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Steve's mother's arms constrict around him tighter as the sound of a Pegasus' wings becomes audible to them. He is unsure if the cold breeze that whips around them, rustling the field's tall grass to tickle at Steve's legs, is his mother's doing or a mere coincidence. His mother has long since stopped begging him to stay, has stopped saying they can find a way to break the curse he is bound to – Steve is glad of it. He doesn't like breaking his mother's heart every year, it's easier knowing he doesn't need to argue with her.
Steve slowly starts to detach himself from the hug. His mother gives one last clinging squeeze before stepping back, holding her head high so that her tears are prominent and unmissable. She may let him go without argument, but she will not let him go without guilt.
"We will be together again soon enough," Steve says, as he always does, and his mother replies, as she always does.
"We should not be apart."
Steve turns away from his mother and towards the Pegasus that waits for him. Giggles and whispers carry on the wind as he mounts the animal, and he looks over to the edge of the field where he knows the nymphs hide. He smiles indulgently at them. Steve spurs the Pegasus. It starts from still to an almost gallop straight away before its mighty wings spread and they leave the ground. Steve does not look back.
The Pegasus takes him to a rocky crevasse in the middle of a winding mountainscape void of colour, a stark difference from the vibrance Steve is used to surrounding himself with. After Steve dismounts and the Pegasus departs, he is left in absolute silence, he is used to quiet, but this is more than that. It feels like a physical presence.
Steve walks across the pebbled ground barefoot, making sure his footsteps scatter stones to cut through the silence as he approaches the cave entrance hidden in the darkest corner of the crevasse.
Any heat that was in the air, that Steve carried with him, gets leeched away with every step towards the cave. As he walks, Steve starts humming a low tune, a happy little song the nymphs sing. It echoes around him once he enters the cave, bouncing off the walls. With each bounce, it sounds like a new person joins in until a choir sings together.
He didn't need to sing. The monstrous beast that waits at the path's end would let him pass without one. Steve, however, likes to sing for him. He couldn't bring the creature a treat as he would have had it just been a dog, so his tune was the next best thing.
The light from the mortal world slowly disappears behind him, and he is plunged into inky black, so dark you can see nothing. However, neither Steve's footsteps nor song faltered. Suddenly the dark shifts. It's as jarring as it was the first time it happened. All at once, the path is illuminated but now stands a great monster, panting and baring its sharp teeth, blocking the way.
Steve keeps humming as the three-headed dog lies down on the path, belly down, paws forwards and each head lying against the ground.
"Hello, Cerberus," Steve greets, giving each head a scratch in turn. The beast, having greeted Steve, then lifts up and allows Steve safe passage. As he passes, Steve hums the rest of the song and the dog pants happily.
He reaches the ferryman quickly, who waits for him sombrely. Steve doesn't need to pay a fee, after all, he rules this realm alongside its King while he is down. However, Steve always carries a coin "for the next soul that doesn't have one." He doesn't know if that's the way it works, but he had told his husband, who simply rolled his eyes and smiled at him – he assumed that meant that his husband would humour him and allow such things to occur.
The ferry is smooth as always and brings Steve to the palace, where his husband awaits him on the shore. When their eyes meet, twin smiles spread across their faces. Steve feels happiness spread so warm, so fast, and so large in his chest he feels like he could be glowing – he might be. Eddie swears he sometimes does, but Steve is unsure if he's sincere or waxing poetry.
Mortals and gods alike speak of Eddie, the King of the underworld – dark and gloomy, mad and cruel. A million different stories, all of the hem making him this feared and terrible figure. Steve hates them all, wishes people could see him as Steve sees him. This loving husband, smiling and happy – welcoming his love into his kingdom.
Once the ferry is close enough, Steve leaps off to the shore – eager to be reunited with his husband. Eddie moves as well, and they meet in the middle. Bodies clashing together in a fierce embrace, clinging and desperately. Where his mother's embrace felt restrictive, Eddie's feels freeing – feels like home.
Eddie pulls back, but only to get his hands on Steve's face to bring him forward into a kiss. Steve clings to Eddie's robes and kisses back as best he can, throwing every emotion he has felt over the last months into it.
Either they move, or the landscapes moves around them. Steve is unaware of which, but when they part, they are now in a bedroom. Their bedroom. The luxurious bed stands in the middle of the room. Around it, flowing outwards from all directions, are grey petrified vines, twisting and climbing up the walls and across the ceiling. Dead petals and leaves are scattered across the floor thickly like carpet.
