It Takes and it Takes and it Takes 8 August 2023 Roman
i.
The shade slapped his hand again.
“That is not how it is supposed to be worn,” she stated plainly, though her voice betrayed her annoyance at having to tell him a third time. Roman frowned, but let his himation go, exposing his chest and a fair amount of the rest of his torso.
He felt his cheeks go hot. “I don’t really--"
She stopped him, whirling around as she gathered the remainder of the fabric into her arms. “And how will you secure it? You have one pauldron and I will not pierce my fabric with a fastener.” She was sure to remind him that the fabric she had draped over him was her own creation, hand-woven, perfect as it was. Even in the dimness of his too-big bedroom, Roman could see how the fabric in her arms deceived the eye, seeming black as night until the torchlight danced upon it and revealed a deep, rich violet.
“We could tie it in a--”
She put her hand up, her pretty, long nose whipping towards the ground as she huffed a frustrated sigh. The fabric gathered lovingly in her arms, like a newborn being rocked to sleep, shimmered even as she stood still. She almost seemed to tuck it further into her chest, protecting it from his affront.
“I would ask you not to insult me with such a request,” she said, not looking up. She gave a half-hearted little bow, as was required for all servants in the House, before turning for the door.
Roman flinched at the formality. His stomach churned, like trying to lie to a room full of people who knew the truth. It was a sickness he’d grown familiar with in his time at the House. He clenched and unclenched his fists, rolling his shoulders and trying to convince himself he didn’t look ridiculous. A lamb in wolves’ clothing.
It was all. A fucking lot.
“Thank you, Arachne,” he called out just before she was gone. He stared down at his exposed chest, chewing on his lip and wondering, genuinely, if it might be more modest to just remain nude.
Arachne stopped at the door. When he didn’t hear the heavy wood creaking at her exit, Roman looked up.
She was staring at him. Her mouth was still tight and guarded, though her dark brown eyes glistened with her surprise and confusion.
“Hypnos told me your name,” he said quietly, his chest a little sore because she was looking at him--truly looking at him. He wanted to reach out for her, to jog the long distance between them in his too-fucking-big room and grab her arms and make her stay just like that, looking at him. No one fucking. Looked at him. Anymore.
But he didn’t. Because that wasn’t what princes do.
“Because you asked?” her voice cracked. Roman thought--maybe this was the first time anyone was looking at her, too.
He nodded and she sighed, her nose pointing to the ground again. He thought he saw her chin tremble, but she turned for the door again and began to push. She paused, however, before turning her head back to him just a bit.
“You should not be ashamed of my design. Your body is… adequate to wear it.”
She paused again. And Roman didn’t silence the quiet bubble of laughter that floated through him. Although he couldn’t see it, he imagined she was smiling too.
Arachne nodded once before pushing her way out and allowing the large, heavy door to shut behind her.
--
ii.
The shades turned away when Roman walked down the hall.
He had tried, many times since he had arrived, to rip the laurels from his hair, as if the absence of a crown could disguise him. But it grew back every time, the fronds tickling his scalp and giggling into his temples as they re-wove themselves about his head. He felt Persephone in the way the amethyst leaves hung about his skin, peppering tiny kisses to his brow just like she did when she found him at the lake.
Roman would still get a little sick when he thought about it too hard. When she was near, she was intoxicating, trance-like in the way she gave her love so freely. When they were apart, Roman agonized over how stupid and embarrassing it was that he believed every word she said, every brush of her fingers and well-placed kiss, without question. She made him feel safe and loved and seen the same way his mother did, the same way--
He had never had extended family. His mother was alone, his father was alone, all he had was them. And then all he had was her. And then he wasn’t alive and he watched a decade take its toll. He watched his mother love a memory. A memory of a very average man, who went to school and then to work, who had average aspirations and average secrets.
And then, almost all at once, he was dressed in wolves’ silk, and the wolves--wanted him. He had a father who would never raise a fist against him, a grandmother who kicked her legs over the side of a dock and sincerely listened to him struggle to put words together about his life, and a grandfather who was King of fucking Hell.
