Chapter 3


Happy birthday to me and to me only. I'm 23 years old today, and jeez I can't believe I've been doing this for five years now. Also Happy Halloween, my dear readers! Remember not to be stingy or your nightmares will come true!

Enjoy the treat!


"The world is full of kings and queens

Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams

It's heaven and hell, oh well."

- Heaven and Hell, by Black Sabbath, Ronnie James Dio


The voyage on Charon's ferry was deathly quiet. Even by Underworld standards this was by far a new record in eons. The only sound came from the occasional slosh of Charon's oar, rising and falling in the wide, wide river that welcomed and beckoned all into its gates. Not even the dead released their usual moans and cries for something above the misty waters of Styx made them far more terrified of disturbing this rare moment of peace.

Hades fixated his golden eyes on his wife where she stood in front of him. Her tall, willowy figure almost entirely obscured by her knee-length blonde hair. However, that too was obscured thanks to the long dark veil that covered her hair, hindering the radiance of its glow. What limited light there was came emanating from her locks, casting pale yellow light upon the otherwise gloomy ferry. He had found throughout the centuries that her peony pink glow would fade and her vibrant rose-colored skin paled as winter stretched on above, leaving her almost as colorless as him until she returned to the land above where the cycle began again.

"Just- just talk to me," Hades frustratedly sighed.

"You didn't have to come see me off," Persephone coldly reminded her fiery husband. Her magenta eyes were trained straight towards the gates and away from the heated look he was giving her.

"I always see you off. I am not stopping any time soon," Hades tried to keep his voice as leveled as possible, but anybody could feel the air around him begin to grow incredibly heated.

"I just wanted to leave on good terms. Is that such a crime?" Persephone continued to avoid glancing behind her where Hades was standing on the ferry. She had purposefully taken his spot on the bow, a hint he had noticed, but was stubbornly refusing to acknowledge.

"That is the lousiest excuse if I've ever heard one," Hades miffed.

Persephone tightened her jaw on reflex, but her tongue was far faster than her own mind as her body whirled around to face him. "Oh that's rich coming from the god who has an excuse for every flaming reason. What is it now?"

Now at long last, Hades fixated his gaze on her mirthless eyes and barely kept together composure. She had forgone her chthonic regalia in favor of her simple white peplos and floral pins now that she was ushering back life upon the earth, but the attire felt completely out of place upon her the way she rigidly stood, irascible and enervated. Nothing like the cheery goddess of Spring he had stumbled upon so long ago.

"Sweetness, please-" Hades watched Persephone's face begin to crumble, her weariness shifting before his very eyes, a sort of longing there within her, but that same distress marked by the twist of her lips and the deep furrow of her brow set it aside.

Whatever heartache was going to spill from her inner most heart came out in a frigid, indifferent, "It can wait till Fall."

Hades inwardly felt himself deflating, but resolve in the guise of fervent flames began to decorate down his neck, spanning the length of his shoulders. "Hey, this isn't like you. Did- did I do something," the god clumsily stringed his words trying to pinpoint a specific moment while he spoke until realization dawned upon him like Eos' rosy fingertips upon the morning sky. "Oh don't tell me this is about that Orpheus guy."

"Of course no-"

"Seph, sweetness, I gave him literally the easiest task, but that bozo gets the bright idea to look back one flaming step before he crossed onto terra-"

"-Sparky," she softly interjected.

"I would'a flambé'd him just for cracking the security system wide open, but taking a soul back to earth? I would've taken out that yutz myself just for the meshugge idea!"

"Hades!" Persephone frustratedly sighed. Whenever he went on tangents she could lose him for hours. "Are you done?" Persephone tsked.

"Not until you tell me why you've been so distant," Hades pivoted back in an instant, almost like his own tangent was a ploy to get his unusually distant wife to open up.

"You're asking me that as I'm leaving?! Look where we are! Look at the date!" Persephone's arms wildly gestured at the River Styx and the ever looming gates that drew her closer back to the mortal realm. "I tried to, but you were clearly too busy with something far more worth your time," she sarcastically quipped.

