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Chapter Text

The ashes beneath his feet speak of secrets that no one dares whisper.

Hades, that’s who he is.

He feels like he has to remind himself a couple of times. As decades meld into centuries into forever. A rough draft scratched over so many times that it was more angry than purposeful.

He walks with his eyes blind and posture willowy. His grey gown gathers like smoke around him, curled around his wrist and neck like jeweled curses.

He is the ruler of the Underworld.

Underworld is a misguided destination, more of a haven than people like to believe.

Not everyone lives because they want to.

He lets his terror announce his presence as he descends the gilded stairs of his palace. Once in a while, he likes touring his kingdom. 

Things - his belongings, his subjects, his responsibilities, his victims - they call him. Seeking him and assuring him, that he is needed and not entirely as forgotten and demented as his ever deluging chalice would have him believe. Lying on his throne, under hooded fumes of transgression that fill every nook and cranny of the palace, hearing ever resonating cries of the souls reaping their poisoned fruits, and surrounded by walls so cold that he has forgotten what it is like to have a skin that isn’t obsidian.

A blood-curdling scream tugs at the tendrils of his attention. He turns his head, making his black hair, wild and lustrous, spill over his shoulder. A wretched soul is trapped in the clutches of Furies and begging for relief.

Xiao Zhan sighs and moves on.

He crushes a skull under his feet and feels every blink like a task.

He stops.

His nails gleam under the hell-fire that circles his kingdom and his fingers are covered in jewels. Ruby red, green emerald and blue sapphire. 

He decides to intervene.

Vicious, hideous Furies pay him no heed, too busy agonising their prey.

The girl has lost hair from her head, empty patches bloody and sticky, her face is disfigured, her body has more cuts than skin and she still finds in her to fight against the most ferocious of his underlings.

He waves his hand and a heavy gust of wind blows the Furies away. 

Screeching and flabbergasted, they howl and wail at him. Indifferent to their squabbling, with burning grievous eyes, he watches the girl make a run.

And very slowly and morbidly, he lets a smile ache his face.

Within a blink, he decides to twirl his hand and hears his wrist creak with rust; his body so used to passivity, is already complaining and demanding oblivion. Soon, he promises, and lets the swarm of shadows lift and snatch the girl.

She screams and thrashes, too full of force for the dead. She looks like she has not taken kindly to death.

He labours his middle finger and tugs the girl in front of him. She lets out a piercing cry and doesn't stop until Xiao Zhan has had enough and chokes the noise out of her.

She claws her neck and throws daggers at him with her eyes.

What a tedious creature!

In front of Hades, and his scorching gaze, she looks undeterred and venomous.

Something in her makes him remember his birth.

Not as a god, but as a king of the Underworld.

A faithless lot that had dictated what the rest of his life would be like. An ever spreading empire under the malodorous night sky and riches of every caliber and dead of ever mal-intent available at his beck and call.

Initially, he had rejoiced. Too tired of his siblings and mortals, craving some quiet and solitude. He remembers feeling effervescent, heady with the knowledge that ultimately everything ended with him, every soul was under his command, every verdict under his whim.

He is no more what he previously was.  

But the girl is a handful, despite her fits he slowly wrings her body through so much pain that she bends and curves abnormally under it.

And she dies without dying, making Xiao Zhan unintentionally look at the sky… and miss.

Something, anything, whatever that does not have a name.

So many things exist nameless, you only know these things when you are God of the Dead and friends with nothingness. 

When he sees lesser beings hesitating near the body, too used to him spending eons torturing his favourite runaways, he only shakes his head and lets them know that he is done.

He is done.

He walks on and peers over the cliff. There lies Tartarus at the far end. A glowing promise of endless misery, his pride and his crown.

He looks to the left where the Asphodel Fields lie, one of his well-loved pastimes has been looking at Shades toiling aimlessly and ghostly through the fields. He found them to be the mirror of his truth, spoken too late and misunderstood eternally.

He doesn’t look to his right, he knows what shiny pricks are situated there. They were more political than deserving and the most undesirable part of his realm. 

