Chapter Text
That first wonderful summer, the bar is well-attended. As it is every time Persephone comes back up. When times are good, and people have a few more coins in their pockets, they bring them down to the Road to Hell and have a night of drinks and dancing and good company.
And just like every night, a girl is sitting at a corner table, lurking in the corner quietly. She keeps to herself, but her eyes never stop scanning the crowd. Even though it is warm, she keeps her coat pulled around her and one hand on her backpack. She’s been at this particular stopover for a few weeks now, picking up odd jobs and staying anywhere she can find.
Tonight, just like every night, as soon as she sits down, she scans for the boy in the red scarf. He flits from table to table, serving customers and taking dishes. He laughs and jokes, talking to every person who comes in like he already knows them. When he spots her looking, her eyes dart away. He sticks his rag back in his apron and approaches.
“Eurydice,” he smiles. “I’m happy to see you again.”
“Hey, Orpheus,” she says.
This is how it goes. She isn’t sure why, but she keeps coming back to this little railroad bar. To this boy. He moves through the world like a breeze, like everything is easy.
Ignoring his job, he sits down next to her. He puts his elbows on the table and looks her in the eyes. His eyes are warm. “How are you?” he asks earnestly. He conducts himself like a puppy dog. At first, Eurydice hadn’t known what to make of that. She still isn’t quite sure.
She runs her fingernail through a crack in the wooden table. “Getting by.” She taps her foot under the table. She’s doing okay on money right now, but barely. She has enough to pay for food and not much else. If her boots were to wear out, or someone were to steal her bag, she’d have quite a problem.
Well, she’d find a way. Like she always has.
Her hand is resting on the table. Orpheus puts his hand over it and Eurydice’s heart flutters a little. “You came at a good time. I’m supposed to go up and perform soon.” He fiddles with something in his pocket. “I hope you’ll stick around for it.”
“Sure I will,” she says. She doesn’t have anywhere else to be. But more than that, she likes to hear him sing. His voice is high and sweet, and he is so skilled with his lyre that it seems supernatural. He shuts his eyes and sways side to side when he sings, stepping around the tiny stage like he knows every inch of it. Which he does. He sings three nights a week, but it is not hard to talk him into doing more. He cracks out the lyre at any chance he gets, like music comes more easily to him than words.
Orpheus clearly likes her. Eurydice knows this to be true. As soon as she comes in, he lights up. Even though he talks to everyone, he pays more attention to her than anyone else. He holds her hand and tells jokes that aren’t always funny, but she laughs anyway. Sometimes, he gets so lost in talking to her that Hermes has to come over, tap him on the shoulder, and remind him that he’s got other customers too.
(Most of the time, though, he smiles at the pair, and leaves them to their devices, alone at Eurydice’s corner table.)
Eurydice lets herself luxuriate in his attentions, lets herself take the ‘leftover’ free food that he brings her, lets herself laugh with him. She listens to him sing about spring, and imagines better days. Days where nothing ever ends. She loses herself in his eyes, sometimes. In his warmth.
But somewhere in her heart, she never lets herself relax. She’s met men like him before. Playing the soft boy, the charming and innocent sweetheart. But underneath, there could be anything. Who’s to say he’s not just putting on an act? An act to get her to trust him, to let him in. Then what?
Above all, her first priority has to be keeping herself safe. No matter how much she wants to fall into his arms.
It doesn’t matter, anyway, because she will have to leave eventually. She has been nicking things from the store down the block, and it is only a matter of time until someone notices. If she lets him in, and then leaves, then where will she be? Alone again.
She takes her hand out from under Orpheus’s. He blinks at her, not understanding. She hates to do it to him, but she has to.
“Well, I’m going to go get ready, I guess,” he says. He sounds a little let down. Eurydice doesn’t say anything. She just looks down at the table. He gets up and disappears into the crowd, and Eurydice is alone again.
She sighs, wishing she had a drink.