"Right, right, you've tried to talk to me," Hades mirthlessly laughed. That was the thing that had irked him about her back when they first met. She would always run from things. Her demons, her mother, himself for the five minutes it took to snag her- she didn't do confrontations. Growing up in a bubble, paradise, Eden, whatever the hell you wanted to call it, it was just nice to pretend everything was fine. To sweep things neatly under the rug like they didn't exist.

Her mother raised her so well upon that route that left her so frustrated, so wound up it didn't take more than one conversation with him in all his biting, blunt provocations at some meeting on Olympus for her to unleash what had been festering inside of her for eons. He wasn't particularly proud of his behavior in that moment a millennia ago, but he did it to everyone who was within earshot, relishing in the glares and the scowls of those who wouldn't dare insult or interact with the dread lord of the dead.

However, once he turned his underhanded comments onto her on the first time her mother let her out of the commune, instead of ignoring him like the rest of the glittering assemblage that seeming wallflower lashed out at him for hitting a little too close to home before her mother heard what was going on and dragged her to a different corner of Olympus.

That spark, that fire had him more smitten than he cared to admit at the time, but ever since then she had rarely ever allowed herself to hit that low again. She was the calmer one between the two of them, if you could believe that, but that was more attributed to her because of her background, and not so much her personality. Still, in the instances when she became distant or purposefully occupied, he could always tell when she was trying to avoid something that was bothering her, and now was no exception.

"Refresh my memory, babe, but when was that exactly? Weren't you holed up in Elysium for almost four flaming months this time around?!"

"You didn't give me much of a choice!" Persephone snapped, her rage finally bursting through its surface.

"Whaddya mean choice?! I didn't say zip when you came back, and if you want to go back farther, I gave you a choice to back out a long time ago! Pretend this," he gestured between the two of them, "Never happened!"

"And I don't regret that!" Persephone shouted just as loudly as he. It was times such as these, when Persephone remembered how she had once been so afraid of his untamed tempers. So unused to wearing emotions on your sleeves and not hiding behind a grin. And now here she was, meeting him beat for beat, never batting an eye from where she stood. "Not even now," she shook her head adamantly.

Hades felt his spirits rise. Maybe he could set things right.

"-We've made this work despite the distance- despite everything," she paused in an attempt to calm herself down. "But you're not seeing that you're putting it in danger all over again!"

The flame' haired god's hopes dashed away once more as his bitterness took hold of him. "I'm the problem now? Who am I kidding?" Hades rolled his eyes. "I've always been the problem," the flame-haired god threw his hands up in mock defeat. "At least that's what your Ma tells everyone. That I tricked you into staying here-"

"Hades, don't drag her into this again-"

"Don't drag her in? She's- Seph, look at us!" Hades stood practically smoke to toe with her, his back rigidly straight just to lock his gaze with her's thanks to her tall frame. "Her- Zeus- they're the reason you have to go back- the only reason we ever have arguments. Everything traces back to my own personal Tartarus you call a ma."

"That's not true and you know it," Persephone held her unflinching magenta gaze upon him. "The reason I haven't talked to you is because of the huge Trojan horse you wheeled into the room!"

"What? You want to have the kids talk now? Let's do it. How many brats you want? Hell, let's get started with the first one now and worry about that later!"

"NO! Having a kid isn't going fix this," Persephone rounded upon him, her unusually sharp canines glinting sharply in the gloomy light. "Isn't going to fix your- your obsession with overthrowing your brother- of ruling Olympus."

"FATES! Finally!" Hades flared, releasing a torrent of pent up flames in varying hues of scarlet and sulfur. "Is that really it?! My plan to get us out of this flaming hell hole?! To show everyone what they did to-"

"Oh now this is exactly why I didn't tell you in the first place!" Persephone shrieked, flames of rose emitting off of her and into the surrounding air. "You get so defensive about your little schemes to one up everyone who's ever wronged you. Am I on that list too, Hades? Or am I too naive to realize I've always been there- along with everyone you've ever known?!"