He closes his eyes, and feels them sting. The ground shakes under his feet as he gathers an inkling of his power, letting it hum and thrum in his body. Feeling his power, the whole Underworld falls silent, the courts, the fields, the lakes, the souls, the demons and ever-present racket of the dead. He curls his fingers, a different kind of electricity than Zeus’s comes alive, breathing and ungovernable. There is a tremor in the Underworld, which slowly grows and becomes so loud that it is felt bone deep. The ground rumbles like a ravenous beast and everyone, everyone at once starts bowing and falling to their knees. Xiao Zhan keeps the tacit frigidity in the air; the charged, bleak magma of his power. He doesn’t lash, he doesn’t let the electricity rein free. He keeps it wound around him and earth shudders nevertheless. He hears nothing and knows he has reminded everyone who is their lord. 

He opens his eyes and the Underworld bents and settles, causing an upheaval that leaves jitters that would last until his next visit. His body livid and gown shimmering, he turns around and marches back. 

The lesser ghosts have removed the body of the girl. And when he blasts open the gate of his palace, he doesn’t give a second thought to why the girl had fought so hard to run free out of his dominion. Residents of Mourning Field usually were laughable and moronic like that. 

Chapter Text

Wang Yibo, Demeter’s rosebud boy.

There is so much joy to be found in the simple act of running away.

You are not free, as much as you would like to believe, even when you are a God. There is a definition available at every blessing and an image to uphold. No one ever talks about how never-ending gratitudes bind you to the altar; an object of worship despite aching and feeling soulless. 

So Wang Yibo takes great care to break free whenever he can, and run. The wind fast and unforgivable, his lungs gasping and burning, his legs straining and powerful. Even at seventeen, he is a force of nature. Flowers rushing and clinging to his feet wherever he steps. But stopping feels similar to losing the extraordinary sense of self that comes along with being the only one against the wind, an antithesis to  the blurry world around him and constructing what it means to be alive on his own terms. He is addicted to feeling alive. There is vitality and shine in moments that one has lived shamelessly and entirely.

The valley around him is vast, the green begging to be stolen, the sky effortless and everlasting. His mother is busy with some Olympian business. He was to remain in the gardens; to remain coveted, cloaked and treasured. Sometimes he thinks he would scare his mother if she ever knew who he really was. Because he escaped the first chance he got, got lost lost lost, intentionally, on whim, in arrogance, and despite. 

He only stops when he knows he is far enough. He breathes in the fresh, earthy scent of the meadow around him, and the coolness of the river, a rash harbinger, lulls his sense of reason and makes him look at it a little goofily. Never the one to think twice when thrill calls, he dives into the rogue waters, letting it numb his senses and drown him in the best way possible.

He only breaks free because the currents want him to, dragging and hailing his body across the stream. Yibo blinks and lets the sunshine erase his limits and blend him into something golden and boundless. 

Water is cool on his skin and pearly on his lashes, when he gets out of the river. He shakes his unruly curls, an act more perfunctory than genuine, a display of his youth, an impish glide with no real value, and paves on. He thinks he is farther than he is supposed to be, farther than his mother would like him to be.

But there is daylight in his eyes and hope in the curve of his mouth. There must be an adventure ahead.

As a god, he isn’t allowed many. As a boy, he craves them.

The moment he steps on the meadow, a flowerbed starts spreading, impatient and fervent, alarming barriers set in the land unknowingly. He feels the dip in the air immediately, the cold uneasiness that tells him there are some other celestial beings residing on these grounds.

He could return, he probably should.

He steps ahead, his wet chiton wrestles with the wind and the slipping and caressing dew twinkles his skin under the sun.

And there it is. The Goddess, the keeper of this heavenly patch, the focal point of Yibo’s quest.

He notices the bluish tint of the Goddess’s skin, the star of her eyes and body that floats just above the ground.

“Who has breached my land?” A voice containing many voices, commands.

