Archive of Our Own

He feels it long before any word even arrives.

In one moment, he lounges in an empty field, and in the next his vision is that of a world of no sun—his robes no heavier, but no longer a thing made of plant fiber. There is power that surges into him. It is just as old as the ones he carried into godhood as the herald of Spring.

His hands cradle the leaves of a small tree— red fruits at the tip of his fingers. It feels as if there is no other place to be but here.

There are voices, many, but only one rises far above them. He is called Persephone.

He has not been called that name for a while, not since he was conferred the title of Spring, not since he last dreamed.

And he hears himself give a tender response.

The pull is undeniable. There is a restlesness blooming across his chest and he knows it is something that will not be appeased so easy, not when it was planted there long before he had come wholly into himself.

He might hate it, but it he cannot deny that it feels as if he has just taken his first real breath.

“Ken?”

Justin's voice is warm, familiar. It keeps him steady back on the ground. The grass around him cling like weeping children to his ankles, needy as they were fearful of what may come.

He holds his hand up. It shakes, but he can hardly tell if it is by fear of something else entirely. “Come and help me up, won't you?”

His friend raises a brow, but does it anyway. Justin doesn't bring up his trembling hands, nor does he comment on how winded Ken's sounding. Ken's up on his feet in seconds.

“Where are you headed?”

“Olympus,” Ken responds. “They should allow me inside if I'm with you, right?”

That seems to only pique his interest further, countenance brightening at the prospect of a venture beyond these fields. He was not quite as inclined as Ken was with the earth, but he's always been fond of the arts. Nature is among the greatest creations there is.

Still, his glow is not quite best kept here.

Apollo Phoebus, one of the few things which both Romans and Greeks would agree upon, praising him for the way he shone. While it'd never been cited in the old Myths that they'd become friends, it was inevitable for them to do so in this life. They came into godhood at around the same time and shouldered what weight their Inheritance gave together.

“They will,” Justin nods. “Why are we going? You've denied Demeter thrice this morning— you even dragged me into your arguement. Don't think I will forget.”

And he had, because she cannot move him. There will always be strings that bind them, conflicted affection that changes just as the seasons do, but Ken loathed being ordered around. Always authority, always his agency. He was not among the great Twelve, but he was no more a god than they.

It'd been easy enough to use Justin as buffer, since he was younger and was—like Ken, not compelled to forcefully attend the gatherings.

“I'm not going for her,” he says, honest.

“I know,” Justin tilts his head to the side, agreeing. “So for what?”

Around them, the wind swirls, and with its voice whispers the news that he had been anticipating all this time.

The king of the lower world is crowned, mumurs they, a hundred voices with an endless hold of the tired immortal tales. Hail, the gilded helm, and beware for he who sweeps all away has returned.

“My husband has come,” he says, faux calm. “And I would loathe not to catch a glimpse, when one day I will see him only in a realm without any sun. You shall accompany me. Come, let us judge how he fares with light.”

A gorgeous god, long-haired and brown curled, regards them both with amusement when they arrive into Olympus. He finds them both swiftly and without much time to prepare, he speaks.

“I knew you'd come,” he says. “Oh, Demeter would throw such a big fit if she found out.”

Immediately, Justin winces at the words, shrinking back. It was not that he feared Demeter, but rather Ken he worried for.

And, logically, the words are not a threat.

It is not a threat, Ken knows, but he cannot help the distaste that comes up at the mere thpught of his divine mother discovering he stepped even a foot onto the Olympian soil. She tried, on multiple accounts, to have him visit the marbled temples.

Ken frowns. “I am here for none but myself.”

“Well, so you say,” the god nonchalantly comments. In his eyes, a knowing gleam. “Although, if it does interest you, there's a commotion in the outer gardens. There, inheritors of recent divity have gathered.”

The words make his chest throb with an ache that not even wine from Dionysus would curb, a longing that the god before him must feel— because for the briefest moment, his eyes are quick to glow a vibrant shade of prideful gold. And let it be known that Ken had his pride but, similarly, also had his priorities.

“Will I find him there?”

Aphrodite laughs, and he knows it to be her, because there is none who could regard the gods with such an air of devil-may-care.

In one moment she is as she first appeared: reflecting himself before divinity and in the next, she is a goddess whose robes drape a pristine image of ocean waves. He catches, briefly, the way Justin murmurs her name— and knows he has recognized it too.

“You will,” she promises, “you already know, anyways, that the Fates will find you both.”

“I am not one to be ordered around.”

“I do not think he should need to,” she says, “when you have walked here of your accord, with your own two feet simply to catch even briefly, a glimpse of his face.”

“You're wrong,” Ken decides.

Justin automatically cringes behind him as if his friend were waiting who would explode. After all, they were gods, so full of pride.

She stares at him haughtily, hand on her hip. “Well, I suppose that we shall see.”

The argument that had left Ken's relationship with his mother strained was not something he can remember in full.

He thinks it had something to do with leaving, or was it that he had fallen sound asleep in the clearing alone without informing anyone? Well, either way, he had caused such a panic that his mother enlisted Justin for help.

It was a time where the Underworld did not have a Hades. He supposes his mother was fearful of the worst. For theirs was a divinity that was inherited, they were mortal once.

Perhaps gods did not die, but they did fade. Pan, of the forest, faced such a fate.

As did the rest—for why would there be any inheritance to pass down if Olympus was full and the gods were complete?

Justin's eyes could see everywhere. Ken was found quick enough for him to think that it's not much of a cause for concern. He'd made the mistake of saying as much to his mother.

And it was always such a bad idea to converse when they were both tired, or angry, because it always led to the both of them growing angrier. The words became stronger, harsher and it had left them both weaponizing each other's flaws.

Ken, who hated to be cornered and be kept. Demeter, who hated beind told that she was unable to let things go.

When their arguement had finally ended— something Zeus had to intervene in— both Autumn and Winter came early. Justin had become proxy communicator for them two.

Ken moves back into his abode by the wide clearing, living with the nymphs.

Demeter leaves for Olympus.

Nothing has been quite the same between them since then. Ken thought to apologize, more than once, but each time he tried it is harder to do.

