Chapter Text
Work was hard.
Hecate thought herself a woman of responsibility before anything else, really. People depended on her for not only complete and diligent work, but for excellence. One could argue that it was that very virtue that led her to spend the last twenty-seven hours awake in a desperate bid to finish her portion in the Shade Judgement Reform presentation she was co-leading with Hades and Persephone. Too tired to risk the danger of driving, Hecate teleported herself into the lobby of Tower One, a steaming white mocha in hand and dark bags around her eyes.
Hello’s were granted to her from the receptionists out of kindness that she could only return with a less than enthusiastic wave of her hand. The imp operator on the elevator was met with the same treatment, barely the hint of a smile on her lips as she mentally prepared herself.
Exhaustion and a hint of dread coursed through her. Things had been tense, and the ninety-nine floor trek ahead of her was going to be one of her last moments of solitude—she just knew it. Continuous hours with each other meant that she, Persephone, and Hades were coming to their wits end. At least, the closer they got to the end of the presentation, the closer she found herself to a very well earned nap and at least forty-eight hours away from the two of them.
With what seemed like a now ominous ding, the elevator doors parted open, prompting her to tip the operator a few drachma as she stepped out. To be honest, Hecate cherished the last little bit of silence on her walk to the office. Her brain was already throbbing with stress and fatigue, so the gentle sounds of her sipping and heels clacking on marble were to be appreciated.
There was no telling how long this barely conceived peace would last. But things were...quiet. Almost chillingly so. Hecate knew all too well though to trust her gut instinct more than anything else. Despite the calm, she had to fortify herself for a storm, whether it would happen or not. Given how tense all three of them had become, but especially Hades and Persephone, it was practically inevitable.
After sending an exhausted but kind smile to the ash nymph behind the receptionist’s desk (a much gentler replacement for Minthe), she found herself outside of Hades’ office. Hecate couldn’t help the sigh of relief that left her body when she couldn’t hear the sounds of a brewing argument from the other side of the door, an all too frequent pastime for those two here lately.
Small victories. For now.
Hecate allowed herself to finally open the door, peeking her head inside before entering fully. She found herself pleasantly surprised with the scene laid out before her, Hades standing in front of the presentation board seemingly adding last minute details as Persephone sat in one of the armchairs by the desk, focused on whatever she was typing on her tablet apparently.
Hecate had half a mind to leave now, go before she disrupted the peace but it was too late, Persephone looking up from her lap to beam at her.
“Oh! Good morning, Hecate,” Persephone had greeted happily, always so kind to her. Still, deep beneath the chipper exterior lay some form of tiredness. Restlessness.
“Morning, Persephone.” Hecate sighed, finally fully entering the room, making her way across the room, taking a seat in the armchair across from Persephone. She looked to Hades then, giving him a curt nod. “Hades.”
She had to accept the grunt she got in response as a proper greeting. He barely even pulled his focus from the presentation board where he was laying out their detailed plan for judgement reform, much too caught up in his work to pay her much mind. Well, he did have one thing to say to her.
“Hecate, did you finish the slideshow last night?” Hades asked, his back still turned to the two women.
“Yes, it’s already in the drive with Persephone’s graphs attached,” she responded, taking another sip of her drink.
“Good.” A huff. “At least two of us respect the concept of a time crunch.”
Hecate could see Persephone tense from her peripheral, and she gulped. It had barely been three minutes. Sigh. She prayed, no, begged the Fates that Persephone would just let it go but–
“It’s okay, I’d just rather not rush quality. I’m sure you understand that, Hecate,” Persephone reassured, batting her eyelashes a little too politely.
“Well, of course, I just—”
“That’d make sense if I wasn’t trying to refine so called ‘quality’ work as we speak,” Hades mumbled under his breath, but there was no actual attempt to try and keep either of them from hearing.
Any patience Hecate had was already thinly veiled over her, and her energy (at least what was left of it) was quickly depleting.
“Now, let’s not start–”
“Nothing is starting, Hecate, His Majesty is just upset that the graphs, the facts, don't line up with his current standards of judgement,” Persephone retorted, the pretense of talking to Hecate quickly waning.
