#bdrpphades

[labellerose-acheron]

Lullaby *** [Helle]

In which Belle has a nightmare...[takes place beginning of February]

@trip-downtheriverstyx

[tw -- nightmare violence/murder/lil bit of gore not much/ptsd]

BELLE: There is a knife pressed to Belle’s throat. She can feel her heartbeat thrumming against the blade. It is the only thing she can feel. The stained glass window in front of her—depicting the Pieta—shatters, bursting into millions of shards catching in the light like a flock of deadly butterfly wings. Belle jerks, closing her eyes, waiting for the impact, but nothing happens.

Her eyes open and now it’s Urania standing in front of her with her smile spreading wider and wider until blood begins to dribble from her lips. Belle’s hand is around the hilt of a knife, buried in Urania’s belly. She wretches her hand away and blinks and Urania’s face is Persephone’s face and blood dribbles from her lips. She’s holding berries crushed in her hand. She’s holding the hilt of a knife plunged into her chest. Belle tries to stumble forward, but she can’t move. Her mouth opens as if she’s going to say something, as if she is going to scream, but she chokes on the metal taste of blood as it dribbles from her lips.

Looking down, there is a knife in her chest, the blood blossoming across her chest, like ripples over the surface of water. It soaks down the front of her white nightgown, running over the curve of her stomach, swollen with child.

Opal, she thinks.

Her own fingers are clawing at the fabric of her nightgown, as if she is trying to bury inside of herself. The fabric tears like the pages of a book but her stomach is flat and smooth and blemish free. Nothing in her womb.

Opal.

Belle looks up and Phoebus has Opal in his arms. There is a knife at her throat.

She’s crying. Her tears falling and shattering on the floor like pieces of the Pieta.

Opal! Belle can’t speak. Her mouth opens and nothing comes out.

“Demon,” Phoebus hisses. Opal cries louder.

Belle tries to move forward, but it is as if she is held back by some unknowable force. Tears blur her eyes and when she blinks them away, she has her daughter in her arms. Opal is still wailing loudly and clinging to Belle—she can feel her little nails scratching her chest, but Belle clings back.

From somewhere in the darkness, there is the echo of a gunshot. A piercing pain rips through Belle’s chest—

With a gasp and a small jerk, Belle awoke to a dark, still house. She laid for a moment, still in bed, not even breathing as her heart raced. A bead of sweat dripped from her hairline down onto her pillow. Her eyes darted wildly about the room as they adjusted to the darkness and began to make out shapes by the light that seeped in through the curtains. They darted to the clock on the nightstand. It read 3:46am.

The little light on the baby monitor glowed green—and was quiet.

Opal, she thought.

She could still hear her daughter’s distressed, frightened wails—even though she knew she’s never heard such a sound before. It clawed in her belly like a beast and she knew she would not be able to sleep until she saw her daughter: peaceful and safe in her bed.

Despite the cold, Belle sat up in bed; quietly, gently. Hades was asleep beside her, his head half under a pillow, his hand stretched out across the mattress towards her.

The floorboards creaked and stung at her bare toes as she slipped from bed and scurried across the hallway, pulling on a sweater over her head as she went. She nudged into Opal’s room, her heart still racing. Tiptoeing across the room, she peeked over the edge of the crib.

Of course, Opal slept soundly on her back, a fist tucked up by her fat, rosy cheek—her little chest rising and falling slow and calm. Belle reached out and touched it, feeling the breath in her daughter’s lungs, her little heartbeat. She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to wipe the exhaustion from them as she moved the rocking chair a bit closer so she could sink down into it.

This ritual had become routine the last week or so and it left her tired and weary.

She felt as if she had almost nodded off again, with Opal’s hand clutched around her mother’s finger in her sleep, when she heard the floorboards creak and her head jerked up. A startled breath sucked into her lungs at a figure in the doorway, though she released it the next second when she realized it was just Hades, illuminated by the little nightlight in the corner of the nursery.

