Hades knew she would argue with him on this. Of course he was worrying, he had lost her…he wasn’t sure she understood just how much that hurt him. Perhaps she would never know, Hades was not a man for expressing his deepest sentiments, nor was he good at showing how he felt. Perhaps he would just have to do all he could to protect her himself…because losing her again and again was simply not an option.
But at her sudden movement…for the first time in a long time he didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t know how he expected his wife to act, but he certainly didn’t expect that. Then, like a light switched clicked in his mind, his hands were anywhere and everywhere at once. In her hand, tenderly holding her waist, one soft hand on the back of her neck. He kissed her like he needed her to breathe, much more fevorant and eager than the kiss he had place upon being reunited.
When she scooted out of his lap, he found himself wanting to grab her hips and pull her right back. In fact his hands did go to her hips, but he didn’t pull her back down. He stood in front of her, looking like she had just broke him entirely. Something deep inside of him wanted to cry, but the front he put on told him he was far too macho for all of that.
The words were there, but they never came out. This was still new, they were still working on…well them. But what he lacked with words, he showed with action, holding her close and refusing to leave her side just yet. “And what, may I ask, spurred all of that?” He asked, like he was completely pleased with her actions, the very light blush on the apples of his cheeks would tell her as much.
“Let me take you out tonight. After that gift I’m willing to do almost anything.” He said, a small tug on the corner of his cheeks revealing what almost looked like a smile.
Heat and fire - they’d fueled the world much longer than they’d done his machinery, and the warmth of his hands encompassing her weight and the rest of him pressed so close up against her a zephyr couldn’t have passed between them was a balm, soft rays of sunlight on a summer afternoon, the first sparks of life. Persephone preened at the awestruck look dumbfounding his usual stone-set expression, still feeling half-silly and sundrunk on the kiss, two-and-a-half-years alone. But the lovestruck ebbed as something in him just cracked, and for just a moment her eyes grew wet and she nodded, quick, before she tilted up again to lay another, much softer, less bruising kiss. They still needed to talk, but she’d be a damned fool if she thought that was the only way they ever got anywhere. She pulled back down, sighed happy, and Hades collected himself enough back together that she didn’t see the shards of him pokin’ out everywhere. But he still bore the cracks in the faint pinkening of his cheeks. Love still blooming.
Persephone didn’t bother hiding the pleased-as-punch when it washed back over her, just the tiniest bit of it reflecting back out of his own eyes - hard to know where to look for it when you ain’t been married since the world started spinning. It was easier than breathing to let it overtake her, to flirt like a young girl and look up at him teasingly through her lashes as she commented, casual, “Glad you finally started listening, didn’t think it would take so much to get it through to you that that’s just what I want. That little thing, though… just thought I’d show my appreciation.” And maybe, before, she would’ve just left it at that. Been sure he would’ve caught her meaning, or at least convinced herself she felt sure enough to take a risk on it. But after the past centuries, after Orpheus… well. Her husband hadn’t been the only one with some lessons to learn. It was better to take the chance and say something damned foolish than be left grieving over all you didn’t say instead. “I know the waitin’ is hard on you.” She laid her hand on his lapel, and though her smile stayed she tempered the lovedrunk for the moment. “I asked you to be patient, and you wound up being a lot more than you bargained for. I know something ‘bout what it’s like to look for your lover and not being able to find them anymore.”
That smile came a little sadder. But, that was them. All sad and lovely things wrapped up in a history as old as the world itself. Persephone needlessly reached up to brush back strands of his hair that hadn’t moved in the first place. “Way I see it,” she continued, “we got two ways of trying this out again. We can go back to dancing ‘round each other, too afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing, and maybe that’ll fix us back up or maybe you’ll grab a hold of some other lost, hungry soul, and I’ll patron their lover and we start this all over again.”
Persephone held her point, before she picked up a little more casual in her tone again, “Or. We act like you’re my husband, and I’m your wife, and to hell with doing things proper ‘cause we’ll probably make a mess out of it anyway. So we keep honest with each other even when we think it might hurt, and we ask each other what the other wants instead of just assuming, and we kiss each other whenever the hell we want to because we might as well when we hitched ourselves together for the rest of eternity anyway.” At that, she just pointed her finger into his chest and grinned at him. It trembled, a little bit, because… well, it wasn’t all as simple as she laid it out. But she wanted it to be, and what else had Orpheus taught them but to make the world what they wanted, as gentle as they could?
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