"So lemme just- lemme just lay this all out. Just to make sure we're all on the same page here..." Hades' voice echoed through the halls of the Underworld, ringing against unheeding columns and rattling down the tightly-pressed corridors - the second-loudest noise in the entire subterranean realm. His pacing came to a stop by a stone door, whose occasional shudder shook grit from the ceiling and down onto their heads. Pain and Panic cringed against the floor, jangling like keys and letting out burbled sounds of grovelling, while Ganymede kept a tight hold of his crook.

"Thanks to your fun little stunt-" Hades flared red with every stressed syllable, "-I've now lost the only thing keeping my neck, and therefore your neck, from Zeus' chopping block! Am I getting that right? That sounds about right. Because of the two of you bungling every- single- task that I give you, me, no-no-" he laughed, "our days are now numbered! We have until that turtle-brained brute of a brother of mine figures out how to trick someone other poor schmuck into this job until we all fry!"

Pain and Panic creaked open an eye and cast each other a glance, until Pain dared to lift his head. "Um... your great Depressiveness... it was the kid who-"

"Who lost the stupid cup in the first place?!" Hades turned all his rage on Pain as his flames shot to the ceiling. "Oh-HO don't you worry!" His yellow eyed fixed to Ganymede. "I'm not forgetting!" But then his eyes pinned back down on them. "But as for you two-!" He grabbed them in one hand as they yelled and squirmed - but didn't resist - then the handle of the door in the other. Flinging it open, he smashed them all together. "Enjoy your new room-mate!" He held the door shut on them as if he were forcing the lid onto a blender, as crying, scrambling, thumping and the angry roar of the Minotaur all sounded at the same time.

"Good thing they're immortal," Ganymede said.

"Shut up, kid." Hades locked the door with a furious twitch of his shoulder. "I haven't even started on you yet."

Peace still wrapped itself around Ganymede's heart, but as Hades' anger rose and sizzled against his face (he could feel his eyeballs starting to steam), his own anger started squeezing down on it - hoarding it by scrunching it up and gripping it tight. It would be easy to accept the incoming punishment, to be thrown from the roof or penned in with the Minotaur, because he couldn't feel anything anyway, but Hades represented a far greater danger than that.

He wanted to reach him. Even as he tried to crush down on his heart again, this sympathy it held sought out its natural end. It was for Hades, for what good that did either of them, and he could no longer tell if his attempts to stifle it hurt, or if the sympathy itself did. 'Tend to your flock', the cross had said, but to do that would mean showing this new peace to the outside world - and the outside world would kill it. Either he allowed Hades to smash it to pieces, or it would die of neglect.

He tried to watch Hades as the man gestured viciously in front of him, tried to witness him so hard that he stopped thinking about himself.

The god of the dead was old, he was tired, and he was sick of losing. He wanted this pantomime of discipline over with as quickly as possible, and on that they both agreed.

"It's thanks to you that those two idiots even had a chance to fail!" Hades continued his tirade. He stormed down the hallway, and Ganymede knew he had to either follow him or be grabbed and frog-marched, so he kept a trotting pace beside him. Hades gestured, flames licking at the air. "What kind of bozo uses their own sorry behind as leverage, then loses the only proof he's got that the damn thing was ever in jeopardy?! I'd have thought you'd at least have the smarts to realise that that stupid party favour was the only meal ticket you had!"

Suddenly his tunic was grabbed and he was dragged, hopping, around in front of him. "And now my ass is on the line because your scheme fell through! Because I'm the sorry idiot who put his neck on the line for you!" Ganymede's chest lurched, hot injustice throwing itself around that inner sympathy and shoving back at his attacker.

"To be fair," Ganymede tried not to sneer as he peeled those claws from him, recoiling from the sensation against his bare shoulders, "You didn't do it outta the kindness of your heart." Hades threw up his hands and moved on.

"If you're lookin' for pity you shouldn't have gotten yourself sacrificed to the freakin' Underworld! What do I look like, a therapist?!" They descended the stairs to the throne room as Ganymede wheeled out his shoulder.

"Hey man, my sacrifice is-"

"Proof that the last clever scheme you had probably didn't end well!"

Ganymede's jaw set. The funny thing about peace was that by wringing his hands around it, he could no longer feel it. "When was the last time one of yours ended well?!" he snapped. Hades spun around and yanked him from his feet. Sharp teeth filled his field of vision as his staff clattered to the ground.

