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persephoneflowerpetals · 3 months

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'Til Death

Chapter 8: First Date

Chapter 7: Passing the Time

Chapter 9: The Exes (WIP)

Wake up, babes! We finally got chapter 8 of ‘Til Death! Lmao, but seriously I just wanted to apologize for the long wait. I really struggled trying to write some authentic and in-character dialogue for these two lol. Also life and work got in the way too, so yeah. But now I can really get to the “nitty gritty” parts of the story! I’m very excited to write for those next chapters coming up! Hopefully, those won’t take forever to write like this chapter lol! But anyways, please enjoy!

Persephone waited for the black smoke that surrounded them to dissipate before taking a look at her surroundings, wondering what this “perfect spot” that Hades was referring to would be like.

When the smoke finally cleared Persephone found herself by a river bank. The grass was a dark green color and the trees that stood nearby the river were sparsely covered with warm colored leaves. You could really tell it was autumn and that Persephone’s mother, Demeter, was busy at work. The rushing water in the river was practically crystal clear as it ran along various rocks and logs. Persephone could see fishes of various sizes swimming along the current to their unknown destination as well as the occasional autumn leaves being swept away by the current.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it? Not bad for the River Styx.” Hades remarked as he surveyed the area as well, his hands planted firmly on his hips.

Persephone looked at Hades with surprise. “Wait, this is the River Styx?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yup, the one and only aqua border and river route to the Underworld.“ Hades answered as he crossed his arms and smiled proudly while looking at the river.

“Huh, I never knew this was part of the River Styx. I thought it only consisted of souls of the dead.” said Persephone.

“It does in the Underworld, but outside the Underworld it’s just a plain old river and a pretty nice one at that if I do say so myself.” Hades replied.

Persephone smiled then looked around at the empty, grassy area they were in. “So, where’s this picnic you were talking about?” she asked as she raised her brow curiously.

Hades grinned as he snapped his fingers and suddenly an entire picnic, blanket included, appeared on the grass before them. The blanket was a dark blue color, contrasting greatly with the green grass around it. An array of delicious looking foods were scattered on one half of the blanket while the other half was empty, leaving room for the two gods to sit on it.

“Voila. A picnic for two.” Hades declared, presenting the set up to Persephone as if it were a work of art.

“Wow, you certainly went all out.” Persephone remarked as she went over to the blanket to sit on it.

Persephone observed the food laid out on the blanket as Hades sat next to her. The picnic looked more like a feast rather than a small lunch. There were lots of Grecian finger foods like tirokroketes, tzatziki with fresh baked pita bread and veggies, and tomatokeftedes. There were even foods she’s never even seen before like little triangle shaped pieces of bread with some sort of tomato sauce and cheese. Of course, Hades didn’t forget that Persephone had a bit of a sweet tooth, as there were many scrumptious desserts on the blanket as well like melomakarona, kourabiedes, and Persephone’s favorite, bougatsa. Sitting on the edge of the blanket were two black colored goblets that looked like they came straight out of the Underworld and a pitcher of nectar (which also looked similar to the goblets).

“What can I say? I like a little variety with my meals.” Hades replied with a cheeky smile and shrug. “Go ahead. Dig in.”

Persephone looked at him and smiled before helping herself to some of the mysterious foods on the blanket. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen some of these foods before. What is this stuff?” Persephone asked, picking up a cream filled treat covered in powdered sugar and chocolate chips.

“I figured you might like some Roman dishes. Those guys stink at naming gods, but they make some great food. Try it. It’s really good.” Hades answered as he poured some nectar from the pitcher into the goblets for each of them.

“Funny, you said the same thing about the worms. I’m surprised you didn’t bring any.” Persephone joked.

Hades smirked as he replied, “Uhh, as I recall you liked the worms, so don’t sound so skeptical. Anyways, I thought I’d be a little more classy by keeping bugs off the menu.”

Persephone giggled softly before taking a bite of the sweet looking pastry. Her eyes widened as her mouth formed a small smile. “Oh my gods, this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted! What’s it called?!” Persephone asked with delight after swallowing.

