nevermore_logs | (no subject)

Briareos had left well enough alone when his head had cleared following Valentine's Day. It was an unnecessary kick in reverse. He couldn't help but shake however that when the feelings had worn off, some remained but he had no idea hoe to channel them. They weren't of love necessarily as much of understanding. His eyes had been opened in a way that was in all honesty uncomfortable.

When she stepped into his line of view his body tensed slightly. They spent the past in such a reverse of roles, this was a little new. She was always a beautiful thing that he'd never known how to appreciate the way most could. He was pretty sure even Poseidon had never looked at her in a considerate way. Briareos despite his attempt to not look, couldn't help but glance at her differently as he swallowed down his beer.

"It has." He averted his gaze to the wall of liquor instead but her there made his stomach flip. That was new.

"Hope you're not thinking of trying to kill me," Kymopoleia said as she considered him. "You swore an oath, remember."

Briareos peered over his shoulder. He wasn't sure about this new wave of 'things' going on inside since Eros' arrows pulled their love drunk punch. He had a mind to think that it was just the side effects, but in seeing her there was something else going on in there.

"If I had been thinking of ways to kill you I wouldn't have waited this long to do it." He didn't sit on plots like Poseidon. He didn't go for slow torture.

"Good to know," Ky said, looking over to the bar as she considered if she should get up and buy herself a drink yet. "I was kinda worried you might show up the next day and try to gut me for it."

"Why would you think that?" he tried to hide behind that bottle or the shift in the air with her being around again without an intention to hurt. He loosened the stiff shoulders, arms laying across each other on the counter top. "You have much more strength on me these days, I hardly think you need to worry." Though his own had grown since the hurricane hit New York, and since there was no more threat being acted upon his life the moment he stepped out of his bubble.

He got the feeling she wasn't looking at him as the monster anymore. Just as he saw a girl for the first time. "Torture is a bit outdated now isn't it?" meaning they had both progressed to something else.

"So you've moved past torture?" Kymopoleia said, and her tone was almost teasing. It was certainly the closest she'd ever gotten to joking with him, especially about the past. "Hold that thought," she added, "I gotta get me a drink."

She slipped out from her chair and went to the bar, leaning on it as she waited for the bartender to bring her beer. Then she walked back and sat down again. "Where were we?"

"Since being thrown in a big hole to be buried alive." He gave a thin lipped smile with puffed out cheeks. "Yes." He knew what it was like to be tortured. He'd seen in her eyes then that so many decades ago where she was just a girl crying to go home, he'd been that same source of torture. It wasn't in him anymore unless he needed it to defend himself.

She was being awfully pleasant. "No knives hiding on you now?" Maybe she wanted to gut him for having such insane thoughts that day.

"There's one in my boot," she said easily, "but it isn't for you."

Leaning back in her chair she took a sip of her beer, taking her eyes from him and looking around the bar. The two of them didn't really have a huge amount in common to talk about, but she found she was surprisingly comfortable.

"Oh? On the prowl for a victim?"

They generally hadn't had any conversation with each other before until that Valentine's Day when they were both forced to actually talk. It wasn't as if Braireos was a sparkling specimen of casual conversation. He was quite horrible at it.

"No," Ky shrugged, "but I don't like getting surprised. Besides," she added, leaning across the table to look at him seriously, "who can tell what the night will bring?"

She and Briareos had once ended up in a barfight together where they'd (probably) left people dead. Nights took unexpected turns.

They both shared the same spirit which was of the sea. Briareos had been its ancient master before her father and his seed took over. With the sea brought a tempestuous nature. A thirst for danger just as much as calm.

"The night is not without its predators." People in general still unnerved him. He found himself here though many times since they had met the first time in a bar when she was still very wary of him. Since things had started to shift, part of him had been hoping she would show again...

"No hurricanes tonight." Not unless some of the brutes walking in decided to pick some sort of trouble. The way they were looking in their direction it seemed they felt like shoving their weight around.

