by RM Virtues
“And - you said you didn’t want to make this a habit,” he goes on, his voice tentative as he gestures between them. “I didn’t want to overstep.”
Any argument she’d armed herself with on the way up here dies on her tongue, and defeat begins to seep into her skin. She knows what she’d said, and she knows what she’d meant, but only one of those things had been handed over to Hades. She can’t fault him. Still, she’d opened her damn mouth, and now she has to follow through. Doesn’t she?
“So why are you summoning me now?” she retorts.
Standing, Hades clears his throat and steps around the desk.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I just - I saw you down there, and - I wanted to go to the show tonight. I’d planned to, but-” He looks down, scratching the back of his head.
She doesn’t let him off, no matter how cute he looks flustered. “But what? Go on.”
He emits a bitter laugh. “By the time I stopped second guessing myself, it was over. Then you stumbled into the casino, and —”
“Stumbled?”
“—Well, you know. I mean, you showed up out of nowhere… What are you doing up here anyway?”
“Don’t change the subject. You said you would call.”
“And you said—”
“I never said not to.”
Though it doesn’t take long for her own shame and embarrassment to start crawling up her throat. She doesn’t know why she’s so worked up over this. She had made peace with the fact that their encounter had been a one-time thing because she’d asked for it to be. She’d just wanted to get home, not go through this, but he’s right there, and she can’t not say anything. She knows that doesn’t mean she has to say something so unfair though. She’s been trying to convince herself that Hades and Zeus really are two sides of the same rigged coin, but Hades continues to prove her wrong. Even when he isn’t at fault, he takes the blame, and he doesn’t even hesitate. What is she supposed to do with that?
“You’re right. You didn’t.” He meets her eyes. “And I should’ve. I wanted to, but…” He growls in agitation as he drags a hand down his face, and she has to suppress a shiver at the sound. “I’m a mess. I just - had you dragged up here for anyone to see.”
“I don’t care about that,” she states firmly.
“I know you don’t. That’s the thing. I don’t either, and I should. There are - things going on right now, and I have to be on top of it. On top of everything, and I was already so damn distracted by you, I knew if I called, I wouldn’t be able to focus at all.”
She snorts a laugh. It does nothing to keep the heat from racing up her neck. “Oh, please. Is that really the best you got?”
He mimics the sound, and despite the tired smile on his face, he looks every bit as intimidating as he did the first time she saw him. When he speaks, his voice is stern and unwavering.
“Are you saying you weren’t? That’s why you’re angry, isn’t it? You wanted me to call, even when you knew it would be a distraction. Even when you said yourself you couldn’t make this happen.”
She has to pause at the accusation and how quickly the tables have turned, the words lodged in her throat. Why did she have to say anything at all? She’d showed her hand, and now he’s standing there calling her bluff, and she can’t even be mad at him. Suddenly, she’s deflated, staring down at her feet, and she wishes she could ascend into the air right now, right through the ceiling. All those warnings she’d given herself come rushing back a minute too late. Getting wrapped up with him will do her no good in the long run. It’s not even doing her any good right now. This isn’t even about Zeus. It’s about the way Hades makes her skin hot from three feet away.
“Do you want to change?”
His voice cuts through her thoughts, and she looks up at him in confusion. He’s pointing to a door to her right, but she still hasn’t deciphered what he means.
“There’s a bathroom through there,” he goes on. “If you would like to change or anything, by all means.”
She’s about to yell at him again to stop changing the subject, but she suddenly realizes she’s shivering, and not simply from frustration. She’d run from the theatre in very little clothing, and Asphodel was - well cooled. So she nods, tentatively approaching the door as if fearing something was going to jump out. When nothing does, she steps inside, closing the door behind her. At last, she lets herself breathe.