He spent days--or what felt like days, he couldn’t tell--isolated in the bedroom that had been prepared for him the day he was born. He would lie awake, thinking about it all. He didn’t feel like himself, suddenly waited on, hand and foot, without ever doing anything to deserve it. He had only known a life where the world had to be bloody for him to earn his peace; his hands needed to tremble before he could rest. But, occasionally, he would catch himself standing a little taller when shades slipped into his chambers to deliver meals he did not want; a lick of warmth from one of the many candles dotted around his room would fill him with a sensation that can only be described as power. His body knew this is where it was always meant to be, seated to the right of his father, his bloodright, but his mind was still mortal and suspicious, still addicted to making himself small, to pouring every bit of his anguish into a punching bag. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, just laid in his bed going slowly insane as he grappled with the reality of his situation. So he hid in his room. And sometimes, when it became too much, he closed his eyes and called for—
But finally, driven by hunger and exhaustion, he left his room, still wearing the clothes he had died in. The first time. A white t-shirt he had worn to spar with his students, stained with scarlet falling from the shoulders to the navel, a pair of plain gray sweatpants with elastic at the ankles and a hole in one knee.
The kitchen, at least, was a short walk away from his room.
It was there he slowly met other inhabitants. First, Arachne, who sat neatly on a stool at a kitchen island by the chef and his stoves, embroidering something. She barely looked up from her needlework and said, “I figured you would get hungry eventually.” The chef huffed and passed her a gold coin. She slipped it into her plain creme peplos. “We wondered if you were the type of demigod who still gets hungry.” She immediately pulled him to his room to dress him. “Properly,” she’d called it. It was the last time he ever saw his blood-stained t-shirt and gray sweatpants.
He had been too embarrassed to leave for food again once she’d dressed him.
When the pain of hunger was great enough to overcome the embarrassment of his wardrobe, he left for the kitchen again, doing his best to ignore the shades who averted their eyes. There, he met Hypnos, who was at first asleep by his sandwich. Roman tried to be quiet and remain unnoticed as he reached for an unattended apple, but the chef clanged his spatula against the cast-iron and jolted the poor godling awake. “Oh, young prince!” Hypnos almost sang. He spoke for ages and ages, most of which Roman did not understand.
Although he was—a little funny, Hypnos reminded Roman most of the world above. He reminded him of the students in his class when they finally broke open and dared to show the world they were kids.
Other shades tried to convince Roman that they could bring his food to his room, but he very gently and apologetically refused. Roman grew comfortable taking his short journeys. The kitchen was different from the rest of the House, as if the food gave permission for everyone to act normally around each other; he took pleasure in the small victory of leaving his room for something he felt mattered. Most would hurry out at the sight of him, but a few would stay and share their meal with him.
Once he had gotten used to the normalcy of the kitchen, Roman became a little more brave, venturing out to see more and more of the House, bit by bit. Venturing out to find--
He hadn’t seen him once since he’d gone down there. The part of him addicted to making himself feel small wasn’t surprised. The part of him that knew he was home wondered why his best friend was not in it.
That evening--or morning, or--fuck he couldn’t tell--he took the short walk to the kitchen, a bit emboldened by his little talk with Arachne. He was tired. A lot. Apparently, he was the type of demigod who needed food and sleep. But his too-big room also had a too-big bed and as addicted as he was to making himself feel small, the loneliness made it hard to rest. Still, the chef made an incredible soup--giouvarlakia, he tried to teach Roman to say--which usually helped his mind settle down a bit. Roman walked a bit taller when he could smell the savory chicken and lemon down the hall. He clenched his jaw, though his body felt warm and light. He gave himself permission to feel a little excited for a warm meal and to maybe listen to more of Hypnos’s stories.
But he froze when he turned the corner.
The kitchen was empty and silent, no chef moving gracefully along his preparations, no other shades or godlings conversing. Only a frighteningly huge, muscled figure standing over a scroll, an untouched plate of baklava sitting on the kitchen island beside him. He seemed coiled over the scroll, like a rattlesnake ready to strike. His scars shimmered, just like the luxurious violet in his regalia, and his eyes glowed a terrifying, bloody scarlet as he looked through his brow to identify who had just interrupted him.