"I prefer to be that predator," Ky said with a smile, dangerous and easy to come to her lips. "Maybe no hurricanes yet," Ky said, following Briareos' gaze towards the door. "But it's still early."

Maybe her spirit was alive again after all he and Poseidon had done to destroy it. She was not weak at all, seeing that gave him an old surge of power himself but not against her. She was on his side now. He liked keeping her there.

He quirked the end of his lip, downing off his beer and turning to face her in his seat. The men that came in the door brushed past Ky, nudging a hard shoulder into hers. They crowded themselves around the thin sea couple, thinking as always that brute looks made them as strong as they thought they were. One kicked the stool out from under Briareos which was unexpected from the thin sea titan and knocked him to the ground. With him flat on his back, the man scooted the stool over him, the little pegs pinned around his head as the guy sat down beside Kymopoleia.

Kymopoleia's smile widened.

In Ancient Greece Briareos and Poseidon had turned her from an innocent girl into a sea-storm monster like her husband, a creature that learned to kill and destroy beside her husband to use up the rage her own helplessness against him brought up.

And that monster now was what Kymopoleia was, and the monster enjoyed being let out of the cage.

Ky looked down at where Briareos was pinned and asked him, "do we put out some sort of signal to these sorts of guys?" She wasn't even slightly concerned about either of their current positions and it was clear in her tone.

What she had been turned from, what he was, what they both were now it bridged some sort of kinship when it used to destroy. Poseidon would hate to know that what his daughter had once been scared of was now something that could closely resemble a friend. Monsters weren't allowed things like that.

The guy on the stool was taken aback that she hadn't even paid him any mind. "Let me buy you a drink," he said as if she didn't have one already in her hand. Briareos rolled his eyes, hands clenched around the tiny pegs of the stool. "Attracted to the rage." He was feeding off what she brought to the table and this guy who seemed to think pinning back an old titan was acceptable. Briareos was at his full strength anymore but he could throw this guy off because his defenses kicked in. He was not going to be the caged monster. "Must be." Briareos said to Ky, snapping one of those wooden pegs with one hand. It had the strength of ten.

"Rage? I'm positively laid-back," Ky replied, which wasn't entirely true. She wasn't angry at these men, just hungry from the destruction she was going to bring on them. It was excitement, not anger.

She'd said absolutely nothing to the men so far and when Briareos snapped the chair leg and startled the man sitting on she still remained still and unmoved, sipping her drink and waiting. Her muscles were tensed and ready but nothing showed on the surface.

Maybe she didn't hold the rage he did, but there was certain.ky enough to go around. He squeezed his hand around the other chair leg and snapped it with the strength he had the last with gritted teeth. The man stumbled off his seat nearly flopping down over the Titan. He got his balance after a wavy dance. Briareos just laughed.

"You find that funny you skinny little fucker?" Briareos pushed the stool out if his way to sit up.

"I do," he said feeling those arms trying to grow again. The last time with the hurricane he had felt them try to break loose. Now those tattoos on his arms started to move as if a snake was crawling up under his skin.

"Boys, boys, boys," Ky said, finishing her drink and then sighing up at them. "How about instead of messing up my brother, you come outside with me?"

She stood, all long pale legs and loose waves of red hair. "That's what you're actually interested in, aren't you?"

She looked past them to Briareos who was growing more than agitated by now. Sure she'd continue this fight inside if it came down to it, but she was sick of getting kicked out of bars. Might as well try and be allowed to remain at one of them in the city.

Briareos used the time to actually get up off his back, shoving the stool off of him like it was diseased. His arms felt funny like the muscles were trying to lock up or go in opposite directions. He couldn't tell if he was actually experiencing pain or the more agitated he grew a feeling of having more than the two arms at his sides. It had been so long, but he would hang onto that power (whether real or imaginary) because he felt stronger that way.

While Kymopoleia seduced the men outside the door he took what was left of his beer, bottle still in hand and followed out in a dark, slinky shadow.

Ky was pleasantly surprised when they actually decided that, yes, they would go outside with her. They were clearly not the brightest of men as they either thought that something was going to happen for them with Ky, or that it was a good idea to rape her in an alley way right after causing a scene in a crowded bar. Either option they were betting on meant they couldn't have had many braincells to rub together.

