Bonus Content - Charon & Alekto

Hey everyone!

Continuing on with the "ROs from other ROs' points of view" theme, this month we have Charon from Alekto's. They're a strange pair in a lot of ways, but I think there's a way they relate that it's hard for anyone else to quite get. As the two Olympian exiles in the bunch, they do have a lot in common, after all.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Charon runs the pad of their thumb lightly along the edge of the book cover. It’s rare they get the opportunity to join Hades and Alekto for their reading, and so of course naturally today Hades has been called away on an urgent matter.

Alekto is still here, though, and she studies them with a frank gaze, watching the unusual amount of fidgeting with a growing sense of certainty. He is very clearly deep in thought about something. She has a guess as to what that might be, but whether she should mention it is something she has not quite decided.

“I wonder what I’ve done, to be so scalded by your gaze,” they say lightly, glancing up to meet her eyes with a faint smile. “It is rather fearsome, you know.”

Alekto scoffs softly, letting go of the book in her own lap to lift her hands. That is just how my face looks, as you are well aware.

Charon’s lips twitch, and for a moment they abandon their fidgeting to raise their hands as well, letting them hover comfortable in front of their chest for a moment. Now you make it sound as though I think there is something wrong with your face, when we both know that you are lovely.

She rolls her eyes at that, shaking her head just enough to put a ripple in her thick ponytail. If we are to talk about ‘lovely’ people, then perhaps I can indeed ask you what is on my mind.

Charon tilts his head, a wry sort of resignation surfacing over his placid features. You were going to, anyway.

Yes. There is no point in denying what is obviously true. Dionysus annulled the marriage.

He looks thoughtful again for a moment, something softening almost imperceptibly in his features. If Alekto didn’t know how to look, she might have missed the subtle change entirely. Then he pulls a visible breath in, and his shoulders slump a bit on the exhalation.

It seems so. Even the motions of their hands are limp, unenthused, and Alekto barely manages not to roll her eyes.

Are we pretending this has nothing to do with you, now? Because it’s been fairly obvious to everyone else that you’re nursing an infatuation for quite some time now.

Charon leans back a bit, almost a recoiling motion. Everyone?

She frowns. That had been a bit deceptive. Not intentionally, though, and she moves her hands quickly to correct herself. Hades. Myself. Probably Hekate, though I haven’t spoken with her about it.

Charon runs their long fingers back through pale hair, disheveling the waves a bit in the wake of the motion. “Implying that you have spoken to Hades,” he says. She catches a bit of wryness in their voice, as well.

“A few times,” she replies. “He is concerned for you as he always is.”

“And you?” One brow lifts slightly over the other.

“I… want you to be happy, as I always have,” she replies simply.

Always might be a little bit of a stretch, as their early acquaintance was not the smoothest, but then nothing about Alekto’s life had been smooth, then.

As if remembering the same things, Charon’s brows knit. “I admit… I would have thought you of all people would be cautioning me,” he says slowly. “With what I’ve done—with how young he is, I—”

None of that, she signs sharply, fixing them with a scowl that is meant to be intense. The past is behind us. We are who we are now. We have to be.

The gestures, and their sequence, are familiar enough to almost be muscle memory. How many times had she moved her hands this way, trying to write the truth into her very sinew? It seems, to some degree, to have worked. The advice had come originally from them, and yet at this point in their lives, Alekto feels it is she who has really taken it to heart, and they who need to be reminded.

I know, he replies, hesitant enough that she doubts he does, but not everyone will think that way. What if he doesn’t?

What if he does?

She lets that hang in the air for several long seconds, lowering her hands a bit and giving him a pointed look.

Charon sighs again, but there’s a sense of resignation in the tilt of their smile. I could argue more, but I know you’d never let me win.

I would not. Best to save your breath. And your hands.

That gets her a chuckle so soft she doesn’t actually hear it; she can see it shake their body a little, is all.

“If I promise to consider it, can we talk about the book instead?”

Alekto tilts her head to the side, eyes narrow, and then nods.

“Very well.”