His eyes met Roman’s and, instantly, everything about him changed. His shoulders fell and his eyes softened. He stood straight to look at Roman fully. He was bigger like this, but so much gentler. This, somehow, made him even scarier.
“Romulus,” Hades breathed, like he was wounded.
“Sorry,” was all Roman could think to say before he took a step back, “I’ll come back.”
“Are you hungry?” Hades asked, rounding the island with a step forward, matching Roman’s.
“No, I’m okay,” he lied, his heart quickening in his chest.
Hades drew his hand away from the onyx marble island. Instead, his hands met in front of his navel, his fingers clenching around each other like he’d captured a secret and wouldn’t dare let it out. The heavy, golden adornments around his wrists flickered under the candlelight. The softness had flown from his eyes and he guarded himself, a line creasing between his brows as he frowned and glanced to the wall next to Roman and then back to Roman.
“I haven’t seen you since--” he tried. Roman could see him struggling, as if every word was a desperate gasp from a drowning man.
“That’s my fault,” Roman admitted, trying to end this conversation and mask his desperate need to fucking escape with a shallow laugh.
Hades, as if he could read Roman as simply as one of his scrolls, took the opportunity to look him over. He had Roman in a checkmate; Roman was not the type to walk away from authority without a dismissal and Hades knew it. Hades nodded, his stony gaze appraising and satisfied, as if pleased that Roman had been dressed correctly. His eyes hesitated over Roman’s pauldron: a single hound’s skull, a smaller, humbler version of his father’s.
“I had ordered the shades to bring you your meals,” Hades said as he turned to the ovens behind him, wordlessly sealing Roman to this interaction. Hades, King of the Underworld, a master of fucking torture.
Before Roman could apologize--again--Hades continued, pulling a bowl out from a warmer, “They informed me you prefer to retrieve them yourself.” He stood behind his scroll and placed the bowl across the kitchen island before plucking a spoon from a drawer and placing it neatly to the right. With a final clench of his jaw, he cast his eyes down to his scroll and waited for Roman to take his seat.
Roman did, quietly, though he did not pick up the spoon. There was that sick feeling again, the parts of him battling, a puzzle piece that had jumped out of his place and feared he would never find his way back to it.
“I did not mean to ambush you,” Hades said, when Roman didn’t eat.
“I wasn’t thinking that,” Roman lied. He was.
“You were,” Hades said simply, his mouth quirking up just a bit when he glanced over at Roman. He returned to his scroll, though it did not seem like he was reading.
“Did you ambush me?” Roman asked, his cheeks hot and his stomach churning. A lamb sitting with a wolf.
Hades sighed, “No.” He finally rolled the scroll up and leaned back against one of the counters behind him where the chef would slice olives and coat phyllo in butter. “I think better in here sometimes. The chef thought you would be in soon for dinner. I was--going to bring my food to my chambers, so I was not-- But. I got caught up.”
Silence fell on them again. Roman stared at the soup and Hades stared somewhere far away, the muscles in his jaw jumping every once in a while. Roman did not think he was lying, but it was hard to accept the truth.
“Would you… Would you feel better if I--” Hades started before growing frustrated, huffing sharply, and grabbing his plate. He took the baklava and bit down and Roman knew what was being asked of him. He picked up his spoon, took a bit of broth into it, and brought it to his mouth. It was mild and perfectly thickened, silky on his tongue. When he swallowed, it warmed every corner of his body.
They stayed like that for a little while, every shared bite easing the tension in each of their shoulders, like prisoners at mealtime forced to co-exist and trusting, little by little, the other wouldn’t try to attack while they were vulnerable. By the time Roman was ready to cut into one of the meatballs, he realized his fist had relaxed in his lap, his knuckles were no longer white.
“I wasn’t avoiding you,” he finally offered, a tiny truth.
“It is alright if you were,” Hades said quickly.
“I wasn’t avoiding you, specifically,” Roman amended.
Hades made a sound, encouraging Roman as he chewed on his pastry.
“I was avoiding-- all of it,” Roman tried, cutting into the meatball with the sharp edge of his spoon.
“It is a-fucking-lot, huh?” Hades said, with a cheekful of baklava.
