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“Yeah. My thoughts exactly. Now I am bound to the Underworld with powers and a throne at Olympus.”
Devon sat back and crossed his arms. He felt more than a little uncomfortable waiting on West to say something.
“I know, unbelievable, huh?” Devon asked, trying to elicit a response.
“Understatement,” West whispered before breaking eye contact and looking down at his hands on the table, his face scrunched up in confusion. “I never saw your body in the casket; they kept it closed. Did she bind you back to your body?”
Devon shook his head. “Nope, my mortal body had bound my power, not sure how all this works, but I am basically my soul made flesh. I don’t have the scars of my death and from before.” Devon waited, not wanting to say more until he knew West processed what he had already told him. Waiting to see if West was going to be able to take this all in and accept it.
Finally, West looked up at him, “Man, I don’t care if you’re the devil himself, I am just so damn glad you’re alive,” he stated with a smile as he slapped his friend on the shoulder and laughed an almost manic laugh. Devon allowed himself a small chuckle, relief at his friend’s response.
“So, you rule the Underworld?”
“I am not the ruler of the Underworld, Persephone is. The one you met at the gala with me that evening.”
“So, your girlfriend is the ruler?”
“Not my girlfriend.” This part he felt more anxiety explaining than he had about becoming a God. “My wife.”
West spit his beer all over the table and a guy walking by to the bathroom.
“What?” West sputtered as the man stopped in his tracks, beer splattered across his white shirt.
“What the hell, man!” The guy moved toward West, but something in Devon made him stand up between his friend and the very angry male covered in beer.
The man halted before stumbling back, staring at Devon with panic in his eyes, and turning to move at a clipped pace to bathrooms. Turning back to West, he caught a flash of awe in his friend’s eyes.
“Whoa...” West was staring at him, a dumbfounded look on his face. “Your eyes just flashed green.”
West moved closer as he sat back down, waving his hand in Devon’s face as if he could trigger his eyes to light up again. Devon laughed, pushing West back, and was rewarded with a grunt from his friend.
“Wife?” he repeated back to Devon, both of them staying quiet for a moment after that revelation.
“Yes.” Devon spent the next part of an hour explaining everything from the moment he came to the Underworld until now. West watched him, absorbing this new information.
Once Devon got to the moment that they had run into each other outside of the docks, both men stayed quiet for a while.
“You and your wife are in charge of Hell.” West stared off into space as he stated this.
“Not Hell. It’s like here on Earth. There are whole cities and villages that operate from people working jobs like they did as mortals. Yes, there are hellish parts, like Tartarus-”
“Tartarus is fucking real?” West loudly whispered as he leaned over the table. His eyes were wide like a child seeing proof that his favorite fictional character was in fact real.
“Yes, it is. And so are the Fields of Punishment, but then there is Elysium, which is paradise,
and now I know my dad went to his version of heaven. I… I spoke with him.”
“Holy shit, Devon!” West sputtered. “You saw your old man? What did he say when he saw you?”
Devon shook his head. “That is an entire discussion for another time. I am not sure I am emotionally capable right now of discussing that particular subject.”
“Just answer me this. Did you finally get closure?” West asked, his face completely serious. He knew how Devon had reacted to the news of his father’s death. He was there to take him drinking, to sit with him on the roof in a run-down city among the sand and just listen to the desert animals scurry about without a word between them.
Devon looked out the window where people were milling about, dock workers loading ships, and kids playing along the boardwalk. He looked back at his friend and nodded.
“He was happy to see me, and it killed me that I didn’t get to say goodbye in person, but yes, I have some closure. I asked him if he was happy and he claimed more than he could ever remember. A total dad joke since he knew his memories of the human realm were gone. I wonder if I even really deserve it though. After all, I left. Would he have been so happy to see me in life before he died? Would I be worth that happiness?”
“One day Devon, you are going to see your worth, and I hope to all the Gods, Goddesses, whoever is listening, that I am there to see it.”
