Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Rumor has it that Zagreus is up to no good!”

Thanatos knows that is a fact.

The less-than-predictable son of Hades had recently lost his administrative position working for the House and his relationship with Megaera within a short time of each other, all thanks to his own downward mental spiral that'd been simmering since childhood. His sense of misplacement and failure in pleasing his father had caused a number of random tantrums, fights, and so on throughout the House. Hades himself pulled the great Achilles out of the Underworld to teach his son how to fight so his energy could be guided somewhere else. (Thanatos secretly admits that guiding said energy into weapons was Lord Hades’ most stupid idea.) Zagreus has been up to no good since he was conceived.

“You know just as well as I do that that is old news,” Thanatos says. He looks over his latest delivery of souls in line to meet Hades, then eyes the list his twin holds with no real purpose. “Your job isn’t to tell me rumors, Hypnos.”

Thanatos isn't in the House enough to keep track of every rumor the shades spread through the cracks, but he knows all the ones which mention Zag, and he knows which ones are true or false.

Zagreus is Thanatos’ closest confidant. Since the moment Nyx took him under her care, Zagreus and Thanatos have shared a bond like no other. There is not a secret between them untold since they started harboring them. From little things in childhood like Thanatos sneaking a toy to Cerberus without Hades noticing to Zagreus unknowingly breaking his heart by telling him of his first kiss with Megaera. Thanatos knows the truth about Zagreus before any rumor gets out and vice versa. In a place like the Underworld or in an ever-expanding family of gods, they have a rare and favorable bond. Thanatos wouldn't trade it—trade him—for anything the mortal or immortal world could offer him.

He has always felt this way. He doesn't believe there's ever been a time when he hadn't. What he feels for Zagreus encompasses far more than friendship, far more than affection, far more than what everyone in this House has told him is love. Thanatos doesn't have a word for it. One word alone doesn't exist.

“There's more to the rumor, I'm sure, but I can't quite remember it,” Hypnos says, tapping his finger against his chin. “Zagreus is up to no good, he...err, have one of you shades heard the rumor about Zagreus being up to no good?”

The shades pay Hypnos no mind, far too fearful of what's ahead: Hades at his desk, or the afterlife.

“They just arrived. They wouldn’t know.”

“Rumor spreads fast here, brother! If you stuck around the House a bit after dropping off these old surface dwellers to their likely doom, then you would know that! Zagreus is up to no good, he...gah, these kinds of things always escape me!”

Thanatos sighs. Listening to Hypnos alone must have already caused a backup of work on the mortal earth. Thanatos does not mind wasting his time when he manages to find Zag in the lounge, but wasting it on Hypnos’ yapping is almost criminal. The fool remembers little to nothing with all that he sleeps.

Thanatos rises on his toes, letting himself float back into the air. He best be going. “I'll leave you to it.”

Hypnos quickly raises his hands. “No! It’s important! You’d definitely care about it. Zagreus, he—” He pulls at his curls, kicking his feet like he would when he had nightmares as a child. “Ahhh! It's really no good this time! The rumor keeps escaping—”

“He what?!”

The House falls quiet. Every shade and god in the hall turns their heads toward the billowing voice of Hades. His large fist slams down on the desk, a loud crrrk! sound following it. Hades normally knows how to control his tone though the same can't be said for his volume. However, there’s only a handful of ticks that set him off to this level. One tick more than any of the others.

Beside the god of the Underworld floats night incarnate, his mother Nyx. She remains completely unaffected by this outburst yet maintains a grim expression.

“Zagreus is attempting to escape the Underworld,” her melodic voice echoes through the hall, “in hopes of reaching the surface.”

A cold tinge runs through Thanatos as his feet return to the floor.

That...

“That’s it!” Hypnos leaps further into the air, a smile of elation on his damn face. Not even his jaunty manners in dead silence could steer the attention away from Hades’ rage. “That’s the rumor!”

That is news to Thanatos.

******

The souls of the dead can wait.

Zagreus is in Tartarus. Thanatos can feel it.

