Every Mile Will Be Worth My While ⚡ [Hercette]
In which after Hercules hurts Adella, he makes a decision with the help of the Fates...[takes place: idek honestly, late august??]
@perfectisme-georgette
[tw: talk of blood, injuries, self-hate, mentions of sexual assault, arguing]
HERCULES: Hercules stumbled home in a daze. He was sure any minute the police would be after him. If not for blatant injury, then death. He was sure that he had killed Adella. His mouth was dry, his hands were shaking. He felt like he was going to be sick. Once he managed to get his key through the door (literally, he accidentally shoved his fist through the keyhole, blasting out part of his door), he fell into the house and collapsed in a chair, immediately putting his head between his knees.
He didn’t know how long he sat like that for before he heard Georgette’s voice. She must have opened the door when she noticed it wasn’t locked (due to the huge hole.)
Shit. He’d forgotten that they were going out to dinner tonight.
“Shit,” he said out loud, jerking up as if someone had prodded him with a taser. His hands were still bloody. His face and shirt too. He stood up, scrambling back like an injured, abandoned dog might. Forgetting that his girlfriend was nearly indestructible. All he knew was that he could feel his own power pumping through his veins and knew that it was out of his control right now. Which meant he couldn’t, shouldn’t touch anyone.
“Just--just stay over there,” he basically pleaded with her.
GEORGETTE: Georgette was looking forward to her dinner with Hercules. She was even thinking of skipping the wh loool ole dinner part and just hopping straight into dessert. Hey, she was already undead, she figured she should enjoy all the best parts about it.
At least, those had been her original thoughts that were now quickly vanishing out of mind as her eyes fell over the broken through door knob in front of her.
There was a sickening feeling that began to gnaw at the pit of the blonde’s stomach, something felt wrong… and she immediately opened the door.
There was Hercules fully upright, frightened with big skittish eyes and covered in crimson red blood. An immediate rush of concern filled Georgette as she dropped her purse and walked up close to Hercules in a sprint.
Georgette had heard his plea, but she was far too shocked by the blood and clouded by fear that he was hurt that the plea hadn’t registered. All she cared about was knowing if Hercules was okay.
“Hercules, are you okay?! You’re- you’re covered in blood! Are you hurt?! Did you get hurt?! What happened?”
HERCULES: Georgette got closer and Hercules froze, becoming stiff as a board. He felt his heart, even, freeze in his chest. Terrified of hurting Georgette. He knew that he could. He didn’t remember her own strength and magic now, all he remembered was pulling her broken body from beneath the tree trunk. In just a flash, Hercules was pulled back to that moment. That agonizing moment. The pain flashed through him like a lightning bolt and he stumbled backwards, away from Georgette.
He tripped over the coffee table, smashing it to pieces as he stumbled and tried to regain his balance again. “Stay away!” he repeated, his voice tight as a violin string. Tears flooded his eyes, blurring her figure in front of him.
“It happened a-again,” he choked out. “I-I hurt someone. I’m--I’m always hurting someone.”
He bowed his head and scrubbed at his face. He didn’t deserve to cry.
“And it will keep happening, as a matter of fact,” came a voice that was at once foreign and familiar to him.
Hercules blinked the tears out of his eyes and then, they widened as he noticed three women, with cloaks like smoke, sitting in his living room. Clotho, in her square glasses, was poking through the rubble of the coffee table. Lachesis was standing next to Georgette as if she were sizing her up. And Atropos was lounging in the armchair lazily. It was her who spoke next:
“Yes, it would do you good to learn some tact.”
GEORGETTE: Hercules had all but stumbled on his own feet and landed sprawled on the floor breaking the coffee table with him. Georgette knew that he was still pushing her away and even still her immediate reaction was to approach closer and get down to his level the minute he had hit ground.
She was never good at listening especially when what asked of her was not something she wanted and in this case, all she wanted was to comfort Hercules.
This other person that was supposedly harmed was not even a concerning thought for Georgette, honestly, they didn’t even cause a blimp in her thoughts all she cared about was making sure Hercules knew she was here for him.
He wasn’t a monster to her like she was sure he was feeling of himself right now.