“Cannoli.” Hades answered with a grin before taking a sip of nectar. He found her excitement and wondrous delight in food to be adorable. The way her face lit up when she found something new to be truly delicious made Hades’ nonexistent heart skip a beat.

“Well, I think cannolis are my new favorite food!” Persephone giggled before taking another bite of the creamy pastry.

Hades chuckled softly as he looked at her with admiration. Gods, how could one goddess be so darn cute? The two sat in comfortable silence for a moment as they both snacked on food, the natural sounds of the nearby flora and fauna putting them at ease as they took in the beautiful view of their surroundings.

“So…we’re here. We’re eating. Didn’t you say you wanted to talk?” Persephone asked as she grabbed another piece of food from the blanket.

Oh, right. This was supposed to be a date. Though, Hades didn’t actually say it was a date, but this is what it was supposed to be and a date is supposed to involve talking and getting to know each other.

“Well, what do you wanna talk about?” Hades asked before taking a bite out of one of the tomatokeftedes.

Persephone paused for a moment, trying to think of a subject to discuss. She then looked at Hades with a sweet smile. “Could you tell me more about your mother? I like hearing you talk about her. It’s nice.”

Hades smiled fondly at the comment before taking a final bite of his food. “Heh, sheesh, where do I even start?”

“Does she have any hobbies besides watching over the cosmos?” Persephone asked.

“Oh, yeah. Believe it or not, my mom’s a total party animal. Seriously, I think she could out-party Bacchus!” Hades answered with a chuckle.

“Really?” asked Persephone in slight disbelief as she chuckled with him.

“Yeah, you’ve never been to a ‘Rhea party’ before?”

Persephone shook her head. “Well, next time my mom throws a party I’m takin’ you with me, babe. Let me tell ya, her parties are wild! I’m not joking, last party she threw she made her grand entrance by riding in on a lion! A lion! Can you believe that?!”

“Wow,” Persephone giggled. “When I asked about your mother’s hobbies, that's the last thing I expected to hear! I think I’d love to meet her one day. I can tell you really admire her by the way you talk about her.”

“What’s not to admire? She’s amazing! Besides, her parties are the only ones I can attend where I’m actually welcome…and invited.” Hades said as he took another sip of his glass of nectar. “So, I told you about my family. What about yours? What’s the deal with your dad? I’ve never heard anybody talk about him.”

“Oh, that’s because I don’t have one.” Persephone replied casually.

“Ah, I get it.” Hades said with a nod. “Deadbeat dad. Left for goat milk and never came back, right?”

“No, it’s nothing like that. I just literally don’t have a father. You really don’t know how my sister and I were born?” Persephone asked, surprised that this god who seemed to know everything about everything didn’t know how she was born.

“We’re both about the same age and we grew up in different parts of Greece, so besides reproduction, no. I have no idea how you were born. What? Did you pop out of your mother’s head or something?” Hades asked with a playful smirk.

Persephone laughed at his silly question. “No. Back when the titans were still running things my mom was busy using her powers trying to make the Earth a better place. More beautiful. Of course, that’s a little difficult when you have titans like Pyros and Lythos running around destroying everything in their path. So, safe to say, my mom had her work cut out for her and she didn’t think she’d have the time to find a husband and maintain a relationship, but she did really want kids, so she found a safe place somewhere in Attica and planted some sort of ‘magical sprout-let’. While it grew she watered it and gave it some sun, y’know, normal gardening stuff. Then, 9 months later, the sprout bloomed into a flower and here I am! Of course, the same process happened with my sister too, so the real reason why mortal parents tell their children babies come from ‘magical gardens’ is because of my mother.”

Hades smiled as she explained the story of her birth, listening to every word. “Huh, and here I thought it was because they didn’t wanna teach their kids about the birds and the bees at such a young age.”

Persephone laughed again at his comment. “Yeah, that too.” she replied.

“But seriously, why does that not surprise me in the slightest? You being born from a flower of all things.” Hades said.

