elevator love song; a hades/persephone, lito mythfic.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is another in my series of "mythfics", to borrow the term from my darling etzyofi. In order to fully appreciate these, be sure to look at the casting picspam. I'm also including a "cast list" at the beginning of the fic just as a refresher as to who's playing who.)
(SECOND AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is technically only the first half of a longer fic, which is intended to be a series of snippets/vignettes. So expect the rest of the fic soonish. Just wanted to get this bit posted for my darling fairandbright. :D)
CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:
elevator love song (or, i fucking hate muzak), hephaestus/hestia | hades/persephone | multi-character, pg-13
Life at the Lito is charmed by mortal standards. But sometimes, even at the home of the gods, things can go a bit… haywire.
(Dedicated to fairandbright, who's wanted a Hades/Persephone fic for three months. SORRY IT'S TAKEN SO LONG, BEBE, AND HOPE YOU ENJOY. ♥)
"Thank you for calling the God of the Forge,” a recorded voice that sounded suspiciously like Hestia’s replied. “Unfortunately, Hephaestus is out for the weekend doing very important things. He kindly recommends that you call someone else for help, or fix whatever is broken yourself. Thank you.” 2,059 words
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the moment one thing breaks down in an apartment building, five other things will immediately follow suit.
A less widely known truth is that the ensuing complaints and demands invariably fall onto one particular god’s shoulders.
“Iris, plumbing isn’t within my purview. Either talk to Poseidon or call a plumber yourself,” Hephaestus grumbled into the phone before dropping it unceremoniously back into its cradle. “I’ve already got the theatre projector and the Jacuzzi to fix,” he muttered to no one, pushing himself back to his table and the parts that were strewn across it. “Just how in Tartarus did cheese get into this?”
“Well, it was either Dionysius or Hermes.”
Hephaestus looked up at the sound of her voice, a smile creeping up on him unawares. “Any particular reason for those assumptions?”
“Dionysius had a party last night, and with that many drunks around the Jacuzzi, anything is possible. As for Hermes, well, he overheard me telling Persephone about our plans for this weekend, and I’m sure he’d find it hilarious if you had to cancel dinner to repair everything. Maybe he feels he’s been slipping lately with his obligations as the Trickster God.”
“The joke’s on him, then,” Hephaestus said firmly, dropping a cheese-coated pipe. “Because I’m officially taking this weekend off. That blasted phone can ring all it wants, and the others can complain until they’re blue in the face. Anything else breaks down in this place, they can fix it themselves.”
As the elevator door closed, Persephone heaved a sigh. Not just any sigh: the full-bodied, dejected sigh that only she could do properly, the one that told the entire world that she was disappointed and heart-broken.
Her husband uncrossed his arms, refrained from indulging in his own, less dramatic sigh, and looked over at her. “What now?”
The eyes she turned to him would make a hardened killer weep, full of shimmering tears and poignant sweetness. “Why can’t you stay for my party?”
The typical stony set to his features softened, even though he knew exactly what she was doing-and that she knew what she was doing. “Sweetheart, you know I would if I could. But I have a recording to supervise tonight.”
She sniffed quietly, looking down at the diamond-studded wedding ring she twisted around her pale finger. “You’ve always got an excuse. It’s like you never want to spend time with me any more. Used to be you couldn’t get enough of me. You had to spend every moment with me.”
“That was before I was running a multi-billion dollar corporation!”
“And I suppose ruling all of the Underworld was a less time-consuming job?”
“Persephone, I’m sorry if you’re feeling neglected, but I have obligations. Sometimes I can’t rearrange my entire schedule to fit in one of your dinner parties with fancy fruit things and cocktail napkins.”
There was a sudden shudder, the squeal of complaining cables, and the elevator came to a quivering halt. Hades leaned over, the leather of his jacket creaking, and jabbed at the emergency button with a stern finger. There was a whine of feedback as the intercom buzzed to life.
“Hephaestus, there seems to be something wrong with the elevator,” Hades said.
There was a momentary pause, then a quiet click.
“Thank you for calling the God of the Forge,” a recorded voice that sounded suspiciously like Hestia’s replied. “Unfortunately, Hephaestus is out for the weekend doing very important things. He kindly recommends that you call someone else for help, or fix whatever is broken yourself. Thank you.”
Hades glanced over at his wife, bewildered shock replacing his usual expression of haughty disdain. “Did Hestia just tell me to bugger off?”
“Basically,” Persephone said sweetly, smiling. “Since she and Hephaestus have started dating, she’s gotten quite bold, hasn’t she?”
