A/N: Oh look, Hades is back.
"Wake up." I said, shaking Hades softly. "I don't wanna." she mumbled. "Seriously, you're gonna wanna see this." She blinked the sleep out of her eyes. "What is it?" she asked. "Look outside." "I swear if this is a prank I'll kill you, Arioch." I watched her walk down to the window and look down at the city. She looked back at me. "What the hell?" she asked. "Yeah...everyone is gone. I have no idea what happened." "Ari...we have to get the hell out of here." she said. "What for?" she turned to me. "I know what this is." she said. "It's an exodus." "A what?" "An exodus. You know, when we all leave our homes because the entire realm will implode upon itself and then refresh itself." "What?" I asked. "Yeah, we need to get back to LA, like now. Why do you think these cities have the names they do? The City of Embers, the City of Ashes...they all turn to embers and ashes every hundred thousand years." I never knew that. "How do you know?" I asked, hastily getting dressed. "I read up on it. I mean I kinda missed out on most of my schooling and stuff...and curiosity got the best of me. It's really cool, actually." "How is this cool, Hades?" "It just is. These massive storms come and they wipe out everything, and then, new skylines, new homes, new everything just spring up from the ground. I'd love to stay and see it, but...it's not safe." "We won't die." I replied, suggestively. "No, but we'll wish we were dead. It gets horrible...why do you think everyone leaves?" "Where do they all go?" "The human world." I almost choked. "The human world? Are you serious? But..." "But what? It's fine. Most of us can't even be seen." "Most blood demons..." "We've been doing this for a long, long time. It's fine, now quit running your suck and let's go." She dragged me back into LA. "You're getting good at that interdimensional travel thing." I said. "Only because of you." I bumped into her on purpose. "Quit it." she said, hitting me. "Don't you think it's fucked that no one mentioned this whole exodus thing to us?" She scoffed. "I knew...I just forgot...and you don't live down there." I shrugged. "Doesn't matter now. We're here." I looked around at my condo. Jesus, what a mess. "Sorry about the blood and stuff..." I said. "I hardly noticed." she replied. I doubted that, seeing as how it was dripping from the ceiling onto her shoulder. "Nerves dead? You're getting soaked." "It's fine. Whatever it is you did, I'm sure it was awesome." Awesome doesn't even begin to cover it. I had an all out brawl here the other night and it was sweet. "It was pretty cool, yeah, but still. I should probably clean." I pulled away from her to see that my living room was sparkling. It wasn't like that when I left yesterday morning. My mom walked around the corner and looked at me. "Where have you been?" she asked. "Better yet, why'd you leave with your home looking like this?" I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Look, it's a long story." Hades came up behind me and saw my mom, and shied away. "Who's your friend?" "This is Hades. I went to see her yesterday." "You brought your girlfriend home to this?" I took a deep breath and held it for awhile. "She is not my girlfriend, and I'm sorry about the mess." My mom gave me a look. "She's not." I insisted. "What are you even doing here?" I asked. "Hanging out while the demon realm refreshes itself." "Antares and the kids are where?" "Off somewhere else." she replied, seeming like she didn't want to talk about it. Sounds like she's been hanging out with Asmoday again. Great. Something else to deal with at a later date. See, caregivers can marry for love or necessity...my mom married Mammon for love...and Antares for necessity...and what she thought was love. It's killing her slowly, but it is what it is. "How long does this thing last, Hades?" I asked. "Just 2 days." she replied, coming out from around the corner. "Who is she?" she asked. I felt like telling her the truth, but the truth isn't always worth sharing. "Caregiver. One who should make herself a little scarce around here." I said, looking at her sharply. "Am I not welcome here?" "Of course you are, you're just...you're starting in with that treating me like a kid shit, and I'm way too old for it." "But still not too old to clean up after yourself. I see. Carry on." she said, disappearing. "Sorry." I muttered. "It's fine, it'll be fun with her here." I raised an eyebrow. "Fun?" I asked. "More fun than being alone." I pulled her over to me and whispered all of the things we could do if we were alone, and she blushed. "We have the