All characters have the same names but are gender switched, except for Demeter, who is still female.
In the world above, Demeter stewed with anger. Plenty of times she had let Persephone wander the fields all day without checking in with her. She had stopped rushing out in panic when she didn't see him for several hours, often finding him asleep. The older he got, the longer she had let him on his own. But this time she had given him an inch, and he'd taken a mile. Never had he spent the entire night sleeping in the field. By the time she had gone out looking for him, it was too dark to see, so she waited until the morning to find him, waking in renewed anger that he had still not returned.
The grain goddess marched out into the sunlight, narrowed eyes scanning across the plain. Where could he have possibly gone and what could have been so important he felt the need to completely disregard her feelings? But the longer she searched and found nothing, the faster her annoyance faded. She had always worried he would somehow come across the lechery of Olympus, whether it be some goddess chasing after him or the cruelty of the gossiping tongues who did not think flowers to be the domain of a "true man." Nothing sinister had ever happened to him, so it never occurred to her that it might.
The meadow was unusually quiet: his energy was loud, enthusiast, cheerful, and he was easy to spot from a distance. Her mind was busy racing when she abruptly tripped over a jagged patch of Earth. She looked up, bewildered, to find a deep gash in the dirt. The scene in front of her was troubling: an enormous tear in the soil, a trail of smashed and flattened grass. Something had happened here. She followed the path, lifting her skirts and racing forward only to find it abruptly stopped with another tear in the ground. On the top of the brown Earth, there was a tiny glimmer of red. She bent down, picking up the pomegranate pin she had seen him wearing with shaking hands.
Her dull sense of dread sharpened to an acute fear. She looked around desperately for help, finding no one to turn to, no witnesses to call upon. When she turned, the sun glared in her eyes.
Above in Olympus, Helios startled to find Demeter rushing upon her suddenly. It was a strange sight, considering Demeter was rarely seen at all in Olympus. But most jarring was the panicked, worry drawn into the lines of her face. Helios' stomach dropped.
"Helios!" she demanded, her voice panicked. "Have you seen Persephone?"
Helios looked away, trying to quickly think of a way out of this interaction. This was all Aphrodite's idea, yet he wasn't the one having to deal with the consequences.
"I don't think so…" she hedged, feigning ignorance as she tried to walk from the room.
"Helios please," she pressed, chasing after her and grabbing her shoulder "He's always in the fields, you must have seen something!" Helios pulled out of her grasp.
"Have you tried looking for him in-"
"I've looked everywhere!" she wailed. "He's gone! S-something, in the field, something happened to him!"
"I must not have been looking yesterday, I-"
"It was a sunny day yesterday, you must have seen!" Demeter insisted, following close behind her. "Please, help me!" she begged. "My boy is all I have Helios, please!"
Helios made a backwards glance at her and regretted it. As much as she didn't want to be the one to tell Demeter, it would be cruel to leave her like this: searching, wandering, worrying when instead the truth could dispel her anxiety. After all, he likely wasn't hurt … he was just … gone. The sun goddess sighed. How could she possibly explain what she'd seen?
"Yesterday, in the field…" The worried mother looked at her intently. "Hades...took Persephone." Demeter stood still in shock, her eyes wide.
"With her … to the Underworld." Helios added. All Demeter's breath left her as she fell to her knees.
"They had been speaking , you see," Helios added hurriedly. "She had visited him several times…"
Demeter thought back to the last several weeks. The strange pin, all the times he'd been vague about what he was doing, when she had seen him gazing out at the horizon...It was Hades preying on him before stealing him. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over. Helios bit her lip with guilt.
"She wouldn't be a terrible wife, Demeter," Helios insisted. "She's a powerful queen, he would be ruler of a third of the cosmos! He would be wealthier than any of us combined…"
But her reassurances fell on deaf ears. It was worse than Demeter could have imagined. King or not, he was the in the Underworld, and even as an immortal, a life for him in a realm like that was as good as death.
