Original: "Hades, or a Study in Global Warming and Love" (Slash)
It seemed pretty depressing, but there really wasn’t anything keeping Chris from just waltzing in to Hades. He’d graduated with a BA in Classical Studies, couldn’t even get a job at a burger joint, and was up to his eyes in student loans. Besides, he had already lived in Houston, Texas for a year and a half, which was like being in Hell with all the heat. At least Hades was a cool underworld.
There was a romantic part of him that really wished the gate to the Underworld would’ve been inside a metro tunnel, the modern world’s dank cave, but in reality, it was in a bathroom in the downtown mall. Not even in one of the tunnels. It was tragic.
Chris slipped through the gate and walked. At first, he could’ve been walking down any darkened hallway, but after a while (minutes or hours, he wasn’t sure), the floor gave way to a steep, rocky foot path. The oppressive summer heat that Chris had been hoping to escape gradually faded, and he had to stop and pull his Astros hoodie from his backpack to ward away the cold.
The path Chris walked was dark, but there shone a light at the end of the tunnel that gave a faint illumination around him. It wasn’t enough to keep him from stepping right into the river Styx.
The jagged rock abruptly gave way to the river, with nary a sandbank or a dock. Chris was lucky he ended up with just a muddy shoe and soaked jeans; he’d nearly tumbled in headfirst.
A throaty laugh wormed its way out of the darkness. It was Chris’s only warning, because Charon, whether through magic or just thousands of years of practice, made no sound as he paddled up to collect him. He beckoned Chris into his boat with a skeletal finger. Chris swallowed. His first test. He found one of the gold coins he’d saved from the metro ticket machine and placed it between his teeth. He stepped into the boat and bowed his head forward, offering the payment to the ferryman.
Charon smiled as he took the coin, but said nothing.
…………………………………..
The legends really had been quite thorough about the obstacles, Chris thought to himself. He paid Charon without touching him, took a long detour around the River Lethe, and fed Cerberus the three-headed guard dog three of the vending machine honey buns he’d packed in his backpack. The beast was really more like a giant puppy. It even let Chris scratch behind its ears before he continued on, although it had growled when he tried to walk away before giving all three heads equal attention. The judges, he just walked past, already knowing the correct path to take.
Really, the only unexpected thing Chris encountered was Hades himself, but that one surprise was more than enough to compensate for the surprising normalcy of the rest of his epic journey to the Underworld.
……………………………
Chris wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been expecting of the King of the Underworld, but it wasn’t what he saw. The usual depictions of a grim man, dark haired and bearded, dressed in royal purple robes and seated upon a throne overlooking his dark kingdom certainly didn’t apply.
Hades was dark-haired and pale, but his beard, if he’d had one, had been shaved off, and the deathly pallor was ruined by his red eyes. He had the look of someone who hadn’t slept, and who had been crying, or trying not to cry for a significant portion of the day. His wardrobe was surprisingly modern, with a fitted purple button-down and tailored black slacks. In the place of sandals or dress shoes, he had a pair of slippers covered in skulls. He sat slumped in his throne, mouthing along to the words of a sad song playing from a set of iPod speakers on the floor beside him.
Chris stood before the throne, gazing at the Olympian. He looked much younger than Chris thought he’d be, and he was actually…kind of hot, in an emo sort of way. Chris cleared his throat.
Hades looked up. He gave Chris a glance-over. Chris knew he must look very different from the Greek heroes and demi-gods that had ventured into his realm, with his mousy brown hair, short stature, and glasses, but the god let no surprise show.
“Hmm. Charon texted me you were coming. What do you want?” he asked, somehow sounding bored even though he looked ready to cry at any moment.
“Texted you?” Chris repeated incredulously. He tried to imagine that ragged figure with a smart phone in his hands, and his mind could not complete the picture.
Hades shrugged. “We get surprisingly good reception here. AT&T.”
Chris shook his head. “Only in hell,” he muttered to himself.
“So, human, what do you seek? The soul of a loved one? A lost quest-item? Some tidbit about your destiny? I haven’t all day,” he huffed. Chris was sure he had some quality sulking to get back to.
“Just wanted to see what was down here,” he answered. “I’ll let you get back to your important Underworld stuff now.” He turned. Three more honey buns, another gold coin, and a long walk later, he was back in the land of the living.
…………………………
A week later, Chris still hadn’t found a job, or a purpose, so he took his second trip to the Underworld, this time bearing pints of Ben and Jerry’s in addition to his coins and his honey buns. Charon winked at him as he stepped into his boat, and when Chris stepped off on the other side, he swore he heard Angry Birds.