It takes little for them to get to Olympus.

Even then, it was a much shorter wait for Ken to determine which of them he came here for.

“Which one could he be?” Justin wonders, surveying the collect of divinity gathered. “There's quite the handful of them today. Should I check?”

“No need,” Ken answers, already in motion. This pull is strong as it was stubborn. “Stay here for now. Go talk to Hermes. I'm going.”

“Wha— hey!”

He can still hear Justin screaming behind him, “Don't think that I'll forget about this!”

Ken finds his fate sitting on a bench far off from the main event, in his hand a cup that carried red wine.

He's beautiful, Ken would have to either be blind or delusional to think otherwise.

He looked as if he was resting, eyes closed.

His hair was longer than usual, stopping a couple of inches below his wide shoulders. There's a mole right above his lips. Ken can, briefly, see him sitting on a throne below— afterimages of lives before projected like a memory newly resurfacing.

The robes that he wears are traditional and, likely, prescribed. They are dark in color but this only makes him stand out all the more.

Ken has seen many gods and goddesses alike, but he has not seen anyone quite like this.

If he were left with no choice but to sum it up, he was an androgynous beauty. Both fell pale in comparison with him—though Ken will not be caught saying as much around Aphrodite, who he not only owed but now had to go and admit that he'd been wrong to— and even this era's Adonis was nothing.

But what color were his eyes?

It would be nice to have a concrete image of the other. Would they be a shade of amber? Brown? How deep, then, how rich were they?

Ken desperately wants to see his eyes. This, something he knows is not just Persephone insisting, but his own curiousity. So often do they blend together, but he was sure of this.

And so when he walks, he does not care for much else but it.

“Would you open your eyes for me?” He asks, without much fanfare. “I would like to see the color that they have.”

Brown, Ken thinks. Deep brown, almost black, much like the earth.

“Oh,” he breathes out. They were gorgeous. Maybe he could say it in front of Aphrodite, after all. He was stunning. “Thank you.”

“Thank you?” The god echoes back, his voice colored with amusement. He had a light rasp when he spoke but his words came clear still. “This is the first time that someone has ever thanked me for opening my eyes.”

“I was curious,” he says, hardly explanation, but still the whole truth. “I wanted to check myself how they looked. And you allowed it. That's why I thanked you.”

He tilted his head at Ken. Whatever it is that he's found, it emboldens him enough to ask.

“Just with my eyes, Kore?”

A part of him shudders when it is addressed.

There is fear and distaste: fear at how easy it was spoken, then distaste at the word used— he was never just Kore to the man before him. Fear at the fact his soul stirs, distaste at how he cannot tell if it is truly him or Persephone. He was not the type to be ordered around so, should this interest prove fleeting and simply stop as a byproduct of their titles, he'll stop.

“It would have been rude to ask you a lot of things all at once,” Ken simpers. It was not a surprise they knew each other. “Would you have humored me as you do now, Euboueus? You looked to be resting.”

Their souls knew each other. In a way, they were destined, in another it was easy to say that they have been remade for each other. He's sure they would be compatible.

He has seen Aphrodite dance with Ares, too, how easily they moved. But he has also seen Aphrodite be happy at the hold of Hephastus and take no other but him. He has seem both war god and goddess strictly remain friends. He has seen Hermes' lingering eyes following Apollo, caught Justin doing the same.

Many make bonds by the Old Myths and just as many break a few by them— he'd do the same.

Ken did not want a match determined for him.

Still, this Hades was easy on the eyes and soul. He would determine for himself how well they would fit. If he proves to be easy on the heart, then.

“I wasn't expecting anyone else to look for me,” he says. “Hermes said that you loathe stepping into Olympus grounds.”

“I heard that my husband was here,” he allows. Spite slips past. “How could I not come looking, when you have come for me in the Old Myths?” The joke does not land. “It is only fair.”

The god before him frowns at the insinuation. “We do not have to be anything. We have met many times, but not as we are now. We aren't compelled to follow the stories that have been told and already lived.”

It's something they are all taught when they take their Inheritance. You inherit lives of the ones before you, but must also live your own.

“I know,” Ken says. “I did not mean it that way. For a moment I remembered—”

An angry mother, demanding that he be kept away for however long she could. Loud words and an overwhelming pressure beneath eyes that condemned Ken for doing as he'd pleased. The green vines, once pointing the entrances towards home, no more than the bars of a cell.

It had been an arguement over something Ken can no longer remember, but their relationship has since then been strained.

“—something unpleasant and lashed out.”

“Ah, well, it happens to most of us.”

After a moment of awkward silence, that Ken spends wondering if he should return home, the god speaks again and offers a question of his own: “Would you like to sit beside me?”

The invitation is not unwelcome. He nods. “Alright.”

“I also have my own questions,” he says again, when Ken has leaned back into the bench and settled his gaze on his dark eyes. Persephone, the part of her that Ken knows he has neither rid of or assimilated with yet, has grown quiet. “Will you humor them when I ask, Kore?”

It's relatively easy enough to make the choice. “If you agree to call me Ken, the only name I carry that is not divinely oradained, I might.”

It is the only name of his that holds no divinity, the only title he has carried from birth and will be able to keep until the end of eternity. It is— well, not something to be given away so easily, Justin had gone five months before he gave it, and Ken took almost a year to give his name in return.

What was five minutes, anyway, when Ken is sure their souls have lived many eternities?

He was not ordained Athena for a reason.

Surprise first flickers in his dark eyes, before something tentative yet soft settles in them. “Then it should be fair if you refer to me as I was before this. Ken, my name is Paulo.”

Paulo. Apparently, not quite fit for Athena, either. Which is just as well—the woman in Wisdom's clothing now was witty and firm.

He smiles. “It's good to have met you, Paulo. Ask away.”

They talk until Ken's throat grows dry.

He's easy to talk to, if not a little bit easy to rile, but Ken is comfortable enough to be making a bit more than a joke or two—these ones land— and he feels all the more enamored when the god laughs. He does it so pretty.