“Really?” Hades finally turned to face them, ripping his glasses off their perch on his nose with an exasperation Hecate knew had been brewing for weeks. “Mortals spend their entire lives fearing hospitality violations and you, you want to go ‘Oh no! It’s fine! See your way to the Elysium Fields!’”
Persephone let out an indignant scoff, and when Hecate looked her way, she could see a flash of hurt shock in her eyes. It would have tugged at Hecate’s heartstrings, if she wasn’t already miserably sick of Hades, Persephone, and the two left footed tango of pent up sexual tension they’d forced her to watch for the last two weeks.
“You know that’s not what I meant at all, Hades.” Persephone sounded wounded, the faintest pout on her lips. “The numbers show a disproportionate amount of shades being sent to Tartarus, especially in comparison to the Asphodel fields. To better these numbers, I am only suggesting maybe we should put less focus on whether or not some jerk let’s a stranger sleep at his house and more on the more extreme offenders. Like—Like murderers! Or thieves!”
Hecate could butt in. Or she could not.
Hades ran a hand through his unusually unkempt hair, a sigh leaving his lips. It was almost as if he felt bad for his little outburst. Almost.
“I’m simply giving the mortals the punishments they expect, Kore, I’m a God—a King that they fear and I’ve got a standard to uphold,” Hades stated as he began to pace in front of the two of them. He was always like this when he got anxious.
“Maybe,” Persephone said with the slightest hint of agitation to her voice, “it’d be nice to not be stuck in your ways for once and surprise us every once in a while.”
Hades only scoffed. “‘Stuck in my ways’? I’m doing my job, Miss Kore, and that job is to offer the fair and just judgment to mortals that is expected of an impartial king.”
“Sorry for asking you to appeal to my modern sensibilities, Your Majesty.” Persephone seethed, pointedly looking at her tablet instead of him.
“Quite bold of an intern to try and advise a King on how to rule his own Kingdom,” he hissed through clenched teeth.
Persephone finally stood up, putting her tablet down on the table beside her, prompting— “Then why are you being less of a King and more of an—”
With a pointed finger, Hades cut her off, brow furrowed with frustration. His lips just about twitched into a wicked smirk.
“I’d choose your next words very carefully, little goddess,” he said low and near terrifyingly, leaning in closer to Persephone, “because my patience wore thin about five minutes ago when you first copped your petulant little attitude.”
Persephone nearly wavered. But with the red glimmer in her eye, Hecate decided then that it might be the best time to at least try and interrupt before things escalated any further.
With a sigh, she stood up with a calm, “Now—”
A scoff came from Persephone as she squinted at him. “Petulant?”
Key word: try.
“I didn’t stutter.” The smirk he’d been fighting back became a little more apparent.
Hecate offered another feeble attempt, “Friends, could we please—”
“Then, please!” Persephone threw her hands in the air. “Don’t let me stop you from saying what’s on the rest of your mind, Hades.”
Hecate gulped. In all honesty, she hadn’t seen it this bad before. She probably should have asserted herself the second things became more heated than they should be, but now she actually feared it may be too late. Anxiety bubbled within her, and she tried once more, trying to step in between the two of them. “Maybe we shouldn’t—”
“Fine, you want to know?” Hades started, only for Hecate to quickly approach him, her brow furrowed.
“Hades, stop,” she warned as she clutched her drink. It was futile however, for Hades was already too caught up in his own pride.
Hades paused for a second to collect his thoughts, a moment passing the most devious smile finally pulling up at the edges of his mouth, looking past Hecate. “You’re acting like a child. Your outlook on this entire thing is so juvenile, thinking we should only worry about the murderers and thieves and jerks, oh my. When moral sins exist, Kore. The mortals don’t put so much weight in hospitality for no reason. They expect a certain punishment and I am more than happy to deliver.”
Tension filled the air quickly, and for the briefest moment, Hecate could have sworn she saw Persephone’s bottom lip begin to wobble.
It was short-lived, for Persephone spat, “Screw you, Hades.”