"Gotta say," she told them, "I appreciate you helping me not get kicked out of yet another bar." She looked past them to Briareos looking dangerous and for a moment doubt and panic passed across her face, not at the mortal men but at him.

But the monster had taken an oath, and tonight he wanted to hurt these boys.

She spotted the bottle in her husband's hand and said, "damn, I left mine inside. Guess I'll have improvise."

His walk was slow, his steps deliberate. There was no fear in his eyes, no pain, just feeding off the blood full of hate running through those men's veins.

"Don't stop..." His voice sounded threatening but the men laughed him off in their drunken stupor. "Oh fuck off you creep!" The big, burly, bearded one said approaching Ky as if he would rob her of something.

Briareos took his now empty bottle slipped from his hand, the neck tightened in his fingers. He slammed it against the brick wall, breaking it in half. With that sharp glass he swiped the bottle across the back of the man's neck causing a line of blood to spill out.

In Ancient Greece Briareos had made the sea storms and Ky had followed, her waves crashing down upon the doomed sailors. And now she followed again, snapping at one of the other man after Briareos had grabbed his.

She wrapped her fingers in his hair, yanking him backwards, strong and surprisingly, bringing him to his knees. Reaching he grabbed for her ankle and Kymopoleia slipped on the wet road, hitting the ground with a cracking sound.

He tried to grab for her, but Kymopoleia was thin and slippery and fast. Her knee connected with his face and he grunted in pain. She wished there were puddles near deep enough to drown him in. She only needed an inch or so; human lungs were fragile and easy to coax into breathing water.

The man Briareos had sliced grabbed at his neck frantically. As Briareos stood over him in a flimsy shadow, the man looked up to see his own blood dripping off the broken glass. His eyes were not scared as he reached for Briareos' legs aiming to get him off his feet like he had earlier. He succeeded in knocking him on his back, but not for the Titan's lanky leg swinging to his jaw and flipping himself back over like a writhing snake. That bottle made another slash this time against the man's face, clear across the eye. The man scream of pain. Ky had her hands full, but at his friends howl he wiggled from her and turned to Briareos.

"Mine," Ky growled, grabbing hold of the man who tried to move away from her. She leapt onto his back and he flailed, spinning to try and get her off as she clung like a starfish. "I'll drown you," she hissed against his ear. "You'll never breathe air again."

He shoved his back against a wall to try and dislodge her and Ky made an unf! sound of escaping air before putting her hands on either side of his head and then snapping his neck with a swift crack. Her body felt like it was vibrating, tides beneath her skin, and the man went down heavily, hitting the cement face first as Ky jumped off him.

Briareos clamped down on the man's ankle, getting on his own two feet and pulling him down the ally in a slow, maniacal way. The man struggled to break free of a grip that seemed impossible for someone so frail. Briareos cracked the ankle, dropping the thug's body with a flop into the pavement. He quickly lept on top, using his broken bottle as a means to finish off the job by making a terrible hack job out of the man's chest until he was just gurgling on blood.

Ky looked over at her husband and her smile was bright and bestial. It felt good to be in control again, to be a force unstoppable. His oath had freed her Kymopoleia from the present fear of him.

Kymopoleia had never been pleased with him ever. But, there was something about working together that he'd not quite ever experienced. They'd done it before when leaving Poseidon in the middle of Yosemite park after Briareos' own near death experience. They were inadvertently working together ever since. It was the first time it actually felt official. Eros' arrows behind them, it had put them both in a powerful position with each other instead of against each other. That was only ever something Poseidon could ever hope to have with his own marriage.

He crawled off the fat man, using it as leverage to get to his feet. Briareos was caressed in splatters of blood. It felt good to rip into flesh again. To not feel so frail and weak.

He wiped off a spot from his bottom lip, licking it off his thumb and dropping the shard of broken glass. His eyes met Ky's and it was the first time she stood in front of him not trembling with fear.