XXI
4:24 P.M.
Gorgon House.
"Coming back home in a limo after getting my eyes surgically reattached is so not how I thought it would be." Deuce states. "Have I ever said how uncomfortable I feel in your family limo?" He inquires his beloved ghoulfriend Cleo.
"No, I don't think you ever have." says in a loving voice.
"I mean, I love limousines, but I always feel like your father might have cursed them specifically for me."
"He actually tried that once, but the amulet burned it." Cleo retorts amusingly. "Don't worry, you're safe now. That horrible man, if you can call it a man, is dead," says reassuringly, holding his hand tightly.
"I still can't believe I got my own eyes back. And thanks to Nefera of all ghouls!" Deuce claims looking at his own reflection on the window.
"I wouldn't say it was thanks to her," Cleo says under her breathe. Even though she couldn't see everything that happened in the basement, she could piece all together and figure out it were her own friends who saved his precious eyes and her despicable sister from death.
"Frankie's parents are Damn good stitching eyes together. And with Neightan's healing horn is almost like nothing ever happened. Never thought I would see this place again," Deuce states with an air of both sorrow and joy feeling his chest. He got his eyes back, that's good, but he also lost two friends, two he will never see again.
"I miss them too," his ghoulfriend says, leaning onto his broad shoulders.
"He got what he deserved," declares coldly, staring blankly at the street. "I only wished I had done it myself." Now there is hatred burning in his voice.
"Deuce!" His mother, who sat with them all the way from the hospital, says aloud.
"What?! Am I supposed to not feel that way?" His eyes flash angrily behind his shades
"Son…" she begins, but stops and sighs realizing there was no point in this argument. "Come on, your whole family is waiting, your aunts, your cousin. They all wanna see you."
"You know, now I feel everything is an eyes pun."
Inside the house waiting for him, was all his family, something that rarely happens with the Gorgons. Nice to see all his aunts and his mom needed to talk again was for him to lose his eyes. Nothing like a good old Greek tragedy to bring family closer.
Not a second passed after he stepped inside the house when he hears: "Deuce!" shout out loud.
Viperine jumps gleefully at him, hugging her cousin as tightly as she can, kissing his forehead. "I'm so glad you're back! And whole," says cupping his face tightly, staring into his shades. "You're whole, right?"
"I am," says taking her hands off his face, and thanks for the warm welcoming." States hugging her back. "Sorry this forced you to come all the way from Hauntlywood just for me."
"Hey! Never say that again, we're family, and family always comes first, before anything. Just because we got snake blood in our veins, doesn't mean is cold."
"I guess you're right."
After his welcoming, they all sit to have dinner, and it must have been the first family reunion where his mom and aunts don't fight over stupid things that happened thousands of years ago. Naturally, Cleo ate with them, at this point she has become one of the family and Deuce's mother has wrapped her mind around the idea of having her as daughter-in-law. And also by the first time, his mother didn't make that awful Greek food he has come to loath, but instead made his favorites dishes, and they were to die for.
Is only during dessert that he realizes this is a glimpse of what future might hold the two of them, and says to himself… self: The future is so bright, I'm glad I wear shades.
3:34 P.M.
Monster High's Skultimate Roller Maze Track.
"All right. I'm psyched up, I've got oil up to my elbows, wires in my teeth and my helmet and kneepads securely fastened. Let's get out there and make trouble!" Robecca calls blatantly, ready for some action.
If she were asked whether she is an addict, she would have to say yes, with SRM being her drug of choice. Rochelle next to her, would say almost the same, only with the subtle difference saying that adrenaline is her drug, something that would sound out of place for Robecca Steam to say, since she is a simulacrum — more precisely a robot powered by steam and one of the most powerful magical energies of all: the Spark, life force in its purest form, with love being its catalyst, thus… there really isn't much adrenaline running inside her when she plays, though she gets the same high as if she did.
So life-like. Is almost as if she were a real girl.
"Damn right I am." Rochelle announces, eager to practice the sport she loves so much, that runs in her blood. Uh, gargoyles have blood, don't they? Don't worry, I got a better one. The sport that is ingrained in her soul.
I am mostly certain that she has a soul.
"I dunno, I ain't really in the mood for some Roller Maze," Operetta says, reluctant to get in the maze.
"Ok, I will pretend you never said those words," Robecca says pulling her friend into the maze.