Hades stood there stunned. She was the only being in the entire cosmos who could rip him apart with her words, could tear his heart from his chest and serve it on a platter. "… How- how do you expect me to respond to that? You've never even brought up that you had an issue with it. You- you helped get the road paved and now you're backing out?!"

Hades tried to catch Persephone's eyes, but her gaze was everywhere but on him. "Perse, we've got two years to planetary alignment! Two years till the cosmos gets turned on its head!"

"Because I didn't fully understand how- how this," her hand floated over his chin then his cheek, a hair length away, but she could not utter the words, nor bring herself to close the distance between them and hold his face like she would to comfort him both because of the wild torrent of anger and heartache, and the hesitance that cropped up in her voice as she splayed her hand across the base of her throat where her collarbones met instead. That same haunted look from before filled with regret washed over her features before she painfully pulled herself away.

That single move twisted the arrow head imbedded in his heart around and around rendering a wound far worse than it had first created. Whoever said love was soft and sweet did not know of its cruelty, of how much agony it could render during seasons distance and the bitter words of indifferent hearts.

"What?" Hades bitterly tsked. "How we'd work out? I- I mean I know- I admit," he conceded with a beleaguered sigh. "I haven't been the most available with the business we're in, but it's an investment for the future-"

"Stop, stop-" Persephone shook her head all amid Hades' speech.

"We are so close, Seph," he stressed with urgency the likes of which she hadn't seen thus far. "To never having to worry, or be overworked, or anything ever again would keep us from enjoying eternity and we won't be trapped here-"

"JUST STOP IT!" Persephone screamed. A rush of emotions rife with pain and unrepressed sorrow finally began to make its presence known as the first tears streaked fast down her face.

"What did I-"

"Please, stop," Persephone covered her face with her hands in an attempt to keep her crumbling composure.

Hades hesitated. His hands reached out ready to embrace her, but quickly retracted them. His mind was erupting with guilt and rage. A part of him wanted nothing more than to hold her- to comfort her, and to slap himself for driving her to her breaking point, but the other was still teeming with hurt and betrayal. To have someone he trusted with all his blackened heart say the very things that tore away at him made the god loathe and regret his decision to not pull out the arrow when he had the chance. Images of what his life would've been like- how much less heartache he would have had to endure.

His indecision had him woodenly stand there once again reaching for her, but his mind had finally been made up. How could she say that? Didn't she want out of this place as much as him? She'd never said anything before, or was she just amusing him this whole time? Stringing him along just like-

Before either of their thoughts could settle, the ferry that carried the lord and lady of the dead crested upon the dark Stygian shore. Whatever words, whatever apologies, whatever last minute bitterness that could've been muttered by them, drifted away, snapping both gods to reality. Their time together had ended once more.

Charon expertly docked the ferry before it could careen off balance back onto the water. Silently, the ever taciturn ferryman for the first time in his service stepped off his ferry.

Hades stared dumbfounded as his ferryman offered his hand out to Persephone and helped her out of the boat.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Persephone whispered.

Charon shook his head, and squeezed her hand with all the comforting tightness a skeletal hand could muster.

"Persephone, let's talk about this-" Hades reached out just before Persephone could take her bags from Charon's hands. "Just- just tell me," stood in her path. "Why the change in tune? Since when did you not want me to take out Zeus?"

"Don't you get it?!" Persephone warbled, she stalked towards him, expecting to phase right through him, but the god remained solidified. In the process of ramming into him, Persephone dropped her bags and before she could stumble, Hades reached out his hands and steadied her. "I wouldn't be there!" She pushed him out of her way.

Hades stared stupefied at her. "What?" He genuinely asked, confused as all hell. "I'd be king of everything- your flaming mother wouldn't-"

"You get Olympus and we'd still be apart every six months," Persephone quietly hissed, launching a feeling colder than the waters of Styx down his spine. "I am eternally bound to this land."

