#their style is like the exact opposite of my usual aesthetic but god i wanna try it so bad

[silentsockfeet]

emo vi has actually rewritten my brain chemistry like i’m not a very impulsive person but they have me sitting here like what if i shaved half my head 🤔 what if i got cartilage piercings 🤔 what if i got super duper buff and wore crop tops and leather jackets 🤔🤔🤔🤔

[acequeenking]

winters nigh and summers o’er 2/?? ( G)

A collection of one-shots centered on Hades and Persephone's relationship; stories are non-chronological but all within the same timeline. Warnings and ratings are on individual chapters since these run the gamut from G to E. Updated weekly on Thursdays. (Previous Installments here!) 

Summary: “Do you want…?” Seph bit her lips and Demeter glared into her brother, because he damn well was at the moment of truth and if he blew it so help Zeus she would hurt that man if he messed this up. Demeter wasn’t kidding about gardening Hades like a particularly caustic onion if she had to. Maybe cut off a few shoots, too – wasn’t like they wouldn’t grow back. Eventually.

Demeter eyed the train tracks as the train came a stormin’ on. She glanced back at her daughter Persephone – still sleepin’ at the stop, spread out over the damn bench like a sacrifice, hand on her belly – and gathered her courage.

The old man – her baby brother, but he’d been old forever, even when they were wrong – came down the tracks in his big ol’ train, which Demeter was sure was compensating for somethin’, but they were past the point of petty insults right now in their relationship and, given recent developments, Demeter was trying to be in a forgiving and forgetting mood.

Still, Demeter held tight to her daughter’s luggage, not so much as daring to blink as she waited for the man to slow down and stop, which he did, though he made a real wreck of it, only hitting the brakes at the very last second. It was almost miraculous Seph could sleep through it, but then Seph hadn’t had an easy time of it lately. Demeter checked her watch: 12:00 pm exact. Ain’t nothin’ more exacting to the absolute second than death, she thought. She never liked her brother much but would give him credit for that: in the underworld, the train ran on damned time. Heh, damned time; that was a good enough joke she’d tell Seph when she was in the mood for a laugh again. Was a harmless enough joke that even her good-for-almost-nothing brother might find it funny.

Hades threw the door to her daughter’s car open, and Demeter watched with cool eyes as she took him in for the first time in six months. She couldn’t even remember the last time they’d all been together without bein’ at throats before that. She’d barely seen him six months past; he’d been hidden behind her daughter’s bags and had barely said five words to her. Now exposed, she took a good look at him. He’d aged more than she’d realized, and somehow that was surprising even though she had gone and done the same; her stomach finally filled out with motherly paunch, her hair finally gone all grey. His, somehow, had gone white, a shock of snow on that ol’ patrician face of daddy’s that Hades had finally, at long last, grown into. Body-wise he was mostly the same, big on top and super skinny underneath; still as broad in the chest as he always was, with legs too long and skinny for his own good. And still way too pale; if she was as dark as the earth, he was as pale as a death cap mushroom burstin’ up from the underneath.  Hard to believe her brother and her were the same species, let alone siblings.

“Well if it isn’t Demeter Carpophoros,” he said, bowing with a hint of sarcasm dripping from his tongue. Demeter took no offense at this. He was always a little shit. “Nice to see ya, though you aren’t who I was expectin’.”

He looked beyond her, and Demeter took in all the little signs of his anxieties that she knew he wouldn’t admit to: his sleeves were rolled up, so no doubt he’d  been pacin’; he had a slight frown in his face, and she knew he wondered if this was it, Persephone packin’ up his bags and sendin’ her momma to send him home alone; his eyebrows were moving behind those contemptible sunglasses, so she knew he was ruthlessly evaluating Demeter, trying to  decide what her story was and why she was here and thus, how rude he should be. Hades thought he was intimidating, but he had forgotten Demeter knew him from the moment he was born, and ain’t nothin’ intimidatin’ about a man once you changed his diapers, even death incarnate.

“She’s here, but…You and me? We gonna have a little talk first.” She shoved him back into his damn train car and Hades let her; he knew better than most what her wrath looked like. She held out Persephone’s luggage; her girl was packin’ light this year, just a couple of bags. Not bringin’ the drink cut her baggage down a lot, and Demeter was glad of that, provided this big lug didn’t make her baby girl wanna start drinkin’ again.  “Make yourself useful, brother.”

“First time you’ve called me that in a long time,” he drawled. “This it?”