Yibo bows salaciously but does not bother with a reply. Why tell when you can show?

He walks ahead, he wills the trees around them to rustle, welcoming his parade and making his power evident even in another immortal's territory. He allows birds to descend, the euphony of their music, the chirps and prayers; all heralding Yibo’s presence. Wines break through the soil, coiling and braiding, reaching higher and converging in the middle forming a canopy around them. Saplings sprout and grow into colossal trees, blooming new fruits on each branch, some exotic and ripe, others rare and ingenious. The grass under his feet has never been more sprightly, small creatures sputter and burrow themselves in the tree roots. 

When he reaches the Goddess, her eyes are wise and alarmed. The Garden looks more sublime than the one she was protecting possessively minutes ago, making a statement of his divinity. There are butterflies nipping at his skin, he smells the richness of soil and the noise of the river behind him envelops everything in a dwelling of his own making.

He lifts his hand, nimble fingers, greedily claiming a twirl of the Goddess’s hair and pulling a glittering, cerulean cornflower not unlike the color of her eyes out of her hair. He does not present, just holds it close to her lips.

The Goddess flutters her eyes at him. Two divine beings, locked in an impasse. 

And Yibo dares raise an eyebrow and suddenly the whole land echoes with twinkly low pitched laughter.

“Very well,” the many voices exclaim, “What can I help my flower prince with?”

Yibo thinks it might be too arrogant to just keep looking at her in lieu of an answer, so not only he keeps staring at her but grabs her hand as well. A shadow swims across her face and he turns to look at the waning sun’s meager light. Her doing, she has brought twilight upon them. 

She wishes them to enjoy nightfall together. “Very well,” he says, with a smile that barely touches his lips.

In the morning when he leaves, he steals a golden apple. 

It was his anyway. 

****

Maybe he has already made his mother worry. Maybe his mother has already reached home and found him missing. Maybe he should not detract.

But he sees a circle of nymphs, all chasing and playing tag. Yibo, the lover of laughter, the worshipper of Hedone, bounces into the middle of their harem and gets accepted immediately.

He lets the flush of the morning burn his cheeks rosy and lips shine. He hides from the nymphs at the peak of their play with no intention of being found.

And he detours to a lazy lake nearby, cups his hands to drink the crisp water.

“So heedless,” a gravel voice admits.

Yibo is not startled easily and does not turn. 

He sighs at the dewy smell of the terrain, watches glow of the sun color everything prismatic. Watches lake shimmer and mercurial at his feet. And with a delicate touch of his wrist, wipes the stray drop from his chin.

He clenches his feet into the soggy moss and lets his bracelets crinkle on his way towards the commentator.

A stallion, as dark as night and as mighty as a warning, stands near his owner. Yibo smiles brightly and skips towards it giddily.

The horse looks like he might bite, given the sharpness of his pointed teeth, but mellows once Yibo lets him munch on his golden apple.

The God beside him scoffs again.

Yibo nestles into the mane of the horse, patting it lightly and loving him into submission.

Yibo thinks he might hear another grunt again, at losing such a prized ride to a shameless youth, but the silence that spreads chills his insides.

He thinks it might be time to sneak a look.

The first thing he sees are long legs, one bent and the other extending. The ether-like cloak with stars trapped in it wraps the man into a nightmare, but the bright maroon of his shirt, makes him look glorious and sacred. The man holds so much power in him that if Yibo was an ordinary man he would find it hard to breathe. Despite being the son of two most powerful Gods, he still takes in a shaky breath. There is a threat in the air, in his sharp eyes, beckoning and scalding Yibo to the core. His skin prickles as he watches stray locks free themselves from the man's bun and fly across his face. His cheeks are sunken and his lips, surprisingly, are the sweetest thing on him. 

"Young are always so obnoxiously wild and untamed," the hell-king looks unfettered and unimpressed, snarling his contempt at Yibo.