Turning on the light, she finds herself in a rather large bathroom. The door and its position in his office had been deceptive in relation to its size. Directly in front of her is a wall, half of it dedicated to a mirror and the other half to a sink counter and cabinets. Stepping over to the sink, she sets down her things and turns on the water. Once her face is cleansed of makeup, she feels substantially better, moving to change out of her final costume and into her street clothes. It’s a simple pair of navy blue joggers, a white v-neck, and a light jacket. After all, she hadn’t expected to see him tonight, and her evening dress is all too revealing for the climate in here. Pulling the garments on with a huff, she turns back to the mirror and begins running her fingers through her curls, letting them fall loosely around her face. Even once she’s satisfied to the best of her ability, she stands there, staring at herself, once again chiding her reflection. She doesn’t want to be angry anymore, certainly not with him, but once that defense comes down, what is left to shield her?
She takes her time coming out of the bathroom, and once she does, she finds Hades on the couch with a large, black dog resting its head on his knee. The dog looks at her, its eyes somehow as scrutinizing as that of its owner’s, but it doesn’t bark.
“Do you - wash up here often?” she asks, her eyes still on the canine.
“Not all too often,” Hades returns. “I live right upstairs.”
“In the casino?”
“In the hotel, yes.”
She knew it. From what Aphrodite says about him and his work ethic, she imagines living upstairs is very convenient. It’s likely necessary to keep him from spending too many nights on that very sofa. Persephone has to wonder why the reigning power of Khaos Falls sits in the Olympus District when Hades does all the work here.
Her eyes travel back up to his face, snagging on the rest of him along the way. It’s the first time she’s ever seen him slouch, sprawled against the corner of the sofa. She can tell he’s tired, and while Aphrodite didn’t have too many details about this business with Tartarus, she swears the severity of it is written all over his face.
“I poured you a drink.”
He gestures to the coffee table between them where two glasses sit. She knows her drink just from the look of it, which means he knows it too. He’d remembered.
As he sits up straighter, the dog moves to accommodate but doesn’t take his head away from Hades’ leg. It’s endearing, watching the scene. It’s almost as though the animal doesn’t know it should be afraid of him. Persephone can relate.
“He won’t bite, I promise,” Hades assures her as he pats the seat beside him, and she doesn’t hesitate long before moving to sit down.
“What’s his name?” she asks, setting her bag down at her feet and picking up her drink.
“Cerberus.”.
“He’s huge.”
Hades smirks. “You should have seen his father. He was my father’s dog. In fact, Cerberus’s family has been with mine for generations. His brothers still are. He’s been with me since he was a pup.”
Persephone smiles against the lip of her glass before taking a sip. She reaches out to pet Cerberus but stops herself, looking up at Hades. He nods softly, and so she goes ahead, running her hand over the top of the hound’s head. Cerberus watches her hand descend, but once it does, he moves his head closer before pushing it completely into her hand. She chuckles, and Hades does too.
“He usually doesn’t take to people this well,” Hades admits.
“Is he your guard dog?”
“A guardian, yes. And I’m
his. It was tradition in my father’s family, and it always managed to coincide. A child was born, and a litter was too.”
“You said he has brothers. Where are they?”
Hades smiles, and his eyes seem to go somewhere else, to a memory maybe. She watches, intrigued.
“In the hotel as well. With Hecate, Thanatos and Charon. I’m sure you’ve heard of them.”
Persephone shrugs a shoulder, playing off just how much she’d heard about them. What Hades was to Zeus they were to Hades, every bit as imposing and as important to his lore as he was. “In passing.”
“My father always said they were meant to be with me my whole life. Each of them received a pup from the litter as well.”
She sits back against the opposite arm to better look at him. “They don’t just work for you, do they?”
He shakes his head. “They’re family.”
She doesn’t ask if Zeus got a pup too. She doubts he did, or at the very least, she hopes he didn’t. She finds herself hoping that Thanatos and Charon are better brothers to Hades than she imagines Zeus is as well. At the moment, with his defenses lowered, he looks...exhausted. Maybe even a little stressed. Every time she sees Zeus, he looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Now she knows where all his worries lie, right there on Hades’ chest. She almost wants to reach out and place her hand there, to see if she can lift any of them herself. He interrupts that thought, thoroughly.