“‘Screw you’?” Hades said with a dry chuckle. “Oh, that’s real mature of you, little godd—”
Hecate had all but given up on the two in her exhaustion until she was brought back to reality. Hades, flailing with offense as he spoke, punctuating his harsh words with his arms, sent them swinging out to their full wing span at the word real. Directly into Hecate’s hands where she was holding a very, very hot cup of coffee. The ensuing events happened quickly in a blur.
The coffee cup flew back out of Hecate’s hand, losing it’s lid as it impacted against her chest, splattering all over herself and her manicured outfit in a rather dramatic fashion. Hecate would have been burned by the scalding hot coffee that was now running down the front of her. But that was if she hadn’t been wearing the one of a kind dark blue, exclusive and expensive jacket she had recently bought, only wearing it now because this morning it was easier to unbox than waste energy going to her closet to search for one. She hadn’t even washed it yet.
The silence that followed was lethal, only interrupted by the sound of coffee dripping onto the floor.
Both Persephone and Hades looked at her; Persephone gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth, and guilt immediately washed over Hades’ face. The most unfortunate time for either of them to acknowledge her presence was now.
Hades choked on his words. “Hecate, I’m—”
“Don’t.” Hecate’s voice trembled with burgeoning anger but still remained harsh, stern, inducing fear in the other two deities in the room. She tried to take a deep breath—they’d been doing so well at helping her compose herself all morning, but now? Maybe now was not the time to compose herself. Maybe now was the time to be fed up.
“Hecate—” Persephone tried this time, but to no avail as Hecate lifted a single finger to stop her in her tracks.
“I have been awake. For twenty. Seven. Hours,” Hecate seethed. She dug her nails into her palm with such rage, she was sure she was going to break skin. That is, if she could bring herself to care. “I agreed to do the largest damn portion of the presentation on the terms that you two would come to a consensus about your part. And what do I find this morning? You two, bickering senselessly like absolute children about the most menial part of the presentation, having absolutely no regard for anyone else but yourselves!”
Hecate was angry.
She was pissed. It was over the ringing in her ears, the thrumming of her pulse, and ichor raging through her that she couldn’t hear the lights pop. Nor could she see the lights flicker and the walls shake over the own blinding light of her now shining sclera. She didn’t take the moment to register the way Hades and Persephone were cowering as her eyes glowed in pure anger.
The air around her grew bone chillingly cold as a wind picked up from seemingly out of nowhere, whipping around her and the fighting pair with increasing speed. She couldn’t bring herself to care either, about how the other two were looking around with obvious fear in their eyes, equally unaware of what was happening—or why.
Hecate didn’t care. Not even as the ground beneath them began to tremble just enough, a rumbling sound filling the room.
“I am tired,” she hissed through her teeth. “Tired of whatever utter bullshit the two of you have shoehorned me in between, the unadulterated nonsense that you two capable adults can handle yourself! Pull yourselves together . We all know this isn’t like either of you. Either sleep together or tell the other that you hate them, because I. Am. Done.”
She punctuated each word, succinct and so sharp that they almost hurt as they clawed out of her throat. Every single pent up emotion of the past couple of days expelled themselves forcefully from the back of her mind. Now that it was out, she could try and grasp onto reality again. But it wasn’t until then did she finally realize the state that they were in—the way Hades had instinctively pulled Persephone closer to keep her safe in the whirlwind surrounding them. Hecate couldn’t stop herself as the light from her grew, burning from the inside out, until it seemed to consume herself. All the energy she had to spare charged through every vein of her body, purging itself with such force that she was shaken as it left her, it rippling outwards through the room.
It wasn’t until then did Hecate realize she was no longer on the ground.
When the realization dawned on her, she fell to the floor, her landing less than graceful. The second her feet met the black marble, the room went dark—pitch black and silent.
A squeak came from what she could only assume was Persephone. Hecate had even begun to scare herself. Her breathing was heavy, her heart absolutely racing in her chest as her hands trembled at her side.
She was going to open her mouth when—
The lights flickered back on. The wind was gone. The ground was no longer quaking.