Immediately, the puzzle piece found its place again. The muscles in Roman’s back uncoiled and the breath broke out of him as he dropped his spoon, which clattered on the table. “Oh my GOD it is a-FUCKING. LOT!” Like a thorn removed after days of bothering, the relief of blood freely flowing felt like a miracle.
When Hades laughed, it was a deep and almost sad sound. Like he was never allowed to do so. When he looked at Roman, he really, really looked at him. “‘Atta boy,” he chuckled.
“Thank you,” Roman breathed, like he’d just sprinted to the first sanctuary he’d seen in weeks, “Thank you for fucking saying that. I feel like I’m out of my fucking mind, I don’t know how any of this happened and why any of it is happening to me, I just--” He brought a hand up to rub deep into his eyes and groan. He needed to see a fucking therapist.
“What do you mean you do not know why it is happening to you?” Hades asked, not angry, though it sounded a bit like it.
Roman’s shoulder jumped as he clenched his fist in his lap, “No, I mean, I know why me,” he paused, not exactly knowing what to call the woman at the lake, Her Highness, The Queen, fucking--Grandma. He settled with, “She explained. Y'know.”
As if he could hear the words unspoken, Hades shifted, placed his emptied plate down behind him, and crossed his huge arms in front of his chest, “Do you know how easy it is to make Olympian demigods?”
Roman’s fist slowly unfurled and he listened, watching carefully.
“I am sure you can imagine. And unless the offspring is cursed by the Fates with a destiny fit for an Epic Poem-- Many of them appear and die as simple mortals. They come here as shades, wasted, just like all the others. A select few earn their immortality, their place on Olympus, but the others are ignored, if not scorned as nuisances.
“I--was not meant to sire any offspring. Death does not give life. Death takes. Zagreus is--” Hades stopped to clear his throat. “An anomaly. A--” he drowned again, every word a gasp, “We would not have Zagreus without my queen and every blessing she brings to this godforsaken place.
“We had never imagined Zagreus could--He is Death just as much as I. He takes.
“And yet, you.”
Roman felt sick again. He looked anywhere else he could, a stack of plates, an empty sink, as he chewed on the inside of his cheek and tried desperately not to reach down and find comfort in being small.
He tried to listen. The King was speaking and his voice was cracking and home was calling out to him.
“From the moment you were born, we held our breaths until you were ours. We watched you defy your body, over and over again. Your body, which craved its place here, refused to heal, constantly sick. We watched you float down the river countless times, defying still, surviving, until you made a choice.”
Roman felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, the heaviness of being tired, of keeping himself awake so he could make himself small. Memories flashed in his mind, the trills of the monitors hooked up to his useless fucking body, the constant scent of alcohol on every table and cabinet, the saline in his mouth. Calling Atropos to him, after sitting with his mother for hours before she finally allowed herself to go home. Staring down at his chest. Wondering if what Persephone said could possibly be true.
“I’m tired,” he said.
“I know.” Atropos whispered.
“Give me your scissors.”
Mortified, Roman quickly slid his hand across his eye before the tear could fall.
“You might not feel like it, Romulus--” Hades put a hand on his head and it was only then that Roman realized Hades had closed the distance between them. He ran his thumb over the pale white scar on Roman’s forehead, creeping into his hairline, “But in doing what you did, you made the choice to survive. You fought for this. You chose to come home.
“And we are-- I am-- I feel--” Hades drowned.
Roman leaned his forehead into Hades’s broad chest and Hades didn’t need to drown anymore.
--
iii.
Roman wished he had gone to bed after that. He was fucking exhausted enough. Hades had closed his arms around his head and it felt like it all might be quiet enough for just a moment, but just as quickly, he stepped back, quickly grabbed another baklava from the refrigerator, and gathered up his scroll. “Finish your dinner,” he had said, sounding so much like a father as he walked out, “And when you’re ready, come find me again.”
But he was tired. And he was making a choice.
At that moment, he didn’t feel so much like he needed to be small.
He didn’t care that the shades wouldn’t look at him. He was focused, and he barely noticed as Hypnos called out to him when he passed by, “Roman, hey, Roman! Hey, Roman! Roman! Hey! Roman!”
He waved as he walked on, finally, and Hypnos grinned before settling back into his chair, satisfied.
