Prisoner

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

"Wow, I think this is the most embarrassing thing I've ever fucking worn. And I wore the Mother's uniform with her emblem stitched into the back."

"Don't be a drama queen."

"Don't you mean drama prince?" I asked, turning to face Hades, who was letting Niki brush the cat hair off his uniform. Hades gave me a sour glare, then looked at Niki, who was stifling a smile.

"Whose idea was it to store this downstairs? Her fur is literally on every inch of it. It's black, Niki."

"Sorry, my lord, but there was a flood in the storage room on the second floor, so we had to relocate some things to the basement," Niki informed, pausing to roll the lint brush over a patch on Hades's arm, "Speaking of which, my lord, there's a horrible smell down there lately, so we actually just brought everything right back upstairs and most of its in your closet right now."

"Great. Nothing like death stench and cat hair on my fucking military uniform," Hades griped, giving his outfit little tweaks here and there.

"Death stench?" I asked, pausing to go still so Niki could check my uniform over. Where Hades's was super badass and all black with spikes and medals and his own personal emblem on the biceps and chest. He even wore some kind of fancy ass crown thing with emeralds tied in with the silver metal.

"Hm? Oh," Hades said, pausing to push at his eyebrow, like he was trying to get the scowl off his face, to no avail, "Yeah, I forgot to clean up the creep you killed downstairs."

"I thought you said you were gonna clean it up."

"I did, but then Lucy called and I had to go check on Mal and then the leak on the second floor. I'm a busy god, kid, I don't have time to clean up your messes all the time."

"Okay, fine, not my basement anyway," I said with a smirk as I adjusted the Hades emblem on the front of my uniform, "Cuz according to my future vision thing, River and I are getting our own house and our own basement and our own shit." Hades didn't say anything to that and I paused, suddenly remembering his conversation with Lucy. I glanced out the corner of my eye and sure enough, Hades was frowning out the window, like he did not want to think about what I'd just said. I rolled my eyes and came over to punch him in the arm, which made him snap his head to glare at me.

"I bet you scared lots of babies with that face," I said without looking at him so I could check myself out in the mirror, "Besides, calm the fuck down, daddy man, River and I are looking at places on the outskirts of Inferi, you know, close to Hacian." Hades blinked, looking completely caught off guard by that. He just stared straight ahead now, like he was trying to grasp the fact that I was trying to make him feel better about my moving out eventually.

"And, of course," Niki said, making Hades and I turn to face him to see him holding a small crown, "You will need your crown as well, my prince." I looked at the silver circlet resting in Niki's palms. It wasn't huge and fancy, but it wasn't gaudy and heavy. It was a simple silver bunch of branches that seemed to be twisted together and the only jewel was some insanely blue gem that sparkled and winked in the light.

"How come I have blue?" I asked as Niki directed me to face the mirror so he could place it on my head.

"Because it's a new precious gem," Hades said, making me blink and look at him.

"A new gem? What, like, you discovered a new rock?" I asked. Hades rolled his eyes and waved Niki aside. Niki bowed low and stepped aside to the far wall to give us space. I looked up at Hades curiously as he stood over me, adjusting my crown to fit right before he looked at me.