“Sorry,” she murmured softly to him, giving him a sheepish, tired smile. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” She had been so good about not doing so the past few nights when she’d snuck off to the nursery, thankfully. She had always hated waking Hades, he did not sleep well, and she always felt guilty for it.

HADES:  Hades rarely dreamed. 

If he did, there were only nightmares-- even made-up moments with a dream Persphone could only ever be dark and miserable, Hades waking himself with gasps and shudders. More than likely, he spent his nights in two different modes: dead to the world (insert obligatory ambassador joke here about the irony of his own technical immortality) or-- listening. 

On average, it took him about an hour and a half to two hours to get to sleep. It mattered little if he used earbuds or not. When he was a kid, he used to try to play music but it had always been a poor placebo he’d never fully bought into, because ghosts don’t exist in the parts of your brain set up to translate soundwaves into meaning. Mediums didn’t really hear ghosts. That’s why it was more appropriate to refer to the magic as a sixth sense because it was. It was another part of the brain. It was Other. It could not be stopped or turned down easily. So even when Hades did-- always falling back on the same visualization and meditation tricks that Agape had taught him, despite the fact she’d been a wretched fraud-- the murmurs of the ghosts leaked in, as though he’d left a radio on in the room and was woken every time the white noise tuned in and picked up signal, before fading out again. 

One of the positives of campaign season was that all those long hours, all that stress, meant he’d passed out faster. He had more dead-to-the-world sleeps in him the past few months than he’d had the past ten years. It was like his brain finally retreated from the rest of himself. It needed a reboot in order to work properly the next morning; if it didn’t shut down for at least five hours, he’d be stuck in a kind of sleep-awake limbo himself. 

The campaign was over now, though. It meant Hades was restless all over. 

He wasn’t the only one.

He’d noticed Belle’s strange moods, carried with her like some kind of second coat. At first, he’d figured it was just post-campaign fatigue like himself. That adrenaline rush from debate practices was addictive. Without it, Hades couldn’t help but feel a little bit...empty. But then time kept moving and Belle’s quiet deepened in a way Hades didn’t understand. 

He tried to find something to blame anyway. He blamed Howl. He blamed the holiday season, robbing Belle of beloved school. 

He did not blame their daughter, who was the most perfect thing in their lives. 

None of these answers were a perfect fit. So Hades continued to watch Belle wearily, watch and wonder and attempt to craft a question that might open a conversation between them. He was not anywhere close to a final draft of such a question tonight when he’d gone to bed and shoved his head under the pillow like he did most nights. The question, though, was a distraction from the ghosts. His mind whirred around that, until it dragged him under and he was asleep.

But not dead-to-the-world asleep, apparently. Hades woke with a jolt, like being shot, when the bed moved and Belle left. Hades blinked and watched her shadow drift, then disappear. He stayed exactly where he was, brain doing its slow reboot. Should he follow? What was wrong? Was it Opal? He’d not heard her though-- Hades always heard Opal. 

Hades shifted, pushed the covers down, and swung his legs over the bed. As soon as his feet were on the floor, the ghosts rose, each voice another creak in the floorboards. He didn’t bother to filter. Instead, those voices followed after him as he moved down the hall and toward the nursery. Arthur was not among them; he would already be in the nursery, wouldn’t he? 

Hades rubbed at his eyes as he arrived, and then his eerie blue light blossomed in his hands as he came in, a kind of night-light he carried with him always. 

“What’s wrong?” Hades asked at once. 

This was not the perfected version of the question. This was actually the first, blunt, imperfect, bad draft of the question. It had tumbled out, a symptom of his tired. Too late now to drag back. Hades winced. 

BELLE: This was not the first time Belle had ever had nightmares. She had had them awful after her father had first left. She’d never told anyone this, but she used to leave all the lights in the house on at first. As if that would somehow protect her from the dark things in her nightmares. Those had always been mostly shapeless things—she couldn’t articulate what they were about or why they had scared her.