Yibo knows when he is being challenged so he decides to gamble damnation and drawls, “Compliance isn’t demanded, my Lord,  it's freely given,” he knows names are ancient powers so he says, “one must expect, Hades, the God of the Underworld, to at least know that,” and for the effect, he even feigns a bow, entirely satirical and bothersome in nature. 

Hades looks like he might burn the ground down at the insolence.

Good, Yibo thinks, lets see him try.

Chapter Text

Xiao Zhan is not the one to think too much about the secrets of the universe. He does not bother with how the world started or how life sustains itself; all that matters to him is how it perishes.

“The One Who Can Not Be Named,” the boy keeps chirping, “The Unimaginable Horror, the Stealer of Maidens, The Wealthy One, The Illustrious, The Giver of Good Counsel, King of the Dead, Zeus of the Underworld.”

He knows when he is being mocked, even though it is a foreign concept to him. Mockery usually ends when terror begins. No one laughs when they are seeing Hell in the face.

No one except this boy it seems.

“What must bring you here, my Hell King,” the grin is like poison laced with sweetness.

Xiao Zhan lets himself feel anger and frustration over the impossibility of the boy. He watches Alastor cuddle into the lap of the boy as he slowly but expertly braids his mane.

Preposterous! Hades should burn the ground they are sitting on.

What must bring him here?

The answer must lie in some want or need even though he is devoid of both. He feels indignant at being caught at one moment where he has made himself so inexcusably predictable for the boy.

“Quiet,” Hades lies. The boy receives the jab with grace and chuckles loudly.

Xiao Zhan really should choke the life out of him. But.. but.

He has seen death too many times; death, to him, is just another chore. A quick snap, a messy stab, a disguised attack. Death, to him, is just another beginning to look over, just another kingdom to rule.

He feels the Bident next to him, shrouded but waiting for his call. It really would be easy, but.

He does not take his eyes off the boy and his gentle smile, feeling the need for chaos slowly dissolve in him, and glares at even more amiable horse of his, who was supposed to be the harbinger of destruction, symbol of massacre. Not a pony for a kid’s play.

“I am guessing you came for the meeting,” the boy resolutely keeps talking to himself, but not without giving Hades a clue to who he is.

So a God, or a descendent of one, who else would know about an Olympian meeting. 

The boy is now picking flowers off the ground and placing them tenderly in the braid he so dexterously made. Xiao Zhan did not even realize the flower bed that has grown around him. There are lively lilies, soggy sunflowers, teetering tulips, ravishing roses, opulent orchids, carefree chrysanthemums, heady hyacinths, anxious anemones, clumsy carnations spreading all around them and nearest to him, circling him, and inching closer with every breath, is a pool of anomalous yet remarkable blood red Narcissuses. 

He scoffs inwardly at the young god’s obvious flirtation. 

Without meaning to, Xiao Zhan says, “You are arrogant like it means nothing for you to create.”

The boy jolts at being spoken to and lands his cyan blue eyes on him. Xiao Zhan isn’t stupid. He knows the boy has made the wind cooler and day cloudier for him. He remembers the searing heat that made him seek shelter under the eclipse of the tree. 

What was he doing here? 

Maybe remembering how it felt to burn.

“You are arrogant like everything will end except you,” the boy retaliates.

Xiao Zhan lets himself smirk in a reply. “Truth speaks for itself.”

The wind hastens, the fragrance around him is enough to intoxicate, and suddenly snow-white poplar leaves rain on him. He looks at the tree above him and finds it full of cotton-like flowers. A white poplar, a tribute. An answer, the simple act of creation. The boy's truth. 

“What brings you here?” Xiao Zhan asks, as hunger in him rises. It is ravenous and something achingly familiar. An old friend, something he had long forgotten.

The thin chiton of the boy moves like a dream in the wind, there is a tint on his cheeks and lips. He is twirling the Narcissus lovingly between the tip of his fingers. Hades feels a jolt of searing heat burn through his body.

The half light makes the boy look like a vision, something that Xiao Zhan wants in his clutches when he wakes up from this trance. 

The boy has started twisting, bending and breaking the flower in his hand when he states, “Disintegrating.” 