“When do you have a night off?”
She looks up with eyes wide, again struggling to catch up to what he’s saying. She has a bad habit of daydreaming and getting lost in her thoughts, a luxury her mother often pointed out. Demeter swore that it would be the first thing that the world would strip her of, right before her femininity. The world hadn’t succeeded in taking either of them yet.
Yet he’s patient, eying her with a measured curiosity until she catches up again.
“Oh,” she chuckles breathlessly. “I don’t have nights off.”
“Come on, you have to have one.”
“And that’s about it.”
“Would you consider spending it with me?”
She looks at him as though he’s asked her to do a backflip over the balcony railing, mouth agape and eyes as round as quarters. He rests his head against his thumb and forefinger, elbow propped on the couch arm. Cerberus lays his head on her lap now and groans. He’s a great wingman.
“You’re serious,” she concludes, although her own tone is quite skeptical.
“I’m serious,” he confirms.
“We said we didn’t want to make this a thing.”
“No, you said, but then you got upset with me for it, so I assume that means you didn’t mean it or you’ve changed your mind.”
“Why?” She can’t help but ask. “You said you were busy.”
“And that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about you. I thought you would distract me if you were here, but the fact is that when you’re not here, I wish you were, which is just as distracting if not more so.”
She laughs again. “Has that line ever worked for you before?”
“I wouldn’t know.” He doesn’t even blink. “I’ve never used it before, so I suppose we’ll find out together.”
Her pride is at play now, and it’s only incited by the apparent retreat of his own. Of course she wants to say yes, but as he’d said, he’s as much a distraction to her as she is to him, and what good can come from that? She’d already put this entire - desire to bed, and there’s still this entire mess with Zeus to think about, but…
“What would we do?” she inquires, petting Cerberus’s head once more as she sips from her glass. “If I decided to spend my night off with you?”
Hades seems to have already considered that. “Dio’s been begging me to try out the new restaurant he’s just opened in the eastern vineyard. Maybe you’d like to accompany me.”
He’s talking about leaving his district. It is said that he rarely, if ever, leaves his district, and that was one bit of information both Aphrodite and Dionysos had confirmed. Sure, it’s only across the river to his nephew’s vineyard, but that doesn’t negate the fact. He doesn’t truly have to go anywhere at all. She would have settled for dinner here at Asphodel. Of course, she’ll never tell him that.
“Alright,” she at last nods. “I’m free this Monday. Does that work for you? Do you need to move around your schedule?”
His amusement is the brightest thing in the room somehow. “Monday is perfect. Where should I pick you up from?”
She considers it for a moment. “My place.”
He pauses. “You mean, in the Harvest District?”
She snickers. She thought he knew everything. “Calliope got me an apartment, here in your district.”
“Ah.” He laughs as well. “That’s who she’d secured it for. I thought it was hers.”
“So you know it?”
“I do.” Naturally. “So I’ll pick you up there, say, seven?
She suddenly feels nervous. It’s real. “That works for me.”
He raises his glass. “Monday it is then.”
She tips her own glass towards his until the edges touch. “Monday it is.”
Aphrodite is never going to let her live this down. She can’t find the will to care.
7
Hades
Monday couldn’t come fast enough, and even once it does come, the day seems to drag on forever. And through it all, he can’t stop thinking about her. He’d agonized over everything all weekend from his suit to the formal reservation at the restaurant, which Dio continually insisted he did not need. Hades hadn’t outright told him what he was going for or who he was taking there, and Dio had assumed he was simply succumbing to the constant pleading. Dio also assumed Hades would bring Hecate along, and Hades hadn’t corrected him. It’s best this way. He finally has something all his own, a secret he is eager to keep, and he doesn’t want to ruin it. He also doesn’t want to bring it into the light only to allow the world to watch it disintegrate into ash. Or worse, allow the world to be the one to set it ablaze.
