Hello dearest readers! I found myself in a benevolent mood today (rare, I know), so I decided to update a week early!

To my wonderful friend NiteStar, muahahahahaha

To everyone else, also muahahahaha

:)

Of fucking course. He knew better than to tempt the Fates. These past couple days were pure Tartarus. The kid was ruthless, insisting that Hades keep to a strict regimen and diet, and Hades hurt in places that he didn't even know he could hurt in.

It was working, though. Every day it got just a bit easier, and by the end of the first week he could (shakily) walk to the other side of the room without faceplanting.

The kid had rewarded him with his first trip outside—though he did have to carry Hades down the stairs bridal style, which Hades will be telling no one about.

Especially Apollo and Hermes. They'd never let him live it down.

It also wasn't the first time Hades had wondered how strong this kid was. Most eleven year olds couldn't lift even half of Hades's weight—no, he's not fat, thank you very much—but this kid made it look easy. And apparently, he'd been doing this for weeks. Apollo's healing-oriented children usually weren't this strong, unless they also were proficient in archery.

The kid did have calluses, but they clearly weren't from holding a bow or a bow string. No, his calluses were more like Hades's: centered around the palm instead of the fingers, which meant that the kid would use a sword or knife. Not one of Apollo's strong suits.

Besides, if the kid was a healer, then there was a high chance that he wasn't very proficient in any kind of weapon anyways, which made the calluses all the more interesting.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Anyways, back to outside. Hades had originally protested, since he wasn't sure if he wanted to be outside—Alaska was fucking cold—but the kid told him not to worry, that he had plenty of winter clothing reserved for guests. He'd told Hades that it would be good to go outside and get some fresh air and (Zeus forbid) sunlight.

Not that Hades had a choice, anyways. Not when he was being carried by an eleven year old down the stairs and out the door.

The snow had nearly blinded him, but Hades didn't mind. It was easy to forget, spending most of his time in the Underworld, that beauty like this existed. The Underworld was dark and gloomy, with the exception of Elysium, and the only thing even remotely close to the shiny white snow were the wisps of the dead, and even those were more sad than anything else.

The snow in Alaska sparkled like millions of his finest diamonds. In a way, Hades guessed that that was what snow was: a thousand tiny crystals of flawless ice.

Finally tearing his eyes away from the snow—were his eyes wet, they felt wet—Hades surveyed the rest of the landscape.

The kid lived next to the beach, with nothing but a narrow stone road flaked with snow to connect him with the rest of the world. The beach wasn't sandy, like Hades had expected. Instead, it was made of flat, circular stones smoothed by the sea, almost perfect for skipping across the water.

The breeze was chilly, and Hades was almost glad that the kid had practically forced him to put on twelve layers of clothing—he'd said something about regaining dexterity in his fingers but Hades focused more on the not-freezing-to-death part. The sky was grey; the kid had mentioned to him that there was another snowstorm coming.

How he knew for sure, Hades didn't know. As far as he knew from his quick glimpse of the downstairs area, the kid didn't have a television or any other type of mortal device. Besides, if his suspicions were correct, his mother wouldn't have allowed him to have them, since mortal devices were like homing beacons for monsters.

The landscape was picturesque, and Hades's only complaint was the sky. The bleak grey clouds hid Apollo's chariot, which would be almost directly overhead if the kid was to be believed. He needed to get Apollo's attention, but with the cloud covering there was no way. He could only hope that the kid would bring him outside again on a sunny, cloudless day.

Anyone who had ever heard of him would flip their shit if they knew what he was thinking now. Blue sky? Sun? He must be going crazy.

"Your eyes are blue."

Hades nearly fell over. "Fucking hell, kid, don't do that!"

Well, so much for not cursing in front of the kid. Persephone would be so disappointed.

The kid shrugged nonchalantly and said, "Sorry. But they are blue. You can't tell when you're inside, because they're so dark, but now that you're in the light it's easy to tell. They're kinda like midnight sapphires."