His smile, as well, was contagious. It left Ken at a loss the first time Paulo smiled at him.

He'd stammered through a rundown of his life; how even they were surprised he was to inherit the title Kaprophoros, how he is a good friend to the brightest god and how he had closer ties to the nymphs.

He talks of his clearing, of the flowers in there.

Paulo does the same. He speaks of how he had already known he was going to be granted this, how his training was beyond standard because he spent most of it wandering the Underworld, shadowed by Thanatos, occassionally Hermes. He speaks of Hecate. He speaks of Cerberus.

Briefly, they muse over the before—the songs, the dances; the fleeting lives lived as mortals.

He'll no doubt have to apologize to Justin for ditching him so long later, but he has a hunch that his friend will have him pay by asking for the details of everything that has transpired.

Ken may as well make good use of the time. After all, Justin loved good stories. And he's willing to bet that this one was worth time.

They go their separate ways eventually— there's still a few formalities to be taken, multiple rites to be performed.

Paulo could not stay, but he said he'd have liked to. Ken answers with, “Next time, then.”

Ken hopes he isn't the only one smiling.

As he leaves, his heart is full, and his soul is content. There will be new flowers at home, across the clearing that he frequently takes naps in. Today Persephone was appeased.

And spring goes where her happiness was.

The moment Justin spots him, he's raising a finger as if to point and rebuke him, but the closer Ken gets the faster the fight seems to leave him.

It may have to do with the way he's smiling.

“You're enamored,” Justin says, amused. “What would those of the old Myths say?”

“I like to think they'd find the absence of Joshuel's cheating to be a more pressing matter,” he remarks, alluding to the man currently carrying the title of Zeus. “And, likewise, Hestia's refusal to take a vow of chastity.”

“What was he like?” Justin begins to fire. “Tell me everything. What was it like to talk to him? You know, you were gone long enough just for Demeter to find me with Hermes. She had so many questions that she had asked so fiercely.”

Ken frowns. “Of course. What did you tell her?”

“Nothing of substance,” he says, “nothing she does not already know.”

Which is to say, he has dealt with Demeter a total of two times for Ken in this day alone— he was probably going to hold that over him for a while.

Justin latches onto his wrist and tugs. “Now, answer my questions. Don't think that I will allow you to brush them off like that again.”

“Alright, alright,” Ken allows.

And, alright. Ken is not fit to be Athena.

“How could I forget?” He complains, petulant. “Of all the darned things!”

A good week has already passed since the first time Ken had encountered Paulo. Noticeably it is also the last time he has seen the other god. Which, really, should not be the case.

If it had been Persephone pulling him before, then this: Ken pacing to and fro across the rye growing beneath his feet, watched by flowers and backed by the worried brows of nymphs— was entirely his fault. So distracted was he by habing met the guy that he forgot what he was the god of.

Justin hums in agreement. “Only you would be able to promise the Ruler of the Underworld a next time and realize late that he is not often a figure found beyond his domain's soil. Airhead. Your mother would laugh if she knew.”

Ken throws a withering glare his way. “Well, maybe if he wasn't so pretty and distracting then I would actually be able to think about these things.”

“Oh, you have it bad,” He shakes his head. “Really, it's no wonder Aphrodite has been floating about cheerily these days.”

“Yeah, well, who hates being right?” He groans. “I, personally, really detest being wrong.”

Justin pretends to have a semblance of pity on him and agrees, yet again, “Don't we all?”

Ken does not even have to look at him to tell that his shoulders are shaking the way it was whenever Justin was trying not to laugh loud. This only makes him complain a little more.

Halfway through a tangent on godly domains and the pitfalls of being enamored by a mole, Justin decides he has had enough of listening to Ken's whining.

“Why not find him yourself?” He wonders. “He may be constrained by the laws of his nature, but you aren't.”

That catches Ken's attention. His footsteps fall quiet and his complaints die down quick as he processes the advice that his friend has given. He understood the words individually but at a whole? Him, heading there?

All he says in turn is, “Huh?”

Justin sighs, exasperation bleeding through his voice: “If you like him so much that you want to ask Zeus to invite him over, why not take on the easier route and spare yourself all that trouble? I've heard that the journey can be troublesome but it cannot be any worse than asking those in the Twelve seats a favor.”

Which, indeed. It probably would be.

Justin would give him his vote and as would some of the other gods—Hermes, Aphrodite, perhaps even majority of them—but there is one such problem in the process. Demeter is jealous as she is posessive. She would never allow it easily if he were to convince eleven.

(A part of him knows it is also out of her love, but they are yet to speak about anything.)

And even if he did ask for Paulo's presence, then what of the Underworld? How brief it'd prove to be even if he was able to visit here. Horrible. Unfair. This world was against him, against him!

“You're part of that Twelve,” Ken reminds him, feeling a little sour. “You're just as insufferable as the rest of them.”

“Maybe,” he grins, “but I am also your friend. Need I remind you that I have faced Demeter in your stead twice? I would give you my vote without any problem.”

“Still, is it not an odd idea? Your suggestion.” Ken crosses his arms. “Why would I even go? the Underworld is not a place to just walk to, now, is it?”

“Why not?” Justin shrugs. “It's a novel idea, certainly. But it is a good one.”

He takes a sip from his cup. “And you forget, you know of someone who travels back and forth to the Underworld, don't you?”

Let it be said that Ken has self-preservation.

Which is why it is only now, two weeks since that conversation, that he finds himself here.

“Oh? Kore,” Hestia smiles. She is where he had expected her to be: stoking the vibrant hearth. “What brings you here? It was a shame that I'd failed to catch you last time.”

“I'm sorry,” Ken apologizes, because Hestia was among those who had trained him and Justin— they were her's, at some point. “I was busy.”

“Oh, Jah mentioned,” she says. Her eyes bright with something more than the embers of fire. Her tone was teasing.

“Can you tell me where Hermes is?”

Hestia smiles, like she knew something Ken did not, before she points him to the god's abode.

If there is one other Olympian whom Ken has become fond of, then it would be Hermes.

He doesn't know his name beyond divinity, still, but they inevitably cross paths more often than he would like. As the messenger of the gods he could venture anywhere, would be everywhere.