“I know. The flowery spring goddess being born from a magical flower? What a shocker!” Persephone replied sarcastically as she smiled.

A sudden noise from nearby immediately interrupted the gods’ conversation. A mother duck and her ducklings had decided to hop onto dry land after swimming in the river. Persephone smiled as she watched the ducks shake the water off their feathers and waddle near the picnic blanket. She then manifested a bunch of seeds into her hand and offered them to the duck and her babies. The ducks eagerly ate the seeds in Persephone’s hand as Hades watched with a smile. He wasn’t really big on “cutesy stuff” like this (in fact, this sort of stuff kinda disgusted him), but when he looked at Persephone and how sweet she looked feeding those ducks, Hades just couldn’t help but smile. The goddess was so stinkin’ cute that even Hades wasn’t immune to her adorable charm.

One of the ducklings, struggling to find room around Persephone’s arm to eat some of the seeds, then wandered over to Hades after its failed attempts to reach her handful of seeds. Hades looked down to see the fluffy, yellow, little duckling chirping at him, as if it were asking him for some food.

“Uhh, no. Go away. Shoo. Food’s over there. Go on.” Hades said, trying to gently shoo the chirping duckling away from him as he looked at it with slight disgust.

Persephone lightly chuckled and placed some seeds on the blanket near the little duckling. The duckling turned around and saw the seeds, instantly going towards them to eat them as other ducklings started going over to the small pile of seeds.

Hades looked over at Persephone and just couldn’t stop smiling and staring at her. She was just so sweet and beautiful. He couldn’t not look at her. He was so distracted by her, in fact, that he didn’t even notice that some of the ducklings that had gathered nearby were starting to waddle on top of him and into his lap. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of many chirping ducklings that Hades actually looked down to see the baby ducks all spread onto his lap. Some were even trying to hop up to climb up his chiton.

Persephone giggled when she noticed Hades with the baby ducks in his lap and how confused he was by it. Hades looked over at her again when he heard her giggling.

“I think they like you.”

Hades raised his brow and smiled as he looked back down at the ducklings. “Well, it’s no wonder you little things are easy prey. You’re a poor judge of character.”

Persephone laughed at Hades’ witty comment before the mother duck that stood by the spring goddess started quacking at her babies. The ducklings then waddled away from Hades and straight to their mother, one little duck straggling behind the others after clumsily tumbling out of Hades’ lap. The gods then watched the family of ducks waddle off into the forest behind them.

Hades then picked up his goblet of nectar once again and took a sip. “So, there’s something I’ve been dying to ask you since the day you yelled at me.”

Persephone then looked over at Hades and smirked. “Oh? And what would that be?”

“You said you didn’t have a say in what role you’d get as a goddess, so what kind of role would you have picked if you had the chance? I’m genuinely curious.”

Persephone looked down in thought. “Huh, I guess I never really thought about it before. Well, I mean, I have thought about it, but just not…deeply...”

There was a short pause as Persephone thought about her answer. She then chuckled to herself, trying to think of something. “I dunno. There’s a lot of things I’d like to be goddess of.”

“Like?” Hades asked, wanting her to continue her thoughts.

“Like, Goddess of Beauty and Love. Aphrodite has an amazing role. She blesses mortals with beauty and helps them fall in love. I think that’s really sweet, but there’s always a down side to every role, y’know? Like, having to deal with mortals that fall out of love with each other or mortal women begging and pleading to be blessed with beauty.”

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point there.” Hades replied.

“But, I hope you don’t think I hate my role as a goddess because of what I said. I really do like being Goddess of Spring. It’s just…sometimes my family makes it hard for me to enjoy what I do…but, I dunno, at the same time I guess it would’ve been nice to have a say in what I get to do for the rest of eternity. Who knows? Maybe I could’ve been Goddess of the Underworld.”

Hades chuckled. “Goddess of the Underworld, huh? Alright, I see how it is. Are you vying for my job now?” he asked with a smirk.

