Work Text:
He was evil. Goddamn bastard, fucking motherfucker, and she means that good and literal, bet he fucks his own mother when she ain't around, cause there weren't no other explanation for this moment right here, where her voice caught midsong cause she heard the rumble of the tracks below. Slithering on up on that oily goddamn train to steal her down, and she can hear it before any of them can cause she's the only chthonic thing here, god damn her, ate those little seeds expectin' plenty of health and maybe a little sickness but not this, not this clawing desperation at her ankles and skirts.
And the revellers around her aren't dancing for her thawing the earth anymore, cause they've seen their mistress freeze – and give it another thirty minutes and they'll hear the train too, right before it pulls into the station. Surprise versus suspense, and she ain't sure anymore which is worse. Old son of a bitch, claimed to go by every law in the book and he meant it but he didn't mean the spirit of it, because what they'd agreed was that they'd be parted for half the year but what the deal said was that Persephone would be brought up to wake the earth, and then step on the train and be taken down below, and Hades had run those big fucking fingers along the page (mouthing along I'll bet, hulkin' brute's barely more than a mouthbreather, she thinks with a vicious bitterness she feeds with liquor, because sometimes it's easier to pretend he's doing it out of stupidity than glittering intelligent cruelty) and saw that there was nothin' in there about how long Persephone had to stay on the earth.
And she had thought maybe his head was on right this year, maybe he had listened in that big blowout fight, maybe the fact that she stepped off the train at 9 ay-fuckin'-em on the twenty second of March was a sign, and Seph liked looking for signs, liked seeing symbols in her plant patterns, liked studying spilled liquor drops for clues, but here he was in May, May, chugging along in that grand steel behemoth that smelled of a rot and decay that she would never admit she liked, bringing up the god and the breath of the underworld in the same movement.
The train speeds up again, and she downs her drink and another, cause she knows he's even stealing these precious little moments as she stumbles out of Hermes' bar and stares up into the thundering rainfall that's got her soaked in seconds. This downpour was meant to nourish the earth, not freeze it, and she can't bear to turn this storm to snow and ice and seal the fresh seeds that only just started sprouting, how the hell could she? She chose when she stepped on that train, not Hades, and maybe he'd bitch and moan (like he bitched and moaned in the letters, and maybe she should've written back but it was hard to hold a pen when hands were shaking and he hated the sloppiness of her writing when drunk) but she'd take his bitching and moaning and rough angry sex before she'd take another prayer begging for mercy from their beloved traitorous spring goddess, asking why the lambs were gonna starve in the fields.
So she doesn't pack. No grabbing that wicker basket copia'd with corn whiskey and fox grape wine, no stuffing in a black lace veil from her winter wardrobe. She shoves and stumbles and makes her own goddamn way to the train station, fancy little boots soaked in mud, hastily grabbed umbrella doing jack shit to keep her dry and she stands right there on the platform as the train approaches -
(and a spiteful part of her thinks about jumpin' in front, wouldn't kill her and would make him think twice, wouldn't it? make him panic for a sweet little second? until she sees the spinning wheels crush a penny some kid left on the track and decides that she ain't quite that mad herself)
-and comes to a stop with a scream of wet steam, the beast glistening with rain like a racehorse in sweat that's evaporating with the heat of the overclocked engine, and she hears Hades' footfalls down the carriage, to the door, and he opens it to face her, and may all the gods damn this bastard with the audacity to start grinning. "Lover," he croons, like it's a ceremony and not a suicide (blurry though the line was for her), and he holds out a hand.
She doesn't take it. Sullen and stubborn like when she was a girl and her ma wanted her to come on downstairs for dinner after a fight, but now she's a grown woman and she's bitterly, painfully drunk, and her husband ain't come up to say hello, ain't taken a break from the town to give her a kiss and hold her hand for an evening, nah he's come up to drag her back down as his own little trophy prize.
He ain't ever stopped loving her, she can't pin that on him. But she wonders when he stopped respecting her.
"Lover," she echoes back, a bitter snap to his low seductive croon (and it is seductive, the sound of him, he always knew just how to charm her in those primal little ways) because she ain't inclined to indulge his thick skull when he's here violating every natural law between god and nature and man and wife. "Either get off the train or go on home, cause I ain't steppin' on."
The satisfaction at his shocked little face burns down her throat sweeter than any liquor, and the sudden spark of worry when he hesitates is worse than any hangover. His hand is still gripping the railing, and she sees the leather of the glove tighten. Her expression shifts, she can't help it, a panic that he would turn around, that he could drag her down to the Underworld four months early but couldn't bear to step off the train and have a drink with her.
