#lifeslines

        he's chewing mint, listening to santi talk his ear off. ronan may not look like he's listening, but he is: and watching. he looks up when santi's babbling does a 360, the hybrid waving immediately.

        danny's making a mess of her kitchen, but lu doesn't care. they're making something with lima beans and tomatoes, and she's never been one to turn down their cooking. with a storm and snow coming, she feels no shame for her pajamas or hoodie. she waves.

        it's stretched out on the floor of the downstairs bedroom, still playing dead even though margo had given up ten minutes ago to go eat. its eyes are closed and the hound had been on the verge of falling asleep for real, honestly. instead, it sighs, but doesn't open its eyes as it shifts into a more comfortable position.

        she's wearing sunglasses indoors because sage sam has found out that most humans are going to notice the black sclera and vividly orange irises. so sam's pushing a stirring stick around the big mug of coffee that she's got, a stack of essays from the french literature class she teaches in front of her.

        coin's crouched next to her black motorcycle with the neon green lights in the rims, trying to adjust the kickstand enough that it doesn't look like it's going to fall over. she's concentrating hard enough that she doesn't hear him. the only thing that being half in the dark that she's grateful for is that it hides the scars that start at the left side of her chin and curl around her throat to the right side.

        they're sitting outside of the library, waiting for delilah to get out of an art class at the community college that accepts high school students. mira could technically walk home, but they're looking at the stars instead. they're excited for the upcoming meteor showers.

ares was physically ( and mentally, to a lesser degree ) abusive.

from the moment when he knew his twin sons could pick up practice swords, he had them training from the moment they woke up to almost sundown. ( deimos thinks that it’s because he and phobos are ares’ oldest children, thus their right to experience that. ares only conformed it. )

the training was something that deimos didn’t mind, but the punishment that came with losing to eris or enyo ( then teenagers, but still more trained than two six year olds ) left deimos licking a split lip. at least in the beginning, split lips were all he got from a backhand across the face.

once he was a teenager, the punishments got progressively worse. a broken arm, cuts to the face, a broken wrist, you name it: he most likely experienced it. even if he beat enyo and had her at sword point, if ares didn’t like his form, he’d get beat for it.

( it got bad enough one training session that artemis actually intervened. she took both deimos and phobos away to recuperate while apollo smiled & kept ares from going after his twin. )

aphrodite is/was the neglectful parent.

aphrodite knew was ares was doing from the get-go.

and, at first, the training wasn’t so bad because she was there to watch and tell ares to lay off. but then she got bored/distracted with her duties as love goddess and so the training sessions worsened because ares didn’t have to mind how hard he corrected his twins’ postures.

even when deimos came to her to complain, she was always busy with a lover and so she wrote off his complaints with absentminded agreements and hums, and empty promises to talk to ares about lessening up what he was doing.

once a mama’s boy, deimos’ affection towards aphrodite soured the first time ares broke his wrist. ( and he’s sure she felt it, the souring of love. she showed up after that, but he turned away and retreated with artemis to her own residence. )

ares is dead.

it was something a long time coming ( especially now with prometheus having permanent possession of poseidon’s trident, a changing tide in its own right ).

sure, it took both deimos and phobos to kill their father, but after the dust settled: ares was dead, gold blood soaking into the ground. enyo with her blank face and eris with her grin ( likely pleased that he finally got what he deserved ).

and sure, his twin sons were badly hurt in the aftermath, and the gods were divided in what to do.

half, mostly ares’ children that had better treatment than his oldest sons, wanted deimos & phobos to pay. aphrodite, too, wanted her sons face up to it.

the other half, gods who openly or secretly loathed ares ( and/or aphrodite ) stepped up to get in between ares’ other children and aphrodite.

it looked like it would come to another god war, except when a silver arrow buried itself in aphrodite’s throat and she fell. ( she’d recover, sure, but with wounded pride. she should have seen artemis notch an arrow and bury it in aphrodite’s throat. ) but it was enough of a shock to everyone that all of ares’ supporters dissipated.

        he's become very good at deflecting marnie's angry bitter barbs, but marnie's also become very good at sniffing out what will affect aspen the most. i thought you loved me, and look at what you did always does the most damage, no matter how much he hears it. she's been gone for a hour or two now, but he's still looking at his hands.