"Why don't you try to smile a little bit, ghoul? Deuce is leaving the hospital today, with his own eyes back. I thought that would make happy, even just a little." Rochelle points.
"I am happy, but —"
"Come on, a round in maze always cheers you up." Robecca interjects.
"I know, it usually does, just… not feeling it right now," says looking prone, walking away from the maze.
Robecca glares at her, her gear-shaped irises rolling madly. In the last two weeks, she has tried her best to be a support for her friend, a shoulder for her to cry, to help her deal with her pain, to cope with her grief and naturally prevent her from getting drunk again, but so far, nothing has worked, mostly because she refuses the idea of trying to get over the pain she so stubbornly holds onto, and leave that stupid bottle, and this — this moment right here is when she reaches past her boiling point. It was her last desperate effort to bring a smile on her friend's face, even a fake one, but nothing.
She has never been one for quitting on something or someone she loves, but law of averageness says one day or another she would quit at least once, and it breaks her — uh, let's say — heart so much that it happens to be presicely this day, and this way, with Operetta one the few she conciders her beast friends. But everyone, even a steampowered simulacrum like herself, has a limit, and this was it.This is it, I can't put up with it anymore.
"You know, I can only feel sorry for you for so long, before I get tired of watching you soaking and mopping for the death of D.J. This whole self-pitting and self-blaming Operetta act is making me — argh! Forget it! I don't know why I bother wasting my time with you, wasting all my energy to make you feel better when is clear all you want to do is getting yourself wasted!" snaps suddenly in exasperation.
The always so proper, the always so polite, the always so kind and always so sweet steampunker loses her calm demeanor.
The ranting hits Operetta as unexpected and hard as an iron ball to the face, disguised with snow during winter, and for the first time, Robecca isn't the only ghoul steaming out of anger.
"Robecca!" Rochelle gasps.
"How can you say that?! You ain't got any idea what it's like —?"
"Yes. I. DO! I know what is it to lose people you love! I live there every goddamn day of my life!" Robecca shouts. For a moment, Operetta had forgotten that she has also lost people she loves, her father of all people! "I know what it feels like — every waking moment is as if your whole life falls apart because you can't be with the ones who matter the world to you! Want to talk about pain? I lost my father, the man who built me and raised me! The only family I have ever known. I woke up after almost two hundred years and he is nowhere to be seen, not even alive. I'm stuck in a time that is not my own. Almost everyone I knew is gone for good, I am lost in a strange time, alone, and no one can relate to that! No one can understand my pain, but you don't see me crying all the freaking time about it! Or getting drunk just to forget what it feels like, avoiding the pain with debauchery, because in case you haven't noticed, you can't kill feeling an with alcohol. I learned to live with it, like everyone else does and moved on. But not you, Operetta, the special phantom girl who has to suffer twice as everyone because everything has to be a big goddamn drama with you! Right? Your life a big tragic opera!" Robecca bashes madly on Operetta, her words spout out of her mouth like fired from a machinegun, reality is her ammunition and each bullet is aimed perfectly, hitting in the right place: straight to the heart. "You are so self-centered. So focused on your own pain and think yourself so damn special, you honestly believe nobody can understand how you feel, and never, not even for a second, stop to realize you have a wholelot of friends that want to help you cope with your loss, which by the way, is a shared loss. You think you're the only one of us who lost a friend? Somebody special? You only liked Holt, Frankie loved Jackson and Holt, she lost two friends there like most of the guys did. But you…" she pauses and cries-laughs for a moment, "let me guess, you don't see them getting drunk as Hell, so that must mean they don't feel the same pain. Is that what you think?"
"That is not true!" Operetta cries, but Robecca ignores her.
It is sooo true!
"Even worst, you're so blind, that you can't see all I have tried to do for the last two weeks, is to help you to deal with your pain and pull you from the self-destructive path on which you are so hellbent to walk. I, who am most familiar with your suffering, have tried to stop you from resourcing to something stupid as getting drunk and naked in a party again because I love you! We all love you, we are hurt to see you that way! Last time you made a striptease video, next time it could be —" she stops. Even in this state of anger, she couldn't say those words, to sole idea of it, shatters her heart. "You know what? If you really want to keep sinking in your misery then go ahead and do it, because I'm done trying to help someone who clearly doesn't want to be helped."
With those final words, she glides out of the maze, leaving a wake of steam behind her and an old friend lost.