Revelations [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

When I first arrived in the Underworld, it was split up into pieces. Large city-states with a few outlying villages all ruled under separate lords. It wasn't chaotic, like Hell had been. There was a strict order to things, strict borders that weren't crossed without coin. Aside from that, there was not a single god that ruled the realm as a whole. After all, the place was vast and touched all kinds of otherworldly borders. It was just too large to contain.

Or so they said.

Of course, I didn't go barging into people's shit, claiming I was their new god, so bow down, motherfuckers. Nah, that came later. In the beginning, I was quiet. I laid low and scoped the place out. I didn't have my palace, or a home at all. At least, not until I had met Charon.

Charon had been so fucking small back then. He was only eighteen and barely reached my chest. His ink black hair was long and fell all the way to his waist, hiding his face so all you could really see were his vibrant lavender eyes. He didn't have Kyros at the time, or the signature cloak that had been given to him. Instead, he wore a tattered cloak that looked almost like spiderwebs with the amount of holes in it. He clearly had no idea how to take care of himself and he was just as lost as I was.

I think that was what attracted me to the little kid in the first place.

He reminded me so much of my siblings.

And even though Zeus had just fucked me over in every way possible, I felt this insane need to protect him.

"You are my son," I told Charon the day we met, and he just stared up at me with those big purple eyes, "I will protect you and I will guard you, and in turn, you shall do the same for me. Does that seem fair?" He'd stared at me in silence for a while, having stood on the sandy shores of the River Acheron.

"Can you make tea?" He asked. I remembered scowling at a peculiar question.

"Of course," I replied. Charon nodded at that and looked back out at the water.

"Thank you, father," he murmured. That had been his response. I took it as confirmation, and thus, I had ended up living out of Charon's house. At the time, the place had been rather large, not the dinky ass tiny house he was shacking up with Alexion on in now. It had several other rooms, of which I had no doubt his former family had stayed in, because the rooms were kept immaculate, as if Charon was preparing for his family to return any day now.

Which they never did.

And I saw how much that tore him up. I remembered hearing him cry the first few nights. I remembered arguing with myself, forcing myself to stay put and let him cry himself to sleep. Comfort would only weaken him, I reminded myself grimly. It was what I had done with my siblings when they wept. I comforted them and they became soft and fragile. Charon was fragile enough. He needed to become strong if he was going to survive in this shit world.

Not that his emotional state was as much of a problem as his basic survival skills.

The kid hadn't bathed since his parents left because he had no idea how. He had no idea how to use any of his powers, the few that had come to him anyway. He was teleporting all over the place for weeks without realizing it. He also also burned half the kitchen down just trying to start a fire to boil water. He'd blown the front door clear off its hinges. He was a fucking train wreck, and he knew it too, seemed to resign himself to this pathetic state, and it had infuriated me.

It had taken weeks and weeks of practice to teach him the basics, so he'd at least stop teleporting into the fucking shower with me or setting shit on fire just by sneezing. I'd also had to teach him how to read and write, which thankfully was easier than teaching him anything else. He'd caught on quickly. He was book smart for sure, and that I took as his greatest strength.