Steve has told Eddie that he could keep them in bloom throughout the year, that they did not need to die every year after he departed, but Eddie had laughed and replied, "let me be dramatic Stevie, I'm the King of the Underworld, it's in the job description."
He only gets a glance at the bedroom before Eddie kisses him again, and they both work on disrobing each other. Once they are both bared, Steve crawls backwards onto the bed, and Eddie watches him. He takes in his husband.
Eddie's skin is covered with black lines and pictures. Pictures of skulls and souls – of death that twists around every inch of him. As Eddie crawls onto the bed, Steve reaches out and runs a hand over a picture of a skull on his chest, and flowers bloom under his fingers, encircling the skull and growing out of eye sockets.
Eddie smiles, watching the flowers grow on his chest with a soft look, love evident in his eyes.
"Hi, by the way," Steve whispers, and Eddie laughs, burying his face into Steve's neck shyly.
"Hi," Eddie whispers back into Steve's skin. "Missed you," he says, running his hands up Steve's thighs and sides as he takes his place between Steve's legs.
Steve hums, half in agreement and half in pleasure, "missed you too." Steve confirms, even though it's unnecessary – it's a given that he missed Eddie, that he would stay here all year round if he could. But the mortal's suffering was something Steve could not endure – when he'd seen the influx of souls during his first stay in the underworld, he'd known his mother hadn't continued their work without him, that she'd left them to wither and perish in her grief. He'd seen his selfishness then and vowed to return to the mortal plane instead of sequestering himself in his husband's realms.
They reacquaint themselves with each other's bodies, they are immortal, their bodies are unchanging, but yet every year when they reunite, they trace every inch – as if they will find a difference, as if they might find something new.
Slowly Eddie eases his fingers into Steve, stretching him open, making Steve moan and writhe. They are both gods, there is no need for such preparation, they can do as they wish. Let me take care of you, Eddie had whispered when Steve had said this the first time. The exact words Eddie had said that he persuaded Steve to run away with him.
Steve's mother screamed kidnap and forced, and all other sorts of horrible things, unable to think that Steve would ever leave her of his own free will. She tried to persuade him year after year that he had been enchanted, that he wasn't in his right mind. That somehow Eddie had cursed him and driven him insane. Why else would Steve want to be parted from his own mother? Why else would Steve want to return to the cold dark underworld and its harsh, cruel ruler?
When Eddie finally eases into him, slow and gentle, Steve gasps and clings to him. A restlessness and ache easing in his chest, one that lingers through spring and summer and only ever settles in autumn and winter when he is back with his husband. When he is back home.
As Eddie moves, Steve feels his power build in rhythm with the pleasure that builds within him too. They move slowly together, letting the intensity and the passion build. It gradually fills the room, settling on both of them like a warm blanket.
They reach their peak together, and as they do, Steve stretches a hand behind him – hitting the headboard and letting his powers surge. Spreading out from his hand, his energy brings the petrified vines back to life. They thicken and become dark green, spreading out to the whole room – as the green spread, flowers sprout and bloom, filling the room with colour and scent. He keeps the colours in line with the setting, reds, blues and purples – dark and moody but beautiful nonetheless.
Eddie lies on him for a few moments before moving to look at the flowers, getting off the bed to trace the newly living vines and their flowers. Steve would be offended or upset that his husband moved so fast after their reunion, but as Eddie traces the vines, Steve feels it like a physical touch.
It's how they stay connected, even when separated for half a year. Eddie will come and trace the vines and sings to them. Steve won't hear the songs clearly, but he can sometimes catch a tune – like hearing the nymphs sing in the fields. Their melody carries on the wind to him, and he gains the impression of it.
Steve watches him, the black lines that form pictures and stories on his skin are now littered with flowers blooming alongside the death etched into his husband's form. Eddie pauses across the room and turns back towards Steve. He stands and looks at where he's still spread across the bed. He has the same look on his face whenever they are reunited, the same look he had when Steve ate the pomegranate seeds that ensured no matter what his mother did, Steve would be required to return to the underworld, bound to it, bound to Eddie. It's somewhere between awe and disbelief.
Steve smiles and pats the bed next to him. Eddie complies, twisting his limbs around Steve and burying his head in the crook of Steve's neck. Steve smiles up at the vines and flowers on the ceiling. He is home.