“That’s it.” He frowned, but he took her daughter’s things and slowly, reverently put them on a luggage rack. He even tied them down which Demeter supposed was a good sign that he would be responsible enough to handle a small infant on his own in the summertime. Mostly. He was still a male god, and they were almost all useless in that department. Maybe since he was so old for a first-time father, he’d be old enough he’d actually figure out how to change a diaper instead of demanding a woman do it.

“Yeah, well. Maybe you can get used to me callin’ you brother again, if you keep behavin'.” He chuckled at that and dared to shoot her a little nervous grin. Demeter could always tell the difference on him; his tell was that the nervous smile was wider than the genuine, him showin’ off just a bit too much of those mean teeth. He stood to his full height as if he was readin’ her mind and didn’t like that she knew him that well. Or at least, she had, once. He looked down at her and she looked up. She felt her old annoyance at how he got to be so damn tall, like dad; she flecked off his sunglasses, an old-ass instinct that made her smile before she’d quite realized she had done it.

“Hey…” He blinked, confused as she tucked the sunglasses into his pocket. He wasn’t used to the upper world light. Too bad. She wanted her daughter to see him god damn plain when he saw her.

And, hell, she wouldn’t deny she wanted to see his expression, too.

“Sit.” He did, spread out like a king: legs wide, hands on his knees. He looked straight at her face, deadly serious, and she took her seat on the opposite side. She would give Hades credit for one thing: the seats on this jalopy were pretty comfy. And she supposed that the style wasn’t bad, if you considered saloon-room meets funeral parlor an aesthetic.

“What’s this about, Deme?”  His old childhood nickname for her slipped out of his mouth effortlessly, and she didn’t call him on it. She’d give him that back. If they were gonna be tryin’, then she would be, too.

“Our girl.” She snorted. “What else?”  He was a part of Persephone just as much as Demeter was, no matter how much Demeter didn’t like admittin’ that. They had been married a good few millennia now, so she supposed he was bound to rub off on her little girl a bit.

“What about her? Is she okay?” His words were all sotto-voice; soft, soft, soft. She could hear the love in his voice there, and fates only know how he got it in him, that love, because Hades had been colder than stone for the first forty thousand years of his life and by all the war reports Demeter had gotten he slipped right back into that damn often, but Demeter was almost thankful for him feelin’ that love, at least right now. There were worse men her baby girl could have reproduced with, if certainly there were better men, too. Least he was reliable.

“She’s sleepin’.” “…Sleeping?” He looked at her oddly. “Thought you said she was here.”

“She is. Sleepin’ on a bench out there. Exhausted, the poor little thing. Nodded off when we got here an hour ago. Didn’t even wake up when you pulled in.” Despite what was surely his best attempt to get her attention with that terrible din and clanging.

“Sleeping? At this hour?” He looked out into the sunlight, as if he was puzzled anyone could sleep in daytime. She supposed that was a normal enough reaction if someone was a miserable old mole who spent all day every day in the dark, which he was. “She okay?”

“Physically? Right as rain, but that girl is exhausted. She been worryin’ herself six months straight about you, boy,” she said, pointing her finger at his chest; she was probably one of only three people who could get away with calling Hades that and she basked in it. “I want you to know something, Hades: my daughter wrote you one hundred and eighty-two versions of the same damn letter, only to tear each and every one of ‘em up. I been watchin’ her tear those – and herself – up for months. Months. Ain’t been fun.”

“Oh.” He frowned, slightly pensive. Which was more expressive than he usually was, with anyone but Seph.

“I didn’t save’em, I respect her privacy too much for that.” And she had promised not to tell him, even if she wanted, badly, to do so. “Well...I didn’t get any of ‘em, but...We left on good terms, Deme. Better than…years.” He smiled a bit at that, and she wanted to roll her eyes, bite back and tell him, I know, how do you think my baby girl got herself in this mess? But she couldn’t say that, because he didn’t know about that mess just yet. He was still smiling, and, on another man, it might have been cute, but on him it came off as vaguely predatory; bragging. He didn’t need to. Frankly, everybody in the damn pantheon knew they on good terms; this had been the first springtime in years. Decades, even. ‘Bout to see the first autumn, too. He didn’t need to shout to the world they’d repaired their off-key tempo, the whole world could see it. Obvious.

