sake of faking people out,” he added, pointing at the cast. It also disintegrated, but that was just a simple transfiguration thing. Turning something else to dust. Better than cracking it off with a chainsaw though, right?
She wasn’t dead, so she counted it as a success. And there was also the non-broken leg. She hoped the dreams wouldn’t rebreak it for fun because she was not into the idea of having a broken leg. “I don’t know what else is going to come in the future, but I guess I didn’t die. At least not yet. I thought I was. With the way Josh talked about everything.” The look on his face said it and she’d been waiting to dream about it. She was on a mountain in the middle of winter, however, and there was always a possibility that she was going to die because of some other issue. “But I guess it’s still possible.”
The cast disintegrating made her jump. She looked embarrassed for a brief moment before smoothing her hair back. She was going to have to get used to that eventually. “I’m not sure how I’m going to explain it. I guess I’ll have to work on my acting and make it believable whatever it is.” At least it wasn’t dealing with a crazy man who just took things out of their cases and had her pretending to have run into some thief so she could put them back in the case. That had worked out pretty well, though. And she hadn’t been arrested, so maybe she was okay. “Thank you...again.”
“If you die, at least I can help with that too, but let’s hope it doesn’t,” the Lord of the Dead quipped. Honestly though, what was the point of even having all this magic and power if Hades didn’t use it? At least, that was his train of thought, always. He didn’t have to be banished to the Underworld here, living out the rest of eternity as a lonely and pathetic husk of a person going crazier by the day, but he needed to not just sit on his ass when it came to doing shit.
He had always been a doer. Wanting to prove himself somehow. Yeah, so what, he technically didn’t have anything to prove these days. Maybe instead it was just because he wanted to be nice. More charming like other iterations of him, not always on the side of villain.
“Need anything else, kid?” he asked. “While I’m here and all.”
“At least I won’t be stuck forever,” she said quietly. She didn’t think that Josh could handle that. All things as they were. She didn’t want to leave him alone. He was apparently not very good at being alone. If the dreams were anything to go by. But at least here he had Felix to look after him and Hades, too. She didn’t know what to expect from the rest of the dreams, but she’d stopped asking because sometimes knowing before it happened was too much.
“I think I might be okay, actually. I just need to test walking to...anywhere, really.” Her leg didn’t feel any less weak, but it didn’t hurt when she stood. She walked carefully, not sure that it would be as easy. She figured she’d have to work herself up to being one hundred percent, but it wasn’t really as bad as she’d expected. “I made food just before you got here and then I couldn’t actually get it over here because I forgot crutches and carrying things was not really a great combination.” She walked a little further into the kitchen. “I think I should be okay now, though.” She peeked her head out. “Do you...uh...want anything?”
Seemed like his work here was done. They could only wait and see what the dreams brought, death or trauma or otherwise - Hades had been warned about his expiration (or his ‘erasing from existence’) ahead of time too and, thankfully, he’d dreamed of it and that was the end. No crossover. Sometimes it happened and sometimes it didn’t - you couldn’t predict the moods of the OC.
“Nope, I’m good. Don’t worry about me,” he insisted, getting up from the sofa. “Just take care of yourself, yeah? I think you and your brother have had enough of surprises thanks to what you happen to dream of.”
Hannah smiled a little. “I don’t know if we’re really done with them, but...uh...thanks. Again. I feel like I’ve said that a lot, but…” She shrugged slightly. “I really do mean it. Thanks for being there for both of us.” She smiled a little before remembering the last time that they’d been together. “Oh! Did your lady friend like her jewelry? I meant to ask you about it. The Oscars already happened, right?”
Hades’ mouth stretched into a smile, something genuine. Yeah, the Oscars had happened and it was a happy time in his life. In fact, he was still riding high on the victory - felt like he was caught in cloud nine, but soon it’d be back to work and he’d be toiling away on the next project. The Hollywood elite never slept. “They did, and we went to them - she wore the necklace and ring set, so she seemed to like them. They matched her dress nicely,” or in his view, they did. He didn’t know much about women’s fashion, but overall, he was pretty sure Megara looked nice in anything.
“So thanks to you for recommending that shop. They had great things.” The Hannah Washington Store! Maybe not officially, but close enough.
Hannah’s smile widened at that. “I’m glad it worked out for you. And that she liked them. It would have been a little sad if not.” But she guessed it wasn’t for everyone. Even if they were the best things to ever happen to jewelry. In her opinion. “At least my interests have helped others. I can officially say that now.” A pause. “Well, at least helped others on my account.” She hoped that she could help others more once she was finished school and got into a place. Maybe before she finished.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re welcome. If you ever need any sort of assistance in the geological department, you know where to go.”