pos-rhea

[pos-rhea]

hephaestusgalani​:

There’s a degree of satisfaction that rings hollow when Poseidon knocks his elbow on the door at his words; he can’t even take the moment to relish in it, to have it ebb and flow within as he wants. Nowhere for it to go but the soles of his feet. It vanishes completely when as he watches Poseidon slip on a wretchedly familiar veneer, the Rhea’s face absent of any overt expression, and it’s the closest thing to a dagger he could lob at him. At least afford me the courtesy of honesty. After all of this. After everything. Don’t look at me like I’ve come to you with a fucking complaint.

“If it wasn’t a matter of trust, then what was it a matter of, if you went out and told someone else? Protection?” Scoffs. Even if it is true, even if Poseidon echoed Zeus’s words, it feels like a platitude when the latter all but confirmed the former had shared the secret so eagerly with someone who was decidedly not himself, who was, in all likelihood, someone Poseidon had met after they’d gone in their own directions. At least it rang truer with his brother, didn’t even tell his fucking wife.

“What of me?” Feels his pulse skip and skitter, his palms go numb. Their voice takes on an edge, and Hephaestus lets it scrape across his skin. He swallows incredulously. “I—I’m doing it for you! All of us! I was kept in the dark, all of my life, and this opportunity to prove I’d do anything for this fucking family is given to me, you think I have a choice?” He calms himself, digs his trembling hands into the crooks of his elbows. “His what, Poe? Whore?” He pauses. “Why can’t you say it?”

He flinches again, chest curving over his sternum like a gut-punch, chin turning to the side like a hook shot. He let himself get emotional, let it bleed through and crack his armour. He can’t afford this. He's watching something slip through his fingers and he -

He's fine. Poseidon opens his eyes, blank and cold, looks over to catalogue Hephaestus' every tremble. He can feel himself shutting down, can feel his emotions turning to ice. " Spare me your selflessness, Hephaestus. For me? For us? " He barks a laugh, sharp and cutting, then finally breaks the distance that gulfs between them. He takes a step forwards, drops his voice into something slow and cruel. " Really, Fae? His whore? " The word drips out like venom, like poison, corrosion in his thoat. He can feel himself coming apart, fraying at the edges, melting from the heat within his core.

He's fine. " When was I supposed to tell you, honestly? You think I should've told you before, that thirty years ago you would've been happy just knowing? You think I should've told you as I stood over his fated head-stone, or did you think my tears were for him and not the fact I stole your revenge? You really think I was grieving himI?! Or do you think I should've told you as I said goodbye when you walked away with my brother and left me alone? "

[pos-rhea]

ceto central office | @zagreusrhea

he had a cutting of the main plant done within the day of his texts with zagreus, hadn’t wanted to risk the transplant going wrong for his nephew, for the move back to - wherever zagreus would end up next.

finally he has the chance to show the plant off, even if the kid has seen the inside of his office before, now there’s more to it, more understanding of the choice’s he’s made. the glass base to one of the sections of the room, the terrarium lining the back wall, the selection of plants within.

he twists the pot and the green ribbon, smiling down at it. “so, what do you think? little seph, sephariniums, you can blame younger me for the name. “

[pos-rhea]

hephaestusgalani​:

Hephaestus doesn’t bide his time, doesn’t search for anything to fill the thirty minutes. He heads straight to lab 14 and spends the entire thirty minutes with the lights left off, seated, thinks of the cost of ignorance, the price of freedom that was never meant to last. Thinks of the stinging on his neck every time his shirt brushes against the scratches, the bruises, how he’d trace them with the pads of his fingers that very morning when he was sure no one would see; smiled. 

His lips are pressed into a thin line by the time Poseidon opens the door, and he doesn’t speak when the door shuts, when silence floods the lab once more. Feels his throat close, every word he’d had prepared die in his mouth. Betrayal hot on the heels of novel intimacy is harder to swallow.

