AN: Hi, I've tripped headfirst into this fresh hell! Come join me!
I owe many thanks to my brother for getting me this game for Christmas, to the movie night discord for letting me yell about it for two weeks straight, and most especially to eponymous-rose (also on AO3 with lots of glorious fic herself) for her speedy and wonderful beta. Dash Patrol on high alert, y'all.
This is planned to be a threeshot, so keep an eye out here if you're interested. Thanks, as always, for reading.
Metamorphose
nymph
—
The Styx begins to roil.
It's not a subtle thing, the churning froth beneath his balcony seeping into an even deeper crimson, the ripples echoing sharp and too loud off the high marble ceilings of the House of Hades behind him. He can't see the river's mouth from where he stands, but he can hear the heavy splash, the gasp, the smack of bare palms on a broad step. Routine, now, familiar.
Then—silence.
Thanatos waits. And waits longer still, and listens for the wry laughter, the hiss of fiery heels on stone, the bright rejoinders to Hypnos's all-too-obvious advice. The gnarl of ice in his chest has eased, telling him Zagreus has finished dying, but the prince cannot live without chattering infinite nonsense into whatever passes for air in his father's house, and this silence is unnatural. Worrying.
"Hey! Uh…you okay over there?" he hears Hypnos say, muffled through walls of stone and jewels, and Thanatos glances over his shoulder to meet Achilles's eyes. The shade looks as concerned as Thanatos feels, brows creased, jaw set, and when he jerks his head towards the great hall in open suggestion, Thanatos goes without argument. Achilles does not worry without reason. Fear is for the weak.
When he sees Zagreus lying on his back on the stairs, eyes closed, still submerged from the waist down in the scarlet mouth of the Styx, Thanatos fears.
But no, his chest rises, and his eyes are clenched shut in anger—grief—wild frustration. One hand knots with rage, the knuckles stretched white, and Zagreus slams his fist twice against the marble floor. "Blood and darkness," he spits, then throws his arm over his own face.
A child's tantrum, Thanatos thinks, and immediately despises the unkindness. He lets his feet settle to the ground at Zagreus's shoulder instead, ignoring Hypnos hovering anxiously at his shoulder. Some part of him is jealous that Zagreus can work Hypnos to this state of alertness. The rest wants only to see his eyes.
"Zagreus," he says.
A little jolt runs through the prince; the Styx ripples outwards from his waist, silent now, and spreading. He drags in a heavy breath and lets his arm slide upwards to rest over his forehead. "Hi, Than," he says, measurably more controlled. Only one eye is visible, the red gleaming up at him through shadow, but even that is reassuring. "Thanks for trying. In Elysium, I mean. I appreciate you coming to help. I know you've been busy."
"You called me," he says, as if it is an explanation. "I…You fought well."
"I did, didn't I?" Zagreus almost smiles as he says it, leaning back into the steps and letting his bare feet come to float on the surface of the Styx. The river burbles and boils where his heels dip, the flames there ever-burning even below the water. "You gave me the heart to prove it."
Zagreus is being generous, Thanatos knows. He'd been trounced, Zagreus flitting across the Elysian fields like the butterfly tucked into his belt, spearing two to three shades at a time before Thanatos could even begin to bring down the weight of his power. Their swords could not reach him, fast as he was; even as the last of them had fallen Zagreus had stood hale as he'd ever been in Elysium, broad with strength and smiling at Thanatos. Poseidon's sea-spray had glittered in his hair; his fingers had dripped with the bloody char of Ares. A god-prince, beautiful and deadly, and the centaur's heart had been the only offering Thanatos could give.
Unstoppable, surely. He had known he would not see Zagreus again. And yet. He swallows. "I'm surprised to see you back here."
"Yes, well," Zagreus says, all bitterness now, and he pushes up from the Styx in one fluid movement. The river rolls away from him like oil, leaving him whole and unstained. He shakes back his hair with a crimson spatter, then stretches his shoulders. "My father saw to that, sure enough. Perhaps he knew how much I'd miss hearing him deny the claims of all these shades. Day in, day out. Or night. Whichever."