He walked for what felt like hours, in circles for some time. He wished he had taken more time to figure out the layout of the House instead of fucking wallowing. Instead, he was left peeking into rooms upon rooms, gazing upon luxurious pieces of art he’d seen three times in his quest and cursed already. He had thought his searching was over when he found a room that smelled so unbelievably familiar, like tobacco and black pepper, but it was empty and dark and seemed like it hadn’t been lived in in quite some time.
Finally, after walking through the garden--his grandmother’s garden--he found a gate that led to Tartarus. Past beautifully gnarled pomegranate trees and hedges dotted with the same purple leaves that adorned his temples, Tartarus burned in brilliant, haunting evergreen flames. He hesitated at the threshold for just a moment. Knowing it was fucking dumb to go out there without having the slightest clue how to navigate the broiling emerald green fire or the labyrinth within. After a moment’s consideration, a quickflash of rage burned through his chest and he took a step outside the gate to the gravel road.
In an instant, his elbow was caught up in a strong and violent hand.
“Thaaaat’s not a very smart--Rome?!”
Roman whipped around to find bright blue eyes wild with disbelief staring down at him, golden hair streaked with reflections of the flickering green flames just outside the gate.
“What the fuck are you thinking?!” Richard growled through gritted teeth. His grip changed instantly, no longer snatching up a would-be escaped House Shade, but rather, tucking Roman’s arm almost into his waist, drawing him close and away from Tartarus.
Roman yanked his arm back, “I was looking for you,” he jabbed, suddenly pretty fucking sure he didn’t want what he wanted before.
“In fucking Tartarus?! Do you have any idea--” Richard dug his palms into his eyes, having only the absolute audacity to be short with Roman.
“Fuck this,” Roman mumbled as he brushed past Richard, knowing for absolute certain he was not about to suffer a lecture from Richard of all people.
“Rome--” Richard sighed, trying to grab at his hand.
Roman turned, wrenching himself out of Richard’s grasp. “Why haven’t you come to see me?!” he yelled. It broke out of him, sharp and painful in his throat. He hadn’t realized how close that was to the surface.
Richard stared, stunned, like he’d just been slapped.
“I’ve been here for god knows how long and you are fucking--AWOL.” As usual, he wanted to add, but he was able to control himself at least that much, even as the sickness returned and his nose started to burn.
Richard reached a hand behind him, his nails digging into his hair, “I’ve been working, Rome,” he tried, glancing away. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
The piece of him addicted to making him feel small lit up again. Soothing and comforting, like a blanket from his childhood. Richard would never care about him like Roman wanted him to. It was never going to be like that for them. He has better things to do, more important, more everything.
“Okay,” Roman surrendered, flat and cold, and he took a few more steps to the House.
Then--something howled inside him. A wolf who would not be disrespected in his own home.
“No, you know what--” Rome spun around and was a little shocked to see Richard still standing there, watching him, not gone to the wind and shadows to whatever fucking work he had to do. “I have been in that House, alone, not knowing what to do, where to go, being dressed up like Malibu fucking Barbie, and the one person I needed was nowhere to be found. I called for you! Several times! I put my little fucking hands together and hoped and wished on a fucking star with all my little fucking might and nothing! And you should feel fucking bad about that!”
“Of course I feel bad--” Richard started, but the quickflash of rage in Roman’s chest had turned into a wildfire and he wasn’t ready to stop.
“Then why didn’t you come?!”
“Because you didn’t even fucking tell me you were leaving!” Richard snapped, something cracking in his chest. Roman flinched, the wildfire in his chest burning out with one quick cut.
They stood there, breathing for a moment. Then—
“After the lake, you fucking ghosted me. You would barely speak to me, you snapped at me constantly, I tried to get you to rest and you fucking refused because you didn’t want to be anywhere fucking near me--didn’t want me touching you in the Styx--and I get it! Seph gave you the whole picture, you finally got how badly I fucked up, you didn’t want anything to do with me!”
Roman blinked, stunned. Richard ran a hand over his mouth and threw the other up in defeat. “You know, honestly? I thought after we sat on the dock and talked and—all of that—I thought we were okay and on the same page, but—then you’re fucking gone for days and when I do find you fucking off somewhere in the city, you can’t even look at me!”
