Hades, who is about to be in big trouble with three very important women.
...
He knows that Hestia knows. She's too observant not to.
What he doesn't know, is why she isn't screaming and yelling and throwing things. The last time he did something stupid was when he let Theseus into Elysium and Hestia didn't speak to him for fifty-four years.
But she knows. He knows. That she knows.
Besides, Persephone's wails are nearly impossible to miss.
But Hestia is calm. She's coiled in an armchair, sipping coffee like it's wine.
"I've been in the North Pole," she says conversationally.
Hades raises an eyebrow, internally panicking. "Isn't it a bit cold for you there?"
She lets a mischievous smile grace her face. "No more than it is here. How long has it been? Eight years? Ten?"
Twenty-seven.
"Around there, yes," he replies.
"I haven't missed it at all."
He smiles. "I know."
"I've missed you."
"So you say."
"Do you not trust the word of a god?"
"Hasn't worked out before."
She laughs and the room warms, but Hades feels colder inside, as if she has sucked the heat from his lungs like she has sucked the love from his heart.
Twenty-seven years.
She stops laughing. Persephone, in the basement, has momentarily stopped sobbing. Hades remains stone on his bed, glaring forlornly at his abandoned shirt across the room.
It is cold and his nipples have noticed that.
"You hate me."
Hades' breath hitches but his face doesn't change. He turns instead to glare forlornly at Hestia.
"Why would you think that?"
"I can see it on your face. I have known you for millions, billions of years. You think I do not know you?"
"I think no one knows me."
"Then you are naive. You hate me because I remind you of everything you cannot have. Because I can move freely and I am always warm and I make you long for things you cannot have."
She could not be more wrong.
Hades doesn't hate Hestia, he loves her. He loves her more than she or he knows. He loves her because she is his only friend and she tries to make him warmer even though he lives in a cold, dank basement.
He hates Persephone. He hates her long hair and he hates her glowy springy-ness and he hates how she can make life and he can only take it away. He hates that she is loved and he is hated and he hates that she makes him long for things that he cannot have.
As if Persephone can sense him cursing her, she starts sobbing again, oh-so-softly.
Hades sighs. He really wants his shirt back.
"I love you, Hestia."
But you left me here to rot for twenty-seven years.
She smirks, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I know. I wanted to hear you say it."
His scythe thuds against the ground and the god of the dead towers, ghostly and deathly.
He throws a pillow at her. "You're a little bitch."
She laughs and he glowers, and everything is normal.
Maybe she hasn't noticed his abductee after all.
...
Hades and Persephone both chose to stay in their mid-twenties, physically. In fact, most of the Olympians had picked the age they found most appealing. Hestia, on the other hand, had severe commitment issues. She was never the same age for too long. It's a little ironic considering she's the goddess of the hearth and home; perhaps she wanted to rebel against her destiny a little.
When Hades wakes up in the morning, his migraine is gone, Persephone is silent, and Hestia is four years old, covered in syrup, and making a mess of his kitchen.
"Daddy!" She cries, "Look! I made waffles!"
"Please stop," he replies, "That's creepy."
She pouts, but in a moment she's an elderly Hispanic woman. "Fine. I want tacos anyways."
"That's racist."
Hestia lets her wrinkles melt away, and she's about twelve years old, sporting a pixie cut and a Led Zeppelin shirt.
"Let's go for a walk," she says as she skips away, "and buy some jeans, will you? Robes are so thirteenth century."
Hades laughs and follows suit - and just like that, everything was as it was before. He could almost forget that there was a girl in his basement and that he was about to be in trouble with three very important women.
Months pass. Who knows? It may even have been years. Anything could slip by when Hestia is here. She makes him feel warm and loved - he needs her affection otherwise he will decay here and no one would notice.
Persephone has been in his dungeons for a while now. She doesn't eat or drink, just sleeps and sobs. Quite frankly, Hades doesn't care. He doesn't need a spoiled princess when Hestia is back.
Hestia is back.
It's always destitute without Hestia. Things just... Happen. Influenza, Bubonic Plague, HIV epidemic... Nothing is out of bounds. She's a bundle of fire and energy, and Hades has never loved anyone as much as he loves her.
And he never could. She thaws him like no one else would ever have the power to do.
