[accidental video] un:clearthestreet

[laruetheday]

CW: Emotional abuse, implied physical abuse by a parent





[ It might be difficult to tell where this memory is taking place. They're in the boiler room of an old ironclad ship, but all that's visible are the black and rusting walls, the huge boiler thrumming and hissing in the background, and the steam. It's thick and heavy, swirling through the room and then venting out somewhere above.

The Clarisse standing in front of them is no older than fourteen, tall for her age but still baby-faced, not finished growing yet. The steam billows around her and the figure in it resolves into a man. Or a being shaped like a man. Tall, muscular, and cruelly handsome. Ares looks the way he does whenever Clarisse sees him—the military-issue haircut, the black biker leathers, the massive hunting knife strapped to his belt. And the red-tinted sunglasses that seem to be covering up eyes that aren't really eyes. They're just blazing light, little nuclear explosions. A man, but not really a man.

There are similarities between he and his daughter, physically. Their builds and facial features especially call to a family resemblance. But he towers over Clarisse, and one look at the two of them next to each other makes it abundantly clear that most of Clarisse's hardness is nothing but a carefully cultivated mask. Ares is the real thing, staring at her with cold disdain, and she looks frankly terrified of him. Terrified and trying to pretend that she isn't, trying to stand up tall and look him in the eyes.

"I can explain," Clarisse is saying. "They would have been killed if I hadn't—"

Ares cuts her off, and the boiler seems to glow even hotter behind them. "I don't want excuses, little girl!"

Instantly, she gives up on meeting his eyes. "Y-yes, father."

"You don't want to see me mad, do you?" Ares asks.

"No, father."

"No, father." Ares' voice is a high-pitched mockery of hers, and he gives her a look of utter disgust. "You're pathetic. I should've let one of my sons take this quest."

"I'll succeed!" Clarisse says—the tremor in her voice was hard to pick up on at first, but now it's obviously there, and she has to force herself to keep going. "I'll make you proud."

"You'd better," he says, and the warning in his voice is implicit. "You asked me for this quest, girl. If you let that slimeball Jackson kid steal it from you—"

And now Clarisse makes a mistake. Maybe because she feels this information is important and Ares hasn't been listening, or maybe because she's just too caught up in her own anxieties. She interrupts him. "But the Oracle said—"

"I DON'T CARE WHAT IT SAID!" Ares bellows in her face. The force of his voice alone makes the steam coming off the boilers change course, shuddering like a sudden wind's blown through the room, before resolving back into shape. "You will succeed," he continues. "And if you don't..."

He curls a fist and raises it, close to her face, making sure she's looking at it. That she sees it, understands what it means for her. She flinches back like he's already hit her. Somewhere above them, on the upper decks, alarm bells start to ring.

"Do we understand each other?" Ares says in a low voice, almost a growl—

And then Clarisse is fumbling for her Omni to shut the video off. Her fingers are slick on the surface of it and she heaves in a panicked breath before wordlessly cutting the feed. ]

Comments

Video | un:YOURFRIENDSCORPIA

[cuddlery]

[Scorpia tenses up as the scene unfolds. She feels a lot of emotions fill her - worry, fear, horror. And an anger that boiled over at seeing her friend treated like that. So there's a level of anger that Scorpia rarely exhibits as she shouts at her Omni.]

Leave Clarisse alone!

audio;

[laruetheday]

[ It takes a long time before Clarisse responds, and when she does, she still doesn't turn on the video setting. She doesn't want anyone to see the look on her face. ]

It's okay, Scorpia.

[cuddlery]

[Scorpia is left breathing heavily in the wake of her outburst. As she stares at the blank Omni screen, she does start to recognize bits of logic. That didn't seem to be something that happened right now... Clarisse was clearly younger. And her awful father likely isn't anywhere he can hear her. Still, Scorpia remains seething.

Soon, Clarisse's voice comes through. Keeping it to video on her end, she responds.]

Clarisse! Is- is it okay? [She asks uncertainly. She doesn't want to challenge Clarisse's perspective, but... she feels strongly about what she witnessed there.]