“One way of putting it,” he mumbled, pulling out his cell phone. “I don’t believe this. ‘No reception’? How is that even possible. This thing gets reception in Ohio, for fuck’s sake.”
“Language, darling!” Persephone said reproachfully.
“Dearest,” he said in a syrupy voice. “It’s not as if there are small children around.”
“Force of habit,” she half-apologized.
“Sometimes, sweetheart, you can be a little too Martha Stewart,” he said with a small shake of his head.
“What do you mean by that?” Persephone bristled. “Why do you say that as if it’s a terrible thing?”
“I mean sometimes you come across like a judgmental Sunday School teacher with too much time on her hands,” he said roughly, pressing at random buttons to no avail.
“Too much time on my hands?” she demanded.
“Anyone who can spend four hours cutting cheese into star shapes and arranging flowers by color has too much time to waste,” he said bluntly.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have so much time to waste if you were home more than once a week,” she retorted, brushing back an errant strand of strawberry-hued hair with a bit more force than necessary.
“I’m home more than once a week!” he said.
“Only for a couple of hours! I can’t remember the last time we spent an entire evening together!” Her hands tightened into pale fists.
“Persephone,” he said in what was a soothing tone for him. “You’re just getting overly emotional again and exaggerating.”
“No, I’m not, and stop belittling me! You always have excuses-dozens of them!-and I know you don’t like all of my fancy parties, I know you think they’re stupid and prissy and boring, but they’re important to me! There used to be a time when I was more important to you than your job! Used to be a time when you’d do anything to be with me, even risk punishment from Zeus and my mother! And now you’re always jet-setting to parties with slutty pop singers and you’ve been wearing far too much leather and you never even compliment me on my new recipes any more! I don’t like being so angry with you, or being so lonely all the time!”
He blinked in the ringing silence that followed, utterly nonplussed by his wife’s display of temper. “…too much leather?”
“Yes!” she said firmly with an exasperated huff of breath. “That jacket looks like something Ares would wear-like a biker punk with a bad attitude. You’re classier than that.”
“Ah, I see,” he said calmly, pulling off said jacket and dropping it in the corner. “How about the rest of this outfit?”
“The color of the shirt is nice,” she said, stepping closer. “I always liked you in red. But I don’t like the design on the front. It’s too… Hot Topic. It has to go immediately.” Her hands were at the hem and tugging at it before he could properly raise his arms. His shaggy dark hair stuck up at odd angles after she’d pulled the shirt off, and she didn’t try to resist running her fingers through it.
“And these necklaces are all wrong,” she said, somewhat breathlessly, staring at his chest. “Too many, to start with, and it’s disingenuous of you to wear crosses.”
He wound the chains around his hand and tugged, the latches snapping sharply. “I’m keeping the medal, though.”
She rubbed her thumb against the burnished copper, tracing the carving of the pomegranate tree with the edge of her fingernail. “You still wear this, every day?”
“Of course,” he said with a sideways grin. The smile she gave him was a giddy schoolgirl’s, full of innocent pleasure and sweetness. But then her hands were against his chest, sliding up over his shoulders, and the innocence of the smile had faded considerably.
“Well, the jeans are okay,” she said slowly, glancing down and back up. “But that belt buckle is too ostentatious.”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed amiably, reaching down to unfasten it.
She pressed her lips to his, leaning in to him with enough force to push him back against the wall. He pulled at her pale green dress, hiking up the skirt until his palms brushed against the warm skin of her thighs. She giggled against his mouth, winding a lock of his hair around her finger.
“You’re sure about the jeans, though?” He murmured in her ear before lowering his mouth to kiss the curve of her neck.
“Ummm,” she moaned. “Maybe you ought to lose those after all…”
“When did you become such a bad girl, sweetheart?”
“Even Susie Homemaker can’t be good all the time,” she gasped as he lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist, managing to catch her breath before going in for another kiss. “Especially not when she’s got a husband like you.”
“I’m sorry for leaving you lonely,” he said, pulling back just enough to look squarely into her doe-like blue eyes. “I’ve been a bad husband.”
“I know you love me, Hades,” she whispered with a brilliant smile, her hair wild around her youthful face. “And you’re doing a good job of making it up to me.”
There was that wolfish grin again, the one that made her weak all over-it had had the same effect that first time she saw him, even as the fear of the sudden darkness had gripped her, even as she cried out for her mother, even as she shrank back from the shadowy, stern-face figure that had snatched her from the world she had known and loved. Even then she knew that grin would come to mean something vital to her. She had felt it.