He’s not sure how or why he feels it. There’s always been a sort of pull towards Zagreus, a calling for Thanatos to accompany him whether it be in the lounge or in the administrative chamber. Perhaps Zagreus feels this too. Whenever he arrives in the Great Hall, Zagreus immediately comes running from somewhere to greet him. Despite being in hell, a sense of peace passes through Thanatos when he sees him.

Routinely surveying the Underworld is not a part of his job. All Thanatos does is take souls to the Acheron and hope they land where they need to be. It’s been a while since he was last in the depths of Tartarus. He has had no desire to return after that blasted Sisyphus cheated his way out of death.

But Zagreus’ safety beats out all the inconvenience.

Thanatos appears in a chamber lit in muted green. The River Styx flows along its edges, louder in this region than the others. The pillars that supposedly keep the disheveled ceiling from falling are crumbling faster than ever. Tartarus looks worse for wear, but Thanatos doesn’t feel particularly bad about it. Befitting for the most heinous souls who tortured the mortal world.

Skullomats and numbskulls roam about without uniformity. As Lord Hades intended, the Underworld is a challenge to escape and these pests are just a portion of the enemies Zagreus will encounter. Getting rid of them would do his friend a favor.

“Perish,” Thanatos calls with a swing of his scythe. An abysmal hole in the ground opens beneath the foes and sucks them in, killing them instantly. “Better.”

The sound of the chamber door interrupts his thoughts, followed by the sizzling footprints behind it. Thanatos quickly hides himself behind a pillar to peek towards Zagreus.

If he wasn’t floating, he thinks he’d lose his balance.

Zagreus has never been the most put-together person. He leans towards the wild side, never too set in his ways, always on the go. But this Zagreus is a far cry from the one he knows.

Each breath he takes is shallow, as if all his energy is put into catching it. The signature spikes of his black hair are only slightly disheveled. There are cuts in his clothes revealing bruised skin beneath. His back is hunched over and he uses a longsword to hold him upright. Blood and darkness, where did he get that?

However, that’s all on the surface. Zagreus raises his head with a sly smirk, looking around at the empty chamber, and Thanatos realizes that his Zagreus is still there under all the hardship he must have fought through to get here.

“Well, I don’t think I’m this lucky,” Zagreus says as he pulls himself up. He slings the sword over his shoulder and Thanatos can’t help but watch the fluidity in which he does it, how his fingers curl over the handle and how his shoulder carries its heavy blade effortlessly. “Something’s amiss…”

Thanatos disappears at once only to reappear again in front of Zagreus.

A bell chimes, a splash of smoked emerald floods the chamber, and Thanatos confronts Zagreus.

“Death approaches.”

There is a calm pause between them.

What Thanatos feels is almost relief. Almost. Looking down at him, Thanatos can tell he’s barely alive. There is no death he must deal with now. But then he remembers why he’s here, taking a moment out of his time to meet Zagreus in Tartarus of all places, and the root of his true worry for Zagreus is ripped from the ground.

They tell everything to each other. Why was he barred from this huge development? Thanatos has always known Zagreus wanted to get away from the House but he assumed he’d know the plan. That there’d be a way to help him in it, even if it meant never seeing him again. Maybe they’d have cleared the air from what’s sparking between them beforehand then. Turned it ablaze or killed it at once so they could move along. This—what, anger? Thanatos isn’t angry. Or rageful. There are never the right words to define what he feels toward Zagreus. But whatever this is left him with a sinking feeling.

Zagreus hurt Thanatos.

“Thought you could just get away from me, did you?”

The smirk falls from Zagreus’ face and is replaced with wariness. His grip loosens on his sword, he looks Thanatos over once, then his brows furrow and those bright eyes turn into fury.

“Thanatos,” Zagreus says his name with a slight edge of his particular annoyance. “I figured it was only a matter of time before Father sent you after me to do his dirty work.”

His dirty work? Thanatos is taken aback. Lord Hades knows nothing of this. He came to check on Zagreus and make sure he’s alright. If he were any more confident, he’d try to convince him to not leave the House, leave him. For the sake of their relationship, whatever it may be. Yet Zagreus thinks he’s being ordered around.

“Is that really why you think I’m here?” Thanatos tries to ask it without his heartbreak blurring the edges. There must be something he can do to move the conversation away from this. Zagreus is in front of him wounded and tired, barely holding on, and he wants to help him despite all he feels.