Now, her dreams had morphed into ones of failure: she had dreams about bad grades, about showing up to give presentations in her underwear. Mostly silly things like that—but ones that still woke her up in the middle of the night and had her checking to make sure her PowerPoint was properly downloaded onto her flash drive and all of her notes were in order.

But there were the truly harrowing dreams. The ones that followed her from waking hours and all the horrible things she had seen. She had had nightmares after Persephone had died, replaying the moments over and over and over. She had had nightmares about Urania, the guilt so thick in her stomach that she often woke up coughing, as if she was trying to expel what had happened from her body. (Funny, she rarely had dreams about dying—but she often had horrible nightmares where she murdered Urania over and over and over.) After Phoebus, Belle had had awful dreams like the one she’d had tonight.

It didn’t take a genius to realize they were stress-induced, but that was what annoyed and ashamed her so much about the dreams she was having now. Nothing had happened to her. Hades was fine, Opal was fine, she was fine. The Order was back in their lives, but only on the fringe, like shadows, flickering in and out, like background noise crackling. They had showed no interest in Opal, in Hades, in Belle. They had, assumedly, learned their lesson. Or, at least, that was what Belle told herself whenever the anxiety seized her.

Despite this, the nightmares had plagued her since Toulouse had taken off after Claude. And even though the poor babe was back now, the both of them safe and sound, she couldn’t shake that feeling. The one that told her the Order was just over her shoulder, just waiting, just watching. Every new stranger she met she grew suspicious of. Were they a member of the Order? Were they back for her family. When she awoke from those nightmares, there was always this coldness in her stomach that told her Opal was gone. That she would walk into her nursery and her daughter would have vanished from her crib, abducted in the night.

This was ridiculous for several reasons. Primarily that they hadn’t heard anything from the Order in the days following Toulouse’s return. The Order had been uninterested in the Acherons. Shuck was not locked up somewhere, he was sleeping just downstairs. Anyone who came into the house would have to face him first—and he could not be felled by tourmaline bullets as easily as another magical beast. And even with his collar on, he was formidable. And if they managed to subdue Shuck, there was Hades, every night, asleep beside her—and never one for heavy sleeping. Not to mention the ghosts who watched like silent, invisible sentries over their little cottage.

So, what was wrong with Belle?

She didn’t know how to put the anxiety into words. How to take the rope that was wound tight around her chest and string it into something tangible. Something Hades could understand.

Her first instinct was to lie. To say she was fine. That Opal had been fussy and woken her and that he should go back to sleep. She would be there in a minute, after she was sure Opal was alright. But Opal was sleeping peacefully and deeply and she knew that she wouldn’t get away with that lie. Hades knew their daughter too well for that. Hades knew her too well for that. And it was too late, too early, too in-between for lies.

Belle sighed and shifted a little, looking from Hades to Opal, moving her hand to stroke at her daughter’s soft hair through the bars. “I can’t sleep,” she told him, her voice still soft and contemplative.

She looked back up at him, blinking blearily, the exhaustion plain on her face in a way she hadn’t allowed it be the last few days. Not that she thought Hades would’ve noticed anyway. He was settling back into his role on the Board, readjusting to the new crowd. They were both busy with the new semester starting as well. She felt as if she’d barely seen Hades outside of these late hours.

“I—” she started and then pressed her lips together. I’m scared, she tried to say, but the little scrap of pride she had after being found out wouldn’t let her. “I had—I’m worried about Opal.” I don’t feel safe. Her lips pressed harder together and she looked back at Opal as the baby sighed heavily in her sleep and squirmed a bit.

HADES:  Hades waited. He wasn’t a patient man by nature unless he saw a purpose for that patience-- there was a difference in other words between biding your time and simply waiting. Hades could bide quite easily as long as he knew the reason and had his eye on the result. 