Justin speaks of him highly and the time Justin did not spend for himself or in Ken's clearing could easily be allocated to the time he's spent hovering beside the flighty god in adventure. Ken was almost a hundred percent certain that something else was there.

But that's not why he's come here today.

More importantly he was also one of the few allowed to cross into the different corners of the world without being put into question.

“You want me,” he points to himself, “to take you—Kore, Deione,” he points to Ken, an act that could be considered rude if Hermes did not sound so hilariously baffled, “all the way down to the Underworld?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think the journey there would be easy, Kore?” Hermes asks, his voice growing high in frustration. “It is not simple as traveling to any other place. Even I had trouble the first time.”

“No,” he answers, foolhardy and free of shame. “That's why I came to you.”

Hermes stares at him, wholly unimpressed. “You understand that if I do, it's beyond my hands if you manage to make it back?”

“I'm sure the Lord of the Dead would be a pleasant host, he has done well for an old tenant who would spend half a year there. Surely, he hasn't changed that much?”

Hermes' eyes glimmer in amusement. “Well, he's not the most pleasant when it comes to visits from the uninvited. He has his history.” Heroes and gods alike, the Underworld god could deny. “You're aware?”

“He's gone as far as to take someone there forcibly, according to that same history.”

The messenger considers him one more time, gauging something that Ken hoped would be in his favor. If nothing else, he was hopeful— perhaps Pronaus would do him this kindness. With the messenger, no gate was truly sealed and before him, no door was closed unjustly.

When he speaks again, he does so as if he was unaware he had let the words slip through his lips. “Your mother would try to kill me.”

And let it be said that while Justin had been the one to suggest that he head here, Ken was also wise enough to catch onto things. It was a trait that made Justin latch onto him quite quickly in the time spent training to inherit their divinity.

And so, with the same audacity that the Heroes of the Old Myths often carried, he asks;

“So you're saying that she wouldn't succeed?”

Hermes cracks a grin. “I'm saying that maybe try a little harder so I can convince them that you left me without any other choice but to be in agreement.”

Ken has little problem in messing with what home Hermes had.

“Do you think this is enough?”

The god stares into the mess of his home— overgrown, riddled with both grain and flora, properly levelled so it was clear an agrarian god had thrown a tantrum strong enough to spring growth from beneath marble floors.

“Well, it definitely should,” Hermes confirms, sounding a little faint. And, then, a little later: “Do you mind if some of mine take from this? It'd be a waste not to make it into good food.”

“It's your home.”

Hermes tips his head back and laughs. “Right? Well, with the way its been left unrecognizable I guess I have to say yes to your request.”

Finally, he thinks. Hope, light and all too airy, blooms across his chest.

“What do I owe you in return for the journey?”

“Nothing,” he answers. “I've been meaning to see him again. You are a very good reason for me to do just that.” His grin resurfaces and it was smug as it was dangerous. “I think that it would make for a very interesting story later: Kaprophoros, descending unto Hades.”

Let it be acknowledged that despite the guaranteed path, the journey to the Underworld leaves little that should be desired.

He'd taken about five steps before he'd fallen.

“Well,” Hermes asks once, hovering over him. “Should I have you return above ground?”

“Don't you dare,” Ken hisses, still kneeling as he struggled against the shift of atmosphere. There was a different sort of pressure here— like he were left at the mercy of Zeus' scrutiny. “I can take this.”

“You're not quite dead, you're not quite me,” Hermes notes. “Endure it a little more, then. The lord of this place is only looking at you, and if he allows it, you'll be free the burden.”

When the pressure has finally eased into nothingness, Ken heaves a breath of relief.

“Well?” Hermes prompts. “No turning back?”

“No chance of it,” he says. He takes the hand Hermes holds out and stands back upright. He's sweating. He was a good friend of what god ruled the Sun, associated with growing grains, and yet he was sweating. “This means he allows my presence here, right?”

“Sort of,” he says, “it means you are no threat, so he will be of no threat to you.”

“Great,” he grunts. “How flattering.”

Hermes' eyes are too oddly bright. “You know, if nothing else, you would certainly give him a run for his money. You have the gait for it.”

“I should hope so,” he answers in return, dry. The joke is not at all lost on him: “He has a lot to spare.” Then, “You've been spending a bit too much time with Apollo.”

He laughs. “So have you, you know.”

It is not Charon, the ferryman, who stands there waiting. It is no such guide at all but, instead, the Lord of the Dead.

Paulo looked really, really good in purple.

He also looked good angry. His brows are furrowed—it was oddly attractive.

Even with Hermes spewing out explanation after explanation beside Ken right now it is mostly the only thing that Ken can manage, processing how displeasure looks on Paulo takes priority.

“Not another word from you,” Paulo jabs his finger into Hermes' chest. “I'll deal with you later.”

And then his eyes are staring right into Ken's.

“Why are you here?”

“Well, that's rude of you,” Ken says. “Are you not usually described to be a pleasant host? Welcome me first before you interrogate me.”

“I do not jest,” he frowns. “Your mother—”

“Has no power over my agency,” he interrupts. “Neither, then, do you. I am here of my choice. While it is my fault to have come without invite I would like to get a choice in wherever I stay. I've made the journey here in the hopes you'll see fit to allow it.”

“And you should like to?” Paulo prompts. “Stay, here? For a while.”

“For a while,” Ken echoes back, agreeing. “For as long as you would have me. I promised we would talk longer 'next time'. I do not say the phrase if I do not mean it.”

It comes out a lot more honest than even he expects. He doesn't bother to take the words back for it makes Persephone sing with glee, vibrant in ways she would probably make the shores of the Underworld a mirror of home.

But Ken does possess some impulse control, unfortunate how it is more to do with actions than his words, but alas.

It was not like him to backtrack, anyways.

He catches Hermes snickering behind him— mumbling something that Ken does not hear, but Paulo seems to. He scowls Hermes' way.

“If the green goddess picks a fight with me, your head will be first to go.”