Upon first glance, the three of them were still in Hades’ office. After all three blinked collectively, Hecate watched as Persephone’s face reddened with the realization that Hades still held her tight, prompting the spring goddess to push herself away from him with a little too much desperation. After shaking off the fluster from the embrace, Hecate watched as Persephone cautiously approached her, genuine worry etched on her face.
“Hecate…. Are you okay? Do you need to lay down?” she asked carefully just as Hecate’s knees buckled ever so slightly.
“Kore, keep your distance,” Hades warned. “You don’t know if Hecate has completely calmed down yet, she could blow up ag—”
Immediately, Persephone looked back at him with a huff. “You’re not my keeper, Hades! I’m trying to help my friend.”
As if they hadn’t learned their lesson, the heat between them resparked and the throbbing headache Hecate forgot she had returned with a vengeance. There were too many things happening at once; she was overwhelmed, nauseated by the overwhelming stench of coffee, and dizzy. She was starting to think maybe she should leave them be, return to her office, and open her bottle of Emergency Scotch. Nine AM be damned. The presentation be damned. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to look between Hades and Persephone, but—
“She’s my friend too!” Hades groaned, glaring at Persephone. “But, I’m telling you from experience, Hecate is more powerful than you kn—”
“Hades, she’s exhausted. She probably needs to lay down on the couch or go to the infirmary!”
As the two began to squabble again, Hecate could pay them no mind for she was much more focused on something else. Neither of the deities saw her mouth fall agape, eyes widening with what could only be described as complete and utter awe. Hades and Persephone, however, were much too occupied with the brewing argument at hand to notice.
“She’s exhausted because of you. Us. She’s clearly fed up with both—”
“Hades—” Hecate’s throat felt raw. But she needed their attention.
“That doesn’t mean she doesn’t clearly need help!”
“Persephone—” Please.
“Suddenly you know everything, hm?”
“Listen to me!” Hecate erupted.
The final burst of energy Hecate had left to spare left her body in her last attempt to get Hades and Persephone to pay an inkling of attention to her. By the grace of all Gods, it worked. They looked at her, a sympathy in their eyes that made her want to roll her own. She couldn’t muster the will to do so. Only because her eyes were trained, zeroed in on, something behind them. When they finally realized, they turned around themselves.
Neither Hades or Persephone could stop the unanimous gasp that left both of their lips, Hecate hearing them both. They had good reason to, she supposed. For when they turned around, they came face to face with Hades’ desk. What was usually kept so neat, almost close to bare was a much more cluttered mess than it had been moments ago. The surface was covered with an array of mugs and picture frames, a stark contrast to the lone computer, phone, and various stacks of paperwork they were all used to. Though, that’s not what Hecate was looking at.
Oh no, not at all.
Looming over the three of them was an eight foot portrait on the wall where nothing used to be. It dominated the room, demanding to be seen, and the intricate carving of the black frame only added to it’s ostentatiousness. However, there was one element that was the most jarring. Hecate could feel the little bit of coffee she’d managed to consume stirring in her gut. The subjects of the painting were the unexpected part.
Above them all stood Hades—he was standing broad and tall as he towered over them in full ceremonial garb. His black crown shone at the top of his head, his chest covered in medals and a sash, not unlike his visage in other royal paintings. It was an unmistakable note that he looked less tired, and that he was... smiling, ever so slightly.
But even Hades wasn’t the most unsettling part of this portrait, no. The only thing different was that Persephone was there. Not the Persephone, the Kore, standing with them in that office. The Persephone in the portrait assumed more of an overpowering aura than ever before. Her eyes looked down on them like she knew she was powerful. Like she knew she was... a Queen. The Persephone in the portrait adorned her own shimmering, black crown.
And a wedding gown.
It seemed as though, all at once, the trio became painfully aware of three things.
One: Wherever they were was not where they were just five minutes prior. It was Hades’ office. More cluttered, a bit warmer, and not as dark as usual, but it was his. It was just...that it wasn’t.
Two: Hades and Persephone, by all context clues, seemed to be married.
And three: Not a single one of them knew what the hell was going on.