It was really rough just... just watching that.

[laruetheday]

[ It's not okay. But Clarisse can't say that. ]

It... was a long time ago.

audio | private | un: sds

[fogsong]

[ Sharon's heart breaks as she watches the memory unfold. She knows all too well what it's like to want nothing more than to make a parent proud and how destructive it is to the soul when they crush you.

There's something soft to her voice when she responds but she tries her best to sound as normal as she can as if she'd never even seen the memory at all. If Clarisse wanted to address it, she would. For now, Sharon wasn't going to dig. ]

Hey, I've got a cinnamon roll with your name on it. [ Clarisse was there for her when her memory had played out with a sense of normalcy and friendship and Sharon was going to do everything in her power to return the favor. ] You want me to bring it by?

[laruetheday]

[ The part of Clarisse that closes off when she's confronted with things that make her uncomfortable wants to tell Sharon not to bother. Last thing she wants is for someone to come around and shoot her pitying looks while she does her best not to think about the fact that multiple people have now seen one of her worst memories. But the longer she thinks about it, the more it occurs to her that having someone come by and keep her company might not be... bad. It might take her mind off today, as much as anything can, anyway. So finally she responds: ]

Uh, yeah. That would be... nice.

action

[fogsong]

I'll be there soon, just... don't expect me in twenty. Some of us hate exercise. [ There's something teasing in her voice. She's glad that Clarisse agreed because Sharon would have shown up even if she hadn't.

It takes upwards of an hour for Sharon to make it to where Clarisse lives and by the time she knocks, she's slightly out of breath, cheeks pink from effort. There's a pretty blue box held between both her hands, too large for a few cinnamon rolls. ]

handwritten text (un: AMMAKO)

[brushy]

Is this man anywhere near you now?

I would like to bite him.

text;

[laruetheday]

he's not here. don't worry about it.

[brushy]

I would still like to bite him.

(private) text | un: graham crackers

[possessum]

( Peter's seen snippets of Clarisse's past, over time. He's seen her outer shell crumble in the labyrinth, seen the shaking boy she loved. Seen what it might be like for her to die back home, what people might say at her funeral. He's heard about the kinds of pressure on her shoulders, pieces about how awful her dad could be, but this...

She's little and the man's screaming at her. His voice in itself feels like a weapon and Peter's having a hard time breathing. It's like watching something out of his own nightmares; the room's too hot. Steam and heat and the man's too loud.

Then the man's making a fist, and the smaller version of his best friend is flinching. Peter's sick.

The text comes a little later. He gives her the kind of time he thinks he'd need, though maybe it can't ever be enough. Still, he doesn't want to make her have to get messages right away. That was... a lot. )

Hey.
I saw it.

( He's not going to hide something like that from her, even though he knows she's going to hate it. Bad enough your traumatic experiences being dredged up by this place, but for other people to see them without your consent? Fuck. )

I'm sorry that got exposed like that. I don't even know what to say


He's terrifying

private text;

[laruetheday]

[ It takes Clarisse a while to answer him, mostly because she's not sure what to say. This isn't exactly the kind of problem she's used to dealing with. Well, okay, it sort of is, because this memory sharing stuff has happened to her before, but... not like this. Publicly. ]

okay. um, thanks for telling me.

[ Because if she'd found out that Peter had seen this and just... lied and pretended he hadn't, that would hurt even worse. ]

he's

he's a god, so. you know. they can be like that.

[ It's just that most of the other Olympians don't spend their free time explicitly threatening their demigod kids. Usually it's more of a total lack of presence, like they've forgotten that they have kids at all. And Ares can be like that, too; it's not like he was in her face all the time. But the threat of him watching her and showing up at any time was always in the back of her mind, influencing every decision she made. Even Ares' absence didn't really feel like he was ever truly gone. ]

[possessum]

Are most of them like that?

( He has no idea; is this... the standard? The norm? The figure in Clarisse's memory seemed like something only pretending to be a man, posing as one, maybe. Which in itself is terrifying enough, but....