Tears began to coat the skin of Hercules’s cheeks and they made her heart ache and her chest bruise. Georgette very gently caught the rest that continued to spill from those beautiful dark chocolate eyes she has grown to love so much with the pad of her thumb. She inched herself closer to place a very soft kiss on Hercules’s forehead.
“Oh Hercules I’m su-” Georgette wasn’t able to complete her sentence stunted by the sudden feeling of a presence beside her. Turning her head, just to make sure that she wasn’t going crazy, sure enough there was someone or something…? Right up next to her!
Georgette immediately jumped right up, caught completely off guard and now staring at three women of the likes of which she has never seen before. (That was saying a lot since she has been through the Underworld)
“Who- who the fuck are they?!”
HERCULES: The feeling of the kiss was still lingering on Hercules’ forehead as he blinked and tried to register the fact that the Fates were standing in his damn living room. For a second, Hercules’ gaze jumped around. Looking for Hades...or maybe Ashton Kutcher to jump out somewhere and tell him that he was being punked.
The Fates didn’t show up in just anyone’s living room.
Hercules was just anyone. He had always felt like a just anyone, even with his powers and how he hurt people. He was still just a just anyone.
Except he wasn’t.
Son of Diana. Demon. Demi-god. Amazon.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us to your pretty little friend?” pouted Lachesis, standing up with Georgette and reaching out to tug on a piece of her hair playfully.
“Introduce us and you’re one more step on the mend.” This was a command from Clotho.
Hercules cleared his throat. “Er, yeah--these are the...Fates,” Hercules stammered, clearing his throat. “Clotho.” Her eyes glinted behind her glasses. “Lachesis.” She gave a little bow. “And Atropos.” She waved her scissors lazily at Georgette.
“They’ve come to help...I think. I have met them once before when you--”
“Died. So sad. So pretty. It was never supposed to happen, what a pity.” That was Atropos, her voice lilting like she was singing an advertising jingle. She laughed afterwards.
GEORGETTE: Let this important fact be noted: Georgette did not like people touching her hair, especially strangers she didn’t know a lick about. Don’t touch her hair unless you are someone she cares about and honestly that list stretched out to like three people only. Don’t touch her hair, she will verbally assault anyone who was so stupid enough to do so.
That being said, one of the Fates was currently touching her hair and a verbal assault should have followed except that Georgette was currently standing motionless and quiet.
The Fates.
The Fates were currently standing in Hercules’s living room.
See, Georgette knew of the Fates, in the mythological sense. Her mythology was pretty on point and has only gotten more so advanced with Hercules. They would spend time together where Hercules would share mythological stories with her and she would love the excitement in his voice and the spark that would catch his eyes whenever he did.
So, she knew of the Fates, but she often got this picture of three old shrew women who own like three pieces of yarn for hair and passed a mythical eye ball around to share in her mind.
That was not at all what she was seeing now.
Thankfully, or rather un-thankfully really, one of the Fates had said something that immediately erased all of the shock that had settled on her features switching them over to one of a stuck nerve.
“Thank you for that recount of my death, I wasn’t at all very personally aware of it.” She snapped sarcastically.
It probably wasn’t the best idea to throw attitude at three immortal beings who controlled the very tapestry of your life, but they had aggravated a very personal chord and Georgette had an exceptional temper.
“What are you doing here?”
HERCULES: If Hercules wasn’t in the middle of a near-to-full-on break down, maybe he would’ve laughed at Georgette’s peevish attitude towards the Fates. He wasn’t surprised by it, even through the haze of his self-loathing, he could recognize that. He wished there was room for the fondness that he was sure he felt deep down beneath the panic.
All the fates found it amusing, apparently, as they tittered with their dark and ghoulish chuckles that sent shivers up the spine.
“We’ve come to help, do not doubt us. Listen close, you’ve no reason not to trust.” They chanted it in unison like the choruses of old.
Hercules laughed once, humorless, but he sat up so that his elbows hooked around his knees. “Well, you can’t make anything worse.”
“You must go to the land of your mothers,” they recited, “and once you’re there--seek their guidance. It is only through them that your powers manifest and you have a chance.”