"I'm sure you'll get through Redacted one of these days," Hypnos offers. "Still—beyond the Styx! That's the farthest you've gotten yet!"
Zagreus shakes his head again, forcing back the acrimony with visible effort, and smiles. "And what a comfort it was, knowing I'd have you to welcome me back here at the end of it." He claps a hand to Hypnos's shoulder, making him bobble his clipboard, and stalks down the length of the hall towards his bedchambers. His bare feet hiss on the uncarpeted stone, and Thanatos should not be so relieved by that as he is.
A small mercy that Hades is absent; a lesser evil that Cerberus is gone with him. He knows Zagreus finds comfort in the hellhound, and he knows Zagreus's smile had not been real.
No pause to speak to Orpheus. No pause to speak to Nyx, or Meg; only a distant bang as the great doors to his bedchambers open and shut again. What happened after Elysium?
"Ahem."
Thanatos blinks. Hypnos stares at him expectantly, then makes an exaggerated shooing gesture towards the prince's rooms. "Well?"
"What?" Thanatos asks stupidly.
"Well, I can't exactly leave my post, then, can I? Mother's been quite clear. So…I don't know, I'm just saying maybe someone should go talk to him?"
"I think he prefers his privacy." Thanatos would, surely, were he so upset.
Hypnos, however, looks at him as if that might have been the most idiotic thing he has ever heard a soul say, living or dead. He can count on one hand the number of times Hypnos has looked at him like this. He finds he doesn't care for it at all.
Hypnos leans forward, eyes tired and unexpectedly wise. "You know he isn't you, right?"
Thanatos shuts his eyes, and before he can second-guess himself—or before Hypnos can judge him further—he reaches out and finds the pinpoint burn among all the cold underworld that is Zagreus, and he pulls.
The world flashes green behind his eyelids, then fades slowly to the red and gold of Zagreus's bedchambers. The prince himself stands before the great obsidian mirror on the far wall, his back to Thanatos, his fingers flicking through the air before him as if playing a lyre. The sea-green light in his hair is long gone, Poseidon's blessings vanished with his death; all that is left is the burning laurel, little embers dancing down his black hair.
"Guh-dong," Zagreus mutters, still without turning to face him. "Can I help you, Than? If you came to yell at me again, I can tell you it's not really a good time."
"I didn't come to yell at you," he says defensively. "Hypnos said—" but no, that's not true, and he owes Zagreus honesty now. "You seemed upset. I was worried."
Zagreus's shoulders slump. "Than…"
Gods' blood, he likes this less and less. "What happened after Elysium, Zag? I thought for sure you'd make it out this time."
Zagreus laughs. "You don't want to hear this. You don't even want me to try."
"I don't like seeing you this angry, either."
"I made it to the surface," Zagreus says, sharp and cold, and something in Thanatos's chest pulls tight. "Is that what you want me to tell you? I fought through the satyrs and their poisons and Cerberus let me by, and I stepped into the—the snow, and I saw Nyx's sky." He rakes a hand through his hair, dislodging his laurels, and turns to face him at last. His eyes burn, red and green, and his jaw is set stiff as his father's. "There were stars there, and I could see—"
But he cuts himself off with a harsh swipe of his hand and turns away again, striding to his desk and flipping through the pages there without looking at them. The flames at his feet lick up his calves in agitation. "It's hard for me to tell you this," he admits. "I know you'd rather I didn't—but I have to, Than. I have to find—I can't stay here."
"I know," Thanatos says heavily, the confession itself as much a weight as the scythe he still holds. "I wouldn't help you if I didn't. I may not like it, Zag, but I'm not going to leave you to face it by yourself, either."
Zagreus goes very still. A thousand excuses rise to Thanatos's tongue, panicked explanations; he feels flayed open, raw with Zagreus's impotent anger and his own uneven grief. The idea of helping him to the surface at last and letting him go, of never seeing Zagreus again, makes his throat clench like a fist. The idea of seeing him trapped here in his father's house for eternity, flames withering under endless ages of neglect and abuse until there is nothing left of his irrepressible gladness, is worse.
But he's never been good at saying what he means, and before he can try, Zagreus turns and smiles at him. "That means a lot, Than. Thank you."
