Who: Megara & Thalia What: Meg meets the Hades' surprise niece When: April Where: A hotel conference area Rating/Warnings: Low Status: Complete!
Megara’s job did not involve casting anyone, ever - let’s make that clear. Her employment description involved helping the ‘boss’ in anything he needed (talk about mixing business with pleasure but they weren’t the first, and definitely not the last), but that sometimes landed her some bizarre tasks. From scheduling meetings to finding the right person with the right hands to massage his delicate back because, oh, he couldn’t settle for just anyone, and then to assuring that the arrangements for those preliminary auditions were what they needed. These were a little discrete, advertised mostly by word of mouth and those with connections, and hosted at a spacious hotel meeting space.
They were sending out feelers, seeing what fresh new talent they could bring into the next production. Hades was on a success streak and was hungry for another shiny award to add to his collection, so chop-chop people, break’s over, back to work.
Good thing she wasn’t in there to make any of those decisions and take notes - she’d been the one that handled things on the more administrative side, handling hotel billing and making sure the right people were going into the space. All the strange ones could be chased out by security or by her threatening sandals.
There was an entire gathering in the pre-function area outside the room while people awaited their turn complete with a spread; caffeinated beverages, cucumber-lemon water, pastries from a local bakery to nibble on. Her vice was the coffee, and she sipped it from her personal thermos with a clipboard resting on her lap.
“Next,” she called out boredly, the name of the auditioner to follow.
***
Contrary to what the tabloids claimed, Thalia did not go to every audition hoping to follow in her mother’s overwrought footsteps, only to be rejected time and time again.
Mostly, she went for the food. Okay, she went as emotional support for her friends too, but mostly for the food. And only to the auditions where she knew were going to have good food.
Sure, she could buy it herself, but what was the fun in that?
“Go knock ‘em dead, Bella,” she told the blonde, whose real name was Joanne. “You got this.”
She gave a little shove, then went back to get herself some croissants.
*** “Are you auditioning?” came Meg’s cool, casual question by the spread, having stood up to refresh the coffee in her thermos. Black with barely any sugar, kind of like her soul or something as emotastic as that. “But we can spare some for the emotional support if that’s what you’re here for,” she tacked on, motioning towards all the eats.
There was something a little familiar about her she couldn’t put her finger on. Her eyes tightened, thinking. “Do you come to these often?”
***
“Emotional support, that's me,” Thalia said cheerfully, around a mouthful of buttery pastry. She threw herself down on a seat, arms splayed on the backs of the chairs on either side of her, and did her best manspread. “Don't worry, I haven't mooched off this casting company much.”
Aside from her crashing casting calls, though, she'd be familiar for another reason. The tabloids loved putting her hard-eyed, punk-edged look on their covers. Thalia Grace sold rags, even if she didn't do a fraction of the things they claimed she did.
***
Megara watched her, curious.
And then, it clicked. It clicked in a couple different ways, not just with her own addiction to tabloid gossip and scandalous celebrity - she knew the face, the name, and what that also meant for Hades.
“You’re the niece, aren’t you,” she started. “Thalia. Hades mentioned you.” Meg knew she also frequented the network but their paths hadn’t crossed virtually.
***
That got her attention. Thalia sloughed off her louche posture and sat up, eyes narrowing. “Did he now?” And then something clicked for her, too. “Wait, this is a Hades production?” She’d just crashed her uncle’s casting call? And who was this woman, who was enough in the director’s confidence to know about Thalia? She couldn’t imagine him talking about his ridiculously dysfunctional family with just anyone.
*** “I’m Megara,” she clarified, figuring she should extend a hand for a proper, formal greet - even if she was always very informal herself, but this was considered ‘family business.’ Better just make it easy for Hades. “Call me Meg. I’m his PA slash girlfriend. Business, pleasure, fine line, I’m aware.” It’d been working out for them fine - she was good at calming those literal and metaphorical flames that came from the God of Death. “Also part an avid reader and judger of the network, so I’m in the know of most things.”