With Belle, he found himself waiting more than the former option. Though the reasons, the results, these were becoming clearer the more times he stumbled. He knew for example that he had to wait for Belle sometimes simply because she took longer to think through her own thoughts and decide which ones to keep, which ones to toss out. He used to hate this about her. Hades’ filter was more efficient-- his mind and heart almost always on the same page. Belle’s vacillation felt dishonest to him in contrast, a kind of wishy-washiness that exposed a weak character and an even weaker mind. When he didn’t love her, it meant he’d taken advantage of it the way that Hades trained himself throughout his life. Though could you call manipulating a kind person manipulation if they barely noticed, if it didn’t matter what you would do to them, they’d still respond with kindness? It was baffling, and then it was interesting, and now--

Now, Hades admired most of these traits about Belle, even when they pissed him off. Belle’s process was different from his own, sometimes landing on different results, but those results were polished and unique, things that Hades wouldn’t ever think of himself because he was too pragmatic.

So Hades held his tongue. He held any annoyance. He did his own kind of filtering, picking his most productive emotions and coaxing his patience so it was a strong, reliable thing.

He waited, and he waited, and he knew that Belle would reward him.

She didn’t.

He raised his eyebrows at her answer, tilting his head a little. Her answer was filtered, alright-- she’d stripped it back too much. He didn’t doubt that what Belle said was true; she worried about Opal.

But that wasn’t all.

Hades wandered forward and the door shut behind him. He pushed at the ghosts in the room too with the presence of his mind. Arthur was the one who moved the rest out of the room. Luckily there were no nosy spectres these days, and his and Belle’s domestic spats (not that this would be a spat, he didn’t think) were not nearly as interesting as they used to be.

He practiced the same patience, stepping softly and stopping in front of Belle-- far enough to give her space, but close enough that he reached out,  grasped her upper arm, and gave it a light squeeze. His head tilted again.

“That’s not all though, is it?” he said. He phrased this question purposefully like this. He knew if he asked is that all? Belle might be too shy. She’d bury it.

He wanted to let her know that he saw her. That he could...understand. He’d try.

“You’ve not been sleeping well for days,” he added, almost like evidence to support this claim. He stroked down her arm and up again. A small, rather sad smile ghosted over his lips. “And here I thought I’d called dibs on bein’ the insomniac, eh?”  He touched her cheek, and even softer, “What are you thinking about?” 

BELLE: The door closed and Belle blinked. She hadn’t expected that. Maybe she had expected Hades to close it, himself on the other side, heading back to bed. She wouldn’t blame him, if he was too tired to pry and she didn’t really want it either, because she didn’t want a fight—which much of his prying turned into. That wasn’t his fault always. Sometimes, it was Belle’s. Belle, who still, after all this time, had trouble saying what was on her mind for fear of mostly unfounded repercussions. (He’ll leave. He’ll realize you’re not good enough, not strong enough.)

Hades face was soft and contemplative as he stepped towards her. Belle watched him with a confused bend to her brows, tilting her head back to look at him when he got closer. When he touched her, Belle felt her breath catch in her chest. Because she had been so tense, so afraid and hadn’t even realized it, until Hades’ warm hand rested over the fabric of her sweater and easily burned through to her skin. She glanced down at where he touched her, but looked up just as quickly at his words.

Once again, he surprised her. Belle wasn’t quite sure if the reason for this was just because she was tired and it was late, or if it was actually strange behavior.

That’s not all, is it? he asked, but his voice was soft. He wasn’t accusing her, at least not in a harsh way that scraped against the shell she’d made herself. Instead, he was coaxing her. Belle was baffled into a blush, blinking at her husband. That blush grew deeper when he told her that he knew she hadn’t been sleeping well. Belle thought she had been hiding it well. Belle had thought…he wasn’t paying her any attention. (Not that she begrudged him this, they were both busy. She wasn’t used to anyone paying attention anyway.)

Her eyes darted from his own, to his hand on her arm, back up to his face in rapid succession. She felt cornered, as she often did when being found out like this but—

Well, she always wanted Hades to notice, didn’t she? She could admit that to herself. It was a very childish, unfair way to go about things, but Belle had never been given the tools to handle things otherwise. As a child, she had moped about her own house like a ghost—no matter how loud she had sighed, her father had never noticed. No one had ever noticed.