He sighs, shakes his head. Shifts, crosses his arms. Finally, he meets the Rhea’s gaze, forlorn, wet-eyed. Furious. “You would claim me, mark me, but you can’t even trust me?”

he’s fine. he scans his arm and the door slides open.

he’s fine. he steps inside and watches as the lights blink on with the motion.

he’s fine. watches as they illuminate the figure who’s been sat in the dark, casts their face severely, highlights every bruise that peeks over their collar, the flat line of their mouth, the hurt in their eyes.

he’s -

the door slides shut behind him, automatically locks into place. he doesn’t move at the latch, doesn’t move as hephaestus crosses his arm, doesn’t move as he meets his eyes. instead he flinches at the question, knocks his elbow back against the door, hears the crack of it echo through the lab.

he takes a breath, forces the emotion from his face, pulls on the cocksure arrogance. poseidon tilts his head like the answer is obvious, leans back against the door like he’s guarding it and not just ready to escape, shrugs like it’s all inconsequential. “ what would you have me do? apologise? it wasn’t a matter of trust, fa-, fes. and what of you? ”

his voice goes sharp, unable to hide the hurt. “ evidentally your words meant just as little, if you find out the truth and immediately sign on to be his fucking wh- ”  he cuts off the words, notices that his breathing has gone quick, shallow. darts his eyes away before screwing them shut. he can picture it now - images of hephaestus walking away from the beach, bruises on display, accredited to the wrong brother.

[pos-rhea]

a softer gaia: pontius edition

1198. Forewarned is only forearmed if you give a shit.  ||  984. what’re you, new?   ||  1022. I EXPLAINED THAT.  ||  916. what use beauty, sans ugmos?  ||  1000. I wish I didn’t need to know.  ||  1042. What’re you doing with that length of lead pipe?!  ||  1188. you have to make the impossible shiver with antici-  ||  824. confiscate that shit.  ||  835. cleaning up g-d’s mess.

[pos-rhea]

“The corruption begins with the mouth, the tongue, the wanting. The first poem in the world is I want to eat.”

— Erica Jong, from “Where It Begins,” Fruits & Vegetables: Poems By Erica Jong (Holt, 1971)

[pos-rhea]

arrival on pontius after heretedia | @hephaestusgalani​

as soon as the plane touches down, poseidon is on the deck, completely ignoring where the other plane lands. doesn’t look back, half a dozen different holo text threads dancing over his knuckles, striding straight for his office. he pulls up the immediate to-do lists, shoots off a text to hephaestus, to the head of operations onboard, catalogues what his presence is needed for.

it takes 15 minutes, maybe pushing 20. the tension in his shoulders fueling his speed, tension that hasn’t left since zeus hung up. it leaves him with 10 minutes to stand, hands white-knuckle on the back of his chair. 10 minutes to dismiss every way the next conversation could go. 10 minutes of anger and anxiety and fear and guilt and frustration and want and need and -

he heads to lab 14. he opens the door, 30 minutes after the text, on the dot. he’s fine.

[pos-rhea]

circephyra​:

It hurts. Not in the way that a scraped knee or broken ankle hurts. Not in the way it had hurt when she had broken things off with Dion, or grown apart from people she once knew. This hurt differently – in a heart-rending, primal way, like a piece of Circe, something which made her so fundamentally herself, had been ripped away.

That’s what it was – wasn’t it? Circe had never existed without Perses. From the moment she was born, he had been by her side. He had been her balance, her anchor, the one person who looked at Circe and understood everything that she was. Press had been the one who had brought her to Pontius – together they had been able to elevate something good to something great, and now Poseidon was simply giving up on all hope of ever finding him?

“This is different.” She insists – it may seem selfish to think that Perses is any more valuable than anybody else, but, to her, he is. “And you’re simply taking his word for it? How do we know he has done all he can? You said it yourself, Tartarus is a place of shadows – they can’t all have been searched yet. I don’t believe him.”

She shakes her head – what would she have him do? If she thought he would allow it, she would ask to search Tartarus herself, to dive into the darkness and return with her brother or let it swallow her, too. “I just thought you would do more.”

she doesn’t take his hand but he doesn’t lower it, doesn’t press forwards or step back. takes the failure, takes the dissapointment, foreign and bitter tastes as they are. he takes no responsibility for the loss, refuses to let himself, so bears no shame or guilt there. but for the lack of answers? acid curdles in his ribs.

“ more? cee, circe, i have to take his word for it. even if you and i went, what are we going to do? ask questions that don’t get us any closer until we piss off the wrong guy? ” the frustration rips through his voice like a stain, irritation and hopeless anger and grief for the first time. fates, is this what it’s like to actually mourn?