She curled her hand behind his neck and pulled him back into a kiss that made her skin shiver. How she loved the way he kissed her, the pressure of his lips, the way he made her feel like she was drowning and floating at the same time. When his hands were at her hips, those strong fingers hot against her curves, she forgot those long ago days when she had been afraid of him, had wanted nothing more than to return to her mother-
The elevator jumped, a jerky buck upwards that lasted all of a second yet still managed to throw them to the floor. As Persephone brushed back her hair and pushed herself up, one hand on her husband’s chest, the doors abruptly squeaked open with the cry of metal on metal.
And standing there was Hermes with a crowbar, looking quite bug-eyed with surprise-and her mother, jaw tightening with disapproval.
“Mother!” Persephone cried, hurriedly pulling down and straightening her dress. Hades, still lying pinned beneath his wife, merely flashed a friendly smile and waved at the two staring in at them.
“Uh, how long you two been stuck in here?” Hermes asked, his eyes darting from them to Demeter and back.
“Long enough, apparently,” Demeter said dryly. “Really, Persephone. In public?”
“When is anything that goes on around here private?” Hades pointed out just as dryly while Persephone fixed the buckle of his pants, face glowing red with embarrassment.
“I had better never see pictures of you in… in flagrante like this in some cheap supermarket tabloid,” Demeter said sharply.
“Well, we are married, mother,” Persephone dared to say, carefully looking anywhere but her mother’s face.
“Even so. You’ve got your public image to think about, Persephone.”
“Don’t worry, mother,” Hades said cheekily, pulling on his shirt and snatching up his jacket. “We won’t be out in public for a few days at least.” He looped an arm around his wife’s waist, flashed another wolfish smile of arrogant disregard, and sauntered off towards the stairs.
“What did you mean by that?” Persephone was saying as they disappeared up the stairs back to their apartment.
“I mean you’re canceling your party tonight, and I’m clearing my schedule, and we’re going to have a party of our own.”
“Oh!”
Hermes stared down at the crowbar he held, biting his lip. He knew he shouldn’t, but…
“So… I guess they were going down?”
“You can leave now!”
“Sure, sure,” he grinned. “Only needed me for my manly muscles and crowbar, I know how it is.” He nonchalantly slung said crowbar over his shoulder and strolled away, whistling.
Demeter stood in the doorway of the elevator for a long moment before finally heaving a frustrated sigh and turning to the stairs. She wanted nothing to do with that elevator now.
(SECOND AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is technically only the first half of a longer fic, which is intended to be a series of snippets/vignettes. So expect the rest of the fic soonish. Just wanted to get this bit posted for my darling fairandbright. :D)
CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE:
elevator love song (or, i fucking hate muzak), hephaestus/hestia | hades/persephone | multi-character, pg-13
Life at the Lito is charmed by mortal standards. But sometimes, even at the home of the gods, things can go a bit… haywire.
(Dedicated to fairandbright, who's wanted a Hades/Persephone fic for three months. SORRY IT'S TAKEN SO LONG, BEBE, AND HOPE YOU ENJOY. ♥)
"Thank you for calling the God of the Forge,” a recorded voice that sounded suspiciously like Hestia’s replied. “Unfortunately, Hephaestus is out for the weekend doing very important things. He kindly recommends that you call someone else for help, or fix whatever is broken yourself. Thank you.” 2,059 words
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the moment one thing breaks down in an apartment building, five other things will immediately follow suit.
A less widely known truth is that the ensuing complaints and demands invariably fall onto one particular god’s shoulders.
“Iris, plumbing isn’t within my purview. Either talk to Poseidon or call a plumber yourself,” Hephaestus grumbled into the phone before dropping it unceremoniously back into its cradle. “I’ve already got the theatre projector and the Jacuzzi to fix,” he muttered to no one, pushing himself back to his table and the parts that were strewn across it. “Just how in Tartarus did cheese get into this?”
“Well, it was either Dionysius or Hermes.”
Hephaestus looked up at the sound of her voice, a smile creeping up on him unawares. “Any particular reason for those assumptions?”
“Dionysius had a party last night, and with that many drunks around the Jacuzzi, anything is possible. As for Hermes, well, he overheard me telling Persephone about our plans for this weekend, and I’m sure he’d find it hilarious if you had to cancel dinner to repair everything. Maybe he feels he’s been slipping lately with his obligations as the Trickster God.”
“The joke’s on him, then,” Hephaestus said firmly, dropping a cheese-coated pipe. “Because I’m officially taking this weekend off. That blasted phone can ring all it wants, and the others can complain until they’re blue in the face. Anything else breaks down in this place, they can fix it themselves.”