Though there’s still work to be done. There’s a tap on the desk, and Hades is drawn back to his office where he’s currently sat across from Hephaestus. The head of the younger man’s cane still rests against the mahogany where he’d tapped it, and he only draws it back when his uncle meets his eyes.
“What was that?” Hades questions, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“I’ve checked with both Prometheus and the Cyclops,” Hephaestus repeats. “Tartarus hasn’t made any buys, not here and not on any of the islands. I haven’t heard back from Daedalus in Deucalion Heights, but Achilles and I are keeping eyes on the port between the two of us.”
“You think you can get someone inside their security compound?”
“We tried. We sent Prometheus to make his monthly delivery to Iapetos a few days ago. No dice.”
“So they’re outright rejecting ammunition. I wish I could say that soothes me. Instead it makes me wonder what they’ve been stockpiling.”
Hephaestus shrugs, the right shoulder rising only half as high as the left. “I wouldn’t say much unless they’re making their own weapons. I keep books on everyone, Uncle, and I don’t sell anything high capacity.”
“But what about the weapons they use on the borders?”
“Most of them are submerged. I designed many of them to only be used that way, and I built the others myself right where they stand. The bigger guns are mounted into the ground. Even if they fuck around and try to get creative with one of those, and I’d be alerted if one of the mounts were damaged or removed, and the gun would immediately become obsolete.”
Hades can’t help but smile. All of his nephews were impressive, but none had been more underestimated than Heph. Zeus and Hera, young as they were, didn’t think he’d live to see his second birthday, and considering the story surrounding his birth, Hades dares to believe Zeus had hoped not. Hades had known he would be a fi
ghter though, and he had watched over him in the same way he later would Dionysos and Hermes. Hephaestus had made his weaknesses his strengths, and then he’d strengthened Khaos Falls’ weaknesses. Now he makes a fortune in charge of all arms dealing and sales in town, doing so with an iron grip so that nothing gets out of hand and no one steps out of line. It isn’t foolproof, but it’s safer than the free-for-all had been before. In this way, they controlled the flow of the weapons and kept those of mass destruction off the streets.
“You shouldn’t worry too much about it, Uncle,” Heph concludes. “This is all doing what it’s supposed to do, make you uncomfortable, and I don’t think it’s going to go any further than that. They want to send a message, but they won’t do anything else if the risk outweighs the benefits. Eventually, they’ll need the rest of us. Erebus and Nyx know that. Tartarus doesn’t have the manpower or the firepower to take on Olympus and the Styx District, and leaving the city vulnerable leaves them vulnerable too.”
Hades has considered all of this, and judging by the look on his face, Hephaestus knows it. However, Hades isn’t willing to rest, not when Tartarus is the only district to ever pose a legitimate threat to Zeus’s reign. After all, the throne of Khaos Falls had sat in their territory for decades before Zeus had taken it... or more accurately, before Hades had taken it for him. He had given Tartarus the role in border security as a sign of good faith, but even if Erebus and Nyx keep the peace for the duration of their lives, Hades doubts that Tethys and Coeus will do the same, especially when it is Zeus who holds the title of high leader now. He had had it handed to him like a spoiled child, and Hades himself had given it to him. For how much of this was he to blame? If he had taken the crown for himself, perhaps…
Well, there’s no use going down that road now, is there?
The more Hades turns this over in his mind however, the more holes he finds in his horror. Would one little deal with Zeus truly lead to a war between Tartarus and the two largest districts in Khaos Falls? More than that, Tartarus would be cut off from the Market District and every other neutral district in between. They may find an ally in Demeter, but Demeter’s numbers were just as pitiful, if not more so. The whole thing makes no sense, and the only thing Hades has gotten from worrying about it is grey hair. There is nothing more he can do.