A rush of green erupted from the tenebrous rocks and arid sand, turning from saplings to full blown bushes, obscuring his view as it completely burst into life around Persephone. In his haste, Hades ripped through the thick vegetation, trying to find her amid the thick ligneous branches that tried to deter him away when suddenly, the full grown trees began to bare fruit. With the trees growing ever taller, Hades found his wife with her hands emitting her signature peony pink glow before deepening into a darker, more mesmerizing red.

Persephone admired one such tree amid the grove as enticing red bulbs grew as large as his fist.

Pomegranates.

"Persephone," Hades whispered breathlessly, horror and anguish dripping in every syllable of her name now that everything clicked. Her lack of enthusiasm, her increasing dread, not wanting to be part of the meticulous planning, she didn't want to take his dream away all for the cost of her own. How long did she carry around that knowledge- that burden that his very presence brought because of his incessant need for vengeance now that it was happening in less than sixteen months.

He was such a schmuck.

"I didn't- I never realized-"

"You fought so hard to keep me," his wife shied away from him. "And now you'd resign me here to rule alone while you ruled on high. Would you even remember me all the way up there? Like your brothers did?"

Hades felt his throat constrict tighter than a python around its prey. She was the only goddess in the cosmos- only being for that matter, who could leave him utterly speechless.

"See you in six months," Persephone bitterly intoned. Vines rushed beneath their feet and seized her dropped luggage. Now that they were within her grasp, his wife emerged from her newly formed grove and stormed out of the gates of the Underworld where her mother waited with open arms.

Hades did not follow as quickly as before, almost resignedly treading his old footsteps as he did every equinox, not because he wanted to with his pride tarnished, but because habit was far stronger than he would ever give credit.

The snow covered earth almost instantaneously gave way to green shoots the moment Persephone stepped over the threshold, and likewise, the Underworld began to gradually grow all the more frigid.

Demeter welcomed her daughter into her tight embrace. His mother-in-law, attempted to soothe her daughter all while shooting the frostiest glare she could muster at him. A paradoxical sight as the sun began to shine in full force and all the flowers were suddenly in bloom.

Spring had returned at long last, but winter in the Underworld had just begun.


Hades numbly replayed that scene from three weeks earlier on repeat in his mind. Sitting, now, in a bubbly hot tub, the god could've been enjoying the jets of water undoing the tense knots in his shoulders and back, could've been taking a nap and letting the magic waters imported from Canathus do their job, but instead, he had been admiring a large pomegranate he held between his fingertips.

The spa attendants had left a basket full of them just before they finished preparing his bath and had given it to him to enjoy during his soak.

Meanwhile, Pain and Panic lumbered into the pristine spa, choosing to walk along its mosaic floors lined with intricate patterns depicting nymphs, flowers, and curling rings of foliage and pomegranates.

"The Tartarus stone massage sounds perfect for relaxing my tense muscles. What are you thinking about getting, Panic?"

"Oh I can't possibly choose between the full massage therapy or the Hesperides leaf body wrap," Panic twittered, his long nose stuck in between the sprawled pamphlet they held between the two of them.

"Why not both?" Pain leered.

"Oooh, can we, boss?!"

"Go crazy," Hades indifferently rolled his eyes.

Pain and Panic locked eyes and begrudgingly looked between the pamphlet in their hands and back to their boss. Flitting over to Hades' side, the two imps dipped their feet into the soothing water, waiting for him to throttle them or elicit some form of reaction, but he was just as apathetic as he was that morning. Almost like nothing had changed despite their destiny being flipped upside down.

"We can ask if they have other fruits, boss," Pain pushed, hoping maybe they could pull Hades out of his current funk.

"Like they'd have anything else in this Fate-forsaken land," Hades huffed, throwing it above him only to catch it a second later.

"Worms! What about we get you some worms, sir?" Panic twittered in his sanguine tone.

"And we should get a TV set in here and see how miserable everyone is!"

"Yeah, you did make Philoctetes a janitor, after all!"

The flurry of suggestions never seemed to cease from his imps and amid all of them, Hades carefully broke the pomegranate open between his hands, releasing dark ruby streams of juice over his hands and into the bubbling tub.

