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Hades found himself looking out of his palace once again, observing a small demigod just beyond Asphodel. It was the third time this month his domain had been invaded by Perseus.
The first time the demigod visited – without an invitation from his son – he was tempted to send the furies after him. It was against the rules for the living to interact with the dead, yet the demigod never approached his fallen friends. He instead was resting on a rock, almost out of sight from the palace, but visible.
The second time he noticed Perseus in his kingdom was only a week later. He was pacing back and forth, disturbing the not so peaceful spirits in the area. Hades wondered if his brother was aware of these adventures. He obviously had no intention of speaking with him, or the other one, lest he gets flooded with more work (literally), but the thought had peaked his mind.
It was a Saturday night, almost six months after the giant war. There was no reason for Perseus to enter his kingdom so frequently. No quests into his domain had been issued and Nico had been spending more time on the surface with a certain sunshine child.
Hades had been feeling lonely, Persephone was away, and without the presence of his son in the palace, there were only ghosts to talk to. He was, what one might say, bored out of his mind (a ridiculous thought given the amount of paperwork piled up from the war that still hadn’t been touched). Thus, upon this third visit by Perseus, Hades got up, brushed the dust of his robes, and left the palace in search of said demigod.
Perseus was sitting down, dangling his legs over a gaping pit. The entrance to Tartarus. He was aware of Perseus’ journey which led to his unfortunate fall yet could not fathom why he would choose to sit so close to the edge.
“Perseus.”
The demigod turned his head, finding recognition in who interrupted his pondering. The dark circles around his eyes and his slumped figure created a feeling of weariness and exhaustion the god knew all too well. He had seen the same appearance in his son for months when Nico stayed in his palace, not to mention the expression and body language of everyone after the battle.
“Lord Hades.”
“May I?” Seeing the shrug of his nephew’s shoulders, Hades shuffled over next to him.
Percy let out a sigh. How does one explain to a god why he was hiding away from the world. In a place unreachable by most, not that they’d want to come in the first place.
“I’m not here to break any rules,” Percy said at last, eyes fixed on the endless dark and ominous red glow yawning below his feet. “I don’t talk to the dead. I’m not trying to break anyone out. I just… need a little bit of quiet.”
Hades followed his gaze to Tartarus, the abyss breathing quietly as it always did. Ancient. Patient. Eagerly waiting for something to happen. “You choose a dangerous place to sit,” he remarked, though there was no reprimand in his tone.
Percy huffed a weak laugh. “Story of my life.”
Silence settled between them, thick but not uncomfortable. The dead nearby had stilled, sensing their lord’s presence. Even Tartarus seemed to hold its breath.
“You’ve been here often,” Hades said eventually. “Enough that it can no longer be dismissed as coincidence.”
Percy nodded. “Yeah. Guess I’m not as subtle as I thought.”
“No,” Hades agreed dryly. “You are not.”
Another pause. Percy’s fingers tightened around the stone beneath him. “Up there,” he gestured vaguely, meaning the surface, Olympus, the world, camp, “everyone expects things to be… normal again. We’ve been busy rebuilding, cleaning up the forest, it’s almost back to how it was before, like we didn’t lose people. Like we didn’t see things we can’t forget.”
Hades’ expression darkened. “The living are very skilled at pretending suffering ends when the war does.” It doesn’t. Instead, it lingers beneath the surface. He knows this feeling all too well.
Percy glanced at him then, it made sense, for the Lord of the Dead to think the same way. He was intimately closer to the dead than he ever would be to the living.
“I fell into Tartarus,” Percy continued quietly. “And I managed to escape. Everyone keeps calling that a victory.” His mouth twisted. “But sometimes it feels like part of me never left.” He didn’t need to speak it aloud. The crackling of glass inside him, left in the wake of Akhlys, still echoed through his chest. No matter how desperately he tried to smooth the fractures, the truth remained—some part of him, his humanity, had never climbed out of that realm. The thought was impossible to escape, gnawing at his conscience with every waking breath, always ending in the same memory: the fear in Annabeth’s eyes when she looked at him.
Hades said nothing. He had watched heroes come and go for millennia, watched them burn bright and fade, or explode into a supernova, unable to withstand the pressure of divinity. There were scars no amount of ambrosia and nectar could heal. How fitting that there was no sun in the Underworld.
“This place,” Percy admitted, voice barely above a whisper, “it’s honest. No one expects me to smile. Or lead. Or save the world again.”
Hades studied him then—not as a troublesome demigod or his brother’s favored son, but as something far older than Percy himself realized: a soul weighed down by too much responsibility, too young to carry the burden brought about by divinity.
“You are not hiding,” Hades said slowly. “You are grieving.”
Percy swallowed. “Doesn’t feel like I’m allowed to.”
Hades rose to his full height, shadows stretching with him. “The Underworld exists because grief exists,” he said. “It is not a weakness. It is a truth.”
For a moment, Percy thought he might be dismissed, ordered away. Instead, Hades extended a hand, an offering of peace.
“You may stay here,” he said. “But not alone.”
Percy hesitated, then accepted the gesture, steadying himself as he stood. The pit of Tartarus loomed beside them, but it felt… quieter now.
And for the first time in months, Percy didn’t feel like he was one step away from falling.