Hermes raises his hand in mock surrender. “Alright, you have my word, I will be here if either of you manage to incite her wrath. Should I swear to Styx to appease you, Pau?”

It dawns then on Ken that the two gods know each other, Paulo mentioned it to him before, when he was talking about those he knew for matters beyond divinity. He's suddenly filled with pride at the fact he'd convinced Hermes. He decides it is better not to wonder why.

But it does feel as if it weighed a little more.

Paulo clicks his tongue. “He's staying for a week here. Come back to escort him then. Make sure that Demeter knows.”

Hermes knows better than to argue and, privately, Ken mumbles him his thanks.

When he leaves, the wings of his sandals appear to be fluttering just a little faster. There's a happy tune on his lips that is an almost exact replica of the one rippling through Ken's chest.

The week feels as if it is a slice of forever— everything is fast, then slow, then too much although too little at the same time.

Ken was not greedy, had never thought he'd ever think of himself as such, either.

But he spends good time shadowing Paulo, following after him as he gives his counsel. He's there, then, when Paulo has to breeze past paperwork after paperwork.

The Lord of the Dead, his job never sleeps. Death was the one certain thing waiting for every mortal being and it was his job to be receiving them all. He may not be the judge nor the reaper, but he was the keeper of all souls.

And, yet. Despite this, Paulo walks with him when he is free. They eat together—offering ambrosia and nectar—and they make good work of this 'next time' Ken earlier swore on. They talk of everything and of nothing.

Ken begins to scorn the week for ever ending.

They pass by the gardens, this a place Ken remembers having seen more than once. They've almost walked through it when he realizes why it felt odd to him, somehow.

He stops, and Paulo does as well, and Ken takes another look across the garden.

Corner to corner, from the ground and up. There is everything as he remembered but without any red.

If he thinks back to it, he can almost feel the weight of the fruit on his hand and the seeds on his fingers. He can remember waking and tending to them, checking on their growth— he can remember biting into them.

“You've taken down the pomegranate trees.”

There is a flicker of fear that crosses Paulo's expression. A moment that Ken allows him, because he felt quite helpless at the face of this knowledge as well.

“I can always plant them again,” Paulo says. “Only, I was not sure if you would like them.”

Ken's heart hurt, a little. He can tell it is not because he was unhappy but rather that he was so happy it was painful.

He remembers lashing out at Paulo the first time they crossed paths and the way Paulo took it in stride. He will remember this, too, perhaps until divinity deems him unwell to. There is no undoing the realization that the pomegranates have been uprooted for him.

“Then plant them again with me,” he says. “They were a good fit to this garden.”

Paulo smiles, eyes alight, and Ken's world finally settles. The wrongness finally stops. Next time, he would like to see red in here.

One time, when Paulo is too busy, he ventures.

All that he passes seem to know of his name— they greet with sincerity, though their eyes are full of questions and curiousity.

They entertain his questions although they ask him none. When he wanders a little too closely to the waters of Lethe, there are urgent voices that keep him from going off-shore. They scold him as mothers would their children, that way Demeter would before they both closed off.

When they speak to him, it is not simply anger, but with concern.

Paulo is the same when the news reaches him. Ken smiles all throughout the scolding he gets, which earns him a little bit more of it, but alas. The beings here were not quite bright as above but they lived well.

Ken wonders what it would be like, to live here, as they do.

What did it take to make a home and a life here at the heart of the dead? Ken had a feeling that he would like to find it out for himself, too.

Ken is almost a hundred percent certain that Paulo knew he liked him a little more than he should.

Ken, following him around. Ken, making joke after joke just to get rewarded by a smile that lasts briefly. Ken, growing more comfortable. Affectionate.

The more he knew, the more he wanted.

As Persephone once had done with a few seeds Ken eats up each second with Paulo greedily.

“Will I be allowed to come here again?”

He asks it as Paulo ferries them onto shore, having granted Charon a well-earned break, deciding to escort Ken personally.

The week has come to an end and, with the upper realms back in sight, Ken finds that it was much easier to ask the question that he has been dancing around the past six days. Maybe he felt safer to do it now.

If he were rejected, it could be brushed off.

“You would want to?”

He's immediately turning back to look at Paulo. “Why are you so surprised?” Ken is so offended, crossing his arms. “You're here, aren't you? And I like it here. What, am I not allowed to visit?”

“Well, yes, but you're—” Paulo stammers a bit, “You're you and I am me, and so—”

“Does Persephone not belong with Hades?” Ken challenges. “What do you mean by the words you speak? Where else should I go?”

“But you are not Persephone,” he bites out. “And I am not the Hades of the Old Myths. You've no obligation to remain any longer.”

“And so?” Ken asks, again. “I walked here, Paulo, with my own feet. I have taken on judgement that you passed. I chose this.” There is an angry, bitter thing that rears unbrindled on his chest. “Will you listen? Nobody can have me do what I have no interest in. Nothing can move me unless, personally, I care for it. And I hold a great amount of both for you.”

“Oh,” Paulo mumbles, soft. He looks at Ken as though he were seeing him for the first time— and maybe Ken hadn't been so clear after all.

Ken eases. His fury gives way with ease.

“So?” He prompts, though his cheeks are now flushed for reasons beyond anger and Paulo's covering his ears that have grown a little red. “So, am I allowed to come back?”

Paulo meets his gaze head on. His eyes are creased into a smile. “You always will be.”

“Oh?” Ken's heart thumps. “Is that an oath?”

“If it were, would you make good use of it?”

Ken cracks a smile. “I expect a smoother journey here again, in the coming month.”

Hermes comes to get him as he had promised, brows raised when neither of them can look at him.

“You know what,” he says, “I won't even ask— I'm still cleaning off grains from my home.”

Ken gets an earful from Demeter—nothing too explosive— and maybe it is because Paulo has promised to take him in again that he is all the more willing to sit with her in her anger and to speak to her again in calm.

“I wanted to see him,” he says. “I wanted to see if he were fit for me and to what lengths he is.”

“Aphrodite was right,” his mother grumbles. Ken is struck by how alike they are. “You are enamoured. Your face wears her same smile.”