In her bed in the Underworld, Hades woke with a gasp. Her neck and forehead were beaded with sweat and there was a heaviness pressing down on her chest. She looked up to find it wasn't a nightmare or anxiety that had woken her, as it sometimes did. Persephone had rolled on top of her in his sleep, the full weight of his torso pressing against hers. He snored lightly, his face in the crook of her neck.
"Persephone," she whispered, trying to gently wake him. She reached around him to shake his shoulder, but he didn't budge.
"Persephone!" she tried again, this time louder as she tried with both hands to push his chest off of her.
Since he had always been beneath her, she had underestimated the weight of his body. He was stronger, and heavier, than he looked. He stirred with a groan, lifting his head.
"Sunflower, you're crushing me," she explained, putting her hands flat on his chest and pushing upwards. He lifted up slightly on his elbows.
"Okay," he conceded groggily, resting his forehead against hers.
Hips lips swept across mouth lazily. She smiled and kissed him back, endeared by how affectionate even a half asleep Persephone was. He took her bottom lips between both of his over and over, and soon Hades found herself decidedly awake. She snaked her arms around his neck, pulling him back down against her, his firm chest pressing on the soft curve of her breasts. She shifted her legs to part them on either side of his waist and felt the tip of him brush against her - proof he was very much awake too.
His pulled his mouth away and look down at her with half lidded eyes, his voice quiet.
"Hades, do you want to…?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation.
He clumsily pulled at the sheets and their garments, fumbling as he tried to line up his body to hers. Finally she reached beneath him, pulling him into her opening. When he pitched forward, she closed her eyes and groaned, her head falling back.
Persephone marveled at the sight of Hades beneath him. The night before she had controlled him so fully, he was amazed to see this spark of vulnerability from her. She was more than happy to let him take the lead after that: he had valiantly endured - physically and emotionally - a lot more than much prouder, supposedly more masculine men could have. She wanted to share everything with him: their kingdom, their roles, and their bed.
She sighed as he slowly rocked forward and back, in and out of her. She slid her nails up the back of his neck into his hair, tangling them into his messy tresses. He relished knowing that the expressions of pleasure on her face were caused by his movements. He kissed along the side of her neck and she turned her head, allowing him more access to her skin. When he pulled back up over her, she was looking him right in the eye, her eyes dark with want.
It was too much encouragement for him to hold back anymore. More aroused than ever, he increased his rhythm in and out of her warmth, too enraptured to realize he was setting a tempo she could never keep up with. After a matter of minutes he shouted his completion and slowly pulling out of her, collapsed at her side.
She stroked his now sweat dampened hair as he caught his breath. After a minute of stillness, he finally spoke.
"That was … really fast, wasn't it?" he asked sheepishly. She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, he lifted his head babbled on. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to and … well you felt so good and you looked so beautiful lying there I just-"
"I'll take that as a compliment," she interrupted, kissing his forehead. "I'm flattered." Persephone smiled. She spoke with such finality and confidence, it easily reassured him.
He hugged himself against her as she lay flat on her back, and after a few more minutes of quiet, Hades spoke.
"Persephone?"
"Yes?" he replied, his eyes closed. She hesitated before continuing.
"Last night … was that … your first time?"
"Yes." Hades felt a knot of guilt in her stomach.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. He turned his head to look at her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the ceiling.
"Why are you sorry?"
"If I had known … if I had been thinking … I would have gone slower. I would have been a lot more gentle. For a first time - for any time, really - that was … a lot." Persephone considered this before nuzzling into her neck until she looked back at him.
"I'm not sorry. I trust you." She smiled, but there was a hint of sadness to it. He was too good, too pure for what she had done to him in lust-driven rage.
"Last night…" he started. "That wasn't your first time?" he guessed.
"No, it wasn't." There was a beat of silence before he opened his mouth.
"And no, you can't ask who else. Not now. Now I just want to be with you," she finished, squeezing a protective arm around him.
"Okay," he conceded easily, wrapping warm arms around her and falling back into satisfied sleep.
There would be other times to talk about that. At least, she hoped there would be.