Who would have ever thought the only flaming fruit that grew in his dark and dank abode would simultaneously serve as the lifeline that kept Persephone in his life and a ball and chain that kept her rooted there. A millennia ago it had seemed a solution in a time when winter was at its harshest. And almost ironically, the Underworld was experiencing its very first summer, making the once cold and damp cavernous landscape, warm and steamy.

But, oh, those summer nights, Hades thought with a smirk.

Pain and Panic stared frustratedly at their boss still ignoring them with his prominent frown and sneer combo. Were they really gonna ignore the Hannibal elephants in the room?

"Boss, what if we just go back to the tapestry and put Persephone back in the narrative?" Pain huffed.

"Yeah, we did it before!" Panic agreed with the same obvious redundancy a teen would mutter to their clueless parent. "What's stopping you from trying again?"

The sound of her name reeled him out of his thoughts, and for a second, Hades allowed himself that hope.

And then without warning, his left hand crushed half of the pomegranate, sending juice flying all across the imps and himself. "And then what?" he disdainfully muttered, he shook off his hand sending bits of pomegranate everywhere. "Change everything I don't like about this world? Dump Hera- chance it that Persephone doesn't hold a grudge against me like Hera did with Zeus and the cycle begins again."

"But you two do love each other," Panic's shrill insistence sent a deeper frown down Hades' long face.

"A little look at the past couple years might tell ya otherwise," Hades miffed, Persephone's words on repeat in his mind ad infinitum.

"Couples bicker all the time," Pain's voice broke through Hades' concentration. "And you two disagree about everything."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Hades snapped.

"But you two are pros at working through your little seasonal tiffs," Pain reminded him. "Not everyone can make six months apart work."

"Or six months together," Panic added with a grin.

However, Hades did not take the joke kindly and immediately stood up from the hot tub and wrapped himself in the fluffy white towels with the Hotel Styx logo embroidered on the corner.

"Six months- you know what six months is to a god who's lived for eons?! It's a blink of a flaming eye!" Hades angrily paced around the bath house with Pain and Panic trailing him as he shouted. "Where on Gaia's green earth are the showers around here, huh?!"

"So the wait isn't that long, right?" Panic nervously asked.

"So is six months here," Hades snapped. "One blink she's gone- one blink she's here, it's an endless revolving door. Oi does it make my head spin! Didn't need to happen if she would'a just stayed and dropped her ma like last week's despot."

Still angrily speeding through the bath house, Hades stopped a passing shade. "Hey, you, babe, where's your flaming showers?"

The stuttering shade could barely muster a word before her own see-through hand shakily gestured towards somewhere behind the towering god.

Without so much as a thanks, Hades stomped in the direction the shade had pointed out. "But no she had to go noble on me, spouting some Cerberus dung about: "I have to think of the mortals- Jeez Louise- I did every flaming day for eons! I couldn't get one thing going for me?! Any other babe would'a let the world burn- hell I would'a, but not her," Hades flippantly groaned. "She's too goody two-sandals for that. Left me the second mommy came a'calling."

"Oh yeah, then why'd she take the fruit?" Pain bravely countered.

"Hell if I know," Hades ignored the insistent imp. "But what's one hell compared to another, eh, boys?"

"Yes, you do," Panic flew alongside Hades, trying to keep up with his brisk strides when resolution began to burn in the imp's veins far more potently than his own nerves. "And you're going nowhere beating yourself up for her own choice."

Hades ground to a halt at the sudden obstruction his imp had become by stopping directly in front of him. The newly minted king of the gods stared stunned and miffed at the sudden bravado from his most cowardly imp. Maybe Pain would, but not the imp who worried about what side of a gyro he was going to bite into first.

The god's hands were already half-way around Panic's neck, ready to strangle him for his audacity, but his hand dropped away in frustration as suddenly as it had appeared. Even the crackles of electricity that hung heavily around him seemed to disappear almost instantly, but the smell of rain wafted in both Pain and Panic's noses before literal rain clouds began to form along the coffered ceiling, darkening and coalescing until every speck of gold was shrouded in thick, heavy plumes.