Hercules stared and then he stared some more. He knew that they spoke of his birth mother. Someone he tried not to think about often. The wound was still fresh. The confusion over who he was and what it meant was fresh. He hated her, in a way, for damning him to this life due to her own selfishness, but Hercules was too soft to really hold that hate in his heart. So, he pushed it out and ignored it.
But now: the Fates were telling him that she was the key.
“The--Amazons? You want me to go to the Amazons?”
“We know you’re thick, but we thought you were more quick.”
Hercules scoffed. “Thanks. I can’t just go to the Amazons. What makes you think they’ll even listen? Or want to train me?”
“That is for you to decide, we do not see why they cannot coincide.”
“Great.”
GEORGETTE: The Fates wanted Hercules to ask the Amazons for help?! They wanted him to return back to the Underworld and ask the very people who had left him out in this world like some worthless dog without warning or guidance as to what he was going to face?!
Georgette hadn’t even realized when she let out a steely and very unrelenting no.
That was the thing about Georgette, she often spoke before she thought and when angry even more so. It wasn’t something she was planning to change about herself either. She had already learned what staying quiet could do to you. She had stayed quiet once about her rape and look at how that had left her later on in life.
“No.” Georgette repeated clearly so if the Fates didn’t get it the first time they were definitely going to get it now.
“You want Hercules to return back to that god-forsaken hell hole?!”
Quite literally and she had every right to call it as such since she had gone through the Underworld herself. She still remembered every bit of it, every ounce, second, minute and hour of that journey back to the world above. Georgette had images of the Underworld seared into her brain and she had gone through the Underworld once. Hercules had gone through it twice and these fucking hags wanted him to live through that some more?!
“To ask those heartless, barbaric bitches for help?! The same ones that left him to fend for himself in the fucking first place! Those same sorry excuses for beings that knew exactly what he was and didn’t give two flying fucks. If they didn’t care the first time why they hell would they care now? What, would you like Hercules to get on his knees too and beg for that help even though they are the reason for all of it!”
Georgette was seething.
None of it was fair.
Hercules had gone through so much already. He has gone through enough, gone through more than the average person has in a lifetime and the Fates wanted him to do this? Like-like if he wasn’t worth some dignity? Or worth being treated right?
“Did I get this all straight?” She snarled.
HERCULES: Georgette went off.
It didn’t surprise him. Georgette was always going off about something. He found this quality endearing most of the time. She was passionate and he loved that about her. He appreciated her standing up for him, because he could never find it in him to stand up for himself. She had always been good about not making him feel like a monster, like someone worth forgiveness and someone worth protecting. (People didn’t think he needed it, considering that he was nearly indestructible.)
Hercules stayed quiet, though.
He stayed quiet and he thought. Something that Hercules rather spent much time on. He was reactive. He acted. But, there was nothing to act on. Not this moment. He still felt shell shocked by all of this. What had happened to Adella. The Fates in his living room. And more than all of that: the instructions they gave him.
To go see his birth mother. To go venture to the Amazons. To ask them for help.
It had never occurred to him to do that before and he felt like an idiot now. It made sense. If they had the same abilities as him, of course it would make sense for him to train with them, to ask for their help. They knew how to control their abilities. He’d seen it himself.
Thinking over.
Hercules got up off the floor.
Atropos smirked from where she was sprawled in an armchair, touching the tips of her scissors to her fingers.
He walked towards Georgette, putting a hand on her arm.
“It would be that easy?” he directed this at Clotho.
“Easy has nothing to do with it, we’ve told you what to do. Now it is up to you.” Her eyes flicked to Georgette and back to Hercules. She smirked and then, in a blink, the three women disappeared, leaving his apartment just the way they’d come.
The air was heavy with silence.
“I’m going to go,” Hercules said. He turned to face his girlfriend. “If they can help me, I have to go. It doesn’t matter all the rest. I can’t live like this anymore, Georgette.”
GEORGETTE: The Fates disappeared as quick as a batting of an eye and the room was left with a piercing silence. The silence didn’t really bare down on Georgette or cut as deep until Hercules had placed his hand on her arm. The moment he had done that gesture the blonde already knew what his decision was going to be.
And so, she walked away, she placed some space between them and kept her back to Hercules.