But he does. The hand relaxes and her husband steps down, sweet as a lamb, and she offers her hand for the final step and he takes it, and she exhales with the train when his rattlesnake boots click on solid brick. She watches him, wondering what was going through his mind because he ain't speaking as he looks around at the storm. But he just tugs her from the umbrella and pulls her under his coat (heavy thing, all warm leather and smoldering coals, better than any blanket he's got in their boxcar) even as his pretty little silver pinstripes get wet, and it's a lot easier to think on him charitably when he's standing beside her, giving in to her desires for just a little, and he leans in for a kiss, and she's inclined to give him one-
His lip curls as he smells her breath, baring teeth. "You're drunk."
Her eyes narrow, and she scoffs and looks away to hide how she can't quite meet his gaze. Only took him till word two to start bitchin', must be a new record. "And?"
He brushes his thumb under her eye, catching on the puffiness that you could barely detect, the bastard. "Starting to wonder if you're ever not these days."
She laughs, good and harsh and not funny at all. "Try arrivin' on time some fuckin' day and you'll find out. We both know why I heard that train thirty minutes ago, and I wasn't gonna make the ride down sober." Whether she was drunk before that was her own shame to deal with. But he drops it there, small mercies, presses his lips to the top of her head, kisses her anyways, and she arches into it anyways, and she loves him all the same. "I didn't think you'd step off," she confesses with some amusement.
He snorts again, big old mean bull that he is, grinding his heel into the mud. "Didn't think I was stepping off either."
"Well, ain't that a nice surprise for us both. Besides, you know I sober up quick – stick around 'till evenin' comes, and I'll be sharp for ya," she says, wiggling her shoulders with a grin. He strokes down her back with a chuckle, and that's good enough for her. She hooks her arm through his, pressed up against his side, and lets him lead her into Hermes' bar. He's dressed mighty fancy compared to the other patrons – and she is too now, wearing his coat – but Hades grew up spilling blood for whatever he could get and he never lost the sleekness to his look, the little dangerous glint in his eye. She liked that glint, likes knowing there's still a little fight in her man, that he ain't been all consumed by the factories he used to run and that now mostly run him, even if he don't see it that way.
Besides, not like anyone would trouble the patroness and the man who stepped off the train. They knew he wasn't all man. He lets her take a seat and she collapses into it, humming in the warmth from the fireplace as her clothes start to warm up again. He goes to the bar, orders them something, and she sees Hermes reach for the top shelf for one drink and pull out a lemon for the other, bastard couldn't even order her somethin' that burned good, and as he's waiting... Well, young Menetalos comes up behind him with a gaze that says he saw those shining rings and knew where coin was minted. Hades looks back at her (smug, so damn smug, she'd bite the nose right off his face) and tosses the boy a coin and an offer she can't hear but could probably fucking quote, leaving him to scamper off as Hades brings back the drinks.
Maybe she should've written anyway, maybe then his face would be a little less sour as he sets down a whiskey for him (typical) and a lemonade for her (fucker). She clicks it disdainfully with a fingernail – at least it was sparkling. "You wanna swap?"
He snorts, leaning back in the chair and crossing one leg over the other – even on rickety wicker, he could make it look like a throne. "No." And maybe there's a little something in his eyes, like he's waiting for her to be a little more clear-eyed so they can do a little something else, and she decides that that seems more fun than whatever other shit she had planned this evening, so she shrugs and lets it slide, reaching behind her to grab a certain cloth bag off the shelf.
She unwinds the string and pours out the contents. Domino stones clatter across the table, an oracle bone reading for their relationship, and Hades must've ground his heel into the earth cause she can feel his power enveloping them, wrapping them in silence – likes his privacy, her man, and willing to extend the Underworld even up here for it. Don't matter, her power enveloped them more. She snorts softly, but starts setting up the pieces.
"You didn't reply to the letters."
She glances up, and she can hear his voice crack with it. Ah, hence the little bubble of quiet – some things didn't do to let the hoi polloi hear about. "That what this is about?"
He doesn't say anything, just stares with those dark eyes, and she squirms resentfully as the guilt starts to sink in. "I read them, lover," she says softly, even if the alcohol means it'll always sound a little raspy. "I'm sorry I didn't write on back when you first sent it." Less sorry for the later ones, those were just him bitchin'. "Festivities, the work, my ma... Couldn't find the time sober, couldn't hold the pen drunk." She laughs, the sound sharp as she starts clicking the ivories into a proper setup, but he doesn't do more than look bitter. Sour old man, her husband, and she sighs through her teeth. "I read them, Hades. I promise."