Huh. He'd lived over two and a half thousand years and he'd never noticed. How observant must the kid have been to have noticed after two minutes in the light?

Hades looked back at his little caretaker—bloody fucking hell that hurt his pride—who was sweeping the road with a broom he had procured from somewhere.

He almost wishes the kid weren't so mysterious. Puzzles were Athena's thing. He wasn't terrible at them by any means; Hades just didn't have enough time for puzzles to be enjoyable.

But that didn't mean he was terrible at them, either. He just needed more clues.

Speaking of which... "Hey kid, I keep forgetting to ask, but what's your name?"

The kid froze. Odd reaction to being asked for a name.

"Are you okay, kid?" Did he say something wrong?

The kid shook his head stiffly. "No sir. I just—". He sighed, composing himself.

"My name is Archer, sir."

How fitting for a son of Apollo, even if he was more of a healer. The kid turned back towards the road, and once again the sound of soft bristles against smooth stone filled the silent air. Hades resumed watching the grey horizon, but he couldn't help but feel as though he missed something.

His mouth twitched; the kid was mysterious, he'd give him that.

They went inside a couple minutes later, when the kid—Archer—was finally done sweeping the road. He told Hades it was important because he was the main healer in town and people needed an easy way to get to him while injured or sick.

So why didn't the kid just move into town? Hades had asked this, and the kid (calling him Archer just felt fundamentally wrong for some odd reason) had replied, "I don't have the money to move. I work as a healer, but I don't charge money for it, so the only way I can feed myself and buy supplies is with fishing."

There had been a sort of disgust on the kid's face, but he had continued, "It doesn't pay much, since there are commercial boats that can get a lot more fish—" at this his eyes looked downright murderous, "—but it pays enough for food and supplies. That's all I need, so I just do it like this."

So now Hades was in Archer's sitting room—which is much warmer than the bedroom he usually occupied—with his lunch: fish broth with noodles. The kid had let him have solid-ish food after a couple days, so the noodles were very overdone (practically mush, but Hades wasn't complaining) to help ease his stomach into eating actual solid food again. He also said that the broth was full of minerals and vitamins (why does an eleven year old know this stuff) that would help him regain strength.

Whatever the case, it was good, so Hades ate it with little complaint. The kid gave a small, shy smile when he took Hades's empty bowl, and it looked so foreign yet so familiar that it was unnerving.

He's going to keep an eye on that kid.

The next couple months were very repetitive. Wake up, eat/drink breakfast, go through the kid's torture—sorry, physical therapy—take a break for lunch, resume the torture, eat supper, and go to bed.

Rinse, repeat.

It definitely got better as the months went on (thank the Fates that he was still a god and healed faster than a mortal), and Hades was proud to say that he could now run and jump and fucking breakdance if he felt like it. In those two-and-a-half months, Hades really only had one complaint.

The kid only allowed him outside when it was cloudy. Gods, it was like he was a fucking dog. Hades is definitely allowing Cerberus more freedom when he gets back.

It's as if the kid knew what he wanted, which was impossible. It had been sunny for plenty of the time he'd been in the kid's house—the burn in his eyes when he woke up every morning (even though the shades were drawn) was a testament to that—but the kid had never let him out then. It had always been overcast, and gods damn it, he was starting to miss the sun.

He silently vowed never to tell Apollo; Fates forbid he get another ego boost. The dark and gloomy god of the Underworld, want to see the sun? He wouldn't shut up about it for centuries.

Anyways, back to his situation.

Hades had never really given much thought to it, besides the usual disappointment when he saw the monochrome grey sky, but now he wished he would have. How could the kid have known without knowing about the mythological world?

Or maybe he had known the whole fucking time. That little shit.

That had to be it. He's convinced of it now. The kid knew from the very beginning; there's no other explanation. He knew his mother moved him to Alaska because the godly world was dangerous, and he knew that the "gang" Hades had been tracking was a small army of monsters.