She was just so angry and in all that anger was a storm of different emotions whirling around chaotically that Georgette didn’t even know what she was supposed to feel. She wanted to shove him, yell, pound her small fists over his chest again and again. She wanted to strongly and very clearly reiterate all the damage those Amazon hags had caused since Hercules seemed to have missed it all the first time she said it.
She wanted to plead with him not to go. She wanted Hercules to see himself the way she saw him, see how big and how entirely she really loved him because maybe, then maybe he would get it. He would understand all of this anger that was eating at her insides and why the last thing she ever wanted was for him to go back to those women.
And Georgette got it, she did, she understood why all the rest didn’t matter for Hercules. She knew how big his heart was. It wasn’t like hers that only expanded for those she cared about, his heart always yearned to stretch out to everyone, to care for everyone. All injury to himself in the process of it all didn’t matter to him, but it mattered a great deal to Georgette.
He would go, go back through hell and swallow everything else in, risk getting hurt and humiliated and Georgette never wanted that for him.
Was that really so bad? Was it so bad for her to want to protect him? To want more for him?
Did it even matter? He was going, he already said he was as clear as day and that was Hercules. He would go through his decision like a bull in a china shop. Georgette was proof of that herself, she was undead.
Georgette didn’t realize how long she had been staring at the wall or when her hand had wrapped itself around her wrist, her nails sinking into her skin. She took a deep breath in for what purpose she wasn’t sure because it did nothing to suffocate her emotions but she did so anyways before she turned around to look at Hercules. Georgette knew herself very well, she knew that when she looked at Hercules, her eyes wouldn’t even try to hold a single emotion back.
“Then it doesn’t matter what I have to say does it? You’re still going to go.”
HERCULES: “Yeah, I am,” Hercules said hotly.
He rarely put his foot down like this. Pegasus always lovingly referred to him as the strongest pushover they’d ever met—and it was true. Sometimes, Hercules wondered if this was an instinctual habit due to the fact that…Hercules hurt so many things when he stood his ground. He became a solid wall, impossible to break through. And he hated that. So, in all other aspects of his life, he tried to be soft.
But he couldn’t be soft about this. It was tearing him apart, already. He knew that this was what he needed to do. The bloody Fates had told him so! And, besides, it felt like the right decision.
“You don’t have to understand, but it’s what I need to do, Georgette. You—you don’t get it. I can’t keep living my life like this!” His voice rose, surprising even himself. Hercules rarely got this worked up. He had always been afraid of his own temper.
He sighed harshly, his shoulders collapsing. “Look, I’ve got to at least try, Georgette. I can’t live like this. I can’t—make a life for us like this.”
GEORGETTE: Hercules’s voice rose, something Georgette was not used to. It almost took her for a loop and made her flinch. Hercules was not the one that entered into a temper that was Georgette. She was the one that always unleashed her anger not giving a flying care where and how it landed.
But Hercules’s voice rose and it reminded Georgette of Ryan.
She felt awful that such a thought had even crossed her mind because Hercules could never be like Ryan, he wasn’t a monster, he would never seek to purposely hurt her. Even still the thought had formed and it left her muscles debating if they should still go ahead and flinch or make her fingernails sink even deeper into her own skin to stop her from attacking.
She did neither. Instead, she spoke.
“Then go!” Georgette spat venomously, releasing her hand from the clench it had on her wrist. “Go have your damn try and do everything those hags want you to do! Because apparently none of it will affect you so I’m just being the stupid one here actually giving a rats ass and worrying about how this can all just finish only fucking hurting you in the end.”
Georgette began to move now because well one, standing still never worked for her when she was angry, it always made her feel like a caged animal and two she wasn’t about to stay here when her opinions and concerns meant absolutely nothing so she needed to start looking for her purse so that she could leave.
“So be my fucking guest, Hercules!” Where the hell was that stupid purse?!
HERCULES: Hercules had no idea what this meant for him and Georgette...but he knew what it meant for him.
Did it hurt that she didn’t trust him on this? That she wasn’t going to support him? Definitely. However, he needed to do this. That was all he knew. That he needed to do this, with or without help. If he didn’t, he’d never be able to take care of Georgette the way he wanted. Their lives would always be plagued by this decision. This moment. Maybe, it wouldn’t matter in the end and Georgette would stay pissed at him, but for the first time in a long time, Hercules had hope. Which meant that he hoped that when all this was fixed, when he was fixed, Georgette would forgive him and see why he had to do it.