Xiao Zhan, getting tired of holding himself back anymore in the presence of the boy, asks, “Why?”

His lap is full of dead flowers now and he keeps paying them attention like there is not a carnage inside Hades waiting to happen. Like Death isn’t stalking him, like Xiao Zhan isn’t begging for a glance from him.  

Then... very deliberately the boy starts anew. Twisting the stems, wiring them around each other; creating and creating. He looks peaceful, so compliant next to him, like he wouldn’t be anywhere else. Like he wouldn’t be running freely in the fields, laughing with the nymphs, changing watercourses. 

Why?

Xiao Zhan thinks he would never get an answer, but then suddenly the boy crawls near and inches closer to him. Xiao Zhan gasps as he feels his heart kickstart.

The boy looks a little hazed, his eyes vibrant as he puts his silk soft hands against Xiao Zhan’s cheeks. 

And he wonders how can a touch so soft, so delicate, make him feel so powerless?

He feels breakable, he feels like dusk, he thinks the boy has given him something he wants to ask more of. 

Xiao Zhan has never been interested in the secrets of the universe but as the boy traces his cheekbones with butterfly fingers, down the dip of his nose and uses his thumb to scrape his lips and set them alight… he thinks he has found them nevertheless. 

Xiao Zhan raises himself on his knees and with sweet violence grabs the boy by his waist against him.

The boy smiles like he is finally where he wanted to be.

He removes his hand from his cheek and picks something up- Xiao Zhan really is incapable of looking away from the dewy-eyed boy in front of him to see what. Then ceremoniously, the boy sets his recent artwork on top of his head, a crown, Xiao Zhan assumes from the glitter of his eyes and the wonder of his smile. 

The look in his eyes is centuries old when he somberly tells Xiao Zhan, “Destruction is an impetus for creation, my Lord. Nothing can ever be conceived unless it annihilates its previous form.”

Xiao Zhan tightens his hold on the boy and feels like he is burning inside out. Like everything he is, is shifting to make way for something else.

Xiao Zhan has ruled death, plague and destruction, but at that moment, he feels his heart curl, wrestle and bloom inside his chest, something aching and raw, with petals scared and frail, and witnesses a miracle. A birth. The shocking brilliance of the death’s heart living for the first time. 

“I have been destroyed, my darling. Now you must return the favour.”

Chapter Text

Is it destiny of lovers to be miserable?

Without Xiao Zhan, he feels like a star burning into nothingness. Like an ache that never settles. Like love touched him and he has been struggling ever since. 

What is that Yibo wants? 

Xiao Zhan on his knees, he thinks bitterly.

Isn't it too cruel?

Well, what desire is humble.

Every night he wakes up in his bed, the room lonely and moonlit, tears leaving kisses all over his face. His emotions treacherous and devoted. 

Xiao Zhan Xiao Zhan Xiao Zhan.

But his lover is like a thought among many. Gone somewhere, lost in his darkness, a shadow out of Yibo's grasp. 

He had not made any promises, but he had held Yibo. He had held him. Oh, Lord, he had.

Yibo had kings bowing before him, but Xiao Zhan is a god and.

And Yibo spends every second without him burning.

Yibo still changes seasons, makes his mother happy, cries under Hades' tree that was token of how soon and how devastatingly Xiao Zhan had made him his and becomes friends with poets. The most miserable ones. 

He also grows Narcissus everywhere; has them tucked in his hair, leaves them in his books, on his bed and window sills, wraps them around his wrist. They are all red and symbols of his death.

He stops dancing in the rain or gifting flowers to every passerby.

And after a year, he decides that enough is enough. If Xiao Zhan will not find him in his life, Yibo will seek him out in his death. 

One day, he is having a conversation with his mother. 

They are sitting in their palace on Mount Olympus; a classic white structure with Corinthian columns and golden cornices. There is an olive tree behind him and his mother pours him green tea in a crystal cup. Yibo miserably stares out of the window and glares at the sun.