"Are you blaming me, ya little runt?!"

"No!" His skin prickled with sweat as Hades' flames rose. The god's eyes glared wide and hatefully at him, and on instinct he glared back as if staring into the sun and daring it to burn out his sight. "I'm saying that this is a waste of time!" Hades' fist shook beneath his chin as his iron-clad grip on his clothes reached a crescendo, then he was thrust to the ground in a tangle of limbs. With a cough, he grabbed for his crook, and out the corner of his eye he saw Hades groan into his hands.

"Zeus is gonna skin me alive."

The black throne manifested and Hades threw himself down onto it. Rubbing circles into his temples, his eyes clamped shut. "What'd I ever do to deserve this, huh?"

Ganymede picked himself up off the floor. His eyes drifted to the staff in his hand, then to the man bent into his throne. Then he realised that no harm had been done, the bluster had passed and, with some amusement, realised that it wasn't just Hades' rhythms at play here. He allowed a small smile to creak onto his face.

He took a step towards him, leading with his shoulder before swaying upright. "Well..." His voice slid through the air like a violin. "You did try to kill Zeus' infant son." Hades lifted his head and snapped back,

"That was one time! Eighteen years ago!"

"Then you tried it again, and tried to overthrow Olympus..." He sucked his teeth and checked the watch he didn't have, "... Three weeks ago."

"Other than that!"

"Other than that," Ganymede said with a grin, "You've been a perfect saint."

Hades sighed and sank back into his throne, smoke lapping around their feet as he dimmed to a moody blue. Then his eyes darted to the young man beside him. "I oughta throw you in the Styx," he grumbled. Ganymede leant back against his staff.

"You wanna remind me why I threw that little tantrum in the first place?" he replied. Hades' anger had been spent - their anger had been spent. They could navigate this, so long as they were sensitive, patient and bulletproof. Being none of those things, Ganymede's added a sullen, "You started it."

Hades' head jerked upright. "Nuh-uh!"

"Yuh-huh!"

Hades jumped up from his throne and held out his hands to throttle him, and like a startled antelope he darted behind the table. Hades dodged one way, he dodged the other, the flames jumping from blue to red until suddenly Hades stopped and let out a bark of laughter.

"What the Hell am I doing?!" He snapped his finger at Ganymede, then pointed to a space next to his throne. "You - I'm a god, you're a mortal. Stand there."

Ganymede's smirk returned. "So you can strangle me?" He moved anyway as Hades eased himself back down.

"No, so I can bestow some kinda just and divine punishment on you."

Standing next to the throne, Ganymede waited, his smile fading. Hades watched him, tapping his chin in agitation. Then he threw up his hands. "Ugh! What am I supposed to do to a schmuck with nothing left to lose?! What, should I double your duties? Make you wash the dog? You already wash the cow!" He gestured to the boy as if this was his fault. "I can't do anything to you!"

That crooked grin reignited. "The benefits of rock-bottom." Hades sighed and sank even lower in his throne.

"Not that it matters anyway - my days are numbered."

Ganymede watched the hollows around his eye sockets and his own brows gently lifted. He stepped that bit closer to his throne, aware of the empty space around them and how small they both were in comparison to it. He had the sudden, mad desire to rest a hand on Hades' shoulder.

He folded his arms, the crook cutting a diagonal across his chest, and furrowed his brows. "If you really thought it was that hopeless, you'd have killed me with your bare hands before I'd even walked through the front doors."

Hades chuckled, "That's true."

"So obviously this isn't hopeless," he continued with a hopeful wheel of his palms. "There must be something here we can use."

Together they fell silent. Ganymede noticed that the silence no longer threatened him. Hades, however, cut across before this place felt too much like his tomb.

"Agh! I can't think like this!"

"It'll come to you," Ganymede said. "It's just been a long day."

Hades grunted, and with a wave of his hand summoned a glass of something dark red and strong. "You can say that again." The unspoken rhythm presumed he would now leave, unpunished thanks to the mercy (and lack of imagination) of the Lord of the Dead, but Ganymede cocked his head, his arms still folded.

"You could at least offer me a seat."

"Oh," Hades summoned a stool behind the young man's sandals, too distracted to notice. "Sure." It was only when Ganymede had already sat down that he suddenly snapped, "Hey! Don't abuse my hospitality, kid!"