So, he didn’t try to stop her. Instead, he handed her the purse that she was looking for. He didn’t need to be told that was what she was doing. He’d seen her lose it a thousand times before, especially when in a huff.
Silently, he handed it off to her. There wasn’t much to say. Georgette could see the hurt on his face. He could see the hurt on hers. There was nothing for it, though.
This had to be done. It was destiny.
So, the door closed and Hercules packed his own bag. Then, he went to the only place he knew to get the gates open: to Hades’.
His wife let him inside, heavily pregnant and clearly tired. It made him nervous just looking at her. She was so fragile. He thanked her and waited awkwardly for Hades to come down the stairs. When he did, Hercules rose quickly, but carefully. Then, he explained the situation.
“You don’t have to come into the Underworld with me,” Hercules assured. “I know the way.”
With that, they set off through the forest. Unlike last time, Hercules didn’t say anything. He was quiet and determined, his jaw set. The trip was silent and felt both long and unbelievably short. It was Hades who alerted him that they had a tag-a-long, as soon as the Gates had opened. The blue flames flickered silently in the backdrop.
“Georgette?”
Hades left without preamble, telling Hercules he had about two minutes before the gates shut tight and, no, he wasn’t coming back to open them again.
“What are you doing here?” Hercules demanded as soon as Hades disappeared.
GEORGETTE: So, Georgette hadn’t exactly thought out this decision of hers to the extent that it probably should have been thought out. She just knew that once she had made it, she immediately went into action and found herself in the forest.
By no means was it a pleasant trip reaching the Gates of Hell. Georgette was not a nature girl. She did not appreciate dirt, or grass, branches, leaves, insects and disgusting creepy crawlers.
She hated this forest and it’s trees. They, after all, had taken her life from her.
Yet here she was trying very hard not to be daunted by her surroundings or think back to those painful memories this exact entrance could make her relive. Even against everything, against her better knowledge because this was a trip through the Underworld after all, here she was. Wasn’t that how it always ended though?
Georgette coming right back to Hercules.
“I’m still really upset.”
She stated because it had to be well known that her being here didn’t forfeit what she felt regarding this situation. She was still pissed and she still believed all of this was a terrible and very unfair idea.
“But I don’t want you going through hell alone.” She admitted, her voice growing soft. “I know how that feels.”
Maybe not so much literally going through actual physical Underworld hell alone, but Georgette had gone through a rape alone. She had gone through the trial of her rapist alone. The rape, the trial, both were very real. Both had been hard and both had been excruciating painful. They were her hell.
And being alone through hell, that was something she never wanted for Hercules. If he did this alone, she would be like every other person who had deserted him in his life. She wouldn’t forgive herself, so yes, she was still pissed off, but her anger wasn’t worth deserting Hercules.
“And I don’t want that for you so… that’s what I’m doing here.”
HERCULES: Despite the circumstances, Hercules laughed.
It wasn’t a loud laugh, more of a chuckle than anything, but it felt very out of place, here at the entrance to the Underworld.
He was just surprised—delighted, suddenly, by this turn of events and he couldn’t help the smile that showed on his face. How fond he felt of Georgette, as she glowered at him. He wanted to kiss her, even if she’d just said she was upset with him. And he would. He’d wait, maybe, but he would.
There was a relief, too. It meant that if she was here, Hercules wouldn’t have to be alone. If she was here, she couldn’t be too upset with him. Hercules could handle pissed off Georgette, but he couldn’t handle a Georgette that wasn’t speaking to him, a Georgette that hated him. He was plenty familiar with his girlfriend’s temper and while it was a sight to behold, as long as she was still talking to him, he wasn’t going to worry.
And, y’know, he didn’t know when that had happened. Once, Hercules would’ve worried at every fight, every annoyance that he caused her (which was a lot.) But now, he just—wanted to laugh.
He softened, though, at the next thing Georgette had said and he stepped forward. Reaching out, he placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her a step closer so that he could kiss her forehead. His hands moved to her cheeks and he smiled at her.
“Thank you. I didn’t want to do this without you.” He leaned in and kissed her once, softly. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