There is water sprouting from a marble cornucopia irrigating many gardens and fields around the palace. Circling, intertwining and obstructing the architecture of the palace like angry wines defying the god made structure.

And in the middle of his mother's sweet story, he remembers he has a favour to collect and gets up to run out of the room.

His mother calls his name, but he is already descending, falling and running like an angry flood seeking its own destruction. 

There is a rush in his body and soul, bubbling and eroding every rational thought. His sandals clap on the floor encouraging him to his destination. He giggles when he breaks through the grasps of nymphs guarding his mother's castle and grins as he jumps over the bushes and flower hedges to finally step into the arms of the world.

He is going to meet Hades.

You can't make something beautiful, easy as well, Yibo learned. A momentous interaction is not entirely of the moment as one likes to believe and that there are usually consequences that follow. There is loss. Separation. The bitter knowledge that the moment has passed. The lingering question that asks 'what now?' and the confusion and yearning that never ends along with the slow aching realization that this is what your life is now.

How do you live with it though? Knowing you had a touch of heaven and now have to live without it. How do you bear the ordinariness of everything in comparison to it? How, how, do you accept that defeat for yourself?

And what exactly do you learn? Choose to keep simmering, or be brave enough to extinguish the fire like it was never there, or do you simply and horribly let it run ablaze?

Why is Yibo the only one suffering from the promise of their first interaction? He had often wondered that. But now he thinks, if he is to burn, why not do it completely and leave nothing to be mourned over.

Separation usually is an ugly prelude to either annihilation or unification, and fortunately for Yibo, both are the same. So he climbs down the hills, green washing past him, tumbling, and feels his heart growing bigger with each step.

He finally feels the sun in him and screams on top of his lungs, keeps shouting Hades’ name over and over again, professing his love like a mad man. Although, his lungs hurt a little and legs cramp, he has never felt so alive. 

Yibo, during the whole year, had suspected Hades taking peeks at him. Coming in shades and breathing next to him in shimmer and gold, but always perfectly out of reach and out of sight.

Yibo to be agonizing, would flirt with everyone, let people beg him on dates: across the stream, to little clearings with most beautiful flowers, to Fennec fox’s den, to a shadowy hood of a tree that could hide anyone from mid summer’s heat, only to find his suitors nowhere the next day. Lost or snatched, never to return. To test, he would go to the most populous of the lakes, rivers and streams, pull the pin holding his dress out with seething fingers and let it flirt down his body. The silence that followed would be instant. Before he could turn, he knew there would be no soul in sight. Well, except someone, for whom Yibo made his baths as sensual and unbearably long as he could.

Incredibly selfish of Hades, if you asked him. It made Yibo's cheeks huff and eyes roll, but at least he was not forsaken. At least, he was not in this alone. Though he suffers without an explanation, but he doesn't yearn alone.

Not anymore, he tells himself. Yibo knows Xiao Zhan wants him, craves him, loves him. So he races across the cliff, watches the azure sky cool his eyes as he wishes to take flight as soon as he steps off the cliff. 

Against his better impulses, he stops. Right at the mouth of the cliff. And grins, sending a hundred blessings to Gods above. 

He fists his hands, and feels the wind ruffle him weightless. He cannot believe he didn’t think of it sooner. It’s perfect.

Yibo breathes in deeply. What a wonderful day it is. A perfect dream. 

Yibo knows he cannot die. But that doesn’t mean he cannot be crippled or break his body into pieces.

He looks down and feels the ground under his feet shake.

A warning. Yibo’s eyes crinkle at the corners. Xiao Zhan really is so easy.

Slowly his feather light eyelashes lock and embrace. The peace envelops him like a baby and euphoria sings him alight.

And he jumps.

His arms wide spread, breath stuck in his throat, smile plastered on his lips, hair tangling and disentangling, as he rushes towards the ground.

With a thunderlike alarm, a chasm opens at a distance below him. He opens his eyes as he sees his lover’s golden lavish chariot race towards him angrily.

