Inane Verbiage

IV

"Holy Zeus so you were telling the truth after all!"

 I ignore Eros's amazed cry, body practically on autopilot as I stumble past him to the toilet, the nausea forcing the contents of my stomach up and out my mouth.

 "Hey are you okay, Toilet Girl?"

 I eye the porcelain bowl I'm heaving my lunch into."What do you think?"

 Once I don't feel like puking any longer, I wipe my chin and turn to face his worried (worried? Oh so now he gets a conscience) frown with a glower. "See what you made me do?"

 He holds up his hands in surrender, looking awkward and out of place among the plain tiles of the bathroom wall in his button-down and designer jeans. "Sorry."

 I snort at that, but decide to let him off just this once (because maybe - just maybe - I would have done the same thing if I were in his place, and I may have accidentally jumped into the Pit with far too much speed in my haste).

 "Okay let's go." I rub my hands on my stone-washed jeans and stride out of the bathroom, making my way to my abandoned duffel.

 "Alright." Eros hurries after me, looking visibly relieved that I'm not ripping into him. Before what I said sinks in, that is. "Wait what?"

 I grin, mimicking his obnoxious smile earlier on. "Since I keep popping up from the dead and you get burned whenever you try to steal the Key, you have no choice but to let me come along, don't you?"

 I nearly laugh when his eyes widen rather comically in panic.

 "Uhh…" He flounders, rather evidently fishing around for an excuse. "It's a dangerous journey - it's not suitable for females, you know. You really shouldn't come along, just in case you, you know, get hurt."

 I scoff at that. "Says who? Besides, I like adventures."

 "B-but y-you could get captured and tortured to death!" 

A dismissive wave of a hand answers his attempt. His stubbornness to leave me out of everything (something he forfeited in the instant he popped up from my insecticide can) is commendable, really. "I can choose to go into Ghost Skin mode at any time. And any wound I have heals when I pay a visit to that granduncle of yours, anyway. Besides," I smirk. "I can't die, remember?"

 "Oh yeah." Eros slumps visibly, a picture of dejection. "Right. Wait- Ghost Skin mode?" 

"Courtesy of mum," I explain, shrugging. "Anything aimed at me will basically just pass through my body - but that means I fall through floors because I can't float, so I generally avoid that. And since there hasn't been an actual term coined for it yet… well. Ghost Skin mode it is."

 "…oh." 

"Yeah. So I can come along, right?" I throw in a hopeful look to go along with it - the one that I inherited from Mum, and the very expression that Dad can never resist.

 Eros doesn't seem to be remotely affected by it, though (then again, he's been living with an entire legion of unnaturally beautiful people for millenniums - he's probably more than used to it by now), shaking his head frantically. "No!" 

What? After all that? "Why not?!"

 "Uhh…" He stalls, stumped. "Um, I- I like you and can't bear to see you hurt!"

 I can't help but roll my eyes. Honestly, who is he kidding? "You just killed me twice, Diaper Boy. If that constitutes as 'like' in your book, Psyche must have been a sad, sad girl."