The summer may be burning hot, but it’s better than the cold. She remembers many bad nights, huddled up in abandoned box cars or sheds alone, shuddering. Her fingers going numb, curled in on herself, trying to preserve whatever scraps of warmth she had left. Wondering if there was anywhere warm left in the world. Wondering if summer would ever come back. Wondering if the dwindling months of warmth would eventually fade away, leaving the world cold all year. And during these dark days, she would ask herself:
Is it worth going on like this?
Should I just-?
But she never did. And, as she tells herself every time the cold creeps in again, she never will. Whenever times are particularly hard, she finds herself thinking of spring. Of new shoots creeping up from snow-hardened ground. It is this that keeps her moving on the coldest, hungriest days.
Persephone sits down next to her, snapping her out of her reverie. She plonks her wicker purse on the floor between them.
“Hey, sister,” she drawls. Like always, she’s drunk. Eurydice spots the flask in her purse and gestures at it.
“Gimme some,” she says.
Persephone snorts out a laugh at her boldness. “Sure, girl.” She hands it to her, the metal cold on her fingers. She takes a swig without even asking what it is, and grimaces. She’s never really liked liquor. It’s too sharp for her. But she likes the buzz it gives her, and she could really use that right now.
You would think that Persephone, queen of the underworld, wife to the god of wealth, would drink something a little more expensive. But no. She’s partial to whiskey, and she doesn’t care what kind.
Eurydice shakes off her long coat and leans back in her chair. “What’s up?”
The goddess waves her hand dismissively. “Same old. What’s up with you?”
“Eh, nothing. Orpheus is going up soon.”
Persephone breaks out into a grin. “Oh? He’s on your mind, huh?” she says, her voice rising in a teasing sort of way. Eurydice scoffs. Persephone tosses her head back and takes a deep breath. “That boy really cares, you know,” she says warmly. “He feeds you, and he blows off cleaning tables just to talk to you.”
Eurydice sighs. “He’d better lay off,” she mumbles. But Persephone knows it’s an act.
She leans towards Eurydice with a smug grin. “You want to be with him. I see it.”
She rolls her eyes. No, it’s not like that. She’s just… easily charmed. That’s all. There’s nothing special about the boy who sings like a bird, and writes her beautiful poems that make her heart stop.
Persephone notices her hesitation. “Oh, come on, sister. You don’t trust him because you think he just wants to stick it in you. But look at him. He ain’t like that and you know it. He’s head over heels for you.”
Eurydice’s brow knits. “Okay, first of all, ew? Second of all, it’s not like that.”
“Then what is it?” Persephone asks.
She sighs. “I haven’t told him that I’m leaving soon,” she confesses.
Persephone raises an eyebrow. “Oh? Where to?”
“Somewhere. Wherever. It doesn’t matter,” she mutters. She hasn’t thought about it much. She came in from the south, a rural area where apple trees grow in rows miles long. Maybe she’ll go northeast from here. There’s a fairly big city there, and she’s heard that a traveller can do well there.
A silence passes between the two women. Persephone takes another sip of her flask. “You come back here every night and you look into his eyes like he makes the world go round. Then you talk to me and pretend he’s nothing to you. Don’tcha think that hurts him?”
She casts her eyes down at the table again, suddenly ashamed. “Well, I’m not trying to…”
Persephone doesn’t let her finish. Her voice is loud, as it always is. “Then stop leading him on! Either pony up and tell him you love him, or cut it off.”
Eurydice almost chokes on nothing. “I don’t love him…!”
The two of them are prevented from talking any further by Hermes, who goes up to the front of the room, in front of the little stage. “AIGHT!” He shouts. He puts his hand up, and silence falls. Must be time for Orpheus’s set. “Good evenin’, everyone. We got a little something for you to listen to tonight. Most of you already know him. But for those that don’t? Well, you certainly will soon. Give it up for Orpheus!”
People applaud as Orpheus comes out on stage, waving sheepishly. He’s wearing a nicer shirt than he wears to wait tables, and he has his lyre in hand. “Hey everyone,” he announces. The applause dies down. “Here’s a little something that I’ve been writing for a few weeks now. I hope you all like it.” He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and clears his throat.
He strums a soft chord. The intro to the song is slow and instrumental, but nobody talks over him. When he sings, it is in that falsetto that he is so comfortable in.