How else had he known to be there at almost the exact same time? He must have been watching them, making sure they didn't make any moves on the mortal towns nearby.

He knew Hades wasn't human—the complete opposite, in fact—and he knew that Hades's injuries wouldn't take nearly as long to heal as they should have, and he knew that they turned out a little too perfectly, that his recovery time was much too short.

He knew he was a demigod, a son of Apollo himself, and he knew that Alaska was the safest place for him. Hell, Archer probably wasn't even his real name.

Hades wasn't sure if he wanted to strangle the kid or congratulate him for fooling him, the god of the Underworld, for so long. Probably a bit of both, if he was being honest.

So, when the kid came up to wake him up (Hades cursed Alaska and healing for being so draining), Hades told him.

"You know, kid, I have half a mind to strangle you right here, right now."

The kid jumped, most likely surprised that Hades was even awake.

"Why?" he asked, a hint of something in his voice that Hades couldn't identify. Suspicion, maybe?

Hades shrugged. "For not telling me that you know. About me, I mean." The kid froze, and Hades narrowed his eyes. "How much of it was a lie?"

The kid pulled over the desk chair and Hades got a strange sense of deja vu; it was almost the same setting as when he'd first met the kid, complete with the kid's nervous hand-wringing. He almost wanted to tell the kid to stop—he'd known Apollo long enough to listen to thirty lectures about arthritis even though gods can't get arthritis, Apollo, pay attention—but he stayed silent in favor of hearing the kid speak.

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

Hades barked a bitter laugh, raspy and tense in his throat. "Don't bullshit me, kid. You know exactly what I'm talking about."

The kid flinched, and Hades felt a flash of guilt. The kid, even though he lied, still healed him. He could have left Hades to live out the rest of his eternal life alone and in pain but instead chose to use his valuable supplies to fix him up.

"Shit, I'm sorry kid, I didn't mean—" The kid put his hand on Hades's wrist and holy shit why was his hand so cold.

"You don't have to be sorry. I know I lied to you. It's my fault. I just… I thought that if I told you I knew, then you'd demand to see Apollo and then you'd leave. I didn't want you to leave…"

This would have been so much easier had the kid been an adult. Instead, he's an eleven year old boy with no parents and presumably no friends.

Fuck him, fuck life, fuck everything.

"I mean, I know you're over two thousand years old and I'm just a kid so why would you want to spend time with me? But everyone in the town just pities me. They know my mom died and that I don't know my dad, so they just give me that stupid look and ruffle my hair like I'm a dog that got lost in the street. All the boys my age don't like me; they think I should spend more time helping the town directly instead of waiting for someone to be injured to help, and the girls all think I have cooties even though I've told them that I wash my hands a lot, and they all think Archer is a stupid name and that I'm a freak and I just wanted a friend!" he practically shouted.

The kid was crying fuck he's crying what do you do with a crying kid?

The kid let out a couple more choked sobs and tried to compose himself, to no avail. "I always felt so bad about the lying but my mom told me never to tell people my real name or show them my eyes or do anything out of the ordinary; she told me that I had to lie to keep myself safe and she told me when she was dying to always stay safe so I didn't know what to do! I've been wearing these things my whole life!" he shouted, yanking a pair of blue-coloured contacts out and shutting his eyes immediately. "I hate them, and I hate Alaska, and I- I just want to be normal! I want to be a normal kid, with normal eyes, and normal friends! Is that too much to ask?"

Let it be said that Hades is not good at relationships, so he did what was usually best: he copied his sister Hestia. He pulled the kid into a tight hug and let the kid sob into his shoulder. His shirt was getting wet, but that didn't matter.