Demeter frowned into her seat, debating how to best give her baby brother her …expectations as to how he should react to news she couldn’t give. Persephone had made her swear a Stygian oath on not tell ’im, and Demeter wasn’t willing to get washed down to Hades’ awful shores just yet for this, even if it meant more time with her daughter. “Ain’t about yer relationship. Something more basic than that. Some…life changes. She worries about your reaction because she’s a …a little bit different, then when she left ya last winter.”

“Oh.” He looked confused at that and she supposed she couldn’t blame him, because if you fired blanks for hundreds of thousands of years, you did tend to assume your pistol wasn’t loaded. Turned out, he was just a bad shot.  A ridiculously bad shot. But that wasn’t what he thought of; she could tell what he was thinkin’ of because he was lookin’ at her real intently, and she knew he was wonderin’ if maybe his girl was startin’ to look a little less too-young for him, and a little more like her momma. To his credit, he shook his head a second later. “So what if she goes a bit grey? We’ll match.”

Ain’t no way you two ever match, Demeter thought, but kept herself from saying. Persephone would be proud of her momma’s restraint, she thought. Well, she’d let him think it was a little grey hair for a bit.

“Good. Cuz I ain’t sayin’ it’s you, but her daddy…he didn’t react too good to this kind of thing, and that’s the only frame of reference she’s got for this and she’s scared. So you better do better than your brother. You go over there and you hold her and you tell her she’s the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. Cuz you’ve put our girl through enough, you owe her that relief.”

“I know,” he mumbled, quiet; his cheeks were a bit pink, which meant he was at least a bit sorry for almost ending the world over his stupid-ass insecurities. “I… I am trying, Deme.” He said, visibly pained with his arms out, as if she’d been holding a gun on him; honestly, only great Gaia knew how he’d ever gotten to the point of bein’ able to tell her little girl anything, let alone marryin’ him, if he was still gonna be like this.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” She stood and he stood, too; they were done for the year. Autumn chill was in the air, and it was high time for Demeter to press some cider and for him to get along home. “Guess it’s time she goes back down to yer old abode, now.”

He nodded; Demeter stood to the side, let him go blinking into the sun, and followed closely behind. If he blew this, in any way, she would bury his ass in the backyard for a full six months and her daughter could visit him outside and water him with their ferns.  Demeter had checked with Zeus; that would technically count as allowing him his six months, long as he got to be with her.  Seph wouldn’t mind campin’ outdoors to fulfill his custody to the full letter of the law.

“Third row.” He tossed a raised eyebrow back at her – normally Seph sat up front, bright and ready —  well, she had back when he’d actually waitedinstead of just grabbin’ her soon as he got an itch, regardless of if it was June or August or gods forbid, May  – but well, he’d figure out the obvious reason in a moment. She noted his step got a bit faster, and she followed hot on his heels as he went down one row, two.

And then his breath caught. And he stopped. Demeter stopped next to him, watched him watch her little girl, all curled up with one hand over her wide, curving belly. Still looked a bit too much like a sacrifice for Demeter’s taste, but hell, that was probably a turn-on for him.

“Oh.” It was all he said, but there were thousands of emotions in it. He raised a hand, dropped it. Looked at her, blinked, looked back at Persephone. “Oh!” He said again, and Demeter had the pleasure of the King of the Dead completely, utterly shell-shocked.

Which, frankly, she savored. Wasn’t like he hadn’t pulled out the rug from under her once; they were even now.

“You see,” was all she said, quiet. She coulda bragged, but again, for Persephone, she would restrain herself. She didn’t know if they had ever talked about kids; she’d tried to talk to Persephone about it long ago, but all Persephone would say then was that they weren’t tryin’ yet in a harsh voice, and eventually one did stop asking after a few thousand years went by without a grandchild poppin’ up.  Her brothers gossiped that Hades’ takin’ on the role of the underworld’s master had dried up whatever he had stored up in his balls, but her brothers were idiots who frequently forgot there had been a god of the dead before Hades, and Iapetus had had five children during his time guardin’ the old downstairs. She thought it was probably the stress on her little girl from the constant travel, or a genuine desire from the both of ‘im to not make their frankly fucked up situation at the best of times even more so, but well — it hadn’t happened. And before this, she thought, that was probably for the best.

But now it had.

And Hades was — well, processing, because he clearly believed it would never happen later.

“Six months?!” He said at her, gesturing at her. “She couldn’t… Six months?!”