Ken opens his mouth again to try and sway Demeter further, maybe to point out that Hermes accompanied with him during that journey and shift the blame a little.

He never gets to.

“Next time,” she says, “tell me beforehand. And, by the love of the gods, do not rain an army of growth on an Olympian's abode— have you any idea what your actions led the nymphs to think? They nearly declared war against Hermes when they found out you've made a mess of his place.”

Ken swallows. “Next time?”

“Well,” Demeter tenses. Her eyes are shifty. “Yes. Next time. I assume there should be.”

“You will not stop me from going?”

“Pah!” She scoffs. “Apollo, that brat, would assist you anyways if I were to try. And you never did like being confined anywhere— perhaps it's a mercy that you have another place to haunt. And what would it matter? You'd go whether or not I allowed you to go.”

Ken attempts to try his luck. “Next month? After the Solstice passes. I want to spend another week there. Hermes will guide me.”

She seems surprised—a smile on her lips—though she nods all the same.

“Alright,” she says, “but no more tantrums.”

“I won't level his home again unless he asks,” Ken rolls his eyes. “He wanted me to convince him and convince him I did. He can't just be challenging just god out there to convince him. I'm not Athena, what did he think that I was going to do? Write him an essay?”

His mother throws her head back and laughs. Ken has missed the sound dearly. The lives he has lived sigh as the sound washes over him. Warmth, much more precious than morning's first light.

It not quite forgiveness, no apologies are said, but it felt like a step towards it all the same.

They make a habit of it.

Every month that comes, Ken stays a week.

Every month that comes, Hermes shows up sheepishly at Demeter's doorstep as guide, periodically is the messenger god reminded strongly by his mother that there was one other goddess who could flatten his home.

Every month that comes, Justin awaits with twinkling eyes that hang onto every word of Ken's time in the Underworld.

He makes a habit of telling Demeter things, too, and she listens. He gets himself a little grounded when he admits he almost took a bath in the waters of Lethe—but it'd felt the way the words from the Underworld had.

It was not anger as much as it was concern.

He allows her to hold it over him and obeys, stays within the clearing with only Justin as allowed entry. He wonders why she cuts the time down and he wonders why it'd become difficult to tell her sorry for that arguement, years ago.

Still, he thanks her. That makes her smile, too.

At some point, he runs into Aphrodite again, who smiles at him as she stands from having been busy admiring the flowers across Ken's clearing. Ken can't say that he is surprised.

Jistin has been telling him that the god was bound to drop by.

“Well?” He prompts. “What did I say?”

“Yes, yes,” Ken allows. “You were right then. Gloat as you would like. I admit my mistake.”

“I did not come here to gloat,” he tells Ken. “I've come here because I want to hear the story from you. The Old Myths are all tired, washed out. But we are not here to live the stories that have already been told.”

“Then what are you here for?”

The incarnate of love grins. “I did not think, that with my own affection for my husband, that another love would rival it so.”

He holds out his hand. “I am Stell,” he says. “Next time, believe me when I talk of love.”

Ken takes it. He has known him for as long they've lived—even as a mortal, love was a factor consistent in living. A byproduct and catalyst, the end and the beginning.

“I'm Ken,” he says, “And, alright. I will.”

Every month, he is afforded the time to be greedy as he likes and hang around Paulo.

Every month that passes, he feels more and more of Persephone—who's always wanting, feet always wandering—but he cannot give what answer she seeks just yet.

And, then, past a year after the first time he stayed in the Underworld: something that is beyond the ordinary.

Ken walks into the threshold of the palace, squinting his eyes. “Why is it so bright?”

“Apollo has just left,” Paulo informs him.

“What did he come here for? He didn't say anything to me about a visit.” He frowns. “What, did something happen at Olympus?”

“Oh, not to Olympus,” he shakes his head. “What other Myth is there that could have Apollo descend into my domain? This one, happens to be among my favorite among them. I can't have it go wrongly.”

At Ken's side, Hermes—though Ken does simply call him Josh, these days, is just as surprised.

“You mean to tell me that time has arrived?” Josh inquires. “But that's not— you have no Persephone, to whom would he speak to?” Then, his eyes switch to Ken. “Have you—?”

“The pomegranates are the one thing I've promised not to eat,” he replies, flatly. “No. And, likewise, I don't know what you mean. Explain it to me. What is it of the Old Myth? Which of them?”

“The one about love,” Josh says.

Ken groans. “Many of them are about love, which one?”

“The one with a tragic end,” Paulo responds. “The one that begins with a wife's passing— followed by a loyal husband's journey to the Underworld.”

“Is this supposed to happen this early?”

“There really isn't much of an order to the Myths anymore,” Hermes responds to him. “Although we inherit, we live out our lives; names taken from old Myths, but our path diverges far beyond it.”

Then, after a pause, adds: “You're here too, aren't you? That's not very traditional.”

Ken's face scrunches. He can't deny it at all. Besides, they have a Zeus who is loyal. This wasn't news in comparison. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What do you think, Pau?” The messenger inquires. “Do I spare us and deny his entry?”

“No,” Paulo says. “Let him come. Apollo has already asked I allow his passage. Our path strays from the old Myths but it is only right, though we know how this one is to end up, that sincerity should never be turned away.”

Ken knows it is not simply Paulo who walks forward—knows it in the way his eyes are a heavy thing and by the throbs of his chest. Persephone has always been a particularly picky goddess.

Her heart does not beat for simply anyone. Neither, then, does Ken's.

“Know he tried to save you,” says Hades.

The nymph smiles back. Either the dead's capacity to weep was not like the living or Eurydice had simply cried all of her tears, appearing serene even at the face of what would be an irreversible death.

“I will not forget,” she says. “I hope my husband's behavior may be pardoned, Polydegmon—” there, briefly, she also considers Ken, “—by you and by yours.”

“There are worse visitors to play host to,” humors the god. “We shall keep you until Orpheus finds his way back to you again, Eurydice.”

The dryad nods, as if appeased, shoulders easing with burden Ken did not realize she carried. Ken supposes that it'd assured her.

Until Orpheus finds his way back to you. Oh, indeed, what a thing to be saying.

