notes: raises leg. i wrote most of this up on the road yesterday. twelve hour drives are awful. i would've had this up earlier but i got a book of adele music and guys, you don't even know how much fun it is to play 'rolling in the deep' on piano. it's magical.
dedication: to the lovely reviewer sg. i considered making butch ares but i did not. that's a whole other story.
ps. mojo is zeus and him is hera. (ugly laughter.)
pss. brick's so-called 'chariot' is a motorcycle because he likes to think he's cool. also, this is the twenty-first century and honey, horses are hard to maintain when you're king of the dead. especially bone horses. apparently. what a loser.

x

{good things come to those who wait, but i ain't in a patient phase}

x

He's watched her here for a while now. With her autumn-kissed hair and rosy eyes, rosier cheeks. Her laughter is beautiful, a song in its own right, and her smile is the brightest thing he's ever seen. Oftentimes, he wonders if it's truly the sun.

She dances under this tree, small posy in hand, dress twirling and feet always bare. She reads here, books thick with knowledge and wisdom, some in dead languages that have long been forgotten by mere mortals. Her friends meet her under the shade—they share their tales, their plans. Occasionally, she'll lie in the grass and her lashes will flutter against her cheeks. She'll slumber under the tangling vines and gnarled branches, a sleeping beauty among thorns.

This is the time that he is closest to her, as sleep is the nearest thing to death.

She is alive.

He is not.

ii. (the girl with bare feet and flowers in her hair)

Zeus wrings his hands and paces the floor before the council. A screeching and heavily protesting Demeter had been physically escorted (read: dragged) from the room by a rather reluctant Dionysus, and so it's mostly quiet again. The silence is so loud that it's deafening, almost louder than John's enraged shouts. Hera is reclined in his chair, checking his nails, brows raised at the predicament before them.

Or rather, Zeus.

"Tell me again, messenger, are you quite sure of the whereabouts of the girl Persephone?"

Boomer frowns at the older man's tone and sighs. Predictable. "I'm sure. Blos—Persephone is currently in the Underworld. I saw her, man. She was sleeping, but I definitely saw her," he raises his hands. "Don't ask me how she got there, but she did."

Aphrodite is nervously twisting her pigtails and chewing her bottom lip. "But…but what does this mean? Bl—Persephone has no reason to be there, right? Isn't everything down there…dead?"

Her question goes unanswered as the head of Olympus groans. "There is no possibly way this could get any worse. How grievous, that such an unpleasant thing should happen on a day like today. What—"

"Mojo, dear," Hera begins sweetly, then his expression turns sour and his voice drops to a gruff growl, "shut up and get to the point."

Buttercup taps her fingers against the table as she watches Zeus pace. Something's obviously up with the old man; she hasn't seen him this worked up since Calypso kept Odysseus prisoner on her lonely person island for years. All she really needed was like fifteen cats and Netflix—maybe a trip to Vegas or something—but alas, instead she detained a shipwrecked hero for longer than any of them bargained for. That'd been thousands of years prior to this, though, so she knows that things are definitely off.

Zeus checks the room, probably to make sure a wild Demeter hasn't suddenly appeared, ready to strangle him with wheat or something. "Hades."

"What," Buttercup deadpans.

Athena, known as Sara to everyone aside from mortals and maybe the cyclops, gasps. "No. It can't be. Zeus, tell me it isn't so."

Bubbles' fidgeting has increased tenfold, and she seems to be on the verge of tears again. "H-Hades? But…but, I thought he never left the Underworld. He never comes to any meetings, or…or anything! How could he have taken Persephone?! No one's hardly even seen him!"

"Oh, that asshole can come topside, he just doesn't," Poseidon comments, tapping his trident. "We're probably better off with him staying down under."

Sara is still earnestly looking to Zeus, hoping that what the others are saying doesn't matter, because that's not why Blossom is there. Surely it isn't. This is all just one big misunderstanding. Hermes must be mistaken. He's so busy all the time, maybe he just got his information mixed up.

Zeus takes a deep breath and places his palms on the table, his expression grave. "Ladies and gentlemen, it appears as if Hades has taken Persephone."

The meeting room (aka, Hera's favorite parlor slash entertaining room) doors burst open as Demeter flies as the shorter man, intent on trying to drown him in grain or something of that sort.

A short note: Father Nature is a bitch when he wants to be, and he'll come back to bite you in the ass like an unexpected cold snap if you cross him.

Butch theatrically runs in behind him, looking bent out of shape—probably because he is, out of shape that is, despite his seemingly flawless physique. "I tried to stop him," he declares, then comes to a stop beside Buttercup. The god of pleasure leans down and holds a hand up to his mouth. "Not really," he whispers, "it was gettin' real fuckin' boring out there, and that guy's pretty cool when he's not being so domestic and whatever the shit. And also…"

"Fatherly?" Buttercup offers.

He nods vigorously. "He just about blew a gasket when he heard about Hades magicking Daughter Dearest away," and, as an afterthought, he adds, "I mean, the guy's a dick, but he wouldn't hurt her. I think."

"This is technically your brother we're talking about here," Artemis deadpans as Hermes, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Athena try to pry Zeus and Demeter apart.

Butch sighs, and Buttercup regards him suspiciously. "Wait. How'd you two hear about Hades? Were you eavesdropping? You were, weren't you. Dammit, you asshole."

"I said it was boring out there!"

She squints at him. "Demeter threatened to let all the hops die, didn't he. I bet he also mentioned something about the corn crop for this year suddenly and mysteriously failing. All of it. You're so fucking predictable."

Dionysus practically wilts over her chair and drapes his arms around her. She immediately begins to try and push him off. "Sweetheart, you know me so well. It's scary."