They were apologies, in his own way, at least the first. That was a nice one, she could taste his damaged pride in the ink, a letter containing sorrys like an envelope of pulled teeth. A prize after that huge goddamn argument that led to him dropping her off precisely on time and her striding off in a sharp beat out of mirrored spite. Apologies for what he said, though he didn't quite go as far as to say I was wrong, given that the stupid bull thought he was right and would rather die than deny it. She supposes she ought to apologize for what she said as well in that screaming match – better than what he said, but then again, his mind ran sharper than hers these days.
Bitterly, she had had to accept that he was right too, when he'd called her a stupid lush who was a shit wife and a reckless goddess, both above and below. It had hurt hard to hear such things from a lover, especially when he got all self-pitying and came chugging up above to steal her early, like that would repent for the sins of the first even as it intensified the second, but...
Hell, it hurt worse when he said she only married him to spite her mother. That one had cut right to the quick, and it weren't even true – at least then she could hate his guts easier. She pulls out a cigarette, and she's barely got it lit when he holds out a hand. "Mind if your husband steals a little?"
"You done studyin' your pieces?" She asks drily, because he's still staring at his array.
He doesn't lift his gaze, just gestures again. "I'd be done already if you just gave it when I asked," he says.
So she sets it in his hand with a roll of her eyes, and she laughs incredulously as he takes nearly the whole thing in a breath. "Goddamn dragon, you don't need that thing to huff smoke - you don't even like menthols," she snarks, and he passes it back. Warm little forgefire between her lips, pulling in the burnt remains of her own harvest. Tiny little symbol of marriage, she thinks as she studies her lipstick marks on the end.
Hades sets down the first piece, ones on both ends – snake eyes, naturally. "What are we playing for?"
She shrugs and sets down a one-six – Hades may be willing to play shit hands for dramatic effect, but she sure as hell wasn't. "Mm. Why don't you pick? Seein' as how you're the guest and all."
He hums and picks up another piece, toying it between his fingers – double-six, the twelve black pips catching a little of the red neon. She can see what he wants to say, in that mad glint - if I win, you come down with me - but she just smiles sweet and pretty and taps her sharpened nails against the table, and he changes his mind seeing as life is less enjoyable as a eunuch king. "If I win, I take my prize from my springtime lover. I'll be real gentle about it, too."
She laughs at that. "You ain't ever been gentle in your life, Hades."
"First time for everything." He clicks down the piece. "And if you win?"
"Oh, something similar. Maybe steal a few kisses from my man of rock and iron. Maybe pull him somewhere quiet, and command him to use those pretty powers of his to lock the door and keep us from being heard."
"The train's got a sleeper car, lover."
"I know."
"Soft sheets, the kind you like."
"Good for it."
His eyes narrow slightly, his smile a little more cruel. "Don't you trust me?"
She smiles, and runs her heel along the inside of his leg. "Not even as far as I can throw ya. Take it or leave it."
He flicks the piece in the air, catches it again like a coin. "That's the bet set, then," he says, setting it down with a click. "I win, I pull you onto soft cotton sheets and treat you like royalty. You win, you drag me into a goddamn backroom to rut like animals." He sets his elbows on the table and steeples his fingers. "Sounds like you ought to throw the match."
"Funny, I was just thinking the same thing." Snaps down a piece, six-seven. Despite herself, her pulse had picked up. Couldn't ever quite trust herself to get into that carriage and step back out without traversing realms in the meanwhile, to say nothing on whether she could trust himself about it.
"Ha. You jealous of your little does and bucks?"
She shrugs, playing with her hair as she looks him over nice and slow, and lord, there's a lot to look at. "A girl's got needs, Hades. Is it so wrong of a goddess to like her prayers cried out in a sacred grove?" And calling a dingy old bathroom sacred grove was pushing it maybe, but it makes him laugh and she likes his laugh, wants to eat it out of his chest.
"Sounds sacrificial, lover."
"Oh, it is. I get sacrificed to you each year, figure the least you could do is return the favor." Another piece played, and she contemplates sniping about how his initial move with the dual ones was illegal, technically speaking, given that he'd had that pair of sixes lurking in his tiles, and as such she'd already good and won, but... Well, wouldn't be much of a game, then. And she liked earning her prize, just as much as him.
