pummelgranite | [MoM][IC Contact]

[ She still doesn't look at him. Her back is against the base of a marble statue, and her gaze stares into the darkness of the cemetery without focusing on anything in particular.

He's right, isn't he? There is no point to her. Even less than anyone else in the Pantheon. Here's where he's wrong though, she was more than they made her. Far more violent, and cruel, and dangerous. The Soviets had just wanted an obedient soldier, so why had she become a rabid monster? Why had she rubbed her viciousness into Batman's face. Why had she forced him to bear the punishment for her atrocities? Why did she hate John so much as to break his body over and over and over and over and-

There had been a fuzziness in her thinking, a dissociated helplessness that made it all seem like she was watching herself move and hurt and kill. Thinking about it makes her throat tighten. She wants to say that she wanted to stop, that she didn't know how to stop, that she's sorry, so sorry for hurting him.

But that would be a lie, wouldn't it? If she was really sorry she wouldn't have done it. She's the one who made those choices, no one else. So he's right. If there was really any purpose or goodness to her, she would have fucking shown it by now.

She shoves down the self pity until she's sure her voice will be steady. ]

Sounds like you already know the answer.

S'fine. You probably did me what I deserve anyway.

[ What did you think was going to come of helping her, John? At worst she was baggage and at best she was a human talisman to ward off his own guilt. Do right by one person, and maybe you can forget all the death you've caused.

He knows her choices are limited, that having power and having options aren't the same thing, that even deities can be broken and manipulated. She'd gotten her big bloody life goal when she became Persephone, and by the time she realized the cost, it was already too late. By the time she realized that which she'd spent her life obsessed with was orchestrated by a lying, scheming old bat, there was no return.

John wants to tell her it's not her fault. Not her powers, nor what she became in the dreamland. Children are lied to constantly, anyone can be broken, and there are a million ugly ways to tear away someone's freedom. But those are all fancy ways of saying "it's okay", which he can never, ever insult her by saying.

Which is maybe why he finds it all too easy to talk shit and pick a fight now. He can tell himself it'll create a safe distance between them.

He can feel the silence bearing down on them and he's not sure if this is his second or third cigarette that he lights with trembling hands. ]

But you also fill places with people who don't deserve what I do. That the thanks your worshippers get? Bein' toyed with.

[ Please, child. Get mad. Shut him up. Stop him. Run. Get yourself far as you can from the curse that falls upon those he cares about. ]

[ "Did me what I deserve," the words make her sick. They make her sick the way his snapping bones make her sick, the way his last breaths wheeze through a broken throat make her sick. But they didn't make her feel sick at the time, did they?

But her fans, at least . . . ]

Don't talk about my fans like you have any fucking idea.

[ He knows she couldn't have enjoyed that infinite loop of punishment. Executioners, after all, don't always relish in the sins they commit however necessary their services are deemed.

But then if he could stop fucking up, there'd be no reason for her to put him through a meat grinder and then there'd be fewer reasons for her to hate herself. ]

Yeah. Well. Maybe I don't want to.

[ The words are flat and joyless. Everything he hears himself saying stabs him like a skewer between the ribs, but he presses on. It's for her own safety, he tells himself ad nauseam. ]

Not the biggest fan of divine meddling me'self, so maybe you oughta... find someone else to deal with the calendar and dry cleaning. You've only got til Fate blasts you back into limbo to chase fame, right? Why waste time on a fuckin' hobo?

I've already got a better offer.

[ The words are out of her mouth before she even quite processes what he's said to her. His words filter into her and it feels like mercury poured down her throat- cold and heavy and nauseating.

The scout had first approached her weeks ago, actually. She'd been wily, and sharp, and didn't understand Persephone's song in the slightest, but knew talent when she saw it. Persephone had been wary even as she took her card. Even with limited time, would it be worth it to abandon one of the few people she could really trust?

But this made the choice easy. She had already broken that trust. Her Heirophant had lost his faith. He had woken up from their shared nightmare, and he didn't seem keen on slipping back into it. Could she blame him?

Her voice doesn't sound mad, just flat. But it still doesn't waver as she speaks. ]

So suit yourself. I was just trying to figure out how to tell you.

Hah. Made your life easier one last time, then.

[ He isn't actually laughing. His emotional state is something of a maelstorm of many things and he can't fathom which is dominant. Relief that he's off the hook for responsibility. Rage at her spiteful retorts. Terror at the knowledge of how bigshot music producers bleed young women dry. Intense self-loathing that he didn't do a better job with her.

John takes a moment to empty his pockets before retreating - her makeup sponge, a bottle of dubiously legal painkillers, a coffee rewards card, dried up pomegranate seeds and dead flower petals, and some expensive-looking nail polish tumble from his hands, embraced by the dewy grass.

As he ventures back out of the cemetery with a heavy step, he wonders if he should say something else. He wonders if she'll pursue him just to let out one last "fuck you". He keeps walking so as not to satisfy his bloody stupid curiosity on either account. ]

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