BANG!

"You couldn't have stopped me." Bebe could have tried, but the witch had been lost the moment he grabbed the spine of the Necronomicon from his father's hidden vault. Maybe even before that. Bebe's remorse was ill-placed but they were right that it was over now, it was all over; August was going to spend the rest of his life in this cell and while that was precisely what he deserved, Bebe coming into her own was what the demon was owed. That, and a very expensive vacation somewhere. "And Eren, apparently; he won't leave me alone." No matter how many times August sent him away or begged the guards not to let the senator back in, there he was.

"I had a feeling that was the case." Eren, he was someone she'd yet to check in on mostly on account of she didn't know what kind of state he'd be in. "There was a time I'd asked him if he'd help me pack you up and leave if it got too bad here." Bebe recalled the encounter with pursed perfectly glossed lips. She'd been eating her gelato, they'd been walking around the pyramid. "I had asked him if he'd help me pull you from the edge and he practically told me that he'd jump with you." Therefore driving her to ask Vivianne for her help, someone, anyone else who might be able to save all of them.

"I hate this." Even as Echion said this though he was looking up, was this really the kind of thing Astaroth would go for? There were enough posters on the walls of the record store with people wearing makeup so it wasn't that big of a stretch but the demigod felt stupid. Frivolous. Was this really where he fits in in this modern world? Maybe Hermes had had a point, he doubted that there was much for him here now. Astaroth didn't have many more tethers than Echion, just that shop. "That hurts." It didn't, but Echion relished in any opportunity to complain.

"We never should have come here." The thought had been running around his mind lately that this had all been a giant mistake. He had somehow damaged every life he'd come into contact with. "Now I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this cell." August had poorly wanted to get to the root of his father's disappearance and the old coven where he'd been born; uncovering the truth hadn't been enough; he wanted power, and he felt vindicated in pointing the finger in every direction but home. At least that was the case back then, but now, for the first time in his life, he was free of Pythia's influence through his blood and the Necronomicon. All August had was his thoughts and more regret than he could ever contend with. He sighed as his head tilted back against the wall as he fixed his gaze on the ceiling above.

"I should have said something." It's there and out in the air and it feels like it reverberates between the bars. They both know that if she'd had said something, things could have gone very differently. It's not something she likes to dwell on during daylight hours, that he very well had seemed so far gone that she was lucky to still be around at all. That he'd just sent her away as a form of isolating himself. "But it's over now and it's back to just you and me." Bebe's voice is quiet and despite the situation, there's this fondness in her ample chest at the idea of it. They were back at square one, rather mundane this time with him being but a mere mortal, but still.

"That was.... Yeah, that was spot on." The look that Bebe had performed was pure Astaroth, the likeness was so striking that the spartoi had been momentarily taken aback by it. "I don't think I have any feelings about it." Echion had never had a strong thought about how he presented himself outside of his bones for ages. Would that he could just dress himself in his rib cage all the time, Echion didn't know what was so appealing about cloth and skin anyways. Maybe he should ask Astaroth.

Bebe nods promptly, she looks to the sales associate who seems awkwardly wanting to be anywhere else and then she points to a few things around the store. She gets it, the poor associate and the pining blonde that clearly needs more of her help. "Okay, new plan, which means you are to cancel all of yours for the rest of the day." She doesn't really leave any room for discussion or protest, this was happening because she needed yet another pet project on top of being a senator. There's maybe this deep need to....While she will accept being referred to as 'mother' by various twinks, she thinks her caretaker vibe is very much more 'fun big sister'. The absence of August is a hole that just sits there empty in her chest, aching at all times. * "Don't move." There was no point in going to Sephora, for one, they wouldn't let her in there, she was pretty sure her picture was somewhere on the wall after the last bee incident. Secondly, there were several makeup cases full of what she routinely took from the place in her boudoir. That's where she's perched Echion, on her vanity chair as she holds up a kohl pencil. Urban Decay Perversion, smudgy and sexy, she could teach him to do it himself. "And look up."

"Well, he's-" Echion didn't really know how to put a word or a label to it, two men who had sex. "a friend." That tasted sour in his mouth, not just because he'd never called Astaroth a friend until now. Acquaintances through mutual attachment were the prevalent dynamic that had defined them previously. Now? Now Echion was out looking at clothes with a demoness who had just wrapped him in the tightest fabric he'd ever felt. "He owns a record store."

"Oh my god the one with the....?" Bebe invokes blue steel for a moment before narrowing her eyes and looking forward before moving her bangs so they fall across her eyes. She'd seen the owner and frankly, Echion had good taste. "It's all making sense." She was connecting dots that he hadn't even presented her with and it's with a sigh and a flourish that she turns to the various racks around them and starts pulling things. "How do you feel about eyeliner?"

