Work Text:
On the road to Hell there was a railroad car, and a King about to meet his fate.
It’s a long road. A long, barren track. Quiet. It hasn’t felt this quiet in years. Lonely. It hasn’t felt this lonely in years.
It hasn’t felt this long in years, either. It’s always long, always torturously slow. But this is different. This is new.
This is old. This is from centuries ago. Checking his watch. Pacing restlessly across the car. Glancing out the window, trying to see farther, always farther, never able to see far enough into the distance. Waiting for the change on the horizon, the first glimpse of the station. With anxiety twisting his stomach and churning up into his chest.
Butterflies. Anxious little butterflies.
They’re a young man’s feelings. A young man’s impatience, a young man’s excitement. It’s been years since they were his. They’re so many years old, centuries behind him.
The uncertainty, though. That’s new. That’s an old man’s fear, an old man’s longing. A foolish man’s hope.
Six months always feels like an eternity, no matter how many thousands of times he feels them crawl by. But it feels different, this time. Six months has always been his loneliness, his impatience, his emptiness.
Now, it feels like her possibility. Six months is an eternity, and she’s spent it away from him. Above, in the world she prefers, the home she loves, the home she keeps without him.
She’s had so much time to change her mind.
Wait for me.
He did. He always does. Every year, since the world began.
But that was six months ago. An eternity. She’s had an eternity to remember what he’s become, what she’s lost, what she leaves behind when he comes to claim her and take her life lower to be with him.
He’s waited, but it’s been too long. It’s been six months - and this time, it has been six months. He’s skimmed off so much time in his impatience, before. So many summers cut short because he couldn’t stand it a moment longer. But this time, it has been six months. He’s given her the time he’s owed her. It’s been six months, and now it’s fall.
Well. Almost. He’s two days shy of six months. Still, it’s much closer than usual, and that’s something.
Six months is too long. He’d waited. And he'd hoped, at first. But it didn’t last. Optimism wilted into caution withered to doubt.
He’s waited for their chance to do this again, his chance to fix this. And he doesn’t know if she has. He doubts.
The train picks up speed, chugging and wheezing, wheels squeaking as the car lurches forward, propelled by his nervousness. Coal and electricity are nothing compared to the power of his anxieties.
He sees the station in the distance, and he doesn’t let himself hope. She won’t be there, after all, not right when he arrives. She used to be. A lifetime ago, she ran alongside the track, finding his car, running and panting just to see him the soonest possible moment. Impatient, and excited. She stood at the edge of the platform as the doors opened.
That’s changed, now. She stands at the station. She waits outside. She wastes time nearby. She drinks and dances miles away. She mourns the life she’s lost.
So he doesn’t look for her. He just listens to the beat of the train, in a tight race against the pounding of his heart. And since he’s not going to let himself look for her, he can’t look out the windows at all. He looks at his hand, instead. He turns it, palm raised in front of him. It used to be difficult, but now, all he has to do is think of her. Just a thought, a memory, a vision of her behind his eyes-
A flower blooms in his hand. Small, red. Beautifully red. They’ve been getting brighter every time.
He almost feels like smiling.
The train slows. The wheels groan as the changing momentum shifts the car.
He waits at the door, looking at the flower, trying not to care. Trying to fight the worry, and the hope, and the butterflies… and the foolishness of feeling all of this for an empty station platform. Feeling such anticipation, knowing that after this moment, he’ll still have to wait a little longer. Always a bit longer.
Six months. Just a bit longer.
There’s a hiss of steam, then the whistle’s cry. The car door opens.
And she’s here.
Leaning back against the bricks. Her arms are folded, her head tilted to one side.
She’s smiling.
Her hair is pulled over her shoulder. It shines in the sunlight, and moves in the breeze. There’s a flower tucked behind her ear. Small, beautifully red.
She’s here.
One side of her mouth quirks just a little higher than the other, and he tries to remember how to breathe in the presence of such a woman, how to make his heart beat when there’s no longer enough room in his chest to hold it.
Persephone smiles, and raises one eyebrow. “You’re early.”
Hades smiles, and shrugs one shoulder. “I missed you.”