His body buzzes and as the ground is about to break his fall, he feels time slow down, his clothes flap and two strong arms circle around him. 

Before Xiao Zhan can say a word, which he is sure are going to be furious and prickly, Yibo kisses him crazy. Claws his face near him and breathes him in. The smell of rust, mist and moss. Yibo could have died and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Yibo kicks his legs happily in the air, untameable and overjoyed. After minutes that last as long as hours, Xiao Zhan pulls back enough to say, “You can’t go a day without torturing me, can you?” before Yibo kisses him again, without missing the smile gracing his lover’s lips despite his words and strong grip. 

He hears the horses neigh and huff and knows Xiao Zhan’s slowly losing his control because of Yibo’s eager hold and desperate kisses. But before he can give Yibo exactly what he wants, he pulls away and rests his sweet smiles against Yibo’s rosy cheek.

“How do you keep budding into someone more and more beautiful each day, I can barely catch a breath,” Xiao Zhan asks helplessly.

Yibo rubs his face against stubble on Xiao Zhan’s face and absent-mindedly twirls an unrestrained lock of his hair around his finger. 

“I can think of many other ways - million others actually - I can make you lose your breath,” Yibo does nothing to hide how much he wants him; lets his voice, eyes, body, all scream it at Hades.

Xiao Zhan groans and tightens his hold.

“I was supposed to do this properly. Ask your parents, prepare the Underworld for a wedding and a Flower King. Build a fucking heaven for you in hell,” he looks aggrieved, but hungrily drinks Yibo in with his eyes, not looking away even for a second. 

Yibo feels so complete, now that he is in Xiao Zhan's arms.

He looks radiant; he always does, with his daunting bearing, gold laced and inky clothes, with his flaming eyes and sultry mouth. Yibo graciously gives up everything he has ever known and previously loved for him.

“But, looks like I would have to do it old style,” there is humor in the timbre of his voice that Yibo cherishes.

Yibo's heart soars and his breath quickens. Finally. He puts a hand on his heart and furrows his brows at him, "Oh, I wonder what would happen to me now." He makes eyes at the Hell King and pouts his lips invitingly right before Xiao Zhan's. "I fear for my poor virtue and innocent soul."

Xiao Zhan scoffs before throwing him a knowing crooked smile and bites Yibo’s lips. Yibo is so lost pulling himself closer to Hades, so trusting, so raw with love, that he doesn’t register the ground opening and plunging him to hell. Home. Hell. Home. Love.

Chapter Text

No matter how much you love something you have stolen, you still cannot make it yours.

Underworld is shrouded in darkness; it always is. That’s why Xiao Zhan loves it the most.

But looking down, he sees lights of Elysium twinkling bright enough to look a piece of heaven in hell, right where Xiao Zhan’s palace ends there is a huge garden now full of flowerbeds swarmed by will o’ the wisps, which extends to a maze that spells love and never ending orchards laden with gem like fruits and glassy leaves. There are fountains portraying flower king and lord of hell locked in various embraces littered sporadically around the yard. The water that sprouts in them is silver. The fire that made his kingdom heavy with acrid smoke, only burns to keep it luminescent and warm, a circle of light with screams of damned souls locked in its depth, unable to destroy the new found peace and beauty. The fields are still full, the lakes are still black, but they are pushed so far out of sight that they barely look real.

Xiao Zhan, standing on his balcony, watches the colors of his kingdom shift and change under the lights of borrowed aurora borealis – an investment he made for his lover, in exchange for taking his light and stars away from him. He slowly raises his chalice full of blood red wine and lets it color his mouth. Yibo has enjoyed his stay so far.

There is no bitterness silently curling in his eyes, no hesitance when Xiao Zhan pulls him close. He doesn’t look like he is choking as he makes hell his new home. And yet Xiao Zhan still worries. 

The worry is not his own. Yibo’s mother has been incessant and keeps sending one messenger after another demanding to free Yibo. Xiao Zhan has characteristically scoffed and scared every messenger away. 