...Are all the gods so... harsh? She's his daughter. And of course Peter knows better than that; just because someone's your kid doesn't mean you always treat them the way they need to be treated, but...

How much of this is a god thing, and how much is the fact her dad's just an asshole? )

audio | un: username372199 | private

[killtime]

...So. That was him, huh.

[ Somehow, it doesn't surprise her. Not with the way the old stories went. Ares would treat a daughter like that. Fucker. ]

private audio;

[laruetheday]

[ By the time Clarisse answers, she sounds calm again. She's always been good at that, at fixing her face and her voice to imply a control that she's not really feeling inside. ]

Yeah. Just some quest stuff he took an interest in. [ It was her first one ever, so no pressure or anything! ]

Your username sucks.

[killtime]

Your dad sucks.

[ A half-beat. Then: ]

Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want a distraction?

private text; un: quibbler

[creidim]

[ Luna might know Clarisse's father is a god, Ares. But she knows little else about the man. The mocking, the anger, the threats. It's hard not to feel outrage, but there's horror, too. Clarisse... she was only a child. She knows what fathers are meant to be like; this isn't it.

Clarisse is strong, and she's skilled. These are things Luna knows too. But it's not good enough for him, is it? More fool him.

And poor Clarisse, having this all over the network too. ]

Clarisse?

I'm sorry. I'm sorry this was shown to everyone.

private text;

[laruetheday]

[ It takes a while before Luna receives a reply, but then it comes: ]

something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. i shouldn't be surprised.

[creidim]

No, but it still isn't nice regardless.

[ This place is too cruel, even if they are quite used to it. ]

He's not a very nice man. Or father.

[Video] un: QueenCobra

[abornfighter]

Hey. Sorry you got hit with this latest bullshit curse is going around.

[She's not going to coddle or show pity. It's not Tory's style, and it seems like it's even less Clarisse's style. But she can show some basic kindness for how uncomfortable it has to be to have a deeply personal and unpleasant memory shared for all to see.]

Your dad's an asshole.

audio;

[laruetheday]

[ Clarisse is pretty good at fixing her face to look like she doesn't care, even when she does (a lot), but she doesn't trust herself right now, so she sticks to audio. ]

Yeah, well, he's a god of war, so that's just how it is.

[Audio] un: QueenCobra

[abornfighter]

[Tory takes the hint and flips over to audio. Conveniently, she also switches subjects.]

Did the bug spray I made you help?

Private Video; un: darkness

[survivalthroughhate]

[Maul watches. He's always seen certain similarities between Clarisse and himself but he never knew just how far those similarities went down into their personalities.]

Your father is a bastard.

[The words come out in an angry growl. There are perhaps only about five circumstances in the entirety of his time in both Deerington and Trench which have gotten Maul to curse but this? This right here makes him mad because there's so many echoes of his time growing up under Sidious. That eager-to-please nature, desperate not to fail because he knew what would happen if he did, no excuses accepted even if there were good reasons he couldn't complete his task, the cruel tearing down of Maul's confidence to make him not feel good enough, and oh yes, of course the threat of being hurt by someone who should have been watching out for him instead. It's a scene that played out time and again in his childhood and he feels sick seeing someone else go through something so similar.]

audio;

[laruetheday]

Great. I knew you'd show up eventually.

[ Like she has with everyone else, Clarisse responds using audio, because she doesn't want Maul to see the look on her face. She can see his, though, the angry set of his jaw, the teeth slightly bared.

She just doesn't trust it. Why would she? It's not like they've ever done anything but snipe at each other in the two years she's known him. ]

He's a god of war. What do you expect?

[survivalthroughhate]

I'm not here to fight or criticize.

[For once, he's sincere. He's not interested in kicking Clarisse down when she's in a vulnerable moment.]

Well, not criticize you at any rate.

[He could find plenty about Ares he disliked and could point out. His voice sharpens.]

Love is not much to expect of any parent, even one who is a god. If one cannot even bring themselves to give their child scraps of it, then they should have thought twice before ever becoming a parent in the first place.