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She cries out his name when she comes undone.
This thing, this... peace between them is still so new, so tender, but this is something they've always been good at. They've been falling into bed together since the beginning of time. Spring and Winter, Life and Death.
Hades slowly pulls away, laying beside her and gently brushing her hair off her forehead. Always gentle, her man. At least with his wife, his lady. No matter how they've fought, how much he shut her out, how much his words stung, the most he could ever be accused of was holding her too tight.
But now, he doesn't hold her at all. Where, years ago, his arms would be warm and safe around her, her skin is only met with cool air.
Persephone bites her tongue against her initial reaction. Where his insecurities have made him put up walls, hers have erected turrets, shooting at any sign of rejection. She forces herself to breath, to pause. To look at his face and see the hesitation there. The desire, the need for her, but also the fear that she is all too familiar with.
The queen reaches out and presses her fingertips into her king's chest, his skin still hot to the touch.
"You're allowed to touch me, lover," she murmurs, her voice just loud enough to traverse the inches of space between them.
She sees him swallow, hesitating even with express permission.
Gods, how did we get here?
Persephone chooses to take matters- quite literally- into her own hands and grabs his. She brings one to her hip, then loops the other over her shoulder, laying her head on his chest.
She can hear his heartbeat, a low, droning thing that's always just a bit too slow to sound human.
Hades stiffens slightly and Persephone stills, giving him time to adjust to this new, old intimacy between them. Then, like magic, he sighs and relaxes into her, his head dropping to lean on hers.
"Didn't know if... didn't know if you'd wanna, y'know." He sighs again, much less contently. "Didn't know if it was like old times."
Persephone smiles, despite herself. Her husband has always been a smooth talker, until you got him flustered. Then, he could hardly string two words together. Lucky for her, flustering the Lord of the Underworld was no easy feat. Unless, of course, you're the Lady of the Underworld.
However, she is a benevolent queen, so she puts him out of his misery.
"It's not quite like old times. But maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe this is a new time. A time when we make love and hold each other, nice and gentle, instead of imitating the rabbits in mama's field, then ignoring each other," she says, and slight teasing edge creeping into her voice towards the end.
She feels, more than hears his laugh. It rumbles in his chest under her ear and she feels like she could drown in it. It fills her with something she doesn't know if she's felt since she was still getting used to her name.
"I s'pose that's true. Although, we could still do that, just without the ignoring each other bit."
She laughs, a true, bright laugh that he hasn't pulled from the depths of her chest in so, so long. It makes his pale skin flush in the soft light of their bedroom.
It was once his, then theirs when they first married. At some point, it really became hers. Hades went almost a decade never sleeping in that bed, except on his weakest summer nights, when the only thing that seemed to let him get even a fitful night's rest was the lingering scent of his lover in the satin.
Now, miraculously, it's theirs again. His suits went back to their proper place next to her dresses, his sunglasses on the dresser, her choker on her bedside table most nights, now that she doesn't feel the constant need to have it on her.
Persephone lightly drags her nails up and down his arm, watching for the occasional twitch of his muscles under her touch.
Always strangely sensitive, her lover.
She supposed it made sense, that the god of the depths would feel things so deeply. In the beginning, she could make him kneel at her feet in minutes with a few well placed touches and an intent-filled look.
She also used to get a profound profession of love from a kiss or tucking a flower she'd grown for him in his lapel.
"You're the light to my darkness, lover."
He'd say, clasping her hands in his.
"I miss hearing you laugh," is what he says now. Which she supposes in a step in the right direction.
"I miss you making me laugh. You used to all the time, remember?" she asks, careful to not make it sound like she's shifting the blame on him. Simply an offering to reminisce on easier times, when they were both young and in love.
Maybe they weren't so young anymore, but they could still be in love, couldn't they?
He hums, low and affectionate. His hand finally moves of his own accord, to her thigh, pulling her leg over him.
"Yeah, I do... always at those dinners we spent in the garden." He pauses, suddenly unsure of himself again.
"Ya wanna... do that again sometime, lover?"
Persephone takes a moment to respond. She blinks, caught completely off guard by the seemingly innocent question. In the time it takes her to open her mouth, Hades has already run through a dozen different rejections in his head.
"Like... like a date?" The last time they did that, that word didn't exist. Even before they started resenting each other, they'd fallen into a routine of taking each other, and their marriage, for granted. Centuries will do that to a couple.
He fumbles, expecting an outright 'no'.