"It's because you haven't changed in at least two thousand years," Buttercup says bluntly. "Now get the hell off me, you neanderthal. Or I'll shoot you in the ass again."

When the two turn back to look at the potential murder scene, Hera is pulling out his cell and waving it menacingly at Demeter. "Am I going to have to call the security titans?" he asks, voice high and feminine again. It's a bit ironic, to be honest, because usually the security titans are being called for him.

Demeter reaches past Hermes and points threateningly at Zeus. "YOU WILL BRING MY DAUGHTER BACK, YOU OVERRATED LIGHTNING ROD, OR I WILL LET THIS YEAR'S HARVEST DIE. I SWEAR IT. AND DON'T THINK I AM NOT AWARE OF WHERE YOUR SECRET BANANA STASH IS. I KNOW ALL. NOTHING IS SAFE."

Zeus snarls back at him while Hera screeches something about how all of this stress is bad for his health.

"This is turning into an episode of 48 Hours," Butch mutters. "Why don't we just get Bloss back ourselves?"

Buttercup slams her fist into her palm, a wild grin on her face. "That's it. Get ready, dick, we're going to storm the Underworld."

x

"Excuse me?"

Blossom looks up at him with wide eyes, fingers loosely grasping at the ashes around her.

He leans down, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes narrowed. "The Underworld, babe. You've heard of it, right? The destitute place where all the dead go to spend eternity and beyond? Where hope does and agony reigns? You're in it."

She glances around the dreary place, fear pooling in her stomach and gripping her heart. For the first time, she takes notice of the agonizing moans and tortured groans echoing through the fog and darkness. But, hadn't she just fallen asleep under the crabapple tree earlier? She'd been alive then, right? Her heart skips a few beats.

Is she…dead?

Blossom grips her skirt and looks up at him in distress, the flowers weaved into her hair beginning to wilt. "But, how did I get here? I'm not—I mean, isn't this place—I'm not dead!"

She regards him suspiciously, eyes narrow and mouth drawn into a thin line. "Who are you? What am I doing here? Where's Aphrodite? I'm not dead, so how did I get here?"

He rolls his eyes and straightens, looking at her from the corner of his unsettling bloody eyes. Are they glowing in the dark? They appear to be glowing in the dark. "You are dead," he tells her, rather nonchalantly for this entire occasion, "at least while you're in the Underworld. As to why you're here, and who I am, well…"

The girl waits a bit impatiently for him to finish, in somewhat of a state of shock at his statement that she's no longer among the living.

"I'm Hades, the king of this domain. And I brought you here."

Needless to say, not the best welcoming committee.

And never let it be said that Brick (cough Hades cough) has the best of timing, either. Because he does not.

"What?" Blossom chokes, scooting away from him. "You brought me here? You…you kidnapped me! This is unlawful entrapment! Take me back home at once," she shrills, tone positively venomous. "I'm reporting you to Zeus! To—to…"

He watches her closely, expression irritated. "No."

That does it. She scrambles to her feet and brings herself chest-to-chest with him. The redhead pushes herself up on her toes in and attempt to bring herself face to face with him, and pokes a finger into his chest. "Listen here, mister. I don't care who you think you are," she pauses, "…who you actually are, or what you think you're going to do with me. You have no right—no right—to keep me here against my will! Goodbye, and good riddance to you! Now take me home!"

"Maybe if you stop screaming and ask nicely."

Blossom narrows her eyes and her bottom lip trembles in anger. "Please. Please take me home."

"No."

She grabs his hoodie and jerks him down to her level. "Then why did you even say—ugh."

The goddess of spring lets go of him and backs away, kicking up dust. She pulls her arms into her chest and glowers. "I don't want to be here. What do you even want with me?"

Hades looks at her, the girl who doesn't wish to be here at all, whose dress is covered in ash and dirty fingerprints. The flower crown atop her hair is dead now, all the pretty blossoms dry and shriveled. She acts like she's afraid of him, she might cry, or like she's going to throw a catastrophical fit at any given second. Possibly all three.

He's never seen this side of her before. Usually it's just the prim goddess who gets onto her friends for their rowdy behavior, or who nurses sick plants back to health, or—

"As of the moment you entered this realm, you became its queen."

In all honesty, Brick expected her to take it better than she did.

"WHAT?"

x

Hades groans for the fifth time and lets his head hit the back of the door.

Why did he have to be so fucking stupid? This girl—this ridiculous, infuriating flower girl who he'd willingly brought into his home had been here for an hour, and already he was prepared to set something on fire. After screaming her head off for probably a good ten minutes, going on at him about this and that and how she'd hate him forever and blah blah blah, she'd locked herself in her room and had refused to come out.

And she's punched him. The girl is small and light but her right hook is fucking brutal.

Brick closes his eyes and thinks that she's probably not worth it. He can just send her back and never have to worry about her or her pair of banshee lungs and iron fist ever again. It's what he should do.

"Fuck, will you just open the damn door already?"

Her muffled and teary voice reaches his spot slumped against her door. "Don't curse at me!"

Of fucking course.

She's some kind of goody-two-shoes saint who doesn't have a swear in her vocabulary, either.

There is no possibly way on Olympus that they're ever going to get along. They'll kill each other. It's as simple as that. She's got to go.

"For the love of—how many times do I have to fucking say it?"

Blossom doesn't even look up from where she's buried her face in a pillow to reply. "I'm not coming out! You might as well just go back to whatever you were doing before you decided kidnapping girls was a fantastic hobby!"

Brick thinks she's going to kill him.

Maybe she already has.

—

tbc

end notes: blossom might be a little out of touch with reality atm. i wasn't sure how to write her freaking out, so. she had a bit of a buttercup moment. also, guys, idk about you but i like to imagine brick's voice sounds like charlie hunnam's okay. judge not.