Styx stared down at Akheron for another moment, then abruptly sat up. She wasn't sure just exactly what to do. Her hands lifted and then dropped in her lap again, then flexed and released. It didn't feel real.
"Good," she said flatly. There was a near-clinical tone to her voice, an iciness that came from uncertainty. Now that she'd said it, now that she'd claimed him for hers, she didn't know exactly how to go about...
Her children would hate the idea. Zeus would hate the idea. The entire family would hate the idea. Words balanced on the tip of her tongue: Don't tell anyone. But what would that accomplish but more secrecy, more lies? She'd had her fill. And on Olympus, she wanted to tell Bia... everything. She couldn't. "Fuck," she muttered to herself.
Hades would be angry, too. Hades was probably angry at most of her family, period. More than ever, she questioned the reason why she'd ever woken up to begin with, and more than ever, she wondered just where Phobos had gone. He should have been back. She wanted him back. He wouldn't change anything; he never really did. But there was a measure of comfort with him that she didn't have anywhere else, and she realized then, with a slow blink, that comfort was exactly what she craved.
Ridiculous. It didn't change things, it never solved any problems, and it fucking well wasted a lot of time she could've spent fixing things. Anger - at herself, the situation - started crawling up her spine. She rolled her shoulders into it. Ridiculous.
The enormity of what she had just done began to crystallize. It'd seemed simple enough... She snorted inelegantly. Akheron wasn't ever simple. Never, not once. "You should go home," she said at last. "Before you die on my floor."
The words sounded harsh in her ears, and harsher still because she realized why she was saying them. It wasn't regret, not quite as easy as regret. How he had been desirable moments before, and repulsive now, was beyond her. But she didn't want to see him, and she couldn't say why.