“Hundred and eighty letters, Hades,” she said, holding her hands out. “I know you might be mad, but – she's been distressed. Made me swear to not say a word, and gave Hermes such a run-around I think that old gossip is still dizzy. Come at her with venom in your mouth and you will lose her.” Truth was, Demeter understood why her daughter had been unable to tell him.

He exhaled, loud, through his mouth. Typical to Hades, he offered no indication of whether he was gonna take her advice or not.

She saw that big jaw move in an unreadable mull twice, then he closed the distance between him and their girl, falling to his knees in front of her. He ran a very shaky hand over Seph’s face, not quite daring to touch, just yet.

“You’re a little late, sunshine,” he sputtered; he stroked her face gently and Seph’s eyes opened, lookin’ like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She stared hard at his face, like she was trying to discern some divine truth out of his stone face, and he swallowed, but otherwise kept his face as stoic as the rock he generally was.

“I missed ya,” she murmured. His voice crumbled into something that might have been a laugh or a sob in response, but Seph smiled, and she decided it must be some joke between them that Demeter wasn’t privy to. Hades leaned forward, and Demeter blinked in surprise as her baby brother planted a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. She suspected he might kiss her on the mouth if Demeter wasn’t around, but well, Demeter was kind of happy he didn’t.  Weren’t on that good of terms yet. Seph wrapped her arms around him and hung onto him with desperate zeal, eyes shut tight, and Demeter knew her little girl was still nervous, though why she had no idea because it wasn’t like the man was blind, for all the time he spent down in the mines.

“Missed you, too.” The sotto voice again; soft and sweet as Hades got, which wasn’t very but evidently was enough for her little girl. His hand was caressing her arm now, trying to get up the courage to go further down she suspected. Seph shrugged him off a bit, pushed up to a sitting position or at least attempted to; she did not miss that and Seph was larger now than she’d been right before the girl had come.  After watchin’ her struggle for a moment, Hades stumbled to help her maneuver up, to his admittedly limited credit. She expected him to get up and grab her hand, let them finish this conversation on the train in private, but — he didn’t. Instead, he just shifted a bit, moving between her legs so he could lay the side of his head on her belly.

Nobody moved for a long, long moment.

“It is yours—  Seph said, and Hades and Demeter both snorted; it was obvious it was his. Beyond obvious.

“I know. Can I…?” He asked, hand out-stretched.

“It is yours,” Seph said, her voice wavering. Demeter bit back a snort watching her brother’s face, still severe, as he pressed a curious hand to her belly, slowly rubbing little circles in the fabric of her dress as if the dress would reach out and devour his arm.

“Do you want…?” Seph bit her lips and Demeter glared into her brother, because he damn well was at the moment of truth and if he blew it so help Zeus she would hurt that man. She wasn’t kidding about gardening him like a particularly caustic onion if she had to. Maybe cut off a few shoots, too – wasn’t like they wouldn’t grow back. Eventually.

“I want, beautiful.” Hades leaned into Persephone with a soft sigh, glancing up at her. “I want.”

And her daughter’s eyes closed and that — well, it wasn’t quite the flowery language her little girl deserved, but it was enough for her. Her daughter smiled, and Demeter relaxed. She knew she should leave’em then, let them have their time, but it was a charmin’ tableau even if Hades was in it, and she couldn’t think of the last time all three of ‘em had been gathered together with anything less than bitterness between them, so she savored the moment.

And though she’d never ever tell them it, maybe her heart did melt for the old bastard just a tiny bit when her brother’s lips pressed a kiss into Seph’s belly, fondness surprisingly evident in his stern old face. “Hello there, little shoot.”

“Shoots,” her daughter said, barely audible. That had been the part Demeter was happiest about, truth be told: she had always regretted not giving Persephone a sister or two. She’d had Arion, but Arion was, well, a horse, and it was hard to cross that divide when it came to children’s’ games. At least her grandchildren would never know the loneliness of being the only child in the family.

Besides, Hera never had triplets in her line, not even in all her grandbabies, so now Demeter had something to brag about up on the mountain.

“…Shoots?” He looked up abruptly with his jaw hanging a bit open and Demeter actually did have to hide her own mouth to stop from laughing because his look was, well – dumb-founded. Persephone reached out and shut his jaw with an audible click, looking aside to her mother with a look that expressed her amusement at her husband’s idiocy.  “So…how many branches are we addin’ to the family tree?” He asked, and Demeter had to laugh, because she could see her baby brother runnin’ actuary tables in his head already as far as what his kids were gonna cost him.

