VIII

Pax's first impression of Tartarus was that it was fluffy. Hot, but fluffy.

When he woke, his throat felt like he had drank a liter of soda, stuffed some Mentos into his gullet immediately afterwards, and leaned back for ensuing explosion.

Someone had his head in their lap and, thus far, he'd give his stay a 6 out of 10 stars, only so low because he was pretty sure each breath was caustic to his lungs. High, because apparently he got to sleep in people's lap and have that person press a cup to his lips.

Pax was expecting cooling water.

Whatever he greedily slurped down wasn't water.

Pax, and the whole Pax family, prided themselves in their ability to handle spicy food. People always assumed it came as second nature since they were from Central America. False. Plenty of areas in Belize and Mexico had more savory foods. Their main dish was rice, beans, and chicken with red recado. Not spicy. Pax had trained himself to fit the spice-immune stereotype, mostly to mess with Matthias.

Now, his mouth, throat, and stomach felt like they were on fire. He retched, trying to spit it out. The person holding him clamped a hand over his mouth.

A cooling sensation spread through his system as the liquid settled into his body.

When he opened his eyes, they burned. After blinking a few times, he realized the feeling wasn't going away. Maybe he'd need to change his rating to 5 out of 10 stars.

Panicked, green eyes gazed back down at him. For a moment, he wanted to sob in relief about seeing Alabaster. Alabaster would know how to take care of him and get them back home. He'd be okay suffering like this for a few moments in Alabaster's lap.

Upon seeing the dark curls sticking to the girl's face, Pax felt himself get worried. "Lou Ellen?" he said or tried. His voice came out like crackling rocks. Good to see her alive, but that meant no Alabaster. No Luke. No—Pax seized upon realizing who else they were missing. "Where—"

"He's up!" Lou Ellen's voice was just as scratchy.

"'Up' is a generous descriptor," Pax said. He should probably save his breath for something other than sarcasm and bad jokes, but what was the point in living if you had to do that?

Relief returned to him when he saw someone limping their way. The closer Axel got, the more Pax's hope sank.

Axel looked terrible. The blisters that had covered his arm, the one from the fun encounter with the River Styx, had busted. The skin under was raw and bloody. The exposed skin on Axel's face was cracked and flaking, something Pax had never seen. While Pax and Hiro—his littlest brother—both sunburned and were mocked relentlessly for it in school, he'd never seen Axel burn.

The tension in Axel's jaw eased when he saw Pax sitting up. He staggered across an obsidian abyss into the white, waist-high fluff that Pax and Lou Ellen were curled on.

He held a travel cup in either hand. Something flickered inside.

"Another for each of you," Axel said, barely needing to lean down to hand them to Lou Ellen. "Start drinking and don't spill."

She traded an empty cup for the two, carefully balancing the handles in one hand. Pax hoped nothing bad had happened to the hand she had propping him up. Lou Ellen made a face, clearly displeased.

Pax sat up to glance inside his supposed cup. He swallowed. There were flames boiling, making the interior of the cup glow. "You know, back in the circus, I never did learn how to properly eat fire—"

"Ajax," Axel said. The tone was icy, serious, too much like their father's. From the looks of it, Axel was exhausted, in pain, and, worse, nervous about their environment.

Pax took his cup without another word. The more he sat up, the more he sank into the white fluff around them. "Why are we drinking this?" he asked, his voice shrinking at the enormity of their situation.

"It'll sustain us, I think," Lou Ellen whispered. "Alabaster and I have used the River Phlegethon in… in experiments…" Her voice trailed off. Alabaster, Lou Ellen, and the other children of Hecate did experiments that Pax wasn't allowed to see. Lou Ellen always laughed it off when he asked. He wondered if those laughs had always been nervous.

Pax wanted to cheer up Lou Ellen and find a way to stall drinking this fire or—assuming that's what he had earlier—stall drinking more of it. He also didn't want to upset Axel. He hated when Axel sounded like their dad.

He gulped one more time and held the cup out towards Lou Ellen. "To sleeping with the other one's brother," he said by way of cheers.

For a split second, he thought Lou Ellen would strike him with her cup. Then, her expression cracked into an anxious grin. She giggled and whispered back, "To sleeping with the other one's brother."

Axel kept his gaze vigilantly out to survey the area. However, Pax saw his brother's tufted ears twitch and his cheeks, if possible in the heat, go redder. The ears dropped low to his hairline.

Making people uncomfortable: the best way to distract from any situation.

Pax and Lou Ellen clanked their cups together. Wisps of fire slipped over the edge. They both made faces before tilting their heads back.

The experience wasn't better the second time.

Once Pax was done coating his insides with napalm, he winced, rubbing away any residual flame-stache he might have acquired on his upper lip. He glanced around, trying to find something to lighten the mood. "The cotton ball bed is a nice touch. Very considerate for Tartarus."

Lou Ellen paled. "I—I panicked. I wanted feathers. This was probably safer…" Her hands trembled as she collapsed her cup and shoved it into a travel case at her back.

Pretending Axel hadn't heard their earlier cheers, he awkwardly patted Lou Ellen's shoulder. "Lou Ellen saved our lives. If she hadn't done this, we would have probably died on impact."