"Trust me." Ganymede set down his crook and held up his hands in surrender. "I would never assume you were hospitable." Hades harrumphed as he took a slug from his glass.

"Good."

Ganymede eyed the hunch of his shoulders and the trilling of his claws against the arm of his throne, and wondered if either Pain or Panic had ever interpreted the god's rage as fear before. His mind idled on the question: everybody had a weakness - what was Hades'?

"Hey," he asked as Hades considered his drink (and had yet to offer him one) "Why Pain and Panic? You made 'em, right?"

Hades rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me." Ganymede clasped his hands between his knees and waited until the silence compelled him to continue. He sniffed, then spun out his explanation in a scathing drawl. "Look, I didn't have a whole lotta time, okay? When Zeus declared that I was the sap taking this gig, I only had about five seconds to summon up a couple of goons before my godly powers got permanently downgraded. If I'd been given a little forewarning or, I dunno, some help maybe I could come up with something more impressive. Or at least one of them coulda figured out how to make a decent cup of coffee."

"So," Ganymede's head tilted the other direction, "in a split-second decision, you ended up making something called 'Pain' and another called 'Panic'?"

"They didn't pop outta my imagination. I didn't design those little creeps."

"You just kinda built them automatically?"

Hades sighed. "Bingo."

Ganymede's eyes softened as the implications presented themselves. Realising what he may have accidentally revealed to the both of them, Hades' eyes narrowed at him. "Don't read too far into it."

"Right."

As if looking to balance the scales, and probably enjoying the extended conversation on some level, Hades jerked his head to the crook lying at Ganymede's feet. "So what's the deal with that thing? You're a little old for a comfort blanket." Ganymede hooked one foot in front of it and tucked it beneath him with his heel. He cringed.

"What, this thing? I-I dunno..." Sensing blood in the water, Hades leaned forwards. Ganymede's ears tinged a darker green. "It's just a souvenir, that's all."

"Uh-huh," Hades replied, unsatisfied. "From back when you were a 'good guy', right?" Ganymede's attention snapped to him. He raised his hands, one wrapped around the glass. "Hey, I don't blame you. Who doesn't love a happy memory?" Glancing at his crook once more, those old wounds with the brand-new sutures ripped part-way open again, and he heard himself speak.

"I just... used to be more than this," he said, knowing that he was once again seeking sympathy from a man who had none to give. For a bright and joyful second he had forgotten that he was Ganymede the dead shepherd, the discarded ragdoll, the heartless weasel, and had considered himself a temporary angel. For a second he had just been a Thing That Wanted To Be Nice, but then context came crashing back in. He didn't even have the energy to rekindle that rage.

Hades sucked his teeth and took another sip. "But then Zeus happened, right?"

Ganymede nodded. "Then Zeus happened. And then..." Confession tightened up his insides, but just as Hades' interest piqued, he shoved it all down and deflected the blow. He opened his eyes again. "Hey, maybe we outta form a club."

Disappointed but not overly invested, Hades allowed the shift. "I don't wanna have to think about that big idiot any more than I have to."

Ganymede wilted with shame, and Hades noted with discomfort that he hadn't meant to do that. Much though his patience, magnanmity and good nature had withered away in the course of thousands of years, he didn't actually dislike the kid.

Their similarities hadn't been lost on him - he was, after all, no fool. They were both scheming manipulators, both blowhards, and he did appreciate their mutual sense of vindicated bitterness. Olympus had fucked them both over and fate had dumped them both into the Underworld, and they were both pretty handsome devils to boot. The one thing Ganymede had that he didn't, though, was that gross sense of shame. That difference, as stark as a flag stabbed into the dirt between them, made him uncomfortable. It forced him to admit that this mortal knew something he didn't.

Groaning internally, he clicked his fingers and the stool evaporated - but before the kid could hit the floor he vanished in a puff of smoke only to reappear at his side. The glass vanished as Ganymede gathered his bearings, then he levelled his hands at him.