whole human world to ourselves. We could always go somewhere else." she suggested. "She'll follow." I replied, sighing a bit. "You know where she won't go?" "No idea. Let's hear it." "Back to the demon realm." I snickered a bit. "You got me thinking, Arioch, we can't die...so why participate in the exodus?" I love her. She really is just like me. "Sounds like a plan. Where to first?" I asked. We dipped into the demon realm and landed in my hometown. Nothing had changed, but some deep black clouds were looming on the horizon and the wind was blowing pretty hard. "As long as we stay out of buildings when the storms hit, we'll be fine. I heard seeing this is mind blowing...like it'll make you cry." I looked at her. "Okay, maybe not you, but supposedly, it's pretty powerful...only one demon has ever seen it." "Interesting." I replied, taking the lead. "Where are we going?" she asked. "The mountains. You coming?" I asked. "Let's go." she said, attempting to teleport. "Come on." I encouraged. "You had it earlier." "I'm still improving..." she said, giving up and giving me puppy dog eyes. "Grab ahold." I said, extending my arm. She grabbed it and we disappeared deep into the mountains. "It's gonna rain fire." she said. Now, that may not seem far fetched for the demon realm, but I was skeptical. "Fire, Hades?" I asked. "Seriously, it'll rain fire, and then ice. You don't wanna get caught in the ice, it'll take you a thousand years to thaw out." I was even more skeptical. "Suuure." I said. "Fine, don't believe me...but if you freeze, I won't thaw you out." "As long as I stay thawed from the waist down, I won't complain, because you'll climb all the way up here just to-" she pushed me down. "Getting too real for you, am I?" I asked. "No, you're just an asshole sometimes." "You know you would, and you know I'd like it." I said. She shook her head. "Come on, where are we heading up here?" I looked around and shrugged. "Not really sure. I mean, there's a lot of places to explore..." I trailed off as a fire laced raindrop landed beside me, igniting the ground. "See!" Hades said. More started to fall, igniting the ground all around us. "Shit." I said, taking off for a cave. "Bad move, Arioch...this fire will wipe out everything above ground." "Caves are underground, you dipshit, follow me." I pulled her in behind me and we made our way down into the depths. "Ugh, this is disgusting. It's wet, dark, and it smells all musty. I'd rather burn than be down here." "Feel free to go back up there then." she glared at me. "Go ahead." I taunted. "I'm staying but only because I don't trust you on your own." I laughed. "If shit got twisted I could teleport back to my condo." She grew serious. "No...you couldn't." "What? Why not?" I asked. "You're trapped here until this refresh happens." Okay, she didn't disclose that one. "That was kinda pertinent information, Hades. Why didn't you tell me?" "I'm forgetful." she admitted. "That's kinda why I said we needed to get out of dodge." I growled. "Don't get mad, I'm sorry. Look, I'll make it up to you." The smell of burning entered my nose. "Must be getting bad out there." I said, wanting to walk outside to see how everything was. "No doubt, better stay down here. I hear the fire rain lasts for an hour." "How long have we been down here?" I asked. "About 5 minutes." I huffed. "What? You don't like the idea of staying down here with me?" she asked, sounding as sweet as she could. "I don't like being in caves, Hades. They're weird." "There might be cockroaches." I growled. "Not. Nice." I said through clenched teeth. "There might be one crawling up your leg." I felt something crawling up my leg and I lost my shit. She laughed. "That was me, god you're easy." I tackled her and pinned her down. "Calm down, Jesus." She tried fighting me off, but one palm to the chest kept her in place. "Let me up!" she demanded. "Nah. I can spend an hour doing this...especially with all the snakes around." She squealed. "Come on, it's not funny, let me up, I fucking hate those things." I smirked to myself. "Not gonna happen." I replied. "You exploit my fears, I exploit yours." "Okay, okay I'm sorry. Let me up...please." her sweet voice compelled me to let her up but she had something up her sleeve. She is just like me, after all. She pushed me against the wall, and the cool wet cavern walls made me shiver. "I'm sure we can think of another way to pass the time down here." she said. "There has to be something more fun than scaring each other." I snickered. "What is it you have in mind?" I asked. She ran a hand down the front of my sweats...