August remembered that boy he'd been, young, precocious, and inquisitive. That curious mind had led him down darkened paths, but the witch had been doomed from the start, born into an infernal pact with Pythia; maybe this precise situation was inevitable from the start. August had heard that Bebe had become a senator, that for the first time in centuries, demons were rallying behind a figure that wasn't some deranged ruler of the Inferno... But that was also dangerous, given the current situation. He'd spare her any lectures, she didn't need them, and August was the last person who should be telling her what to do.

It all reminds her of her conversation with Lucretia. She'd told her that everything was fine, it wasn't, but it was. Because Bebe wouldn't allow herself to be so mistreated again. Whatever was left of her spine had been repaired over the course of that damn war, perhaps when August had first untethered her. Her weight shifts from heeled foot to heeled foot as she stands there before the bars of his enclosure, glossed lips pursing. Her phone goes back into the front of the hot pink number she'd put on and she looks to him squarely. "I know you are. And I forgive you." Which sounds ridiculous out loud. Her of all people? Forgiving? So many years had been spent selfishly because she'd bet on the right horse, had been attached to the right witch. Other familiars and their own witches had been thwarted by the two of their actions and she'd never thought much of it, it was just business. It was all just business until August had gone after that village. Until what was left of him was gone. This man though before her curled in a cell, there are flashes of the boy she'd once knew. "I forgive you." It's said with more confidence that time, with a nod of her head.

"Oh so it is to be this way," Elijah muses, bitterly amused to see yet another mirror of the Inferno within Rome. An idiotic part of him had hoped that there would be true cooperation amidst demons, but he supposes it is too much to ask for their kind. Shame too, he is far less willing to spill the truly dangerous secrets when his freedom is held hostage by the very same person that is supposed to represent them. Oh well, he was expecting too much of Bebe, he can readjust. " Depends in what you want," he says, expression flat as he leans back against the door. "I would like the ring, and I am willing to sell information for it, but if you want me to fuck with the Archfiends for your amusement, I will have to find another way to survive." Implied is the fact that he is not above breaking the new laws and setting the Senate upon her for failing to control her people. "I have no desire to punching about my weight level for someone who has decided to hold my freedom hostage."

"Pack it up delicious, I was teasing you." Bebe raises both of her hands in surrender towards Elijah. Tensions have been high lately, but she didn't figure someone would be this hostile out the gate. A perfectly arched brow does arch though at the mention of the Archfiends. "Have one of them done something to you?" The tone she takes on is far more serious and before he can answer, she's up on her feet and ushering the cubi to sit. "Senator or no senator, I think there's little we can do about it except hope Asmodeus invites us to one of those parties of his." Scooting around her desk, she perches herself in her own chair only to look pointedly at him across from her. "But I need to know if you're in any kind of distress." Because aloofness aside, she does care for her fellow demon and she can't say she's not afraid at the idea of them coming through and wreaking havoc.

Bebe's was the only name on the visitor log; when August finally came, they'd told him she'd go regularly. Bebe had sat with him, gossiped with him, and treated him as if nothing had changed. The truth was everything had changed, and given his current state, he was glad that, at least in his madness, the former necromancer had taken steps to ensure Bebe's safety. Even though his power had been destroyed, the talisman he'd crafted for her would hold. Few were in the realms capable of channeling the necromantic power required to destroy it. Bebe was free, and here August sat metaphorically in chains.

"You don't have to say anything." She shakes her head, her perfectly curled hair tossing over her shoulders as she does. "Because I have plenty to say." There's been more that's she's been saying while he's been just laying there. That has been keeping him up to speed on what was going on in the city, this was personal. Standing there before him in her Valentino platforms, her hands clasped in front of her. August is going to sit there and listen, he is going to hear her out and then she is going to leave him to think about it, that's the plan. And she is not going to cry, she has a speech prepared. So she pulls her phone out from the front of her dress and pulls up her notes app. "I once told you when you were a little kid I wasn't going to ever leave you. And I stood by that. But I stood by and watched that boy disappear." Bebe has to look upwards, flutter her lashes a couple of times before she looks down again. "I love you. You're my family."

"Cloe, please. I would rather we be friends and allies." One of the benefits of being a eladrin is that it was easy to come across as truthful. It certainly did wonders, and paired with her own reputation for hopeful eagerness, she knows it makes her approachable and she is glad for it. As much as she admired how Ayla seems almost unapproachable for all, she is here to listen to her constituents' concerns and she can't listen to them if they are too scared or intimidated to approach her. Still, she does find it mildly amusing that the other approaches her without any worry, and a fond smile dances on her lips. "Perfect, I got you some of Canal Cakes' best sellers."