"Look - kid - Ganymede - whatever." He'd never said his name before. "You're a bright kid - real bright - and if you hadn't gotten yourself sacrificed to me you could have really made something of yourself." Ganymede braced against the compliments because he was, after all, a bright kid, but Hades continued. "I'm not in the business of inflating egos, but hey - you've got more going on than my stupid brother, okay? Don't - don't let him get into your head." A smile passed shyly behind the kid's gaunt eyes, and this one seemed to come from a deeper source than the ones he'd managed to achieve before. He wouldn't say it warmed his heart or anything, but it was easier to live with that than that kick he'd taken a second ago. With an uneasy grimace of his own, he leant back in his throne. "Theeere you go, see? You're made of stronger stuff." Ganymede managed a laugh, but then managed to surprise him.

"Did you know... I didn't even know what I wanted? When it came to trading for that lousy cup?"

Hades blinked, then replied, "That makes two of us."

Ganymede stared at him with horrified humour, then stretched out and buried his hands in his hair.

"Ohh, we're both such idiots!"

Hades smirked bitterly. "... Yeah, okay. I'll give you that one."

He had no idea that it wasn't the praise that had dragged Ganymede back towards the light, but the fact that someone - especially someone who understood things the same way he did - had for once reached out to stop him dying any further.

Ganymede eased open the door to the Minotaur's new room and ducked Pain as he banked off the wall above his head. Panic leapt from corner to corner as the Minotaur roared and chased the sound of the imps' terrified yelling, headbutting Pain's round body like a basketball. He couldn't quite tell whether the big bull was in distress or having fun, but the two minions certainly weren't.

Pain's voice ricocheted off the wall as he bounced, but the minute he caught sight of the open door Panic slid between Ganymede's feet and vanished down the corridor. Ganymede flapped his hand at Pain to try and catch his attention. Pain landed in the corner and yelled in terror as he crammed himself as deep into the seam of the walls as he could.

"It's blind!" Ganymede hissed over at him. "Stop yelling!" Pain slapped his hands over his mouth as his tail shivered miserably beneath him. The Minotaur paused and sniffed the air. The battered little creature inched his way towards the door. Ganymede tugged it open that bit wider, stepping silently out of the way as he kept his weight balanced and ready to run. Pain nudged a pebble with his knee.

Letting out a roar in an emotion Ganymede couldn't quite make out, the Minotaur aimed a giant, saw-toothed hoof at Pain's panicked scrambling. Unable to contain himself a moment longer, the imp let out a scream and wheeled in midair for traction as the impact came. Ganymede lunged out his crook and yanked for him as the hoof shattered the rock behind him.

Ganymede came to a trotting stop amongst the collonnades once they had left the range of the Minotaur's lowing. Pain hung from the crook of his arm, but squirmed free as they came to the edge of a rooftop. The impossible architecture of the Skull spanned above and below them like the gothic turrets of a cathedral, with no barricades to stop them stepping off of a walkway and onto the blue slate of a temple roof.

Pain's tail bent at all sorts of crooked angles, his body black and blue, and as he examined the state of himself his lower lip quivered in a caricature of emotion. Ganymede stepped beside him, then crouched down to his height. "You guys keep any first aid kits?"

"Sure," Pain said, and thumbed to the edge of the roof. "It's the law."

Not fully comprehending, Ganymede slid himself to the edge of the roof.

The Styx scrolled beneath them, lit up by the moans of the dead. The broad green stripe crawled into the black distance, too far and too lightless to follow, as the dome of the cavern roof hung high above their heads, its stalactites like teeth. He peered up at the rock, but without Lachesis pointing out the seam, it was impossible to see the door.

He caught sight of a red first-aid kit below him, nailed to the flat surface beneath the overhang of the tiles. "Oh!" He leant down and swiped it. "How inconvenient." Pain waddled over.

The vicious little monster looked particularly pathetic with his corkscrew tail and black eye, but his beady eyes and sharp teeth weren't designed to generate sympathy. He probably knew it too, because he held up a hand to take the kit himself. Ganymede sat himself down and swung his legs over the ledge. He set the kit in his lap and snapped it open himself.

"Hey!" Pain popped up at his elbow. "Don't throw it over!" Ganymede glanced at him as he pulled out a roll of gauze.

"Why would I do a dumb thing like that?"

"I dunno," Pain kicked the ground, momentarily bitter at old memories. "Maybe you'd think it was funny."

Ganymede set the kit aside and flicked his hair from his shoulder. "Well lucky for you, I used to be the best shepherd in Troy." Pain twitched.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Ganymede's grin wasn't exactly carefree, but it did suit him. "It means I'm particularly good at dealing with weird and uncooperative animals."

"Huh?"