This one is real. The relief burns.
Thanatos gives a short nod. Zagreus blows a breath upwards that stirs his hair, most of his tension going with it, and Thanatos allows himself to ease to the chair beside Zagreus's bed. The prince hardly uses either piece of furniture, yet the covers are undone and half-spilled to the floor, the chair's leg notched with some old, errant blow from a blade; parchment and clothes lie scattered across the floor in familiar mess. Faint music drifts through the closed door from the great hall: Orpheus, strumming some sweet, sad melody. He lets the scythe pass into nothing and clasps his empty hands at his knees. Death is patient if nothing else.
Zagreus is not. He prowls the room, staying nowhere for more than a few seconds; he flips the pages at his desk again, goes to the mirror and turns away almost immediately; he sits at the lyre and plays two inexpert chords before moving back to the desk once more. Thanatos knows the movement helps; even from his seat he can see the thoughts flickering behind his eyes, his recent battles passing through the lens of Achilles's lessons, sifting the chaff for what he must change in his next attempt.
"I let the wretches distract me," he says at last, as if Thanatos knows what he means; then he plants his hands on his hips and looks Thanatos square in the face. "My father waits for me on the surface," he says. "He kills me himself, if I make it that far."
Thanatos hisses a breath through his teeth. "Lord Hades?"
"In all his deathly glory."
"You speak like this has happened more than once."
"Four or five times, I think," Zagreus says, and Thanatos's fingers clench. "I should have been keeping count. It was so fast, at first, but this time—I knew what I was doing, and I could feel—I knew if I was careful, I could defeat him. I was strong enough this time. The Fates had been kind, and—Than, it was in my grasp." He's pacing now, hands back in his hair. Flames lick along his footsteps, leaving wispy ash in his wake. "I don't know how long we fought. It felt like forever. But there were wretches—shades he'd summoned to help him, and I let them distract me at the very end. I thought if I could take them out quickly, it'd be easier. But it took too long and I lost track of him, and then my father—"
"Zagreus," says Thanatos.
Zagreus stops. Watches him like a skittish shade as he pushes up from the chair, as he comes to join him at the center of the room, but he doesn't shy away, and Thanatos is glad of that.
He does wonder, vaguely, if he ought to be more concerned. To help Zagreus fight against the nameless shades of Elysium is one thing; knowing the god he serves stands in direct opposition at the end of the battle is entirely another. Borderline blasphemous, Thanatos decides, and in a moment of equally blasphemous weakness he lets himself rest both hands on Zagreus's shoulders.
His bare skin is hot, as always. The look in his mismatched eyes is more so, staring at Thanatos as if he might break Zagreus in half with a word. Thanatos does not like it. "What are you so afraid of?"
"What if I can't beat him, Thanatos?"
"Zag…"
"What if he really is stronger? I had everything I needed, I know it. I can't blame it on circumstance, or the whims of the gods, or the Fates. It was my lack of skill alone." Zagreus's eyes clench shut; his hands come up to wrap around Thanatos's wrists, holding him in place. An anchor by chance and choice alike. The soft laugh stings, too bitter for mirth. "It would make you happier if I gave up."
"No," Thanatos says sharply, and Zagreus sighs.
"It would certainly make your job easier."
"Still. If it pained me to help you, I wouldn't do it."
One corner of his mouth quirks up humorlessly. "I am grateful, Than. Even if I haven't managed to make good use of it yet."
"When was the last time Megaera killed you?"
Zagreus hesitates, clearly thrown, but answers readily enough. "It's been a while. I can't…really remember the last time, I guess."
"She used to kill you often."
"Every time, nearly. And she always gloated after, which was worse."
As if he himself were incapable of it. Thanatos has seen him all too often on the other side of a spear, his head thrown back in victorious laughter. A different sort of gloating, perhaps, but he knows how much Zagreus enjoys the contest. "And still you kept on."
"Well, yes. What else was there to do?"
Die. Be reborn. Die again, violently, over and over, the Styx swollen with the prince's lifeblood. Give up, perhaps, and find a place in his father's administrative chambers, quiet and repetitive, until the sparks die back to embers and go out. He moves his thumb to the pulse-point in Zagreus's throat, feels its strong and steady beat.
