Rating: T
Synopsis: She's Hephaestus' descendent and Neil's pretty sure she's comprised of nothing but spare parts that don't work. Part of my Titan War II verse. [Oneshot.]
Class of the Titans is not owned by me. I only own my characters and my Titan War II verse.
Warning(s): coarse language, fire, medical issues
Hotter Than You
"Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand."
Khalil Gibran
The first thing he notices is the wheelchair. He learns later that's fairly common.
The second thing he notices is that she would never, in any lifetime, get a modeling contract. She looks like she's made out of the leftover parts that no self-respecting creator would ever use. Nothing about her, well, fits.
Her arms are comprised of nothing but muscle and bone, thick and strong, with her red t-shirt stretching against her biceps and triceps. She has an average pair of breasts, plus a belly, and her legs are knobby-kneed and improperly working. There are scars all over her from various surgeries, in particular along her back and legs, her nose is bulbous, her eyes are squinty, and the red and orange amidst the yellow in her irises make her look slightly demonic. Her lips are chapped and torn and seem to be perpetually twisted in a smirk that is a little on the creepy side, and half of her right ear is burned, twisted into something it was never supposed to be. Her skin is littered with imperfections. Moles, a large birthmark that peeks out from beneath her left sleeve, freckles with no rhyme or reason to their placement, pox scars, and acne scars paired with current acne, plus little white lines that encourage the idea that she has played with knives and little marks that are the products of burns and sparks. Her hair is auburn, identical to Hephaestus', and is a spiky mess of short tufts that jut out from her goggles.
The third thing he notices is that she's wearing a lot of really well made jewelry. Which, naturally, draws his attention to her hands because her fingers are covered in rings.
Her hands are calloused, hard, strong, and littered with scars ranging from blades to scrapes to burns. But her fingers are deft, nimble, quick and precise. He takes in the grease on her hands, the dirt under and over her nails that mars her dark nail polish, and realizes it before Hermes explains.
She made all of her jewelry. The rings on her fingers, the bracelets along her forearms that clank whenever she wheels herself forward, the multitude of chokers and silver-and-gold pendants around her neck, the six earrings in her left ear, the nose piercing, the stud in her lip, right eyebrow, tongue, cheeks and belly button.
She, Heather Moore, made all of her jewelry, her leg problems are genetic, and she loves fire because once upon a time one of her great-great-great etcetera grandmothers hooked up with Hephaestus.
::
It takes two days before she moves out of Hephaestus' workshop where she had been constantly with her ancestor, and occasionally Odie, working on only, well, they know what. Neil certainly doesn't. And, frankly, doesn't care.
She winds up heading to Aphrodite's place, where he is lounging around, admiring himself in his pocket mirror, and mentally preparing for the photoshoot he has today. He hates the photographer he has to work with today. Hates him. Thus, the mental preparation.
Apparently, Hephaestus had sent her to Aphrodite's room because Aphrodite had a broken blow dryer and fixing it would show him what kind of talents she had, as far as fixing stuff that ran both on magic and science went.
He ignores her for the first little bit beyond briefly acknowledging her existence when she enters.
That is, until after Aphrodite leaves to speak to Artemis about something. Soon after, the nymphs start screaming and he smells smoke.
He sniffs and rolls over, looking at the parlor area where Heather was supposed to be working on fixing the blow dryer. Which is lying on the vanity, smoking and sparking.
BOOM!
Then the thing, of course, explodes, and Neil does a lucky flying leap over the back of the couch while the nymphs dive behind Aphrodite's giant shell.
When he peeks out over the back of the couch Heather is lying on the floor, her shirt singed, her wheelchair two meters away from her, she's glaring at the ceiling, and – what the hell why is her hand on fire?
"YOU'RE ON FIRE!" Neil immediately screeches.
Heather just rolls her eyes. Seeing as she seems to have no concern for the fact that she is on fire Neil dives for the bowl of water sitting on the vanity beside the couch and promptly flings it at her as she sits up.
CRACK!
The bowl collides with her face and she falls backward, water spraying across her, putting out the fire and resulting in her lying on the ground with the bowl ontop of her face and her entire body soaked.
"FUCK!"
She flings the bowl across the room, breaking a mirror - granting herself seven years of bad luck, Neil mentally notes - and sits up, barely managing to cover a wince.
"I'M SUPPOSED TO BE ON FIRE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!" she shouts. "I'M A DIRECT DESCENDENT OF HEPHAESTUS! HE'S A GOD OF FIRE! YOU IDIOT! GOD, I'M FUCKING SOAKED!"
Neil glowers, "Well you don't have to be an ass about it."
She shoves herself up to a sitting position and glares at the decimated blow dryer.
"You broke it," Neil notes.
"No shit," she retorts. "I'm still new at this whole 'working with magic and science together' thing. Stuff is bound to explode."
Neil crouches and plucks his mirror up from the floor. His eyes widen as he takes in the crack on the gold covering that split the letter 'N' in half, "No! It got cracked! This is thanks to you!"
Heather pushes herself onto her feet, wincing and muttering under her breath.
Neil stares, his glare falling away as he watches her stagger to the vanity, shoot a glare at her wheelchair now three meters away, and lean heavily on the vanity with her legs shaking beneath her. Clear pain spreads across her face.
"Thought you couldn't walk," he comments, walking to the wheelchair.
"I can," she grunts. "It just – ugh – fucking hurts. Got a shitload of metal in my legs and back, attempts to fix'em. Nothing's ever worked."
"Like Archie's ankle," he surmises, righting the wheelchair.
"Sort of, except it's both of my legs and part of my back, not just my ankles," Heather snorts.