“ i do take his word for it. for this, there’s no reason for him to lie, not for what we hold over each other’s heads. “ he realises, distantly, that his hand is trembling where he holds it up. “ i trust him, i do, i have to and i have and for all the complexities of it? he wouldn’t risk his reign over this. we had to trust each other to split gaia in three, we have to trust each other to keep it that way, i have to trust him. ”

[pos-rhea]

circephyra​:

These days, she feels as though her heart were caught in her throat every time Poseidon came to see her. He acted as the singular conduit through which any and all information about Perses would be transmitted – he could deliver her saving grace, or her doom, at any moment. She was not used to feeling so helpless in these situations – Circe was a fixer, something she knew she shared with Poseidon. Problems didn’t exist in a vacuum – they all had solutions, it was just a matter of finding them.

Perses’ disappearance had an explanation. He had to be somewhere, it was just a matter of asking the right questions.

She watches Poseidon for any clue about what news he has brought before he even has a chance to speak – watches the way his face seems to fall as soon as she requests news, something cold taking root deep in the pit of her stomach before Poseidon delivers the blow. I don’t think there’s anywhere left to look, he says, and Circe shakes her head furiously. “That’s impossible.” She says it before Poseidon finishes speaking, almost talking over the top of him in her haste to get the words out.

It was impossible – as far as Circe was concerned. If Perses hadn’t been found, it was simply because people hadn’t been looking hard enough, or because somebody was hiding something – this question couldn’t remain without an answer, she wouldn’t allow it. “People… people don’t just disappear without a trace.” She leans forward, bracing her hands against the side of her desk, “They haven’t looked everywhere, then. Or somebody is hiding something. We – we need to investigate ourselves, surely the situation calls for this now.”

A lifetime spent rebuilding the universe to suit him, refashioning family and desire and power and success to the point where impossible, well, felt impossible. But now, now it weighs like a yoke, the falibility of being human, that despite the stretch of his networks that nothing can be found.

What’s more impossible? His failure or his success? Of finding a ghost or being unable to find a solution?

“ They do, endlessly. Children coming out of nowhere, going nowhere. I’ve been investigating, had people looking, but Hades’ himself has said there’s nothing - ” His voice breaks, raises his head to meet her gaze.

“ There’s nothing, there’s nowhere left. The ground itself swallowed him enough, there are shadows enough down there, he knew that when he said he’d g-. When he went. ” He steps closer, offers out a hand. “ Circe, Cee, Cee please. What else would you have me do? ”

[pos-rhea]

2128 | pontius | @sisyphhean

Every week, he sits at a different cafeteria on Pontius, makes it a point to speak to anyone who approaches. Part of the image, part of the myth, integrate himself into the story from the ground up, hears every grievance, waves his hand and watches it mean something.

This week, he walks onto Isthmia, walks past a Richard Floros and a recent hire, pair tucked into an office, the new guy with his head low and something cruel in Floros’ body language. Subtly, Poseidon alters his path towards the office, tunes his earpiece into the cameras within the room, feels the anger build with each step.

By the time he swings open the door, he’s got the relevant forms already drawn up and sent to Floros’ inbox, and the cameras are recording both audio and visual. The door clatters open loudly and he tucks his thumbs into his pockets, tilts his head to pin Floros with his gaze, his usual expression now dimmed to a tight smile. “ Richard. ” Voice bland, empty. “ What do you think you’re doing? ”

[pos-rhea]

godtits​:

do you think god is nuclear. do you think you cannot look upon deities in the same way you cannot look upon the center of a mushroom cloud. do you think the energy generated from fission is energy released from divine clutches. do you think that god exists in the space between the nucleus and the electrons and in the bonds of compounds and in the numbers on the page that got us there. do you think radiation is a warning. do you think it is an eraser. do you think that it is wrath or a mistake or a byproduct of entropy. do you think god is plasma, where electrons are wherever you want them to be. do you think that we were supposed to find this out.

[pos-rhea]

Hospital (House of Hades?) | 2124 | @hermies

He’s got a box of electronics, going back an age. Tape recorders and drives that could be stored in a museum, built to last but still the sheer electronic degradation meant most of what was in the box was unworkable. It causes Poseidon to hesitate outside the door, reconsidering the ‘ get well soon / here’s something to distract you ‘ gift. Hermes was always more of a software than hardware engineer, as well, perhaps these wouldn’t -

Nah, the kid’s trapped in a hospital bed, they’ll want something to fidget with.

So he steps in, easy, for a moment considers just upturning the contents on Hermes’ lap, thinks better of it. Slides it onto the bedside table instead, and he sits down with a smile. “ You know, if you wanted to see me, you could’ve just texted. ”

[pos-rhea]

sisyphhean​:

Sisyphus looks down at the little metallic bug in his lap, the listening device he was about to plant in one of Pontius’ temporary workstation computers. He blinks rapidly as his brain whirrs to life, after stalling out at Poseidon’s voice behind him.