She reaches across the table, and runs her hand along his, feeling out the leather of his glove. Big old patrician fingers, good for all sorts of divine works and plenty of blasphemies besides, and she lightly traces the seams as he picks his next piece. He doesn't react much to it, but Persephone's been married to an old rattler for far too damn long to not notice when a thing pleases him – the way the corners of his eyes relax, the way the shadows around them grow a little darker. Her fingertips nudge at the edge of it, where leather ends and skin starts (bone white, her man, burned in the sun like a goddamn olm if he didn't acclimate slow), and she lightly traces it with the tip of her nail, grinning as his breathing hitches for half a second. "Poor old rattler, gotta wait for his wife to sober up to do what he likes with her," she coos, a mockingbird herself. "Gotta beat her at dominoes, can you imagine? You really ought to give up here and now, lover, I'll take more mercy if you do."
Rattle-rattle, goes the little scaled tail. "I've beat you before, lover," he hisses.
"Have you? I don't recall." She does, a bet cashed out in Hera's rose bushes during a family get-together years ago, and lord the woman had screamed loud enough to shatter a glass when they were caught in the middle of that newly half-dead half-wild bramble, but in Persephone's defense what kind of bougie bitch cultivated roses that couldn't even take a little tumble by life-and-death? Might as well give up and plant plastics instead. "And besides, one incident, all on its lonesome, over all those games..." She clicks her tongue, and strokes his arm, where that menacing tattoo hides beneath, just to watch his fist clench. "Maybe that's what each of those little rectangles are, lover. Each time I beat you," she purrs, eyes glinting. His eyes narrow at the shameful reminder of his undying losing streak. Rattle rattle.
She likes the idea of that, each ivory humiliation at her hands branded in ebony on his skin – shame those bricks have to be all tied to his damned walls instead, though at this point she can't rightly remember which one came first. But before she can get any meaner with it, a little music drifts into the air, and she pauses and turns, and the vicious glint in her expression softens at the sight.
There's a young man, sitting on that humble stool in the corner that serves as Hermes' stage, crooning into the liquor-tinged air. Pretty boy, that one, with a lyre and an apron who came to her festivals and strummed and sang like the nightingale they named her man after. He wasn't looking at them (she liked the privacy of her man's shadows, from time to time), black curls hanging low and in his eyes. Matter of fact he wasn't looking at anyone, she realizes. He's got his eyes shut like a real artist – like it don't even matter if anyone listens to his birdsong. She smiles, then looks back at Hades. "That's Calliope's boy, you remember him?" She taps off a little ash. "All grown now."
Hades snorts, barely spares a glance – he liked his architecture and he enjoyed a good statue, bronzes and stones coming natural to him, but Hades always struggled with appreciating the transient arts. "Museborn? Can't expect me to remember each spawn of those girls' bellies, lover." He hums, and must be a pure coincidence how it's the same note as the song in that moment, albeit all those octaves deeper.
She clucks and lightly kicks at his shin. "Just listen, would you? He sings almost as pretty as you do."
"Don't sing much anymore," he says idly, clicking down another piece.
"More's the pity," she mutters, following it with hers. Hand to her heart, what was the point of marrying a man of that timbre if he wouldn't even make good use of it?
A bitter laugh. "Are you getting sour on me?"
"Don't know why you're all surprised, you're the one who served me lemon juice." She flicks her eyes up, and she's within spitting distance of sober already (goddamn divine blessings, should've slipped some ambrosia in to make it last longer). "Just listen to it, would ya?"
He sighs, running through some thick-headed arithmetic in his head on just how much he can afford to indulge her. "I'll know if you look at my pieces," he warns as he slowly and deliberately turns to the stage, and she rolls her eyes – like she needs the help to beat him. It's a nice song, if he cares to listen to it proper and not just hear, the words crooned oddly soft and sweet into the sticky air -
It's fare thee well, my old true lover,
I never expect to see you again.
For I'm bound to ride that Northern Railroad-
Perhaps I'll die upon this train.
Hades slowly swirls his glass, liquor orange as fossilized amber, but he's listening, fair enough, looking the boy up and down. "Hell does he know about any of that," he mutters.
She plays the fool, unwilling to indulge his foul moods anymore than he'll grant her grace for hers. "'Bout what?"
"Lovin'. Or trains, for that matter." He turns back, and studies the game so far. "You move that piece on the end?"
"I did not. And the train's a metaphor, Hades."
"Ohh, wordplay. Gee willikers, miss, now whatever would I do without a clever lady like you to point all that out for me," he says, eyes all wide and shocked and directed at the woman he's married to, rude son of a bitch.
