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He tastes bitter, she thinks, bitter like dirt. He lays her in the grass and fumbles with her skirts and she laughs, oh, how she laughs. He's delightful, this strange man who crawled to her as she danced with the flowers and the birds and the sky and begged her for a kiss, then for another, then for this. She'd given them to him gladly, this man who tasted like earth. After all, all good things grow and it was the earth that gave them life. His fingertips are rough, (he's a man who works, she knows he must, why else would he so rarely be here?) and then he touches her just so and suddenly she isn't laughing anymore.
When it's over, she is draped across his chest, flicking pomegranate seeds into the bushes. He snatches her hand as it's about to flick the last few.
"Don't waste them." He says.
She raises an eyebrow at him. "They aren't wasted. Maybe they'll grow." But she takes those six seeds and swallows them whole anyway, just to please him. She presses her face against his neck and sucks a bruise into it. "Hades, right?"
He smiles softly. "Right." He says, then throws her on her back. She grins back at him, legs wrapping around his hips, and she loses herself.
*****
He'd promised her she'd be a queen and she'd thought of flower crowns and sunshine and a throne of moss. Instead she found herself surrounded by rock and coal and metal. She was so cold. She hated being cold, and she told him so, but she loved him, and when she kissed him it warmed her from the inside out. He showered her in gold and silver, made a wreath for her hair out of emerald leaves and bronze vines and she wore it every day. And then her mother came and she brought nectar and honey and Persephone remembered the sun. It would be a holiday, she thought, a beautiful holiday, and she took her mother's hand.
*****
Winter came and so did he, cradling her waist and kissing her neck.
"I missed you, baby."
"You could've visited."
"I was busy."
"Too busy to see me?" Her voice was bitter. When did that happen? She used to taste so sweet. Hades sighed and rolled his eyes and pulled her closer.
"I'm doing this for you. Don't you want the finer things?"
"I just want you." She can feel him, she knows how he feels when he wants her and she's missed this, missed him, and sure she's mad but maybe that doesn't matter.
"Then kiss me." he growls. She does.
*****
She used to think he tasted of earth. She was wrong. He tastes of whiskey and carbon and she can hardly stand it anymore. She wonders if she could leave him, stay up top forever, but she knows it wouldn't work. They're married. She can't leave just yet. She made a promise, even if they only fuck when they fight and she could never laugh at his clumsy gentle fingers now. She gets drunk on wine most of the time, prefers the smoother slide of it on her tongue, and wonders if things could ever have been different. It's not cold down in Hadestown anymore. It's hot, too hot for comfort, and she yearns for the breeze of her mothers garden. He doesn't warm her anymore, and she wouldn't want him to. Now he's as cold as the diamonds he mines.
*****
The lovers were happy, and Persephone feels a pang she's forgotten. Orpheus and Eurydice, so in love, so sweet, like honey. She gives them all she can and prays for a happy ending. Sweetness is in short supply. Hades works and works and works, and now she drinks and drinks to blur it all out. She can't taste the bitter aftertaste of alcohol anymore. She supposes she's used to bitterness now. It's something she learned from him. And then her six months are up and something's burning on her chest. She has her own furnace, her own fury and she clings to it when he leads her into the train. They hardly talk now, but his hand rests on her knee as they go down, and she remembers that he never lets himself lose what's his.
*****
There's a woman in his bed, wearing lace and a necklace that was hers. Hades at least has the decency to look guilty. She pulls the necklace off the other woman's throats and the chain breaks.
"Really? You'd stoop to this?"
"I told you if you didn't want my love I'd find someone who does."
"You disgust me."
"You married me."
"I need some air." She says. She turns on her heel and throws the necklace to the ground. Let him have his silver. She would have the moon.
*****
Eurydice is here. She recognised her voice and went straight to her husband (her husband, god, what a joke).
"She shouldn't be here."
"Hello to you too, my love."
Her hand stings from the slap she gives him. "Don't call me that. And let her go. You've already ruined one life with your greed."
She thinks he watches as she walks away. She hears him call her name. Somewhere in it there's a note of what used to be, of tenderness. She waits till she's out of sight and blinded by the neon lights to wipe the salt from her cheeks.
*****
He let them go.
He let them go.
Hades looked at his prize, his property, and let them walk away. He's stood on their balcony, watching the poet and his wife. She looks at him again, really looks for the first time in years. His face is lined. He looks tired. He looks... Sad. In that moment she's lying on the grass, shirt ripped and hair mussed, and he's telling her his name is Hades. She smells wildflowers. She hesitates. What have the years done to them? He turns to her and she sees his eyes grow wary. She joins him at the balcony.
"You think they'll make it?"
"I don't know."
He sounds weary.
"Hades, you let them go." She tells him, letting her hand rest on his arm, this strange man who loved her. He looks at her and smiles softly.
"I let them try."
"And how bout you and I?" He looks at her. Just looks, searching for something genuine. "Are we gonna try again?"
"It's almost spring. We'll try again next fall." There's resignation in his voice, but there's hope, too. She kisses him lightly, lips barely brushing each other.
"Wait for me?"
"I will."
He tastes sweet.