“Three.” He looked at her belly again, the look starting to skirt closer to terror but not quite getting there, morphing somewhere along the way into a mix of complicated emotions, and settling on what looked like a complicated sort-of happiness — or as happy as Hades got, which was a small genuine smile with his eyes closed.

“Well…good. Our little bramble, briar and thorn won’t be lonely.”  He chuckled deep into her belly. “Ain’t like they got a lot of little cousins to play with.”

“Yes, you two well and truly did wait long enough,” Demeter huffed. “Don’t even know what’s left for them to be Gods of.”

“We’ll find somethin’.” Her brother stood, though it took him a moment, his knees cracking; he was so old, Demeter thought ruefully. They all were. Standing and looking a tiny bit more distinguished now, he held out his hand. “Do you… should you…stay? Til…” Demeter could see how much it pained him to offer her that, after six months of waitin’. He couldn’t stay up-top, not that long. Death wasn’t really allowed much of a holiday, which had been the one thing that she enjoyed about her daughter’s marriage, early on: he never could follow her everywhere, and she suspected he might have tried had he been dealt a smaller lot.

“No. I missed ya.” Her daughter got up, or at least tried; she faltered, forced already into that odd waddle that Demeter would be sorry to miss the final culmination of.  Seph was already much bigger than she should be, but Demeter blamed Hades for that.  He helped her stand — a bit late again, but faster than last time, he was learnin’ — and offered his arm. Persephone leaned into it and Demeter felt an odd pang of something – not quite gratitude, not quite sadness. Zeus had never done such for her, and a few thousand years ago — great grandmother Gaia, six months ago, she wouldn’t have thought Hades would, either.

When she’d seen him then—red rimmed eyes, mouth trembling as he held out Seph's bags in an awkward peace gesture—she hadn’t, really, imagined she ever would again.

“Besides…” Seph started and looked at her momma with an unreadable look for a moment, and Hades and Demeter both looked at her, and she could see in Hades’ face the mirror of her own: curiosity and worry crashing together.

“The children should be…born at home,” Seph murmured, in that quiet way her daughter had of saying important things in an almost flippant way.  Demeter flinched; she didn’t consider the underworld Seph’s home as much as an eternal, if temporary, inconvenience. Hades took her daughter’s declaration better: his arms closed around her and she saw his hand tremble as he embraced her, smoothin’ down her hair.  

“I’d like that,” he said softly. “Like that a lot.”

And she knew, of course, that was why Seph had said it. Tryin’ worked both ways, and makin’ their babies underworld natives meant they’d be a lot more like their daddy than their momma. Her daughter curled her hands over his shoulders and they stood together for a long moment. And Demeter thought, maybe, well, maybe she was wrong they didn’t fit together. Because while they looked fucking ridiculous — her daughter as gorgeous a sunshine child as always, Hades as dour a shadow as had ever been made — they looked happy. And maybe Demeter could let her go, just a bit; Seph knew her momma always had her back, anyway.

Demeter moved back to them, gently tapped them both on the shoulder. “You’re runnin’ late. Better get goin’.”

“I’ll be back when — when its time,” Hades said, a little quiver in his voice and she bit back a you had damn better and instead smiled, nodded.

“I’ll be here,” she said, tapping Persephone’s shoulder; her daughter turned toward her, and she pressed her lips to their girl’s forehead with the last bit of summer-time in her kiss. “Now get goin’.”

Demeter should have turned and walked back to her home, squeezed some apples into cider, but she watched them board and watch the train the whole way down the track, not turning to walk back home til the train was no longer visible, til its whistle had long stopped echoing.

The first fall leaves in a long damned time crunched under her feet the whole way back, and Demeter smiled.

Mythology notes:

The name Hades calls Persephone's momma Demeter when he first sees her, Demeter Carpophoros, was one of her surnames that was used in cult in Tegea and Paros and meaning, roughly, "fruit bearer." Hades might be showing respect, and might be not-so-subtly suggesting she produce the fruit he wants (eg Persephone).

Arion is Persephone's half-brother, Demeter's son via Poseidon according to Pseudo-Apollodorus and Pausanias. And yes, he is a horse.

The triplets are a reference to the Orphic hymns, which attribute the Erinyes/Furies as three daughters of Hades and Persephone: "[Erinyes] from Zeus Khthonios (Chthonius) [Haides] born, and Persephone, whom lovely locks adorn."

Next week's story will be goin' back, way back.