Hades looked much the way he had when Chris had left him.
“Have you decided what you seek yet?” Hades asked.
Chris nodded. “Knowledge. Chunky Monkey or Cookie Dough?”
…………………………..
Hades, or Dis, as he asked Chris to call him (the way he mixed Greek and Roman names made the Classics major in Chris writhe in pain, but Dis insisted that the different terms all referred to the same thing, and he liked Dis the best) ended up eating the entire pint of Cookie Dough and half of the Chunky Monkey as well. He didn’t seem to mind that it was half melted.
Chris looked up at the god from where he’d sat on the ground beside Dis’ throne. “You ready to talk about it now?” he asked.
“Talk about what?”
Chris looked pointed at the iPod, the slippers, the ice cream, and then up at Dis, who frowned.
“It’s not like you don’t know. Everyone does.” Chris raised an eyebrow.
The god looked away. “She left me. Don’t pretend you hadn’t noticed the changes on the surface. You mortals cannot honestly believe it is global warming. It’s my bitch mother-in-law gloating.”
As his anger built, Dis seemed to take on more life, but as suddenly as the color appeared in his cheeks, it faded again. “I did everything I could think to get her to stay. The modernization was for her. It didn’t help.” He sighed, and two thousand plus years of relationship strife rode on that single breath.
Chris had seen friends in college crying their way through break-ups the way this great Greek god was doing. It seemed heartbreak was the great equalizer. He reached up and patted Dis’s knee.
“That sounds pretty rough,” he sympathized.
Dis nodded, tears welling up in his gray eyes. “You can’t begin to imagine. Everything, everyone, here is so cold. The only joy I feel is from the warm touch of a living being.”
Chris looked at his hand, still resting on Dis’s leg, and slowly drew it back, blushing.
……………………………
The next time Chris visited, there was a chair waiting for him beside Dis’ throne. By the way the god avoided mentioning it or looking at it, Chris was willing to bet that it was her throne. Still, it was comfier than the floor. He sat with the Lord of the Underworld and chatted about how humans believed the seasons were caused by the axis of the earth.
“What do mortals know?” Dis pouted. “They don’t even think Pluto is a planet.” Chris smirked at him.
“You only care because it was named after you.”
Dis crossed his arm. “No, I care because my lecherous baby brother got the LARGEST planet named after him, and his still counts. Zeus always had all the luck.”
…………………………..
With more visits, Dis’s dark mood lifted. He put away the iPod and slippers and showed Chris around the three sections of Hades. The god pointed out the legendary men and women that Chris had studied all his life.
“Could I speak to them?” Chris asked, breathless just at the thought.
Dis shook his head. Chris sighed. “Not without my permission,” Dis amended. “And my protection. Spirits can be dangerous if you aren’t careful.” Chris beamed at the god, who led him on through the Elysian Fields.
………………………………..
Neither of them spoke about the bowl that rested on a pedestal between the two thrones at Chris’s next visit. The pomegranate seeds inside of it glistened. Chris knew what they meant, and Dis knew that Chris knew, and it was the giant fruit-flavored elephant in the room that neither one was ready to talk about.
So they talked about Disney (Dis had decided that Pluto the dog made up for the portrayal of Hades in Hercules, so he’d let Mr. Disney into Elysium), and baseball (Chris’s team had lost their last game to the Brewers), and the contrasting portrayals of Clytemnestra in various evolutions of myth. But Chris’ heart wasn’t in their talk. In the back of his mind, he focused on Dis’ eyes, no longer red with tears, and his dwindling bank account, and the pleasant coolness of the Underworld.
“I can’t eat the pomegranates,” he interjected suddenly into Dis’s counterargument that the real issue was the fate of Iphigenia.
Dis paused. “I… see.” He sat up straight in his chair, masking his emotions behind his regal mask of godhood.
Chris scrambled out of Persephone’s throne. “I’m allergic. Can’t it be anything else? How about grapes? Apple slices? I mean, I guess it doesn’t really matter if my throat swells shut because I’m already here, but,”
Dis grabbed a handful of Chris’s hoodie and dragged him down into his lap. The mortal’s ramblings ended with Dis’s lips on his.
“I am sure an alternative can be found,” Dis assured him when he pulled away.
…………………………..
AN: Ok, I do not think I was cut out to write snuggles, for I suffer from CHRONIC wordcountitis, and this would be EVEN longer if I wasn’t trying my best to par it down. Brevity is the source of wit and I am SEVERELY LACKING WITTINESS TODAY.