*** “Yeeeeah, okay,” Thalia said, because she really didn’t want to think too much about her uncle’s love life.
She shook Meg’s outstretched hand quickly. “I didn’t know this was one of his productions. I wouldn’t have crashed it otherwise.”
Because as cool as he seemed, Thalia still had to remember that some dream version of him had sicced a bunch of hellhounds on her to kill her. She wasn’t about to make waves.
***
Unsurprising that she didn’t know. Casting calls were usually hush-hush on the details of what the production was about, and only tidbits of information were offered.
“Is it due to sheer awkwardness, or are you holding some kind of grudge?” Meg questioned, assuming it was already the latter - but she guessed that discovering you had a long lost family member was also an overwhelming revelation. Hades discovering Poseidon's existence hit him like a bag of dickshaped bricks.
***
“Eh,” said Thalia, managing to make the single syllable an extremely expressive answer of “not really a grudge, but there's stuff and it's complicated and I'm just here for the croissants.”
“Do me a favor, though,” she said. “Try not to mention I was here. Things are. You know. Awkward.”
***
Stubborn, wasn’t she? Megara’s eyes rolled a bit, and she took the chair by the spread of pastries to review the paperwork on her clipboard. “I won’t, but you can’t keep avoiding the situation for the rest of your life,” she retorted with an air of nonchalance. “Or you can, but that doesn’t solve anything. He’d like to be involved in your life. That’s more than you can say about your actual sperm donor.”
Oh, she understood complicated. Her first and only dreams involved selling her soul to the death god himself, being roped into his whacko plan of taking over Mt. Olympus by unleashing the Titans. He wasn’t the most welcoming figure in the many versions people dreamt about, but he was different here.
***
That hit a little close to home. Thalia had spent most of her life alternately trying to get her father’s attention and pretending she didn't care for it. Whatever she did, though, her father's response was the same: a big fat nothing. She'd never actually had a father figure in her life, let alone one who wanted to be there.
And what did she need one for now anyway? She wasn't six anymore and wishing someone could go out and see if her mother was coming home that night. Or at all. She wasn't eleven anymore with several boxes of fundraising chocolates she wished someone would just take to their office and sell on her behalf. She wasn't fourteen anymore and sitting in the security office at the mall after being caught for her first shoplifting attempt and waiting for parents who would never come. What use did she have for an uncle she barely knew.
“What's your deal anyway?” Thalia asked, instead of addressing Meg's statement. “Do you care he's suddenly got surprise family members popping out of the woodwork?”
*** Megara didn’t look up - she was crossing off names from the list, scribbling notes on some, checking her phone for updates. Not that she was being negligent. Her career involved juggling many things, and mastering the art of multitasking in such a fast-paced and demanding industry. “I care only because he cares, otherwise - not really my business. But since we’re in this thing called a serious relationship, I tend to be emotionally invested and therefore it becomes my business.”
Merely by association, but.
“I get it, he’s a total ass in just about every version people dream of him. I should know, he was in mine too.” Meg flipped to the next page, tapping her pen against the clipboard. “Sold my soul to him in a deal, and then got dragged into helping his diabolical plan of Olympian domination come to fruition. Here? He’s more occupied about trying to be a better father for his kids, and that’s something that’ll always speak volumes to me. At least he tries.”
***
“Uh huh,” Thalia said dubiously, but she wasn't denying it so stridently anymore.
Luckily, at that moment Bella came back out, looking nervously cautious. Knowing better than to ask how it went right in front production assistant, Thalia saved her questions for now.
“Anyway, good luck with that serious relationship,” Thalia said. Out of all the gods, Hades alone seemed capable of it, so Meg might be okay.
***
Megara clicked her tongue, offering a salute. “Don’t be much of a stranger,” she said, unsure if her words even meant anything to her boyfriend's estranged niece - but she hoped a little sunk in. Gods were fated to have complicated family webs, but hell, at least there was one willing to be around for the blood relatives.