"Zagreus," Thanatos says, and feels too the little shudder at his name, "I know you can defeat Lord Hades. I'm certain of it."
"Are you even allowed to say that? Are you going to burst into green flame now out of sacrilege?"
Thanatos ignores that. "Will you stop trying to defeat him?"
"No."
"And you aren't an idiot."
"Oh, thanks."
Thanatos huffs. "I mean you'll learn, Zag. You won't be able to help yourself. If you keep trying, you'll figure it out piece by piece. You keep trying, and he won't be able to stop you. You will win."
"Escape."
Death winces, and before he can think better of it he slides his hands to either side of Zagreus's jaw, his fingers slipping into black hair, bending forward until their foreheads just touch. It's a steadying, grounding thing, and Thanatos lets the rancor go. "Escape," he echoes, and sighs.
One of Zagreus's hands has crept into Thanatos's own hair; his fingertips press like little coals into the nape of his neck. How rarely he feels the cold until something comes along to thaw it. "Than…"
"Hm?"
"You'll keep helping me, right? I'd miss seeing you around the battlefields, if nothing else."
"As I'm able. I doubt your father will let blatant dereliction of duty go unpunished."
Zagreus snorts, sliding his other hand into Thanatos's hair as well. "You just want your portrait on the wall in the lounge again."
"A little recognition goes a long way," Thanatos says, and laughs outright.
That makes Zagreus laugh in turn, his shoulders shaking, and he draws back to look at Thanatos. His smile is broad and warm, easy in a way nothing else in the underworld is, and for just an instant something flecks into his eyes, something else, something hotter even than the scarlet he wears from his father's side—but it's shuttered like torchlight behind the bronze shield of his humor, and instead Zagreus drops his forehead to Thanatos's bare shoulder.
"Ah, Than," he says at last, muffled in his skin, and Thanatos can't stop the wave of gooseflesh up the back of his neck. "What a mess I've dragged you into, hm? One of these days you'll realize I'm more trouble than I'm worth."
His mouth settles into the hollow above Thanatos's collarbone, whispering touches with each word; embers drip like stars from his hair to Thanatos's skin. The gooseflesh ripples into a pleasant heat. Addictive. "No. Never that."
He can feel Zagreus smile. "Such promises you make me."
This is dangerous. This is beyond dangerous and into deadly, flame licking at all his edges, and Thanatos shudders. The last thing Zagreus needs is one more complicated tie to this house, and Thanatos refuses to be his shackle. He's not sure iron can bind fire, anyway.
He draws back. His hands drop between them, then to his sides; Zagreus straightens, still smiling, his laurels still askew. His throat has flushed with his red blood; when Thanatos does not speak, the flush rises further to his cheeks. The contrast to his pale skin pleases Thanatos, and that is dangerous too.
"You know I hate it when you stop talking," Zagreus tries, turning half-away now, fiddling with some peg to his lyre. "Don't tell me you've been struck dumb at the thought of another fight through Elysium. If you come late enough, you can even meet King Theseus. He'll bluster enough for both of us."
"Even for you, Zag? Impossible."
He shakes his head, then straightens his laurels at last. The stone hisses as he shifts one heel, stretching his calves in a lunge, bending back and forth at the waist. "I don't suppose you want to come with me this time."
"Are you going again now?"
"Well, soon. I'll practice a bit first."
Thanatos shakes his head. Silver scissors have been clicking in the back of his mind for some time, threads dropped in glittering coils to his waiting hands. His desire for Zagreus—for Zagreus's company—cannot outweigh his duty. "I need to go."
"Hah! In that we're just alike."
He closes his hand around a fistful of air, pulling the comfortable weight of his scythe back into the world again. Zagreus's heat has begun to fade from his shoulder, his jaw, the nape of his neck; this is infinitely safer, he thinks, and draws in a slow breath. "I'll see you around, Zagreus."
The prince looks at him, his smile warm and growing warmer. "I'll hold you to that."
Thanatos smiles back. "Fight well," he says, allowing the scarlet eye to burn through the ice in his chest one last time, and lets him go.