“Well, sir,” he says slowly, “I wasn’t going to mention it until I was completely sure, because I didn’t want to start a fuss over nothing– not with our hosts being so gracious– but. Well, I had an inkling something was off in one of the computers, so I decided to take it apart myself just to check. No harm done, if I was wrong, but unfortunately…” He picks up the bug. Holds it to the light above himself, squinting at it like it’s the first time he’s seen it. “It looks like I was right.” 

He cranes his head backwards rather than turning around, looking at Poseidon upside down, his hair falling over his eyes. “What would you like me to do about it, boss?”

-

[ hc ]

Poseidon buys the explanation, at least in part. He assigns Thersander closer work throughout the event, ordering him to ‘take it apart, see if there are any more, and plant your own. If you’ve got this kind of head for spying, I want you doing more of it, for me.’

However, Poseidon now has a heightened suspicion and awareness of Sisyphus that he didn’t have before. He wants to see how useful the deckhand can be, but also how much of a threat.

[pos-rhea]

patroclusc​:

Patroclus doesn’t want to need it, he has spent years living with his own pain, longing, shame and guilt. And yet the past few days shook him to his core, a feeling that he wasn’t himself for as long as he was staying at Olympe, then again maybe he has left his former self back in Tartarus and a new Patroclus was burn in Arcadia.

Instead of saying anything he opened the Tala and showed Poseidon the credentials he had to enter Achilles’ room, hoping it would be enough. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to speak of the things I was forced to do for Tartarus.” His body had the emotional and physical scars. “I was never a man for violence but it was worth it if I got to be with him.” 

Talking about made the memories float back and his solution was always work it away into the back of his mind but he couldn’t because Poseidon was standing there, a man that did nothing but give Patroclus a chance, somewhere to be free and do something he actually loved and after years of knowing Poseidon didn’t he owe him more than just a bedtime story over wine? 

“He wanted me to leave and we had an argument.” 

Come with me, love.

His own words echoed in his mind. Their late night talks of forever shuttering within a single argument. “I left the only man I ever loved and promised him to never return to Tartarus.” Maybe his refusal to visit Tartarus would make sense now to Poseidon whenever they would speak of it. “And he gave me the gift of a new life, I spent a lot of time wondering if it was worth doing it without him.” 

His throat was closed but he refused to break, not in front of Poseidon, not while someone could be watching him recount the worst day of his life and the start of what should’ve been the next best years of his life.

[ hc ]

Patroclus : “And he gave me the gift of a new life, I spent a lot of time wondering if it was worth doing it without him.” 

Poseidon : “Was it worth it?”

Patroclus : “Is it worth doing without Perses?”

the conversation fades into a comfortable silence, as they continue to work together on the plans, having aired some of the tension.

[pos-rhea]

hephaestusgalani​:

2100 | just after cronus’ funeral | @hephaestusgalani​

The cameras and reporters are long gone, and all that is left are the brothers, a grave, and a vast, merciless future, free of guidance, free of anything at all once pre-ordained. Hephaeustus had already exchanged words with Hades, had been there for Zeus, and finally, searches for Poseidon in the silent expanse of the aftermath. Finds him alone at the grave, and makes a point to make his footsteps heavy and audible.

“Hi, Poe.” He offers a weak smile. The youngest Rhea appears shattered, hollowed - Hephaestus hasn’t cried once. But he reaches out, touches his forearm, a wisp of a touch, yielding, wanting to ground but not to startle. “What’re you feeling?”

He flinches at the touch, startling away before returning, cast line helplessly reeled in. His foot turns away before he stumbles in, eyes meeting Hephaestus’ before dropping away, and he lets out a bitter laugh. “ Good? Bad that I feel good? Good that I feel bad? Good that I feel good? “

The gentle touch on his wrist is too much and not enough, and he pulls away before he drops his forehead on their shoulder, thunking against Hephaestus’ collarbone, his arms hanging helplessly at his side. How dare he seek even this amount of respite, this amount of comfort? How dare he take even more?

That’s always been the problem, though, hasn’t it? That he wants too much, wants it too much. “ You can - “ one of his hands clenches, releases, tiny movement. “ A hand. “ The vaguest permission, and Poseidon almost hopes that they don’t know each other well enough that Hephaestus can decipher it. Hopes that that distance might absolve him.