At once, she wanted to burrow into Hades and just hide her face in his chest. She could confess all her secrets, quiet and in the dark, and when they woke up in the morning, she could pretend that she’d never said anything at all. She wanted to be warm and feel safe, instead of how she had felt waking up from that awful dream: like she was balancing on a plank of wood out at sea, like she was fighting off demons from a little boat. Too many demons who were overwhelming her little boat and slowly, slowly sinking it.

Hades hand on her shoulder helped. It said: “I’m here.” And Belle knew that if that was the case, nothing would ever harm Opal—or her. She just hated being so afraid. Once upon a time, Belle had hardly ever been afraid of anything. She’d faced a werewolf and sorceresses and trekked through the Underworld. She hated Phoebus and Merida for taking that fearlessness from her almost as much as she hated them for endangering her daughter.

“I—” she said, reaching up to grab his wrist. She wished they were back in bed, so she could tug him down with her and lean into his side, let his sturdiness and warmth steady her. “The Order,” she admitted quietly. The name slipped from her lips and blew up like a balloon into the room, like one of those foam toys you poured water on and watched expand. She could almost see it, in the shadows which hovered around the edges of the room.

“I keep—having these dreams.” She shook her head and sucked in a breath, feeling tears prick at her eyes. “I-I know it’s silly but I just—can’t stop thinking about what would happen if—they came for you again—” she looked briefly at Hades “—or Opal—” her gaze went to the crib as the rest of those awful thoughts she’d kept tucked inside just started to pour out of her.

“It happens differently in every dream but—there is never anything I can do. Because there isn’t anything I can do. They know that. I-I am—I’m Marie. I’m Nounou. If we’re home alone or we’re out somewhere or—I keep seeing them in every stranger’s face. Anyone who stares too long at Opal in the market. Anyone walking their dog through the park. Customers at the shoppe.” She took a breath and reached up with the hand not still squeezing Hades’ wrist and wiped at her eyes, even though no tears had fallen yet. They’d blurred the bars of the crib, turning it into a blob of white.

“I hate it.” I hate being so afraid. I hate being so weak.

HADES:  The Order. 

Hades blinked, and in the time it took to blink, all of Belle’s actions over the past few weeks made sense to him again. They rewrote themselves with clearer context, the details coming into focus. It had never been about class, it had never been about lack of sleep or fretting over Opal (well-- not the way that mothers normally fretted). It had been, yes, the Order. How cruel of them to materialize almost exactly a year after the kidnapping. Hades hadn’t noticed that until right now. But naturally he wouldn’t, because Hades dealt with trauma much differently than Belle-- that is, he didn’t. He took that trauma, decided it didn’t matter, and he boxed it up. When it returned, it came in dreams for Hades too, but a lifetime of ill-sleeping meant that one nightmare could hardly be worse than another, could it? 

 But he also hadn’t been the one who was kidnapped. 

He felt badly now for once again being blinded by his own perspective. In wanting everything to be so...clean-- his work life, his politics, his home life-- he’d failed again. To see Belle. To really see her. Why did he keep doing that? And why did whatever little progress he made never feel like it mattered?

This wasn’t about Hades though. So he swallowed, his eyes locked on Belle as she worried her words between her teeth and spoke so quietly in the dark, as if the Order was lurking even now. He watched as she wiped her tears. He let her hold his hand. He tried to listen, to really listen. It did feel easier to do in the dark, in the nowhere hour. Times such as these floated, neither yesterday or tomorrow. Hades didn’t feel pressed to organize that time in a way that would have meaning and function. He could just let these hours linger.

“Hey,” he uttered when Belle was done. His eyebrows crinkled and he reached up to wipe at another tear on Belle’s cheek. He pulled his hand from her grasp so he could cup her cheeks and make her look at him. “Hey. Nothing is going to happen like that again. I swear it. You’re never alone, Belle, not really.” 