“Love?” Yibo’s voice sings behind him. His voice belonged to spring and festivals, but rang clear and loud amidst the chaos and thunder of the Underworld.

“Here,” Hades replies, looking at the vast kingdom before his eyes. He would always be here. 

But Yibo didn’t have to. A voice very much like Yibo’s mother told him.

Xiao Zhan turns before Yibo enters the balcony. And his hands tremble.

Hades remembers when the world was created. He remembers the great war: the rivers of blood, flesh of his own father in his hand, he remembers how the earth had quivered and shaken for days before it could settle. 

But he also remembers the first day of peace. His brothers and sister aching but standing as they witnessed earth breathe and sky swim into a new dawn. 

It is a sacred thing to create something, Hades knows. You are forever bound to it till its completion.

His completion walks towards him, wrapped in a rose velvet dress with starlike jewels along with radiant peonies dressing his hair, a subtle reminder of who he is, and clanging golden anklets and bracelets that harmonize with Xiao Zhan’s own heart beat. 

Yibo circles his arms around Hades' neck and welcomes him into their sweet hello.

When he pulls back, his eyes are shining and his lips look red from the wine Xiao Zhan was just drinking. Xiao Zhan raises his hand, touches Yibo’s lips with his fingers and let them stay there.

“No adventure today?” Hades asks.

Yibo smiles and rests his head in the crook of Xiao Zhan’s neck. “Wanted to be with you.” Xiao Zhan kissed the top of his head. “Always do.”

Yibo had taken to the heroes of the Elysium and their stories. Too passionate, dangerous and exciting for him. He had told Xiao Zhan how he always wanted adventures, but was bound by the love and care of his mother to never have one of his own. Xiao Zhan had held him close too, worried about his own love binding Yibo next to him, far away from the dangers and distractions of the world

But Yibo had said ‘please’ and Xiao Zhan had allowed it. ‘Live, battle, taste life the way you want. But come back, my dear, always. Let me heal your body with my kisses and let me protect you from the nightmares of what you have suffered. And call me. Whenever, however, I’ll be there.’

“Always?” Xiao Zhan asks in a brittle and small voice. 

His grip around Yibo tightens by itself as his eyes sting with some longing and pain that makes him delirious and at the same time, locks his body into cold stillness.

“I cannot begrudge the world your smile, my dear,’’ he finally says, like the bird that is his soul flying away from a cage that is his body to a freedom that is his end.

Yibo gasps and quietens to a degree that Xiao Zhan fears he has already lost him.

“So?” His voice is accusing when he finally talks. “Are you letting me go? You might as well kill me than think I can live without you anymore, Hades. I will not leave you and no one, no one, can make me." Yibo's bloodshot eyes gaze into his lover’s and his hands pulling Xiao Zhan close from the lapels of his cloak.

So he knew. No matter how hard Hades had hid the visits and messengers, he knew. And he had done or said nothing about them.

Xiao Zhan cups his cheeks and laughs bitterly, “If I was any kinder, my love, I would. I would let you go.” Yibo’s eyes, for a moment, shine with ember like glare, making Xiao Zhan’s heart expand and remind him how easily Yibo has made himself belong to hell: how he has friends here; grows as many trees and flowers he likes; adores as many hellish pets as he wants; and whenever he wants, settles into Hades like a second skin till both of them feel complete. “But,” the glow dims, patient and waiting, “I will give you a choice and a compromise.”

He raises his hands and the chalice in his hand blinks into a large ripe pomegranate, which he breaks open by pinching it with his one hand.

“Six months. Six months you grace the mortal world and bring growth and fertility to nurture their children. And six months you reign over hell and let my heart know peace. You allow me to receive your love and pour my devotion into you.”

Yibo's eyes finally let a few pear-like tears slip. He smiles in relief and sinks against Xiao Zhan’s body, kissing his chest, neck, jaw, and cheeks. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Xiao Zhan feeds the seeds to Yibo, who accepts them with love swimming in his eyes, and kisses him with the promise of eternity in their lips.

Always was always theirs to begin with anyway.