“Nah, I was thinking maybe we could do a partnership. Like a ‘duo deity’ sort of thing.” Persephone replied with a playful smirk.

“Oh, a partnership. Well, you show a lot of promise, babe. I mean, you’re pretty good at organizing scrolls for me, so I could make something work. How about you send me your resume and I’ll beseech you with an offer at my earliest convenience, alright?” Hades jokingly suggested.

Persephone laughed as Hades joined her. “Alright, deal.”

There was another moment of silence as the two just sat there, enjoying each other’s company as they looked at the natural scenery before them.

Hades then turned to Persephone to speak. “Hey, uhh…you wanna…go for a walk along the river for a little bit?” he casually asked.

“Sure.” Persephone replied with a nod before getting up from the picnic blanket, wiping any dirt, grass, or crumbs from her chiton before making her way along the river bank.

Hades stood up as well, brushing himself off before snapping his fingers, causing the picnic to disappear in a cloud of black smoke. He then followed after Persephone to walk along with her.

The two gods spent the rest of their time just walking along the river and talking. They told stories, cracked jokes, shared their likes and dislikes. They had gotten so lost in conversation that it had already reached sunset and were now heading towards the end of the River Styx.

They spotted a wooden bridge across the river, the bridge that crossed the border between the entrance to the Underworld and the entrance to the mortal part of the Earth. They decided to stop on the bridge and watch Apollo slowly pull the sun across the sky.

Hades looked over at Persephone and smiled as he admired her. She was so gorgeous. The way her hot pink hair flowed in the breeze. That adorable little smile she almost always seemed to have on her face and how her amethyst colored eyes always sparkled. Hades was positively stunned by her beauty. Everything about her was truly perfect in every way. That honestly used to annoy him, but now it’s one of the many things he finds so attractive about her. It was so crazy how after getting to know her, his perception of Persephone really changed.

Hades then looked down to the water of the river rushing under the bridge, trying to decide whether he should finally make a move on Persephone. He didn’t want to ruin the moment by making her uncomfortable, but this was such a great opportunity to do something romantic. Anything romantic. But…what if she was getting mixed signals this entire time and thought this was some sort of friendly outing? What if she gets creeped out by his advances and leaves? He’s already come so far with her, especially with this impromptu date. He didn’t want to ruin things now, but…he couldn’t let this beautiful moment go to waste. Who knows when he’ll get another moment like this with her? Decisions, decisions…

Persephone looked over at Hades who seemed to be lost in thought. His face had a focused expression as he watched the water while he leaned on the railing of the bridge. Persephone smiled as she observed him. It amazed her how well she got along with him and how much they had in common with each other. She was honestly really glad she took the chance to actually get to know Hades. Not a lot of gods out there were willing to do that, but she was and it was certainly worth it.

The spring goddess continued to study Hades’ features as he looked at the water below. His gaunt face, his gray-blue skin, his fiery blue hair that always made cute little swirls when he walked around, the surprisingly well toned muscles on his arms. Hades really wasn’t that bad looking of a god. In fact, Persephone oddly found him to be quite handsome. She loved the way he laughed, the way he smiled at her when he gave her a genuine compliment, the way he took in every single word she said when she spoke to him as if it were the most important information he could ever retain.

That fluttery feeling started to come back to Persephone, like that night when Hades talked to her under the stars. It was like a bunch of butterflies were floating around in her tummy. She looked at Hades again and the feeling got stronger and stronger the more she thought about the things she admired about him…and then…it hit her. The sudden realization hit her like a tidal wave from Poseidon that this feeling she had been getting...it was love. She had fallen in love with Hades. She was in love with him this whole time and she never even knew it. Whenever they subtly flirted with each other, when they smiled at each other, when Hades showed genuine appreciation for each and every plant she made for him in Asphodel Meadows, whenever she blushed when he said something sweet to her. The signs were all there and she never saw them until now. This god that she once despised has now stolen her heart and she had no idea what to do.