A test, perhaps. To see if Zagreus really has the strength to bypass his father’s realm.

Certainly Lord Hades must know he’s here by now. Certainly he’s waiting to send back his pathetic security to barge through the prince’s journey.

“Let’s see how many of these exalted champions you can send back to their dooms,” Thanatos challenges as several summoning circles form on the floor, “unless you’d rather I would send you back to yours.”

Not how he’d usually address Zagreus, but Thanatos can’t find it in him to be friendly right now.

Thanatos briskly kills numbskull after numbskull with the sharp edge of his scythe. He doesn’t murder in his line of work, so this is a bit strange for him, but these things have already been dealt death. There is no guilt in watching their black blood spill.

By the time Thanatos has killed ten enemies, Zagreus has only killed two.

He’s holding his own but is running low on energy. All his power is so obviously put into dodging. He is struggling. A word once not associated with Zagreus at all until recently.

Thanatos summons an abyss below the numbskulls Zagreus fights just to put him out of his misery. The challenge ends with that.

A centaur heart appears before Zagreus.

“Thank the Gods,” Zagreus groans as he graciously accepts the chamber’s reward. Even then, his increased life does not change much about his current state.

The Gods? The Olympian ones? What business does Zagreus have thanking those thankless narcissists?

Zagreus heaves once, twice, then reaches into his pocket to retrieve a bottle of nectar. He holds it out to Thanatos.

“For you,” he offers.

Thanatos eyes the bottle suspiciously. “Where did you get this?”

“Uh, a few chambers ago? I’ve lost count.”

Thanatos takes the nectar rather reluctantly. He’ll drink it, sure, but he can’t find a reason as to why he’s being given it after beating Zagreus in competition.

“You are normally very good at fighting,” Thanatos ridicules.

“You try escaping hell,” Zagreus bites back.

Thanatos digs through his own pocket to take out the Pierced Butterfly keepsake he holds. It helped him when he was younger and learning combat. It doesn’t do much for him anymore. If he did try escaping hell, it would still be easy without it.

“Take this.”

Zagreus accepts the keepsake, examining it closely. “This protects you.”

“You need it more than me.”

Thanatos can’t look away from him. His chest constricts with everything and he doesn’t know how to release it. He diverts to silence.

Zagreus catches his stare and meets it back with fervor. Thanatos must have offended him a bit. A student of Achilles needing protection is a bit ironic. The River Styx roars louder than before.

“You left, without so much as telling me good-bye,” Thanatos laments. “I suppose you knew I’d catch up with you sooner or later, is that it? No escaping death, and all?”

The fervor dies out of Zagreus. He straightens his posture and holds his chin high. Defiant as ever.

“I left when it was necessary, Than.” His voice is neutral but cuts like knives. The gaul to call him Than when it feels like everything around them is breaking. “I thought of you and hoped you’d understand.”

Lies. Thanatos wants to believe he’s telling him lies. If Zagreus had truly thought of him, then he would have told him he’d be leaving.

Sometimes this bond they share can be a curse. With the way Zagreus reverts to empathy, Thanatos thinks Zagreus can tell how he really feels. Thanatos also knows Zagreus isn’t lying. Escaping his father is above what they’re tip-toeing around.

“I have to do this,” Zagreus stresses.

Thanatos knows that better than anyone.

Worse, he even understands.

“That’s more motivation than I’ve ever heard from you.”

Zagreus laughs at that. It’s refreshing to hear it after all this. “My life back there doesn’t inspire much motivation in me.”

“What makes this any different?”

“There’s a reward at the end of it all. More valuable than any possession. I…now that I know of her, I can’t continue to live without knowing her.”

Thanatos’ hand curls tighter around his scythe. “Her?”

“My mother Persephone.” The name rings a distant bell in his memories. “She lives somewhere on the surface. And if I can just get to her, then…”

“Then you can leave,” Thanatos finishes. “For good.”

Zagreus nods once. “For good.” He takes a step closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

Thanatos floats back. “You are not.”

Zagreus does not respond. Quickly caught in the first lie he’s ever told Thanatos.

