Lost Hope

FOUR

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

After half an hour or so, the doorbell rang, Athena jumped to her feet, eager to escape the place for a bit.

"I got it!"

It was Chris.

 And Athena was horrified to see the bruise forming just under his eye.

"What the fuck?" she hissed, wide-eyed, gripping his wrist and dragging him to the nearest bathroom, slamming the door shut.

"It's nothing," Chris brushed her off, moving to open the door.

Athena slapped his hand away. "I don't think a bruise the size of America is nothing, Christophe! What the fuck happened?"

She looked in the cabinet for some Hydrogen Peroxide.

"I told you, it's not a big deal. Just drop it, Thea," said Chris, rolling his eyes and wincing slightly.

"Not a big deal my foot!" she snapped, dabbing the bruise with a wet cloth. Chris hissed in pain and swatted her hand away.

"What happened?"

"It's noth—"

"I swear to God, Chris, if you say it's nothing again, I'll kick you. And you know how much it hurts."

Chris glared at her. "Fine, I ran into the fucker Black."

Athena blanched. 

"Sebastian?" she whispered, horrified. 

"Look, he was being the possessive dickface he usually is and I couldn't take it, I punched him."

Athena looked at him as if he was mad, eyes full of tears as they fell on his bleeding lip that she had just noticed.

"You picked a fight with Sebastian?" she asked indecorously, angry tears threatening to fall. "Sebastian, Chris? You do know he's fucking dangerous, don't you?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "Please. He's all bark and no bite, I've tried him before."

Athena let out a strangled cry, pulling at her hair. "Why would you hit him, Christophe? What's gotten into you?"

"I hate him," said Chris simply, shrugging as though his reasoning was enough.

Athena wiped her tears and opened the door, marching to the kitchen and rummaging in the freezer for some icepack. 

"Thea, come on—"

Athena thrusted the icepack into his hands. "Get out of my face, Christophe," she snapped, hurrying to the stairs.

Chris caught her wrist. "C'mon, Thea, don't be like this," he groaned.

"Fuck off."

And she was running up the stairs.

Chris rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "Son of a . . . " he muttered before hurrying after her. "Athena!"

But she slammed the door in his face, coughing violently.

Chris opened the door and followed her in, she had dropped to the ground, her coughs violent.

He acted quickly, grabbing the oxygen tank on the side and wrapping the mask around her face, flicking the tank on.

Athena's face relaxed immediately but she shot him a pained look making him sigh in defeat.

"I'm sorry, alright? I just know he's gonna hurt you—"

"But that's just it! You can't 'just know'!" she said softly, removing the mask. "Seb's a nice guy, to me, at least. I think you should be more happy that someone, other than you and Atlas, can actually tolerate me. We've been over this a million times the last seven months."