A million questions and thoughts rushed through Persephone’s mind as she came to this sudden realization. She looked out and the sunset, once more. The sun was nearly gone from the horizon and it wouldn’t be long now before Artemis would shoot her arrow towards the sky to bring out the moon.

The pink goddess turned to Hades and took a shaky breath. She had no idea what she was doing right now. It seemed like she was doing whatever her body told her to do in that moment.

“Um…Hades?”

Persephone’s soft and somewhat shaky voice brought Hades out of his thoughts as he turned to her.

“Yeah?”

He now had her full attention as she nervously stroked a lock of her hot pink hair, looking down to avoid looking at Hades.

“I, um…I just….wanted…to tell you…...”

Persephone truly had no idea what she was doing right now, but for some reason she had this urgent need to tell Hades how she felt. She was terrified and excited all at the same time. She finally looked up at Hades and found him watching her with anticipation, waiting for what she had to say. It wasn’t until she looked into his glowing yellow eyes that the words slipped out of her mouth.

“….I love you.”

For a split second, Hades’ expression turned to one of surprise before Persephone quickly and suddenly placed her hands on his chest and kissed him. Little blue flowers started to bloom out of her hair when her lips met with his.

Hades’ eyes grew wide as his pupils dilated. His blue flame began to flare up as his body tensed. He wasn’t expecting her to kiss him, let alone tell him she loved him.

Persephone could feel Hades tense up and for a moment she considered stopping, worrying that she had just made a huge mistake, but then she felt Hades relax. This was exactly what Hades wanted from all this. He wanted her to fall for him and she obviously did, he just didn’t expect her to admit her feelings to him right then and there.

Hades melted into her kiss as he kissed her back, gently cupping her soft and rosy cheek. They then separated for air as they looked at each other again. Persephone’s face was flushed red like a strawberry and Hades could help, but smile. His sudden flare up was starting to die down as well as he gazed into Persephone’s eyes. He then noticed the little blue flowers in her hair and smirked as he picked one, studying it with a fond expression before looking back at her.

“Y’know, I think blue looks really good on you.”

Persephone smiled back at him and giggled as she then cuddled into the crook of his neck while she wrapped her arms around him. Hades dropped the little flower and wrapped his arms around Persephone as he rested his head atop hers.

Everything just felt so right, like they belonged in each other’s arms. They stood there on the bridge, holding each other close as the sun finally set and the moon appeared in the sky.

Persephone then looked up at him and smiled. Hades looked down at her with a soft smile and brushed a piece of hair away from her face. “How about we call it a night, huh?”

Persephone nodded as they separated before they both disappeared from the bridge in a burst of blue flames. The gods then reappeared in the Underworld, now holding hands as Hades walked Persephone back to her bedroom in comfortable silence. Neither god could stop smiling after that kiss. They were truly happy at that moment and they never wanted that feeling to go away.

When the two gods finally reached the doors to Persephone’s room, Persephone let go of Hades’ hand and walked over to said doors. She turned to him one last time, still feeling flustered from the kiss. “Thank you…for everything today. I had a wonderful time…and I hope we can do that again soon.”

Hades continued to smile as he looked at her with admiration. “Yeah, me too…g’night, Seph.”

Persephone stepped towards Hades and gave him another quick kiss as she cupped his cheek. “Goodnight, Hades.” she said before opening the doors to her room and going inside for the night.

Hades just stood there in front of her room for a moment. Staring at the doors in a lovesick daze before turning around to teleport himself to his throne room. Once there, Hades slowly and calmly took a deep breath.

“WHOOOO!!! YEAH!!! THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKIN’ ABOUT!!! I STILL GOT IT, BABY!!! YEAH!!!”

Meanwhile, as Persephone got herself ready for bed, she just couldn’t wipe the smile off of her face. She just had her first kiss! With Hades! She couldn’t believe it! After hundreds of years of being alone and single, Persephone finally found herself a boyfriend that she truly loved! Persephone went to sleep that night with the biggest smile on her face, knowing that she had finally found love with the one and only God of the Underworld...and oh, gods was her mother gonna flip when she finds out.

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