He finally knew why the Fates, cruel beings as they were, had sent him here. He, out of all the gods and goddesses, knew best what this kid was going through. He'd never really had anyone either, except for Poseidon and Hestia, but trust was so easily broken. He had Persephone, but Hades had always known she'd been more happy up in the sun. It was why he didn't argue when they'd agreed that she'd spend the majority of the year up on the surface, because it made her happy and that's all he wanted for her. People, both in the Underworld and out, didn't respect him. They feared him, sure, but never truly respected him. He was always the outcast, the one no one wanted around.

So yes, he knew what this kid was going through.

And he knew that he had to help.

"Look, kid. It's not a bad thing to be different. Just look at all the things you can do! Can any of those boys heal a god, or know what time it is without looking at a clock? Can they be kind enough to offer their supplies and skills for free and still be able to feed themselves and make a living?"

The kid shook his head slowly, face still buried in Hades's shirt.

"See? You're not a freak, kid." The kid shook his head, harder this time.

"You don't know me. You don't know what I can do to someone. You don't know what I have done."

The kid was shaking, though he didn't seem to be crying anymore, so that was good.

Briefly, Hades wondered what his family would do if they saw him hugging a kid. Zeus would probably accuse him of pedophilia or something, because Zeus is crazy and paranoid like that.

"Kid, there is nothing you can say that will convince me that you're not a good person. But, if you're so insistent, I guess I'll listen. Who did you 'hurt'?"

The kid drew in a shuddering breath. "Those monsters that hurt you…" he answered quietly.

Hades blinked (not that the kid could see it); he was the one who killed the monsters? He didn't remember anything beyond being dangled over the side of the stairs, but he'd never taken the chance to ask the kid how the monsters had died—not with how the kid had first reacted when he'd asked about how he'd gotten out. This kid handled all of those monsters by himself? What kind of power could he have that allowed him to kill all of them without a single scratch? He'd never seen the kid hold a weapon, even if he had the calluses and lean muscles to prove that he'd had practice with one.

"Kid, that's not bad. Those monsters were evil, and they would have continued to kill other people once they were done with me. You did nothing wrong," he said, trying to ease the kid.

Evidently, it didn't work.

"But… that power that I used—" Hades cut him off.

"Kid, no matter how bad the power might sound, the only way it's evil is if you use it for an evil purpose. You used it to help me, so it's a good power."

The kid's shaking intensified, and suddenly Hades felt the wet patch on his shoulder grow wetter and larger.

"Y-you don't un-understand! One lady c-caught me w-with my powers once b-but there was a m-monster and it would have k-killed her and I couldn't let that h-happen a-and I d-didn't have a w-weapon s-so I used them t-to k-kill the m-monster… she didn't care th-that I k-killed it, all she c-cared about was that I used m-my powers and she t-tried to…" The kid mumbled the last couple words incoherently.

"She tried to what, kid?" Hades prodded gently. The kid froze, and the wet patch on Hades's shoulder grew colder.

"S-she t-tried to exorcise m-me! S-she t-thought I w-was a m-monster, a d-demon! I-I'm not a d-demon, right? I-I'm not! I-I c-can't be!"

Hades felt his stomach drop; out of fear or anger he didn't know. It's official: he's adopting this kid, Ancient Laws and Zeus's Ego be damned. He will take this kid back to the Underworld and give him all the love and care in the world and then some.

Contrary to popular belief, he actually cared for children more than probably any other immortal who's domains didn't have anything to do with them (except for Poseidon and maybe Apollo or Hermes), and right then his parental instincts were flaring like one of those mortal sirens.

He didn't know much about actually raising kids, but how hard could it be?

And to think, he started this chapter berating himself for tempting the Fates... and then ends it by doing what? Tempting the Fates. Shakes head disappointedly. Father, I thought you were better than that.

The chapter title is from Get Up by Shinedown (I freaking love Shinedown oh my gods)

(Also I have found a 1 hour loop of the Finding Nemo theme and I am very unhealthily obsessed)(So we might be seeing some sad father vibes)(and parental angst)(and just angst in general)(sorry not sorry)