The Pantheon

Absol-ute!

Hey everyone! 🖤

Thank you so much for the patience and all the kind messages while I've been away. Life got busy, but I'm finally back with The Pantheon and so excited to dive into this world again with you all.

Updates won't follow a set schedule — they'll just go up whenever I can carve out time to write — but I'm genuinely grateful for everyone who's stuck around, reread, commented, or even just quietly waited. Your support means the world and is honestly what made me want to pick it back up again.

Thank you for being here, truly. Let's get back to it. 💜

---

Pluto's did enjoy Alola as much as the rest of the Pantheon. He loved his teammates; they gave him strength after so much suffering from the Rocket's hands. However, having unknown humans who are not his kind and sweet Ashley, touching him and putting oils on his fur, left him very tense. He did not trust the staff and only Janus was able to keep him in line and stopped him from doing something rash.

Janus told him to focus on their teammates and how they were enjoying the massage. The Absol tried.

He really did.

Mars was face-down on one of the wooden tables, wings spread wide, muttering something about "finally feeling his spine again." Chione was lying on her side, surrounded by two attendants carefully brushing her mane until it gleamed like silver mist. Even Apollo looked half asleep, his long tail twitching every so often when someone hit the right spot under his jaw.

Pluto stared at all of them and exhaled through his nose, though it almost sounded like a growl. The masseuse beside him jumped slightly but kept working, her hands hovering over his back as if waiting for permission to continue. Janus gave her a small nod, then turned to Pluto.

"Breathe," the Lucario said simply. His eyes were half-closed, though Pluto knew better—Janus never truly relaxed. He just made it look that way.

"I am breathing," Pluto muttered, the words low and rough. His tail flicked once, betraying more nerves than he liked. "Just not sure I see the point of letting strangers touch me."

Janus tilted his head, voice soft but with that unshakable calm of his. "Because your muscles are rocks, and you walk around like you're expecting someone to attack you."

"That's because I usually am."

Janus didn't argue, which was somehow worse. The silence that followed was filled with the faint hum of conversation from the rest of the team and the smell of coconut oil. Pluto shifted slightly, feeling the tension in his shoulders resist the masseuse's careful hands. He didn't want to snap.

Not here.

Not when Ashley had planned all this for them.

He focused on her instead—her laughter somewhere across the room, light and warm like it always was. She was talking to one of the attendants, probably asking about the oils or the volcanic stones they used. She always wanted to know and understand everything, maybe that's why he trusted her. She didn't force comfort; she built it.

"Still tense?" Janus's voice broke through again.

Pluto blinked, realizing his claws had dug into the wood beneath him. He forced them to relax, though it felt unnatural. "I'm fine."

Janus hummed, a sound that clearly meant you're lying. Then, more quietly, "You don't have to prove you're fine."

The words sat between them for a while, steady and heavy. Pluto didn't answer. He wasn't sure he could, not without letting something break loose that he wasn't ready to show in front of strangers. Instead, he let the masseuse continue her careful work, her hands light but sure now, tracing the lines of his back where old tension had never really left.