He plucked Pain off of the ground, who shrieked in instant offense. "Hey!" He went rigid, bewildered, as he was suddenly clamped between two thighs and the sound of tape ripped over his head. "What're you-?!"

With a matron's perfunction, Ganymede stuck and taped and disinfected the cuts. Pain struggled until he realised that there were no pranks, no taunts, and no further punishments coming his way. Then his limbs eased and he hung limp from the clamp Ganymede had him in, allowing himself to be turned idly like a pig on a spit. When Ganymede understood that Pain wouldn't struggle his wounds worse, he lifted him carefully and settled him on his lap. Pain let him pull out a skinny leg and apply a band-aid to his knee.

"Why're you being so nice to me?" he asked eventually.

"Hold this," Ganymede said, and popped a roll of tape into his hands. Pain held it in front of his stomach as he continued, "I guess at this point I just don't see what I've got to lose." He took one of Pain's horns and gently eased it back into shape - not entirely sure if it was possible, but ready to be surprised by what the shapeshifter was capable of. Pain flinched.

"Sorry."

"No, it's fine."

All that was left was his tail, but when Ganymede went to touch it, Pain whimpered and snapped it away. It shuddered when it moved, like the miniscule vertebrae no longer knew how to communicate. "Is it that bad?" Ganymede asked. Pain slipped to the ground and twisted around to get a clear look at it. It hung limply, like a broken sign.

"A little," he said.

Ganymede leant back in thought before asking, "Can't you turn into something with less tail? Maybe when you turn back it'll, I dunno, reset?"

Pain's face contorted with thought, then his body disappeared into ribbons of smoke. He reformed into a fat, pink sheep, still covered with bandages but with a short, fluffy tail - too short to break. "How's that?" he asked, his expression dopier when flanked by floppy ears and blunt teeth. He didn't receive an immediate reply, and turned back to him. "Hey! I said-" His ears dropped. "You good?"

Ganymede's hand covered his mouth, unbidden tears filling his eyes. They clenched shut when he nodded, sending tears down his cheeks. "Yeah!" he gasped, not knowing where the sudden grief came from, nor why it felt so good. His smile wobbled as Pain stepped around on two hooves and gave his tail a shimmy.

"Stiff, but it'll do!" Hands suddenly grabbed for him. "Wh-!" Ganymede wrapped himself around him and gave his head a rough pat, squeezing his woolen coat and drying his tears on his fur. "What're you doing now?!"

"Sorry!" he sniffed, his voice thicker. "I just really like sheep!" He let him go and tried to push him back to the ground, but Pain wouldn't be moved. Tail fluttering, his ears perked up and he bleated,

"Do that again!"

Finally, Ganymede's coarse and crow-like laughter bounced off the surface of the Styx. Though he was no longer a real shepherd and Pain was not a real sheep, and though they were two unnatural and strange beings haunting a world beneath the surface of the Earth, a real hand ran down a real snout and two real hearts decided that things weren't all bad - at least not at this very moment.

Panic heard bubbly voices as he passed through the temple walkways with a few stolen poker chips in his hands. He stuck his beak over a balustrade to see sheep and shepherd below, then like a gecko he skittered down the wall.

Dropping his chips next to the crook, he folded his arms in a childish affectation of authority.

"What're you guys doing?"

Pain, now laying shamelessly in the crook of Ganymede's arm, kicked one lazy hoof and replied,

"Jealous?"

"Obviously!" Panic replied, his spines lifting with emotion. He scampered up to Ganymede's side. "Move over!"

Whatever instinct that usually got them turning into the same thing kicked in, and Panic became a limp and skinny green sheep - one who rolled over immediately for belly-rubs without even knowing what they were. Ganymede picked him up by the scruff and set him on his lap as well, then found the good patch at the base of his neck. The second imp's leg instantly kicked so hard that his hoof thumped against his thigh.

Never in thousands of years had playful laughter echoed from the waters of the Styx, nor had the eerie light fallen on eyes twinkling with affection. Pain and Panic had never been petted before, nor ever been looked at by someone so thankful for their existence.

But for perhaps the first time in his life, Hades had been correct in his estimation of a human being. For all the power that Zeus held over their heads, and for all that Olympus had ripped away from him, Ganymede was still a shepherd, he was still sitting on a mountaintop, and he was still, stubbornly, caring for his sheep.