“I pray it will take a while before he comes,” she says. “I thank you for your hospitality.”

She takes a glance at Hermes. “And please, accept my thanks as well. And the Sun god, whom my love no doubt approached for an ounce of guidance, will this gratitude reach him?”

Josh gives him his word. “I will ensure it does.”

“Why don't you come with me?” Ken asks her. “The Palace is vast. I would like to show you a bit of its gardens.”

“I would follow you above and below ground,” she says, she latches onto the arm Ken holds out. “We are bound everywhere, Kore.”

“It is a shame I cannot do more for you.”

She shakes her head. “I do not ask you to— though, I should also apologize. I've caught myself harboring within me a disrespectful thought earlier.”

“What was it?”

“I thought you My Lord,” she says. “Though, truthfully, my roots understood you are not. You are still spring, yet I mistook you for the one who sits ruling by the side of Hades. It's why I could not address you at all back then, because I remained unsure how. I decided it was safest, and most correct, to say as I did.”

By you and by yours.

Ken's heart felt as if it was being squeezed, hammered into, and Persephone yearns as much as he does to be spoken of.

“If you call me that way, I would not answer,” Ken apologizes. “It is not yet right for me to. But, perhaps…” he licks his lips. “Someday it would be right to answer to no other divine name but the one you refer to.”

“I was glad to see you, Kore,” she whispers, later, as they passed by the untouched fruits. “They told me our goddess was in love and when I saw you beside him, I knew it to only hold true.”

Ken almost laughs. “Is it so obvious?”

“You wear love so blatantly,” she says, fond. “No wonder Lady Demeter has softened— Kore, it looks good on you.”

With Eurydice left to rest, Ken has no other destination but a familiar office.

“How did you know?”

Paulo pauses. He spares Ken a glance and whatever it is that he sees has him setting down the pen that'd been in his hands.

“I don't get it,” he says, a little apologetic. “What are you asking?”

Ken takes the seat across from him.

“How were you so certain it would end as it had, when you believe that the Myths holds little to our lives today?”

“Because it is Orpheus and it is Eurydice,” Paulo says. “What other end to it is there?”

He shakes his head. “Explain.”

“In every retelling of the Myths, Orpheus is doomed to look back.” He answers. “He can hear her stumble, he cannot hear her at all, asking himself did he really save her, and in one moment—one singular glance, it's over. Orpheus will always make the journey down because of love and it is by that love that he will be doomed to never save her at all.”

He leans back into his throne, as if resigned.

“The old Myths have us named but for those two lovers, it is love that makes them. If one day there is such an Orpheus, who can walk forward without glancing back, then it is not one who loves Eurydice. And I would sooner have her in my Court than with a man who's with a heart that does not hold her sincerely.”

Ken shoots him an amused look. “You mean, then, to say that you would likely ensure the ending anyway? Their love denies them a life together but you will curse the absence of it.”

“There will be many opportunities for them, they will cross paths when Orpheus passes.” Deliberately, he adds: “Perhaps even sooner, during Spring, should Eurydice be qualified enough to as an escort into the upper world.”

What knot had been in Ken's chest eases. Relief, then understanding.

“How cruel,” he says, though he feels more fond more than anything else. “Our time of parting made into their reunion.”

“It is all the same, theirs and ours,” he says, hands gentle as they held onto Ken's own. “Orpheus is doomed to look back just as we will be doomed to part ways after Winter.”

He says it so softly that the comparison may not be as he'd said. He says it so softly that, briefly, Ken finds himself thinking: Orpheus, doomed to look back, just as I am doomed forever to keep finding—and be found—by you.

As always, Ken finds bravery just as he is almost about to leave, as he stays a little melancholic within Paulo's hold.

Eurydice is in another boat ahead of them, escorted by Charon.

Today, for Ken and Paulo, the rivers are odd; they are content to serve as their ferrymen.

Ken looks up from where he'd been pressed into Paulo's chest. He may as well ask now— right?

“Are you unable to love me as Hades did?”

He shakes his head. When he speaks next, after having cradled Ken's face gently with both of his hands, Paulo offers a miniscule correction to the words.

“I'm unable to part with you as often as Hades did with Persephone,” and lips press tender to Ken's forehead. “So do not ask to remain here, not until you are sure of it, because whereas I have sworn to never offer you a pomegrante, neither am I so kind as to stop you from biting into one if you should decide to.”

“Good,” he murmurs, unable to keep his satisfaction under wraps. “Then I expect neither complaint nor displeasure when, eventually, I wipe my stained lips on that prized robe you wear.”

Paulo laughs. “Not unless you have your mother informed. I am not going to have nature goddesses cross with me.”

“Well, we do get along now,” Ken reminds. “Would it be so surprising if I were to stay?”

“Do not make promises you cannot keep.”

“I did not swear to the Styx, did I?” A sigh, heavy. “You fordbade me from doing so.”

“No, but you still say that as if you would.” There, then, a fleeting frown on his lips. “Olympus knows just how I fear for you… sometimes it is as if you would mean it.”

“The fearsome Paulo, terrified so simply?” Ken's eyes shine with amusement. “What travesty, the old Myths must be rolling in whatever hovel thay have been placed in. Olympus does not know you scared.”

He shakes his head yet again. He replies, “There is only ever a tremor of terror at a glimpse of you.”

Ken shudders beneath the weight of it all. Tender are the words but heavy are they; where devotion supercedes both fear and uncertainty, only then does faith prosper. Multiple have praised him, prayed for him, mortal men and undying gods alike have sought and presented themselves but it is dofferent from this. It is less than this.

All else was incomparable to what this was.

“Do you not hear yourself when you speak?” Ken wonders. “You speak of your fear of me just as the devotees of Aphrodite do during their devotions.”

There is no response to the words this time, because their boat hits shore.

This time, they do not leave immediately.

Instead, Ken takes his time in informing Eurydice of what she should expect upon arrival. Hermes takes on over explaining further, how the journey will be: rough, although much faster than all other ones.