"And now the Underworld has a thousand year supply of cotton balls," Pax said, giving Lou Ellen a thumbs up.

"The Princess Andromeda might not be happy when their entire stash disappears. I had to pull from somewhere," she said shyly, blushing at Axel's touch on her shoulder. "Like I said, I panicked. We're a long ways away, and Alabaster made me practice with cotton balls for transportation circles…"

Pax nodded. He blinked at Axel, noticing something different about his condition. "You're looking… visible."

Axel let his hand fall off Lou Ellen's shoulder. "I don't know what happened to Hades' helm. I was a little distracted when we were falling. After I crawled out of the cotton balls—"

"They were once heavily concentrated in one spot," Lou Ellen supplied, motioning to the twenty-foot diameter dispersal.

"—it was gone."

Pax was relieved Axel had no intentions of hunting through thousands of cotton balls to find it, if it was even down here. Had Luke been around, or maybe even Alabaster, that would have been the new field trip assignment. Nothing like a scavenger hunt through hell.

Axel offered a hand to Pax. "We need to get moving." That tone made it clear Lou Ellen and Axel had already discussed their next course of action and that they were either on a timeline or in some kind of danger.

Pax took his hand. "Didn't Alabaster suggest we flee down here because monsters are down here?" When Pax first got to his feet, he almost face-planted back into the cotton balls. His body felt stiff and ached. Axel kept a hold on him while he got his footing.

Once Pax was stable, Axel reached down to help up Lou Ellen. She wavered against Axel's chest for a moment—Pax hoped so Lou Ellen could curl against Axel a little longer and not because she was woozy. "Not all of them support Kronos, or are my siblings. And, even if they're both those things, they're not always friendly," she said.

Axel helped the two of them navigate the white fluff. The cotton balls were almost up to Pax and Lou Ellen's chests and nearly impossible to push through with how exhausted they felt.

"Lou Ellen, not that I don't appreciate you saving our lives and other small things, but what are you doing here?" Pax said, already huffing. He wanted to keep things light, to keep everyone distracted from where they were and how badly they needed suntan lotion in this sunless world.

Lou Ellen's breath came in tight gasps. She giggled despite herself. "I'm not the best at distance spell casting yet. Conjuring something here is one thing. Keeping you invisible takes concentration."

They made it through the white fluff and stumbled onto the obsidian ground. Even with his combat boots on, Pax could feel how uneven the terrain was.

Axel checked Lou Ellen and Pax over. She had her arms folded across her chest, like she was somehow cold here. Once Axel decided neither of them had lost a limb, he waited patiently for Lou Ellen.

She gestured downriver.

They began to walk.

"And Witch Boy just let you stay willingly? His little sister on her lonesome to help fight Hades and his army?" Pax asked.

Pax could feel Axel's glare. This—he and Lou Ellen sneaking down here on their own—was going to be a sore subject for months. It was Axel's fault for thinking he could sneak into the Underworld on a dangerous mission without telling Pax. The more Pax saw that this place wasn't exactly Candyland, the more Pax realized why Axel hadn't said anything. There was no way Axel was finding a girlfriend down here and Pax would have never approved of his vacation choice.

Lou Ellen held up the hand that she'd kept tucked under her armpit. Except, she wasn't holding up a hand. She was holding up a stump of a hand, the skin looking cartoonishly cut. He could see the clean white of her bones and red of her muscles. No blood. Apparently, she had lost a limb. Her giggle was suppressed by the disgusting toxicity of the air. "Alabaster told Jack to take my hand to keep track of where I was. So, I gave it to him."

Axel frowned at the stump. "That's… brilliant and disgusting, Lou Ellen."

She blushed, tucking the stump back under her armpit. "Thanks. When Al's invisibility spell wears off, Jack will realize he's holding a disembodied hand." She laughed again. "I hope he freaks out."

"That's mean," Axel chided, though a smile cracked along his cracking lips.

"And hilarious," Pax said, "That's a really impressive trick of the Mist."

Lou Ellen's face fell.

Axel's smile soured. "It is a trick of the Mist, right?" he asked.

"Um… it was supposed to be," she said, her voice quiet. "I wasn't specific in my spell casting… or the time limit for it…"

Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped the air out. Half-a-second later, he could hear Axel do the same.

"We should get your hand back onto your body as soon as possible, in case the magic keeping the limb and stump preserved starts to fade," Axel said, gently.

Lou Ellen glanced down. "But, we're so close. And, it's not like we're going to be visiting Tartarus sometime soon on a joy ride."

From what Pax could see, the landscape stretched on into dismal plateaus of pain for miles, each gradually decreasing in elevation. He feared how they would get out of here if they continued downward.

"A fun side-trip? Where are we going?" Pax asked. Normally, he didn't scare easy with Axel around. Seeing the look of determination on Axel's face made him worried about what made Axel so determined.

Axel clenched his jaw, scowling out into the abyss. "To repay one of the biggest debts humanity has ever accrued."

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :D And I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. Stay tuned to see which celebrity is showcased in next week's episodes of Cottonballs from Hell.