He let his hands fall to her shoulders, squeezing her gently. “I’m always closer than you think. If anyone tried to harm you or Opal, I’d know. In a second, I’d know. And I’d be there the second after that. Though you shouldn’t discount yourself so easily, my love.” He smirked, just a little, though perhaps the shadows hid it. “You’ve always been more than capable. If you can stand up to the heir of the Underworld and keep him from goin’ outside in a blizzard… you can do just about anything. You have. You’ve survived, Belle. Don’t you see that?” 

BELLE: Hades’ words barely touched her. She wished they would. It wasn’t that she didn’t want them to, that she was stubbornly resisting them out of some sort of bullshit self-preservation or self-deprecation. They just couldn’t get passed the fear.

Even if part of her knew that Hades believed what he said. Even if part of her knew it was true. Hades was powerful. Hades could melt into the shadows and reappear somewhere else. She’d seen it herself. But she also knew sometimes the ghosts didn’t breakthrough. She knew that Hades wasn’t faster than a speeding bullet or the slash of a knife.

Belle was very quiet for a moment all her fear and tears trapped in her chest. She wanted to just nod her head and ask Hades to take her back to bed. Maybe all she needed was to rest her head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. Perhaps, that sound of life would keep the foreboding of death away. Maybe, she could just bury it all down, box it back up and put it on the shelf it’d been on for the last year. The very thought felt exhausting.

She was exhausted. Her head began to shake, back and forth, before she even realized she was doing it. The tears began again—frustrated and burning. They finally fell, one and then another, into her lap. Sucking in a breath, she leaned her head back against the headrest of the rocking chair, then turned her head away from Hades, to look at Opal, watch her sleep peacefully.

“I never actually stopped you,” she said quietly. The comment surprised her slightly and she looked back at him, the confusion at her own words plain on her face. Perhaps it was the darkness in the sky that made it easier to pull these secrets out, to speak without thinking. How relieving it was, even if it was also awfully frightening. Her fingers twitched against Hades’ hand, like she was going to squeeze it, like she was going to pull away.

It was true, though, wasn’t it?

“You left, went right out into that blizzard,” she told him, looking at him. She hadn’t known why she’d said it at first, but now she knew: she was exposing the lie of his words. “It was all just technicalities. Perhaps, I was brave, but I never did anything. If Merida hadn’t distracted Phoebus…” she trailed off, knowing well enough that the “what ifs” of that night had haunted both of them. And now, with Claude’s kidnapping behind them and Merida’s strange re-entrance to their life, Belle could admit to her invaluable actions that night. Which only made the whole thing more confusing.

“I haven’t survived.” Her free hand reached up to touch that line on her chest, just peeking out from the top of her nightgown.

“That’s not—it’s not the point.” She shook her head and sighed. “I don’t care about me. I just—I’m not—I’m not powerful enough to protect our daughter. I couldn’t even do it when she was a part of me. How am I supposed to do it when she’s out in the world? When all I have—” she shook her head again, she couldn’t even think of what it was she had to protect her daughter with, except perhaps love. And Belle had seen love do some incredible things, but she didn’t know if it was enough.

“I don’t want magic. Not really. I just—I don’t know how not to be terrified. All the time.”

HADES: Hades had a different reading of all those events. He frowned as Belle tried to rewrite his own understanding, not only of their past trials, but of herself within them. It was his instinct to jump in and cut her off, then begin his rebuttal. 

Because that’s what Hades did. He argued. He liked to think if he presented Belle with a strong case, complete with sources and examples that supported his own perceptions, then the wrinkle in her brow and the trouble in her eyes would simply evaporate. He would defeat her nightmares with debate only and they could go back to sleep, held in each other’s arms, unbothered by a world that attempted to convince the two of them they did not belong in it. 

This was a form of Hades’ idealism, his high-minded, too cocky belief in himself. It worked when it came to matters of politics. It even worked when Hades himself was burdened and he needed to find a way to make himself lighter. Hades struggled when logic stacked against him, rather than the other way around. 