Roman opened his mouth to stop him, but Richard cut through, “Which I get, Romulus, I fucking understand. I really do. I know how badly I fucked you over and it was about fucking time you saw it, too. But then I couldn’t--” and his voice broke. Something shattered. “I couldn’t feel you. Anymore. Anywhere. I had to go to your room, and your bed was empty, and your mother was crying, and you left and you didn’t tell me. You didn’t—“ Richard took in a breath and it shook.
“Richard,” Roman whispered, unsure and apologetic. Richard sucked on his teeth and shook his head before turning for the gate. Roman tried to reach, but he was already too far.
“Richard, don’t, I’m sorry—“
“Don’t want you to be sorry,” Richard called out over his shoulder, unsettlingly unphased, like nothing happened. He was terrifyingly good at that, shaking off the wounds and walking on.
“What do you want, then?” Roman yelled after him, the guilt shifting back into familiar anger, filling his throat with stones.
Richard stopped and tilted his head to the sky, drawing in a breath that seemed to take years. He turned, not enough to face Roman, but enough for Roman to see the green flickers of Tartarus burning dance off the straight slope of his nose. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it matters.” He stared at the obsidian stones crunching under his boots. “But I don’t want you to say it just because you don’t want me to leave.”
Roman flinched. Richard could be cruel, but never like this. That was low. Even for him. Roman could tell Richard knew it, too, by the way his nose wrinkled and the lines by his mouth deepened.
“That didn’t come out right,” he offered, a shallow gesture, nearly a slap to the face.
Roman scoffed, his mouth hanging open in utter fucking disbelief. Only Richard could make him feel horribly guilty and unbelievably angry in three fucking seconds. It was a neat little party trick. “You’ve got some fucking nerve,” he hissed, though his mouth still curled with the hurt. He had wounded Richard when he left. He knew that now, though he hadn’t thought Richard even noticed he was gone. And with each silent moment, it became easier to imagine what Richard had to go through to get to this point, what shattered pieces he had to pick up when Roman made his choice, regardless of how he never intended to make Richard bear the burden of all of that alone.
But Richard just shrugged, his eyes looking nowhere again.
“Because I have no one, right? Because I’m so fucking weak and stupid that I’d choose you instead of being alone,” Roman spat, taking a step towards Richard, his fists trembling with the exertion, aching for blood.
“That’s not what I meant,” Richard huffed, his eyes screwed shut with frustration.
“You think so little of yourself that now I’m the idiot if I do anything other than hate you.” He took another step, this time, less angry. It was heavier, darker, a wound that had never been acknowledged between either of them.
When Richard stayed another second longer, Roman saw it for what it was: Richard’s own addiction to feeling small. The anger turned to something sadder. “It’s this fucking—feedback loop of self-hatred and distrust,” Roman breathed, though it sounded like a sob.
“And I’m fucking tired of it,” he sighed. “I don’t think—“ Roman paused, steeling himself to cut himself open, “I used to think it was. But it isn’t. It isn’t a weakness to need someone to care about you.”
Roman bled and Richard worried his lip with his teeth.
“You don’t believe I’d ever actually forgive you,” Roman said. Richard turned his neck, slowly, as if he could alleviate whatever he felt if he stretched the muscles far enough.
Roman stepped forward again, nearly close enough, “And I didn’t think you’d care where I went.” Richard turned finally to look at Roman, his lips parted and his brows knit tight in betrayal.
Roman persisted, glancing away so he didn’t have to see the hurt in Richard’s eyes, “So I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me, but our lives are so deeply intertwined. In ways we didn’t choose, like—threads and fucking royal orders.
“But we’re connected in ways we did choose, too.”
Flashes ricocheted between them. Slim Jim’s held up to a gnarled fangs or cut-open lips. A little stuffed dog clipped to a backpack. Sleeping curled around an arm while an engine idled beneath them. A brick wall and a textbook in arm. Golden hair held back while he retched. Fingers gentle on an open wound. Whispered gossip and loud laughter over bottles. A gunshot. A needle.
