Hades II

daddy issues

Stella

Hades had his arms around me, and I felt the nerves ease out of me. I'd missed this. The feeling of acceptance.

He pressed his cheek to mine from time to other or kissed my cheek, and I loved it. I loved that he didn't try and mold me into someone I didn't dare to be.

We finished the first season and I looked back at Hades.

"I sense you want to go home?"

I nodded.

He smiled, simple as that. "When can I see you again?"

I bit my lip. I wanted to escape during the week, now Dad and Donna wanted to interfere.

"Maybe during the week? At my place?"

It looked as if he contemplated it.

"I know, Taylor and Adam will be there, and I don't want to make it awkward if Dad and Donna appear, but, uhm, if you want to?"

"I've spoken with the department that I'm dating you, and while I can teach the class, I can't correct any of their assignments. So I've been assigned another class on top of this one. You're giving me a lot of work, sweetheart."

It always felt special when he called me sweetheart. My heart didn't skip a beat, but it felt as if butterflies flapped their wings in my belly. While it reminded me of the Underworld, it also spoke at length to how he felt about me.

Hades released me, and I turned around, facing him.

"I'd like that," he said. "Even if your siblings are there, or you Dad and Donna."

"But?" I asked.

"But I'd like to, one day, to hear about your parents, and the sometimes strained relationship between your Dad and yourself."

I nodded. "My parents were drinking, and I think experimenting with drugs, when I was younger. Then mom got pregnant with Taylor and Adam, and she stopped, until the pregnancy came full term. I was seven, and for a few years she was only drunk on the weekends. Then, they must've been five, I was twelve, both mom and Dad went drinking. And mom passed from a blood clot to the heart." I bit my lip. "Dad was working, until this point. Then he got fired, and he turned his life upside down. But when you're twelve years old, and your parents have never been there for you? Why should you believe they would now? It took Dad a few years, and Taylor and Adam were younger and needed more looking after."

Hades had a wrinkle between his brows.

"And Dad wants us to be little, so he can mend the years we lost. But I'm not little, and I'm still precautious about letting him in, because he's failed me so many times. Even as a teenager, I remember him promising to pick me up, and he never came. Then work came in the way, or Donna." I sighed. "Taylor and Adam have a better relationship with him, but they don't remember the worst, and they were so young when Mom died. But they don't want to live under his roof, Donna's not our mother, yet acts as if she is."

Hades nodded.

"That was the overall stuff." I muttered.