It didn’t work for Belle though. It had never worked for Belle. It led, time and time again, to Hades misunderstanding her and Belle hurt by his misunderstanding. He didn’t want this conversation to end in Belle drawing away-- or worse, in a kind of fight spurned by Hades’ own carelessness. 

So he held his tongue, even though he wanted to insist that Belle was wrong. That she was strong, and more importantly, she was clever, and did she really think that someone like Hades would love someone who he thought was his lesser? No, he would never. He loved Belle because they were true equals: opposite sides of the same coin. Together, they would make Opal into something even better than themselves. 

He held it, and he held it, and he held it, until Belle was done and he felt helpless. 

So Hades did something he normally-- perhaps he had never done before. His hand moved from her shoulder around to her back. He stepped closer and enveloped her in his arms, though his hold was loose. She could easily push Hades away, as though he was nothing but a matchstick. 

“What do you need from me?” he asked, instead of telling Belle anything. “I want to help. I want you to feel...safer. I know it’s hard, but if there is anything…”

He’d even go after the bloody Order himself, burn each and every one down. 

BELLE: Belle blinked, her head jerking in a slightly startled way when she caught Hades moving out of the corner of her eye. She just wasn’t expecting him to come closer. Maybe it was just because she was exhausted, but she felt like she’d stepped into some kind of altered reality, just slightly different from her own. Hades wasn’t acting that strange, but something felt like it was shifting. Belle wasn’t sure what to make of it. She was used to feeling—like Hades would never understand her, that she loved him impossibly. Their love was quite literally, by Fate’s design, impossible. The distances between them, felt impossible.

Hades stepped closer and leaned down, wrapping himself around her. The embrace was slightly awkward, both because Belle was sitting and also because she hadn’t been expecting it, but it didn’t matter. She felt a knot in her chest untangle and she reached up to slip one of her hands around his back, curling her fingers in his shirt. She pressed her nose against the crease of his neck, breathing in the clean, familiar scent of his skin.

Even though she had to stretch up slightly in order for the hug to be effective, she felt herself relaxing into the warmth. She felt his words rumble in his chest, coming from the deep parts of him and she knew that they were true. That he meant them.

It still made her cheeks burn. She still hated how weak it made her sound. Belle hated being weak, and she hated admitting to it even less. If Hades hadn’t caught her in these soft twilight, in-between hours, she never would’ve admitted it at all. Which was another problem, for another day.

Right now, she just shook her head a little and readjusted her grip on Hades like she could tug him down into her lap and tangle up with him.

The answer to his question felt woefully complex and simple all at once.

She laughed, a soft, sharp laugh at herself—feeling ridiculous and suddenly like she had been making a very big deal out of something that wasn’t worth it at all. As soon as Hades had enveloped her in his arms, she felt like all the worry was far, far away.

“Maybe I just—needed this,” she admitted with a little sigh, shifting her head so her chin was on his shoulder, her temple resting against him. She closed her eyes. Sometimes, Belle forgot how nice a hug could be, or a cuddle. It wasn’t that Hades shortchanged her on affection, but in their day to day lives, they didn’t do these things. They rarely snuggled on the couch, apart from Hades frequently putting his feet in her lap. They brushed hands over backs when they moved about their tiny house. They kissed hello and goodbye, good morning and goodnight. They took showers and slept in the same bed, though they rarely snuggled then, either. The both of them used to their own spaces, and on different schedules.

But physical affection was never unwanted. And a hug went a long way to taking all of Belle’s frazzled pieces and putting them back together again.

It was a temporary solution, she feared this time, but for the moment—she was just glad for Hades and his softness for her.

“I—don’t know what to do in the long run,” she confessed into the quiet room. “I don’t like feeling…unprepared or unable to take care of my family but…I’ll figure it out.” She turned her head again, this time pressing her lips to that soft, vulnerable part of Hades right behind his ear. “This helps.” She pulled back a little, her hand curving over his shoulder, touching his neck. Belle smiled at him in the near dark and leaned up just a little so she could kiss the corner of his mouth softly. “We should go back to bed.”