“Don't go away, Sally, don't go away
I'm missing the sound of your voice
And tell me about all of your newfound dreams
Do you feel that you made the right choice?”
Even in a room of this size, his voice is strong enough to fill it. His eyes fall closed, and he paces around the stage. Despite herself, Eurydice feels herself relax.
“Where do you sleep, Sally, where do you sleep?
Out on a futon or out on the street?
You know that I'd ask you if only we'd speak
But you can't let me think you've got a hold on me.”
The lyrics might be mournful, but Orpheus sings them with a tiny smile at the corners of his mouth. It gives the song a feeling of regret. She watches the way his nimble fingers pluck the strings, his skill obvious.
“And I haven't kissed anyone in a while.
I haven't kissed anyone in a while.”
The sound of his song presses into her ears, wrapping around her brain like a soft cloth. It flows from him, as if he were only a vessel for some other power. Eurydice couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but watching him, she understands why people say that music is a language of its own.
“Don't say a word, Sally, don't even speak
I know you don’t listen to verse.
I used to think you leaving was the most that it would hurt
But sticking around, it was worse.”
He taps his foot to the slow tempo of the music. It’s not the typical kind of music that one would expect to be played at a place like this, but the sound of it is just so Orpheus, all clear and sweet. It’s the lyrics that catch Eurydice off guard. They’re more emotional and mournful than what he usually chooses to sing about. They speak of a love that could have been, if only the singer’s lover hadn’t left.
“But I haven't missed anyone in a while
I haven't missed anyone in a while
I haven't missed anyone in a while like you.
Don't look at me, Sally, don't look at me
I'm not the one to look for right now.
There's a box filled with flowers
And what's left of the hours of time
That we spent in the sun.”
He leans into his lyre, deft fingers plucking out the melody. He has such a particular intensity about him, as if his entire purpose in life is to sing in this ramshackle bar. The awkwardness he usually carries is gone, leaving only his raw, genuine emotion behind. He has been slowly stepping closer to the edge of the stage, until he is so close Eurydice fears he will step right off the edge.
“And I haven't seen you in a while
I haven't seen you in a while
I haven't seen you in a while, have you?
Don't look at me, Sally, don't look at me
I'm not who you need me to be
But there's a song that could trace us right back to the day
When you stepped off the train and you smiled.”
The lover in the song is humble, admitting that they might not be quite what their lover needs. But still, they wish that the two of them could be together once again. Before she knows what is happening, Eurydice feels her eyes well up with tears.
“I'll never not miss that smile
I'll never not miss that smile.”
The song is winding down. Orpheus opens his eyes for the first time in several minutes. He locks eyes with Eurydice, who realizes that she has been staring, transfixed, at him, for the whole time he’s been singing.
“That I had right before I held you in my arms
And I said you should stay for a while.”
He strums a few last chords, then stops. He sighs, world-weary, as if singing this song has laid the weight of the world on his shoulders. He steps back from the edge of the stage.
The bar is silent.
Eurydice wipes her eyes.
Persephone claps.
Then, the moment is over. People clap raucously, and Orpheus smiles at the crowd. He runs his hand through his hair, wiping the sweat that has already gathered at his hairline. “Thanks, everyone. Thanks,” he says. He sounds tired. Like he put everything he had into that one song, ignoring the rest of his set.
He meets her eyes once again, and tilts his head ever so slightly. His expression is questioning.
Eurydice feels her heart swell.
He plays another chord, then without any further ado, launches into his next song. It’s something he’s played before, a more typical sort of thing. People go back to chatting and drinking, enjoying the live entertainment. Eurydice looks away from the stage for the first time since he went up. She turns back to the table, and runs her nails through the cracks in it again.
Persephone laughs incredulously. She leans over to Eurydice. “See? What did I tell you, sister?” she whispers. “That boy is whipped.”
Eurydice puts her elbows on the table and lays her head in her hands.
He loves her.
Of course he does.
Somehow, he knows that she’s planning to leave.
And she… she loves him too.
No point denying it anymore. He loves her, and she loves him. But she will be leaving, so it will never be.
It’ll never be.