"Uh... y-yeah, I guess. If you wanna call it that, sure, lover."
She hooks her leg around him and tightens her hold, clinging to him and his warmth as close as possible.
"I would love to. Gods, it's been ages since we've done anything like that."
Neither of them noticed how physically tense he had gotten until he relaxes once more. Persephone trails her hand up his arm to squeeze his shoulder. Her fingers brush over an old scar, almost as old as the world itself. A war artifact like any in a museum. She traces it, back and forth, making him shudder.
"Persephone."
He whispers her name like a prayer, as potent as the most desperate mortal. She feels it in her marrow, her soul, whatever the deepest part of her is. She rolls onto him and straddles his waist, then leans over him to take his face in her hands and press their foreheads together.
"I want to fix this, Hades. We're so close... I'd rather spend every summer missing you terribly than another winter sleeping in separate rooms. I'm... I'm worried that this will end the second I leave. That I'll come back next year and everything will be back to the way it was." She takes a deep breath, her exhale warm against his lips. "I don't know if I can take that."
His arms wrap around her waist and pull her down, so she's resting her weight on him. She runs her fingers through his hair- completely fallen out of its usual style- and keeps them buried there, light brown against white.
He kisses the top of her head.
"We won't go back, lover. We'll write, I'll even visit if you want. I don't wanna be like that again, either. Ever."
It's a lot, for him to offer all of this. Dinners, letters, visits. It's a lot from a man who hates dealing with his feelings so much, he built a literal wall instead of talking to his wife.
Now, he's laying everything out for her to handle how she will. It's up to her, now. Persephone presses into him more firmly, letting her weight on his chest settle his- surely, still shot- nervous system.
"When will you visit me? You know mama won't be very happy about you comin' up there," she laughs, also knowing that he doesn't give a damn.
He laughs with her. "No, she won't. But you let me deal with that. Why don't I visit you... on the solstice, obviously, and..." He pauses, working through the dates in his head.
"Six weeks before and after the solstice? That should be pretty evenly spaced, so we don't-"
Persephone cuts him off, leaning up to kiss him soundly.
"Only you would go about this so logically. And I love you for that," she says, trying not to let her voice betray just how much it means to her that he's putting this much thought into seeing her for a day.
His breath catches. Hades looks down at his wife with someone akin to awe before quietly returning the sentiment.
"I love you too, Persephone."
The queen lays her head back down on his chest and places her hand over his heart, willing it to calm. Whether she actually did send some of her divine power through his veins, or simply her touch soothed him, his pulse does eventually slow to its normal snail's pace.
"I know, Hades. I've always known that. Never once doubted it."
He scoffs. "Like hell, you didn't."
The irony of the phrase is not lost of either of them. She sighs and her thumb moves back and forth over his sternum.
"I've doubted whether you liked me, whether you respected me, whether you wanted me. But never whether you loved me. I've known you love me since you let me convince you to go behind my mother's back, of all people. I saw the fear in your eyes. You did it anyway, to be with me. You hadn't even said it yet, but I knew. Maybe before you did."
Hades hums, a noncommittal thing, but she let's him have it. It's late, even for a god, and a lot of words have been said tonight. She tilts her head up to kiss his jaw, then goes right back to his chest.
It's secretly- or not so secretly- her favorite place to be.
"Goodnight, lover," she murmurs, her voice low and slightly raspy.
"'Night, Seph," He responds, already half asleep, now that he's allowed himself to feel how tired he is.
She smiles softly, mostly to herself. If he happens to feel the corner of her mouth rising against his chest, it's no one's business but his.
They both drift off fairly quickly, god and goddess wrapped up in each other in a way that hasn't happened in years. The room fills with the soft sounds of their even breaths and an occasional sleepy hum of contentment.
The poet may have started them on this path, but they've fought tooth and nail to stay on it, to get to this point. To listen and talk to each other, even better than they used to. To painstakingly tear down his walls and disarm her weapons. It was hard work, torturous sometimes, but the reward was more than worth it.
Holding each other again was worth every bit of blood and sweat they poured into their marriage. Whether it took them one more season, or a century of seasons to figure it out, they're determined to keep going. She bothers him when he hides away and tries to isolate himself, he makes her apologize when she snipes at him.
He's, of course, done his fair share of apologizing too, but the worst of it is done now, for both of them. Now, the only thing to do is to keep on trying.
They're old, stubborn gods. Change doesn't come quickly. But in the darkness, warm and covered by blanket of quiet, it all starts to seem a little easier.