Chapter Text
The House is full of people. And yet, terrifyingly, silently still.
Charon looks at Nyx, Meagera holds her breath, her hands fisting around her whip; Hypnos pretends to sleep but his limbs are too tense, his brows furrowed.
Thanatos doesn’t move a muscle, staring at Hades and back at Persephone , trying to find words.
The Queen. The Queen is back. And she’s looking for him.
“Well?” She puts her hands on her hips and the King swallows hard, hurrying on his feet to get to her.
“Son?” He comes close, towering over Thanatos who even while floating in the air, looks tiny at his side. “Persephone, our son-”
“If our son lives it is not because of you, Hades.” Her voice is bitter, merciless, contrasting to his firm yet pleading tone. He wouldn’t fight her, ever, but specially not for a man he’s never seen in the flesh.
Thanatos can’t wait to find the right moment to shift away. He’s still frozen like a rabbit about to be hunted.
“Our son was doomed to die, Persephone. The Fates said so.” Is that… a tremble he can hear in his King’s voice? He refuses to look up; just being here feels like interrupting something terribly private.
“Well, the Fates can kiss my lively, sun tanned ass!” The Queen clamors and everyone collectively gasps. Death Incarnate goes white, while Meg just walks away, hiding herself behind the lounge’s door; Charon, however, holds the wide brim of his hat over his face.
Thanatos could swear both his brothers are laughing.
“Please, we can discuss this matter in private.” Nyx stands finally in between them, palms up as if offering her peace as a blessing. “King Hades, I believe there’s much to explain.”
“Nyx.” His voice thunders in the quiet hall. However, it gets so soft so quickly in a way Thanatos has never heard before. “Is my son alive?”
“Please.” She encourages again, leading them both to the side of the House that once had a garden, now withered and unattended; only the pomegranate trees remain and they’re still twisted and heavy with too ripe fruit, left to oblivion.
Thanatos shifts.
Zagreus spent the day reading, running around the grass watching it sizzle and grow back unscathed, trying the limits of his own body.
He can still remember so vividly Thanatos’ hold on him, the weight of his body, the rumble of his voice in Zagreus’ ear-
He might have lost, but he didn’t lose shamefully. Moreover, he didn't lose for good.
He runs until he can barely see the house only to turn on his heel and bend low, ready to sprint back.
The ground shifts and loosens under his foot, as the flames grow higher, more violent; the landscape wooshes past him in a disconcerting way, much faster than he’s ever felt himself be.
He doesn’t get the chance to stop by the time he hears the telltale gong, he sees the green flash.
His heels sink into the ground and yet he keeps sliding, his arms up to try to not clash violently against Thanatos who manages to widen his eyes…
And holds onto him tightly, spreading his wings wide open to work as a parachute, finally slowing him down enough to stop.
“Than! I was just practicing-” Zagreus says, grinning wide as he starts to pull away; yet Thanatos doesn’t let go. His wings, instead of retracting, disappearing into nothing, wrap around them both like a cocoon; he’s been pulled in, kept against the stillness of Thanatos’ breathing.
It’d be beautiful if it wasn’t for the fact he has never done anything like this before.
“Than, are you okay?”
The silence feels heavy, suffocating.
Finally he seems to find his voice; raspy, as if he hasn't used it in ages.
“We need to talk.”
“Than?”
He stands there, hands fisted at his sides, feet planted on the ground. It’s so unfamiliar, to stand on his own carpet for so long, but one hint of his own power might trap him back into his old habits: he can’t escape now, Zagreus deserves to know.
Zagreus deserves better.
“Than, we can’t talk if you, you know, do the talking.” Zagreus chuckles, clearly trying to dissipate the suffocating tension but it only serves to irritate him further. With himself, with his inability to find his own voice.
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
“Blood and darkness, Zag.” He finally lets out, his stone-like stance crumbling like an old building; he retreats, sitting on the couch next to the fireplace to hide his face in his hands. “It’s so much, and I haven’ t told you shit about it yet.”
“Well?” He can hear the steps following him; the sudden light, the penetrating warmth of the amber bursting into flames.
The idea of Zagreus using his feet to light up the fireplace is still too funny to not smile, at least. Those feet he inherited from his father.
Zagreus’ father.
He groans and feels the cushion shifting underneath the new weight next to him. “What is it?”
“Do you remember what you came here for?” He starts, his voice muffled as he rests his head against his knees. He just needs to come clean, to say everything he hasn’t had the courage to say until now.
And he tried, by Darkness he tried; and every time, the idea of Zagreus pissed at him for not telling him, or too eager to fulfill his duty, to occupy his throne, filled him with such dread he stopped himself.
The idea of Zagreus leaving.
Zagreus, still, laughs. “Yeah, because of my father.” He was smiling; Thanatos could hear it on the timbre of his voice. “I was expecting you to take me somewhere to see him wherever he rests, but- I don’t know, I like this better, I think.”
“Because you don't know-” he clicks his tongue. “Zag, the things you don't know-”
“Tell me.” The weight at his side shifts, leaves.
He can hear the soft thud on the carpet, the hands on his legs, running up his shins, holding him by the arms. An awkward embrace if there ever was one, but when have they not been awkward, toeing along the line of proper and preposterous, touching only enough, claiming just too little to satiate his thirst, too much to feign indifference?
“I’m right here.”
The words feel heavy at first; he’s right here, right where he shouldn’t. Where Thanatos brought him through a promise he kept dragging his feet about, unsure of how to proceed. He smiles, Zagreus smiles, he can hear it, and it stings.