"Sarcasm's the lowest form of wit, cityboy," she snaps back, but he just grins, and she huffs. The rain may be cooling the air outside, but it's uncomfortably sticky indoors – she fishes her fan out of her sleeve and flicks it open in a practiced motion, summoning up a little breeze for her cheeks. "And who cares if he ain't ever touched one of your damned iron horses? The young can know something about love, old man."
"The young don't know jack about shit – and you're getting inconsistent there, lover. Am I a boy or a man?"
"You're a right pain in my hind is what you are."
He'd giggle if he was a girl, but he's a big hulking brute and so he chuckles instead, a deep rumbling thing that hits the same spots inside of her as ma's finest moonshine, and she can't quite help smiling too.
The game continues, the pair of them clacking down pieces one after the other, smooth as silk, and this thing between them is blessedly easy for once - leastways up until he opens his fat mouth again. "You want him? Been a while since we had a court musician."
"No, Hades."
His voice goes lower, a purr. "All the best musicians die young anyways. No one would even notice."
"No, Hades."
He pauses now, and that brow of his furrows the way it only does when something finds itself frustratingly beyond his understanding, despite all his divinities – an expression she takes a point of pride in finding unique to herself. "Don't know why you even pointed him out, then."
"I can like a thing without needing to own it, lover – try it sometime," she hisses, taking another hard swig of lemonade so she can play pretend with the burn.
But his eyes drift back, lingering on the boy, because Hades' daddy suffered from the ergot, and mercury will leach out of the mines and into the blood and do maddening things to an intellect, given the chance. "Maybe I'll take him all the same, and we'll see if you change your mind."
It's bold, even for him, and her eyes widen before she laughs, fast and vicious in the way she knows he likes, and she swings her free hand around to hold a sharp-nailed finger to his face. "You'll do no such thing, Katachthonios. I like my birds free range, you hear? They never sing as sweet in cages."
The muscle under his eye twitches with that, a nerve struck. "Ain't no point to that, to the transient." The ivories click against one another, and he's hissing too now, the air between them souring same as her drink and her mood as the conversation inevitably turns to the Inevitable.
"Watch your words, lover – my whole damned business is transience," she says in a clipped tone. Disrespecting her, speaking blasphemies against Our Lady of Perpetual Change, seasonal though she may be... Well, that just weren't right, no matter how long ago you gave her a wedding ring.
Our Lord of Eternal Coinage bows his head, spreads out a hand, a mockery of humility. "Then I beg my lover's pardon." However true my words might be, goes unspoken. "I'm a god who deals in possessions, and sometimes I forget that my wife ain't the same."
She pointedly ignores him to study her remaining pieces. "Gonna start tellin' your business partners you're going senile, since your memory is so shit. You got any more moves?"
"Try it and I'll turn your momma's heirlooms into a blasted heath. No, you?"
"Nope."
The boneyard was empty, the board contained no useful pips. In unison, they click down their final pieces face-up.
And Persephone stares.
On her side: a perfectly respectable set of three dominoes, some ones and a few twos, enough to guarantee a victory in most any circumstance.
On his side: Three dominoes. Blanks, pale as him, offset with only a single point.
"Now would you look at that," he says mildly, and what he's really meaning is read 'em and weep.
"How," slips out from between her lips before she can stop it, and his cruel smile gets a little crueler.
"The gods must've smiled upon me."
The pretty bird with the lyre's moved onto a new tune, she realizes, as her husband stares at her, eyes black and hungry as pitch and tar. "You know what that means," he says.
She lifts her head, regal as Andromeda in the face of a devouring. "And you'll keep the train at the station?"
He smiles. "Don't you trust me?"
Oh, Death – Woah, Death.
Her gaze is steady now, and clear. "I ought to be able to. It ain't my time to go."
Won't you spare me over to another year?
He rolls a shoulder. "Then you won't go." He holds out his hand, still gloved, palm side up. "If it ain't your time yet."
She takes it (she'll always take it) and lets him help her out of her chair. They pull their coats back on, and outside the shadows there's eyes on them, as there always are. Even that poet on his rickety little four-legged stool tracks them, and there's a flicker of something in them that she doesn't catch before it's gone, before he shuts his eyes again and continues singing, as her man leads her out of the bar. His song follows them, even through the door and the rain, both their boots covered in mud as he leads her to their carriage.
Oh, the young, the rich, or poor
All alike to me, you know.
No wealth, no land, no silver, no gold
Nothing satisfies me but your soul.
Oh, Death – Woah, Death.
Won't you spare me over 'til another year?