“Well, if you won’t say it, I’ll say it.” Thanatos could crush his weapon if he gripped it any more deathly. “Goodbye, Zagreus.”

How can you continue to live without me?

Thanatos won’t say that.

******

Death calls for Thanatos again and again and again. The surface is abundant with the need for him to do his job. He does not abandon it for even a short amount of time.

Death is not so much an action as it is an experience. It is his duty to deliver it as gently as can be. Ares ensures the process is started violently for some. Others venture too deep into Poseidon’s waters and never come up. Demeter’s eternal winter has brought a new sickly death to mortals as well. Thanatos mostly picks the souls up from bed. Nonetheless, Thanatos wraps their lives up nicely. He feels when it is time for him to appear.

The feeling has never located itself at the cusp of Tartarus and Asphodel till now. There is only one person whose soul would be calling for his deliverance.

Thanatos would abandon all for him.

Accompanied with his bells, Megaera’s chamber flashes emerald green.

The pillars have all crumbled to dust strewn across the floors. The sharp burn marks of Megaera’s whip leave dark traces on the cement while other tiles have so clearly been shattered by a sword. Spike traps stand tall in the corners, shadowed by the towering statues of the three furies. Though Thanatos hovers above most, he feels so small in their presence.

Megaera stands in the center of the chamber. Her whip sizzles in her hand, vibrating pink, yet she looks far from wanting a fight. She’s already won.

Lying dead on the floor is Zagreus.

“Isn’t your job on the surface?” Megaera asks indignantly. She pulls her whip between her fingers. “The Styx will take him. Go back to work, Thanatos.”

This must be what it’s like to feel sick. So sick that bile dredges up in your throat, or life ends.  When he picks up a soul surrounded by a sobbing crowd, this must be the ache they mourn out. His vision begins to unfocus and his body wavers in the air.

Zagreus. Dead.

Red. Why is there red? On the floor, on the traps, on Meg’s whip, on Zagreus’ lifeless body. They are not on the surface. They are not mortals. They are gods.

“He’s bleeding,” is all Thanatos finds the strength to say.

“We all do.”

Thanatos reaches down to touch the red pool beneath Zagreus. It’s a deep color and streaks against his fingertips, a sensation not foreign to him but—

“He shouldn’t bleed blood.”

Thanatos slips his arms beneath Zagreus and lifts him up.

His body goes limp as the crimson flows down his arms. The green-red of his eyes roll behind his lids with the sway of his head. The grip on the longsword falls loose and clatters to the ground, splashing droplets of his blood in each and every direction.

Thanatos knows death as well as he knows Zagreus. Thanatos knows death is absolute.

“Zagreus,” he calls to him in a whisper. The silence that follows it is a dagger to the chest.

Thanatos nearly loses his mind.

A thousand futures with Zagreus have been pictured. A pile of Zagreus’ administrative work split between the two after hours. A shared bed in the rare instances the two need sleep. A voyage on Charon’s boat amidst rush hour. A quiet marriage beneath the radar of the gods.

Never has Thanatos pictured the weight of a lifeless Zagreus in his hold.

Thanatos lightly shakes his body, clutching him tight. He’s seen people do this with dead loved ones in their arms. He knows it does nothing to bring them back, but suddenly the sentiment behind trying is understood.

“He is a god,” Megaera attempts to break through. She’s exceptionally calm for having caused and witnessed the death of someone she loved. “He isn’t dead.”

Thanatos has no need to breathe nor have a beating heart yet a heavy breath escapes him and a thump threatens to break his ribs. “This is not ichor.”

“He is born of gods. What does it matter?”

“This is mortal blood,” he emphasizes. How is this what’s in his body? Zagreus has never touched the mortal world. What is it doing inside his veins? What amount of life is it stripping away from him? “Mortal blood does not come back.”

FWIP! The tail end of Megaera’s whip clutches around his wrist, pulling him down and closer to her face. She looks him straight in the eyes, demanding he meet her at equal level.

“Your love for him is clouding your logic,” she says through gritted teeth. “Put him in the Styx, Thanatos. He’ll find his way home.”

Lord Hades has bound Thanatos to duty. A soul is cut out of a body by his scythe and brought down to the Underworld to meet his brother Charon. A solemn but peaceful act done by a merciful weapon.