"WHAT CHOICE?!" Hades roared in tandem with the lightning strike that struck his minions. "Sure, I booked a meeting with every lawyer, tore apart every corner of the Underworld, stole the Fate's eye to figure out a way to keep her, and you know what they traded me back for it? This flaming fruit!" He held out the other half of the pomegranate he had not destroyed.

"Use it wisely," the sordid cackles of the leering Fates mirrored his despair as they eagerly forked over the magenta pomegranate even without the promise of the return of their eye. His mere entrance alone had them bouncing around him, their gnarled fingers itching to return to their work and end the myth.

"I come home and there she was giving me those doe eyes, hanging onto every word to hear what the Fates had said, but I couldn't get a word out," Hades quieted. "Y'know what she did, boys?"

Memories of her holding him, pressing him to tell her no matter how much he couldn't bring himself to say it even as she brought her hands to his face and her kisses flooded every square inch of it. Their lips met and salt was all they could taste as their tears intermingled and slid off their faces, but Persephone's hands found what Hades was trying to hide as they roamed his frame and stole the pomegranate right underneath his nose. "She tricked me."

"I know you'd never ask me," she sadly smiled up at him as she broke their kiss, holding aloft almost proudly the dark pomegranate she held between her fingertips. "But I can't run away either. Not anymore." Her fingernails had dug into the waxy flesh and tore open the tedious fruit. Each seed, shiny and bright like a fistful of rubies as she plucked out one after another, six in total.

Hades tossed the remaining pomegranate half to Pain. "But that's the funny thing, boys. How do you con a conman?" Hades bitterly smirked as he stepped into the showers and closed the curtains, separating him from his imps.

Pain and Panic looked at each other, trying to figure out if their boss' question was rhetorical or not.

"You can't?" Panic nervously babbled.

"And why's that?" Hades pressed as he turned the shower nobs and relished the feel of his hair not going up in smoke.

"Uhh, cuz conmen are too clever for that?"

Hades did not answer as he ran his hands through his hair, slicking it back to make sure water seeped into every corner until his locks were drenched. Yeah, conmen like himself were clever, cunning was the better word, but, the only true way to con a conman was to let them con you first. And Persephone had done just that.

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Hades suddenly shouted, sending both his imps to fly into a panic.

"Uhh, you have to- have to-"

"Outsmart them?!" Pain cried.

"NO! WHO IS BESEECHING ME RIGHT NOW?!"" Hades tore open the shower curtains and grabbed the imps before they could escape from his grasp. Without a semblance of a warning and shampoo still running down his face, Hades snapped his fingers and disappeared with imps in tow.

The shower, however was still turned on, the water, running unabashedly loud and clear for all to hear.

Two shades peeked their head through the walls, one of them the attendant who had sent Hades in the direction of the showers earlier.

"Well, where is he?" The older shade with a gilded crown atop his eternally balding head asked the stupefied soul.

"He was just here. Look, he left the shower on," the woman grumbled and quickly disappeared only to reappear inside the shower to turn off the water. "No respect…"

King Minos tugged at his beard nervously. "She's not going to be happy about this."

"And that's before she sees the bill."


The beginning of this chapter almost didn't happen, but funnily enough when I finished the previous chapter I immediately started writing it. It just felt like a natural progression of things, but hey. It's why I added an extra chapter to this 5-shot now, and it kinda explains my feelings as to why I feel like Hades and Persy wouldn't have worked in Disney Hercules. Like yeah he's doing the twirling mustache thing of taking over the world, but like? Are we gonna take the pomegranate thing seriously or...?

See when you introduce something with consequences into writing it is so lazy to backtrack and be like oh that choice isn't going to affect this at all anymore. And if I have to face the consequences of my own actions- then so do my characters. Rip my sleep schedule rn.

Anyway, super excited for the next chapter. Also Now Hiring will be back soon, grad school is just rough- oy, but at least I got to travel a bit bc of it. Sorry for the long absence, my dear readers.

And as always, please fave, follow, and review!