She swears loudly as her left leg collapses beneath her and she puts all of her weight on the vanity. The sudden movement and loss of stability causes shooting pain to ricochet up her right leg and make that leg collapse as well. She hits the ground, hard, knocking the back of her head against the vanity.
"Fuckfuckfuckfuck," she chants, leaning over her splayed legs, rocking her upper body back and forth as she clutches her head.
Neil winces and looks at the nymphs desperately. They seem to be thrown by the smoke still rising from the burning blow dryer.
He rolls the wheelchair over to Heather.
"Lemme see it," she demands sharply.
"What?" Neil takes a step back, utterly confused.
"The broken thing! Let me see it!" she shouts, holding her hand out expectantly.
Gingerly, he hands his mirror over to her. She turns it over in her hands, causing him to wince at the grease getting rubbed onto his mirror. She nods, "I can fix it."
"You can?"
"Of course I can," Heather snaps, reaching up and putting the mirror on the part of the vanity she can reach. "Now come on, help me up."
"But you're dirty! And wet!"
"Yeah, well, out of the two of us, you're the only one with working legs, and my arms are still shaking from the combination of the explosion, being thrown out of my chair, and then having my legs decide to stop working. Plus, you were the one to throw the water at me. So. Here we are."
Neil grimaces but relents and crouches. He winces as she flings her right arm around his neck, forcing him to grab her by the waist. He can feel the grease rubbing off on his neck. Ewewewew. He swallows, silently promising himself an afternoon shower to get rid of the grease, and lifts her up. He deposits her in her chair and steps away quickly, looking down at the greasy water covering his shirt and internally crying.
"This is silk," he laments.
"Thanks," Heather says, situating herself into her chair.
Neil frowns as she winces again, adjusting her legs, "Don't you have painkillers or something?"
"They don't work on me," Heather explains with a sigh. "I didn't know why before but now…I think it's because of my ancestry. Being nearly a demi-Goddess does weird things to your body. Dionysus is supposed to be helping with that, but, frankly, at this point I'd be willing to just remove my legs and have prosthetics. It'd be less painful and less expensive. People would still stare whenever I wasn't wearing pants but at least I could look like Inspector Gadget or something."
"Inspector Gadget?"
"He was my idol when I was a kid," Heather shrugs. "What about you? You have an idol when you were a kid?"
"Never really had an idol," Neil responds. "I have…high expectations."
"Lemme guess, you were the pinnacle of perfection to yourself?" she quips.
Neil rolls his eyes, "I'm a perfectionist. Which you just ruined, with your grease."
"Aw, poor baby," Heather mocks.
"This is like…the Ferrari of the shirt world," Neil retorts, tugging on the hem of his shirt.
Heather's eyebrows rise, "Oh. Sorry. I just…carry grease with me wherever I go. Kind of like you and your luck." She gestures to the broken mirror, "Think the bad luck I got from that will be nullified just by you being in the same room? Cause I really don't want anymore bad luck."
"If you're lucky."
Heather snorts, "Whatever." She grabs the blow dryer, extinguishing the small flames in the same instant. She tosses the blow dryer on her lap then grabs the mirror. "Come on," she orders, "I'll show you how to fix your mirror."
"I don't need to know that," says Neil.
"Would you prefer to rely on me to fix it every single time it gets broken?" Heather challenges.
"Actually, that sounds perfect."
She rolls her eyes, "And if I'm not around?"
"I'll just get Odie or Hephaestus to fix it."
"Odie doesn't know how to fix it as well as I do. Hephaestus will probably give it a flamethrower or something."
Neil groans, "Ugh, fine, I'm coming."
"How much did your shirt cost?"
"More than your chair."
"Man, after the upgrades I gave it my chair costs as much as my house."
"More than your chair."
"Okay, yeah, I'm not paying you back. I'll fix your mirror and other fancy-shmancy stuff for a year, that good?"
"I can just get another shirt, I guess," Neil sighs. "But yeah, that'll be good. And it's not fancy-shmancy stuff. It's awesome stuff."
"My stuff is cooler."
"Anything with grease is a thousand times less cooler than my clothes."
"Lies."
"Truth."
"Jerk."
"Ass."
Heather raises an eyebrow at him as she wheels around the corner to Hephaestus' workshop, "This is the strangest friendship I am ever going to have, isn't it?"
Neil shrugs, "Man, I once knocked out the God of Time. Nothing is weird anymore."
"This is weird. Usually pretty-boys would be insulting me. Which, you aren't really doing. You're actually being nice by my standards, which are, by the way, pretty fucking low."
"I'm not a 'pretty-boy.' I'm flawless. There is a difference. And why do people always assume I'm mean?" Neil glowers. "Just because I'm beautiful doesn't mean I'm evil."
"Something we have in common. People think I'm stupid just because I'm ugly as hell."
Neil stares at her.
"Please don't try and say 'oh no, you're actually really pretty Heather.' I'm ugly. I know that. And I really don't give a fuck."
"Aphrodite would disagree with you."
"Really?" Heather scoffs.
"She says that looks have something to do with it but the only good people are ones who don't care whether you're ugly or flawless. They're the ones who don't 'give a fuck.'"
"Uh-huh. I suppose you think I'm hot then?"
Neil snorts, "You control fire."
"Touché Beauty. Touché."
A/N: Much lighter tone than the others, but I needed it.
I've been writing about Heather for about 5…ish years. I think. She's one of my oldest OCs regardless. She's one-half of my BrOTP of Odie and Heather (one of many ScienceBros in my Titan War II verse), and my OTP HeatherXNeil (AKA Neither)...which is in its baby stages right now.
Thanks!