Maybe it is because something's happened, maybe because Orpheus and Eurydice tells them of true love that hastens—that yearns until it bursts, until it cannot stand to be so quiet or unaffected, that Ken walks back up towards Paulo.

“If I were Orpheus and you were Eurydice,” says Ken, “I think that I would be unable to save you even if I were to be given endless chances.”

There's surprise in his Paulo's eyes and Ken, once again, is graced by his reddened ears. Persephone roars with glee at his chest.

It is as things were that first boat-ride back. Still, Ken is not allowed to see more of him.

If he says anything in reponse to the words Ken is no longer there to hear it. The doors that directy led to the upper worlds are not kept open for long.

In one blink and the next he is already busy trying to head up all the way to the surface, following his companions.

Josh, however, certainly has the time to offer his own two cents. His gaze holds attention, clear amusement in his movements as he lets himself lag behind one particularly pleased, Eurydice, to hover off to his side.

“You know, you would make a great Orpheus.”

“Shut up,” Ken retorts, his set cheeks aflame. “Josh, I swear if you—”

“It's alright, Chthonia,” Eurydice says, smiling. “It is not the most pleasant fate but I do see it, though differently you are named, devotion is steady persisting.”

Ken grumbles, still colored red in the face, during the whole time back.

This time, when he returns, he is not as sad.

He and Hermes leave Eurydice to her beloved, though they remind the teary-eyed couple the inevitable need to return, before they go.

On the way back they run into a smug Stell, husband at his side, who Ken grins at.

“Another tale to be telling,” Stell approves, nodding his head as he gestured to where Orpheus and Eurydice were. “And not just theirs, I assume?” He presses meaningfully, smile wide. “I look forward to hearing of it, don't forget to visit me soon!”

“Oh, you're more excited than he is,” says Hephastus. “Why not give him some time? Surely, he'll come to you when he wishes.”

“It's no loss to remind him, dear,” Stell says. “Don't be jealous. Ours is still my favorite.”

“And I am out,” Josh says, “see you around.”

Kem echoes the sentiment just as quickly— neither of them wanted to see them flirty.

Josh because he has yet to find it in him to be courting Justin, so he had little right to be any bit as affectionate as the two were being, and Ken because he was going to get scolded if he was any later.

After all, his mother was waiting.

As always, he crosses into her abode alone, bearing nothing but a recount of the week.

She listens to him intently. She laughs along and even jokes around with him. In passing, she even slips a word of praise for Paulo— a more common occurence now than anything. She often took his side echoing the same old words when Ken recounts how he had almost unleashed Cerberus and how he had almost fallen into the depths of Tartarus, and the like.

Although she was occupied with her obligation here it felt as if the two have never been closer, as if Demeter knew him better now.

Today, too, he talks until the sky turns dark.

“You were right before,” he says, when he's reached the exit to her domain. “I would go whether or not you allowed,” he looks back. “But your permission does make me happy. I'm… I am not indifferent to your approval.”

Demeter bites her lip. She does not cry, no, because what is there to cry about?

Ken's eyes do not sting, either.

“I'm sorry,” he says, “I did not mean to say it and for you to take it that way as long as you did.”

“You were right, back then too,” she tells him, voice cracking as the ground would when the seeds sprout from beneath them. “My love, I apologize that it took so long for me to learn that I had to let you go.”

Something in his chest loosens, a weight so long ago he has carried like a cross unfurling.

He trembles. He holds up his shaking arms, mimicking how the trees would whisper the prayers they had to the sky.

“Ma—”

She closes the distance between them quickly. Her hold is warm. It felt a lot like coming home in ways few things would ever be: because it is, even in the Old Myths, true.

He had a home in Paulo and in his mother.

“Persephone,” she weeps, “my darling child, how wonderful you have grown.”

And, oh.

Oh.

So this is was what they were waiting for.

Persephone—she releases a shaky breath, raising her hands to clutch tightly onto her mother's robes.

“Thank you,” she says, “thank you, thank you. Thank you for watching over me. Thank you.” She cries, now relieved of aged confinement. “Thank you for finally letting me go. I can— this time, I am here because of you.”

“I'm sorry it took so long,” Demeter mumbles. “I'm sorry that I kept you waiting. I'm so sorry. You should have been with him so long ago… I'm sorry to have kept him waiting, too.”

“Don't be,” she says, “I am not. Let him wait.”

Demeter laughs. Persephone follows quick. Around them, spring arrives.

“You should go to see him,” his mother says.

They have both already ran out of tears and there is no telling how much time's passed. Maybe it was an hour, maybe only minutes.

“I only just came back,” Ken responds. “What, are you finally sick of me?”

“I know you'll come back,” Demeter tells him. “I've no fear of you not returning. I have held my child already— let Hades hold his partner. You have both waited.”

“And wake up Hermes?” Ken raises a brow. “Ma, I've already made a mess of his home before… how can I mess with his sleep?”

Demeter stares him down. “What would you need Hermes for? You are Persephone, no?” She presses a finger on Ken's forehead. “Oh, silly child. You are the Underworld's ruler by your own right. In what world would anyone need a guide to their own home?”

Ken crosses into the Underworld unnoticed. Just as promised, he inherits all Persephone has.

He makes his way into the gardens.

His hands cradle the leaves of a small tree— red fruits at the tip of his fingers. It feels as if there is no other place to be but here.

Right now, he only needs one. So he takes it, feels the weight of it on his hand, and by his fingers takes a seed out of the fruit. Its juice falls to the ground beneath his feet.

Flowers, improbable as it is, bloom where the droplets land.

“Ken?”

He turns around, his lips still stained red with pomegranate juice, the seed long swallowed.

“Pau,” he says, “the pomegranates are sweet.”

Paulo lets him wipe his hands on his robes— lets him kiss his lips, lets him fall into him as wholly as he was able.

This time, when Ken asks to stay, Paulo says: “Forever, as you should like it.”

Elsewhere, the winds stir sleeping gods wake: Hail the coming of Persephone, bride of noble Hades, Queen of the Underworld. The wise— the advocate of the dead and of the wronged.

In Olympus, Stell smiles quietly into the night, knowing full well love has won.