Then they become lighter.
The hands on Thanatos’ arms run up and down, rub the tension away as his shoulder slumps down.
He is here. He’s always here.
He might just be here still, after everything, after-
“Yoour father just heard about you.” Thanatos steels his voice; his face is barely a mask, stiff and unresponsive. He can see in Zag’s frown that he notices. Still, it is necessary: if he doesn’t hold himself up he might just crumble. “For the first time: he thought you dead.”
“What?” Zagreus smiles skeptically, as if he was making a joke. “Mother wouldn’t just- take me and hide me, would she?” he laughs.
He laughs, and it breaks Thanatos’ soul apart.
“Why would she even do that? That’s so out there!”
“You were meant to be dead- I think.. I think she was hiding you.” Thanatos says softly, as if every word was another spike stuck to his lungs. Every time he speaks it becomes harder. “The Fates, they-”
“Why would they care?” He shrugs, smiling softly. Oh, you sweet thing, my Prince, my unknowing innocent Lord, Thanatos thinks, and still bites his tongue. “I’m just one more thread in their pockets, so what if it becomes a little longer?”
“That’s not how it works, Zag- ugh.” He’s frustrated; Thanatos can hear it in his own voice, in the way he grits his teeth trying to measure his words. Yet he shouldn’t.
He shouldn't leave Zagreus out of his own story; he’s been kept away for long enough, and yet. The idea of Zagreus upset with him, disappointed , burns like a branding iron.
But it cannot stop him. Darkness knows his mother must have thought the same thing, afraid of him leaving, or worse, thinking less of her for it.
Blood and darkness, what if he refuses to engage with him anymore? It’s bad enough he won’t be there anymore every time Thanatos comes back home, with the craziest stories to tell and an overflowing table and a laughter that brings life around him-
“Every thread matters, and even if they didn’t, yours is- you’re important, Zag. Drastically important”
He snorts. “Mother is important, I just happen to be her child.”
“You’re also your father’s child.” Thanatos breathes deep before looking at him in the eye. There’s some concern, some fear, he believes, but not enough anticipation for what he’s about to say.
“Well? What does that mean, Than? Come on…”
There's no way to soften the blow, no matter how much he’d rather have done this all differently.
“Hades’ child, Zag.” Thanaos sees his expression fall, dread settling in. Oh, and he doesn't even know him yet, he has no idea. “You’re the Prince of the Underworld.”
Zagreus chuckles, uncomfortable.
Thanatos gets up to take a step forward, as he takes a step back.
“I tried to tell you, I- I wanted to, Zag, I promise, it’s just-” He reaches for him but Zagreus slaps his hand away, backing up towards the front door to keep his distance.
“It’s what? Hard?” His voice sounds exasperated, broken. He lets his eyes fall onto anything but Thanatos. “I thought- I thought it was going to be a shade, a random stranger, not- how can you not tell me this, Than?”
The God stutters, holds onto the wall to anchor himself; no matter how panic sets in, he must not run. He owes Zagreus at least that much. There is a shade of black clouding his eyes; he cannot focus on anything but him, his pained expression, the betrayal in his mismatched eyes.
“I wanted to! I did, and every day you looked so… relaxed I feared breaking that peace, bringing you down.” His own voice whines, begs for mercy and oh how he wishes he could control it, but something balls at the pit of his stomach, climbs up like a sandstorm up his throat and he can only swallow hard and realize his vision is blurry.
Damp.
No, no not now, not this. He needs to be the pillar that Zag needs; he needs to be stronger, not this.
“Well you did! You did this!” Zagreus blinks his tears away, rubbing a side of his face furiously. “This is my life, Than, who I am! You can’t just promise to give me what was denied to me all my life and then, just- just let it go! because why, cause it’s easier for you?!” He takes a step forward; Thanatos cannot move, not on weak shaky legs and a breath away from fully breaking down.
No, he must keep his place. He did this.
He deserves this.
Zagreus paces. He walks in circles, hands on his hair, almost trying to rip it out; the flames on his feet grow up to his ankles, his shins, threatening to consume the house down. His fury is palpable, and still.
“I’s not fair.” He says through gritted teeth, staring at a wall.
“I know.” Than’s voice is barely a whisper yet he cannot take his eyes away from him.
“It’s not fair for you to choose from me. Not from her, much less from you.”
He knows Zagreus is right, Persephone is his mother, at least, but it still hurts. Whatever brought him to silence -Fear? Protectiveness? No, selfishness what it was, the thought of Zagreus being the King’s, the Realm’s, and not- did nothing but carve a gap he doesn’t know how to jump.
He can barely speak.
“.... I know.”
“Then what? I should just shrug and be okay with it?” Zagreus huffs, and kicks a couch, almost. His foot stays in the air before he brings it back down, scoffs and walks away. “You have no bloody right! No right!”
“I…” There’s nothing Thanatos can do to make him feel better. He lost any leverage when he hid, he lied, he stole him. He can only do what’s right. “I can take you anywhere-”
“No.” Zagreus shakes his head, beelining to the front door.
“I don’t want anything from you.”
He storms out, slamming the door on his way out, and Thanatos’ legs finally give out, bucking under his weight. He crumples onto the ground like a paper doll, holding his face in his hands, trying to stop the tears from flowing but there’s nothing else to hold.
Zagreus is out there, away, and he cannot follow.
Thanatos hopes the realm listens, protects him when he cannot.
Finally alone, he wails.