Roman reached out for Richard’s hand. It was warm and rough and large and felt somehow different than it had back on earth. “So I am trying to apologize because I mean it. Because—Because if you take away all the mistakes you think you made, if you forget, just for a fucking second, all of the things you crucify yourself daily for—and if you try to trust that I want you around because of you, not because I have no one else; then you could believe that you didn’t deserve what I put you through. So let me. Okay?”
Roman waited for a moment, watching Richard, even as Richard tried to stare at nothing, hesitating to see if the shards might have cut too deep.
But Richard breathed and it caught in his throat and the sounds of shards dropping to the stones below rang out in Roman’s ear.
Roman reached up, slid his hand through Richard’s hair, and brought his head down into his neck, his other arm reaching around him to squeeze him close. He pressed his forehead to Richard’s temple, the same way he used to back before they’d fucked up so badly, before they’d grown apart countless times, when they thought maybe they could just keep driving to a better life.
“I’m sorry,” Roman whispered, just for Richard, the words crawling out, frightened, from under his heart, “I’m sorry I did that to you.” Richard took another shaky breath into Roman’s shoulder before he finally relented and wrapped his arms around Roman’s waist. “It’s not because I blamed you or thought you fucked me over. I didn’t want--I didn’t want you to have to keep pulling me out of the river. I was moody because I was fucking exhausted and I know that’s lame, but. I thought I was helping--I didn’t want to be a chore.”
Richard didn’t say anything, but squeezed Roman. A warning, a scream in opposition.
“I know,” Roman said, drawing in a sharp breath to abate the burning at his lashes, “And then I just wanted to go home. That’s all. I just--” he breathed again, “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.”
Richard squeezed him again, this time like he needed it. “Me, too.”
Roman knew that was Richard’s best. And that’s all Roman ever wanted from him. They stood like that for a long while, until their breaths matched and it felt safe enough to lay down their weapons and accept it all for what it was. Fucked up. Messy. But theirs.
Richard’s voice was muffled as he burrowed a little deeper into his shoulder, sniffling to clear his nose. “And y’know my life up there is so fucked up right now--”
“Oh, I know it is--”
“Literally so fucked up so, like, I really was kinda busy--”
“Oh, no, yeah, it is definitely really fucked up--”
They both started laughing, and Roman squeezed a little tighter, his hand beginning to tremble in Richard’s hair. Richard stood finally and tilted his head down at Roman.
“What is it, Romulus? Did you really try to walk through Tartarus just to yell at me?” he asked with that hound’s smile, his eyes a little shiny, his arms warm where they rested on his hips. Richard reached up to move a piece of Roman’s hair, which had come out of its place from behind his laurels, before lacing his fingers at the small of Roman’s back.
“Yes,” Roman lied at first, smiling softly, crooked and happy, then, “No.”
“What is it?” Richard asked again, this time a little more serious.
“I need--” Rome glanced away, trying to find the puzzle piece that fit, “I wanted-- Will you just. Please. My room is so fucking big and quiet and I can’t sleep. I thought. You could--”
Richard’s slow, malicious fucking grin would have made Hades so proud. An evil the likes of which this world has never known. The Hound knew exactly how to bite to make it hurt.
“No, never mind, can’t do this,” Roman tried to wriggle away, but Richard kept him in the cage of his arms.
“The Prince? Asking me?? To his bed??” Richard crooned.
“This was a fucking mistake--” Roman couldn’t stop the bubbling laughter, even as he pushed against Richard’s chest to be let go.
“Think of the scandal!” Richard tilted his chin to the sky of Cthionic stars, a never-ending night, and groaned a devilish and dramatic noise of indignation.
“If you’re going to be like this--” he teased, slipping out from under Richard’s arms and starting towards the house. But with such grace and ease it stole Roman’s breath away, Richard scooped him up from the garden path to carry him towards the House. He held Roman with unflinching surety, cradling him to his chest and tucking him under his chin.
Roman knew Richard had never held him like this before, but something about it felt like a memory, like it had been this way since the beginning.
They shared a quiet and unsure little laugh before Richard grinned, toothy and final on the matter.
And when Richard looked down at him—really looked at him—with that sly, knowing grin, Roman felt, for the first time, like he really was home.