As the elevator door closed, Persephone heaved a sigh. Not just any sigh: the full-bodied, dejected sigh that only she could do properly, the one that told the entire world that she was disappointed and heart-broken.
Her husband uncrossed his arms, refrained from indulging in his own, less dramatic sigh, and looked over at her. “What now?”
The eyes she turned to him would make a hardened killer weep, full of shimmering tears and poignant sweetness. “Why can’t you stay for my party?”
The typical stony set to his features softened, even though he knew exactly what she was doing-and that she knew what she was doing. “Sweetheart, you know I would if I could. But I have a recording to supervise tonight.”
She sniffed quietly, looking down at the diamond-studded wedding ring she twisted around her pale finger. “You’ve always got an excuse. It’s like you never want to spend time with me any more. Used to be you couldn’t get enough of me. You had to spend every moment with me.”
“That was before I was running a multi-billion dollar corporation!”
“And I suppose ruling all of the Underworld was a less time-consuming job?”
“Persephone, I’m sorry if you’re feeling neglected, but I have obligations. Sometimes I can’t rearrange my entire schedule to fit in one of your dinner parties with fancy fruit things and cocktail napkins.”
There was a sudden shudder, the squeal of complaining cables, and the elevator came to a quivering halt. Hades leaned over, the leather of his jacket creaking, and jabbed at the emergency button with a stern finger. There was a whine of feedback as the intercom buzzed to life.
“Hephaestus, there seems to be something wrong with the elevator,” Hades said.
There was a momentary pause, then a quiet click.
“Thank you for calling the God of the Forge,” a recorded voice that sounded suspiciously like Hestia’s replied. “Unfortunately, Hephaestus is out for the weekend doing very important things. He kindly recommends that you call someone else for help, or fix whatever is broken yourself. Thank you.”
Hades glanced over at his wife, bewildered shock replacing his usual expression of haughty disdain. “Did Hestia just tell me to bugger off?”
“Basically,” Persephone said sweetly, smiling. “Since she and Hephaestus have started dating, she’s gotten quite bold, hasn’t she?”
“One way of putting it,” he mumbled, pulling out his cell phone. “I don’t believe this. ‘No reception’? How is that even possible. This thing gets reception in Ohio, for fuck’s sake.”
“Language, darling!” Persephone said reproachfully.
“Dearest,” he said in a syrupy voice. “It’s not as if there are small children around.”
“Force of habit,” she half-apologized.
“Sometimes, sweetheart, you can be a little too Martha Stewart,” he said with a small shake of his head.
“What do you mean by that?” Persephone bristled. “Why do you say that as if it’s a terrible thing?”
“I mean sometimes you come across like a judgmental Sunday School teacher with too much time on her hands,” he said roughly, pressing at random buttons to no avail.
“Too much time on my hands?” she demanded.
“Anyone who can spend four hours cutting cheese into star shapes and arranging flowers by color has too much time to waste,” he said bluntly.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have so much time to waste if you were home more than once a week,” she retorted, brushing back an errant strand of strawberry-hued hair with a bit more force than necessary.
“I’m home more than once a week!” he said.
“Only for a couple of hours! I can’t remember the last time we spent an entire evening together!” Her hands tightened into pale fists.
“Persephone,” he said in what was a soothing tone for him. “You’re just getting overly emotional again and exaggerating.”
“No, I’m not, and stop belittling me! You always have excuses-dozens of them!-and I know you don’t like all of my fancy parties, I know you think they’re stupid and prissy and boring, but they’re important to me! There used to be a time when I was more important to you than your job! Used to be a time when you’d do anything to be with me, even risk punishment from Zeus and my mother! And now you’re always jet-setting to parties with slutty pop singers and you’ve been wearing far too much leather and you never even compliment me on my new recipes any more! I don’t like being so angry with you, or being so lonely all the time!”
He blinked in the ringing silence that followed, utterly nonplussed by his wife’s display of temper. “…too much leather?”
“Yes!” she said firmly with an exasperated huff of breath. “That jacket looks like something Ares would wear-like a biker punk with a bad attitude. You’re classier than that.”
“Ah, I see,” he said calmly, pulling off said jacket and dropping it in the corner. “How about the rest of this outfit?”
“The color of the shirt is nice,” she said, stepping closer. “I always liked you in red. But I don’t like the design on the front. It’s too… Hot Topic. It has to go immediately.” Her hands were at the hem and tugging at it before he could properly raise his arms. His shaggy dark hair stuck up at odd angles after she’d pulled the shirt off, and she didn’t try to resist running her fingers through it.
