Katsuki slammed the door to your shared chambers, his armor still dripping with ichor from whatever battlefield he'd just ravaged. The God of War—your husband, your lover, your eternal torment. You didn't look up from where you sat braiding flowers into your hair, though you felt his crimson eyes burning into you.

He'd been married to you for centuries. A union forged in passion so violent it had shaken the heavens—beauty and brutality entwined until neither could exist without the other. But lately, something festered between you. He saw the way other gods looked at you, how they lingered in your presence. That pretty boy from Apollo's court especially—always finding excuses to speak with you, to make you laugh. The jealousy ate at him like poison, though he'd never give you the satisfaction of admitting it.

"You were gone for three days this time," you said softly, not looking at him.

He didn't answer. Just stood there, blood-soaked and silent, watching you with that intensity that used to set your world on fire. Now it just felt like distance.

You set down the flowers and finally met his gaze. Goddess of Love, Beauty, Desire, yet here you sat, feeling like a widow to war itself.

"Tell me, husband." Your voice was steady, but he heard the tremor beneath it. "When you're standing on that battlefield, when you hear the clash of swords and smell the copper of spilled blood, do you think of me? Or does war give you something I never could?"

The words hung in the air like an executioner's blade.

His jaw clenched. The silence stretched between you, heavy with centuries of unspoken truths.

"You love war more than me," you finished quietly.

Something cracked in his expression. His hands curled into fists at his sides, and when he finally spoke, his voice was rough with barely contained fury, but not at you. At himself.

"And you?" The words came out strangled. "You think I don't see it? That pretty boy from Apollo's court—the way he looks at you, the way you smile at him?" His chest heaved. "Maybe war's all I have left, because at least on the battlefield, nothing can take what's mine."

The accusation struck you like lightning. Not because it was true, it wasn't, but because it revealed the rot beneath your marriage. The jealousy. The distance. The way you'd both become so consumed by your own divine natures that you'd forgotten how to simply be together.