[pos-rhea]

He doesn’t like to not know. He doesn’t like to have mysteries unexplained, ideas unrealised, thoughts that don’t get problem-solved. He shares that with her, he thinks, the need to sit and debug until the code is fixed, to work out every piece on the board to total satisfaction. If it’s not complete it’s a void that draws all attention, all demand, all vision.

Perhaps there lies the problem, for him. It’s a problem, for all that it’s Perses. The irritation lies with its lack of solution, for all that it’s Perses. He’s going to offer the job to Hephaestus tomorrow, knows that its the perfect moment, knows that the position will be filled, for all that it was Perses.

( Perhaps it’s not just a problem, because it was Perses. Because it is Circe. Because he cannot dwell on his guilt and his failure any longer. )

He knocks on her door, prepares the words. How to tell a friend that she can’t keep looking for her twin? How to say that this the end of the line, for him? But already she’s standing and every day there’s this bleeding look of hope and fear that he can’t help but take a step back from, head dropping as he shakes it. “ I’m sorry. I don’t think - I don’t there’s anywhere left to look. ”

𝐖𝐇𝐎: CIRCE & POSEIDON ( @pos-rhea​ ) 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: PONTIUS, CIRCE’S OFFICE 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍: FEBRUARY, 2129 – APPROXIMATELY TWO MONTHS AFTER PERSES DISAPPEARED

It had been TWO MONTHS since Circe had last seen her brother – though it felt both longer and shorter than this. Two months since PERSES had bid her farewell before embarking on his trip to TARTARUS. Two months since he had assured her that all would be well. Two months since he had promised to return soon – and two months since anybody had seen him alive. It had seemed like a simple trip – Circe still struggled to understand exactly how they had ended up hear, what could have possibly gone wrong, for Perses to disappear, traceless, without so much as contacting her.

She couldn’t decide whether this was the worst part – not knowing. The fact that the pieces didn’t seem to add up, the fact that all she could say about her brother was that he was missing – and that nothing else about this situation was certain, nor did it make sense. Was this the worst part? Or was the worst part the hollow absence she felt beside her – the way she looked towards the chair Perses was supposed to occupy during every meeting, waited for him to bid her goodnight before he retired to bed as she continued to work long into the night, the way she felt as though she were floundering without him beside her, suddenly in the dark without a flashlight.

She had been staring at her screen for about an hour when she hears a soft knock on her door. The lines of code were starting to jumble before her eyes, and she struggled to focus as her thoughts constantly drifted back to PERSES, PERSES, PERSES – so the distraction comes as a welcome one, especially as she looks up and sees POSEIDON in the doorway. “Sir,” She says, clumsily pushing herself out of her seat and standing behind the desk. “…Any news?” She cannot help the desperate HOPE which bleeds into her tone.

[pos-rhea]

2100 | just after cronus’ funeral | @hephaestusgalani​

he feels unearthed, hollowed out, a shell with fangs and iron in his throat. a torrent of relief and guilt and rage and horror and want and loss and -. it’s not hard to be caught silently crying by the cameras, nor for his voice to choke up as he gave his speech.

it’s true and it’s false and he’s tired but the world is opening up before him, so sue him for lingering at the grave long after even the paparazzi have left. back straight, eyes lowered, he’s been stood like this. until there’s a footstep behind him and it’s so different from the silence he can’t help but flinch, turning to look.

“ fae? ” the name chokes, the guilt clamouring up, the words unspoken that’s going to have to learn to bury.

[pos-rhea]

perserhea​

2101 | tartarus gardens | @perserhea

Persephone scans the rows once she enters the greenhouse. She checks them from afar and from up close, left to right, increasingly more focused with each step. By the time she gets to Poe, she is frowning. “Oy. You better not have crushed anything.” No, she is dreadfully serious now. Her finger jabs his chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be a top-grade scientist, little bro? Where’s all that knowledge when it comes to catching shut-eye on my fucking flowers.” She drops beside him, clearing some space to fit in. “They’re Teradiniums.” The frown hangs in the air. “I think. We’re… workshopping it, okay. You get to name them, if they’ll survive this time.” 

~

he winces at the jab, eyes darting around before his expression clears. nothing crushed but the soil. “ yep, top-grade underslept - is that a word? - scientist. don’t plants need, what, resiliency? biodiversity and natural cycles of entropy and all that? “

he grins, before rubbing the sleep for his eyes and leaning forward to look closer. “ poseidonias. sepharanium. sepheidons. my brother may kill me for that one. speaking of, how have you both been? “