“And these necklaces are all wrong,” she said, somewhat breathlessly, staring at his chest. “Too many, to start with, and it’s disingenuous of you to wear crosses.”
He wound the chains around his hand and tugged, the latches snapping sharply. “I’m keeping the medal, though.”
She rubbed her thumb against the burnished copper, tracing the carving of the pomegranate tree with the edge of her fingernail. “You still wear this, every day?”
“Of course,” he said with a sideways grin. The smile she gave him was a giddy schoolgirl’s, full of innocent pleasure and sweetness. But then her hands were against his chest, sliding up over his shoulders, and the innocence of the smile had faded considerably.
“Well, the jeans are okay,” she said slowly, glancing down and back up. “But that belt buckle is too ostentatious.”
“Yes, of course,” he agreed amiably, reaching down to unfasten it.
She pressed her lips to his, leaning in to him with enough force to push him back against the wall. He pulled at her pale green dress, hiking up the skirt until his palms brushed against the warm skin of her thighs. She giggled against his mouth, winding a lock of his hair around her finger.
“You’re sure about the jeans, though?” He murmured in her ear before lowering his mouth to kiss the curve of her neck.
“Ummm,” she moaned. “Maybe you ought to lose those after all…”
“When did you become such a bad girl, sweetheart?”
“Even Susie Homemaker can’t be good all the time,” she gasped as he lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist, managing to catch her breath before going in for another kiss. “Especially not when she’s got a husband like you.”
“I’m sorry for leaving you lonely,” he said, pulling back just enough to look squarely into her doe-like blue eyes. “I’ve been a bad husband.”
“I know you love me, Hades,” she whispered with a brilliant smile, her hair wild around her youthful face. “And you’re doing a good job of making it up to me.”
There was that wolfish grin again, the one that made her weak all over-it had had the same effect that first time she saw him, even as the fear of the sudden darkness had gripped her, even as she cried out for her mother, even as she shrank back from the shadowy, stern-face figure that had snatched her from the world she had known and loved. Even then she knew that grin would come to mean something vital to her. She had felt it.
She curled her hand behind his neck and pulled him back into a kiss that made her skin shiver. How she loved the way he kissed her, the pressure of his lips, the way he made her feel like she was drowning and floating at the same time. When his hands were at her hips, those strong fingers hot against her curves, she forgot those long ago days when she had been afraid of him, had wanted nothing more than to return to her mother-
The elevator jumped, a jerky buck upwards that lasted all of a second yet still managed to throw them to the floor. As Persephone brushed back her hair and pushed herself up, one hand on her husband’s chest, the doors abruptly squeaked open with the cry of metal on metal.
And standing there was Hermes with a crowbar, looking quite bug-eyed with surprise-and her mother, jaw tightening with disapproval.
“Mother!” Persephone cried, hurriedly pulling down and straightening her dress. Hades, still lying pinned beneath his wife, merely flashed a friendly smile and waved at the two staring in at them.
“Uh, how long you two been stuck in here?” Hermes asked, his eyes darting from them to Demeter and back.
“Long enough, apparently,” Demeter said dryly. “Really, Persephone. In public?”
“When is anything that goes on around here private?” Hades pointed out just as dryly while Persephone fixed the buckle of his pants, face glowing red with embarrassment.
“I had better never see pictures of you in… in flagrante like this in some cheap supermarket tabloid,” Demeter said sharply.
“Well, we are married, mother,” Persephone dared to say, carefully looking anywhere but her mother’s face.
“Even so. You’ve got your public image to think about, Persephone.”
“Don’t worry, mother,” Hades said cheekily, pulling on his shirt and snatching up his jacket. “We won’t be out in public for a few days at least.” He looped an arm around his wife’s waist, flashed another wolfish smile of arrogant disregard, and sauntered off towards the stairs.
“What did you mean by that?” Persephone was saying as they disappeared up the stairs back to their apartment.
“I mean you’re canceling your party tonight, and I’m clearing my schedule, and we’re going to have a party of our own.”
“Oh!”
Hermes stared down at the crowbar he held, biting his lip. He knew he shouldn’t, but…
“So… I guess they were going down?”
“You can leave now!”
“Sure, sure,” he grinned. “Only needed me for my manly muscles and crowbar, I know how it is.” He nonchalantly slung said crowbar over his shoulder and strolled away, whistling.
Demeter stood in the doorway of the elevator for a long moment before finally heaving a frustrated sigh and turning to the stairs. She wanted nothing to do with that elevator now.