Persephone

Hades

I sat, brooding against the cold marble of the bar, my hands wrapped around an empty glass. The acrid burn of whisky lingered at the back of my throat and I wondered why I used to like this drink so much. I pushed the glass back across the counter to the faun behind it.

"Another, please." At least it kept me busy.

As amber liquid poured into the crystal I turned on my barstool, my eyes searching for what they couldn't have.

I didn't know she would be here. If I had, I wouldn't have come.

It was going to be a long night.

"Here, sir." I heard the sound of my drink being pushed back over the countertop, and I nodded my head, turning slightly back over my shoulder to thank the bartender. He walked away to serve another guest and I looked at the glass by my elbow. I should have asked for a coffee instead.

Who am I kidding? Zeus would never offer coffee at a party.

On the other side of the room, through a gap in the dancing crowd, I could just make out the back of her head, her mother's arm draped firmly around her shoulders as they talked to Hermes. The golden messenger boy kept looking at her as if she were a meal.

Damn him.

I see her reach a hand up to tuck a coil of hair behind her ear and imagine the way her hair might feel between my fingers.

She is a dove in this den of vultures and I am the hungriest bird of them all.

Damn me.

"Hades." The voice cuts through the deafening music and I watch Poseidon as he approaches me. My brother weaves through the crowd, his bright red button-up tucked into a matching pair of slim trousers. A shark-tooth necklace hangs down his chest, a testament to his identity. As if the obscenely dark sun-tan and full head of bleached hair didn't give away exactly who he was. He looks like a shaggy blonde-haired lobster.

"You missed a couple buttons." I say when he draws closer.

He grins before looking down at his mostly open shirt, the top five buttons undone and exposing his gleaming chest. He always looks as if someone's rubbed him with oil, like he was a Hollywood star in a boxing movie. Works well with the ladies, he once told me. I just found it obnoxiously dramatic. So I suppose it suits him.

"You look gloomy." He says, his teeth white as seasalt through his smile.

Obnoxious as sunshine.

I take a bitter sip from my glass, sucking air through my teeth as it slides down my throat.

"Come on, man. It's a party. Let me introduce you to a couple girls, it's time for you to have some fun."

I glance sidelong at him, my eyes narrowing as I shake my head. My brother always meant well, but he was never as subtle as he thought he was.

"I know what you're doing 'Seidon."

He holds his hands up with mock innocence, "Just trying to get you to lighten up a little bro."

I raise an eyebrow and chuckle bitterly.

"Am I really that obvious?" I ask, my glass turning in my hands, the amber liquid dancing with the multicoloured disco lights.

Poseidon sighs and sits on the stool beside me, signaling for the bartender. He orders a beer and grabs a handful of peanuts.

"I mean, you do look a bit like the boogeyman sitting here in your dark clothes with that scowl across your mug.' His hand wraps around the sweating bottle the bartender places in front of him, "So what the hell is wrong with you? I'd ask who died but that list is probably as long as the Nile."