The tip of his scythe hovers above Zagreus’ chest over his rhythmless heart and Thanatos hesitates.

He can’t do it. He can’t bear to cut him open and find out that a mortal soul spills out of him, that his insides are more human than godly, that Zagreus will surely not come back after Thanatos performs his duty.

“I said put him in the Styx,” Megaera repeats with another hard yank of her whip. It sizzles around his wrist as it unravels. “If you take out his soul, you’ll really kill him.”

Right. He may deal death peacefully, but that does not mean he doesn’t deal death at all. He’s never killed a god. He hasn’t tried to either. His capacity is tangible nevertheless.

Thanatos leaves the scythe behind. Under the floor of the chamber, the Styx flows relentlessly. Its red is only slightly brighter than Zagreus and concentrated with the blood of thousands. Body in hand, Thanatos floats towards the riverbank below a cliffside.

He holds Zagreus just above the surface. For all his strength, his arms shake. Perhaps Zagreus drowns under its current. His clothing could get lodged in something on the way down. There are too many possibilities.

Have a little faith, would you? He can hear Zagreus teasing him in his head. It isn’t part of his job or personality to have faith in anything. It’s always been Zagreus who craves more, who has hope that there’s something out there for him.

All Thanatos can really have is faith that he safely returns home.

Gently, Thanatos lowers Zagreus into the River Styx, allowing the blood to streak over his soft skin. He holds him there for a bit, taking one last good look at him.

“Come back to me.”

And he lets go of the one person he always comes back for.

******

“Has any god ever passed through here after dying?”

Hypnos blearily blinks up at Thanatos from his chaise. “That’s the kind of question you interrupt my slumber with?”

“Answer it.”

Hypnos yawns before floating back into an upright position, rubbing at his eyes. “Gods do not die, so no, I do not believe a god has ever passed through the Underworld after dying.”

“Did you ever sleep through a god passing through here after dying?”

He smacks his lips together. “That is possible!”

Thanatos groans. “Hypnos, you can’t keep sleeping on the job.”

“I can’t help it!”

“You are directly in the eye line of Lord Hades.”

“He hasn’t said anything to me.”

“He’s said plenty to me.”

Hypnos fiddles with his fingers and pretends to look over his list of names. “Yep, don’t see any gods written here!”

Thanatos grumbles. He knew Hypnos would be of no help and he still tried anyway. A waste of his time. And an even further waste of his time: he is going to wait until Zagreus rises out the Styx like Meg said he would.

In the West Hall, right outside the administrative chamber, there is a small balcony overseeing the River Styx. Thanatos had always waited for Zagreus there when he was stuck at work. He could even hear his complaints through the door. He found it strange to wait directly outside, and he isn’t close with Achilles to make conversation, so he often chose to loiter at the balcony and glare rather hatefully at the Styx.

Now he glares rather patiently. Faithfully even.

The Styx brings everything to the House of Hades. Thanatos only brings them to the Underworld. They are partners but this one thing—the deliverance of Zagreus, someone he cares for—was not completely done in harmony. Charon was not involved. A body over a soul was sent in its path. Is this the first time? A million different things have happened on the surface in conjecture with the gods. This could be the millionth time and unfortunately his only source is Hypnos.

He waits. And waits, and waits, and the stupid heart in his chest beats at a rate that could kill anybody else, and he starts believing that the mortal blood in Zagreus spilled too much, that it drained the supposed eternalness out of him, that Zagreus is mortal and they were doomed from the beginning, and—

The waters part. Thanatos’ heart still races but the waters part, and Zagreus gasps for air as he manages to stay afloat.

He’s alive.

Relaxed, his feet touch the floor. Thanatos resists the urge to meet him in the Great Hall though he senses Achilles and Nyx head in the same direction. Despite his relief, the betrayal from earlier has not escaped Thanatos.

He cannot fault Zagreus for wanting more. Nyx was a wonderful mother to him but knowing he is half of someone else in the universe is a dull-less ache. Thanatos has nothing to compare it to.

Still, it does not erase Thanatos of his feelings. He wanted to be a part of this. He wanted to know. Shades knew about Zagreus’ escape before Thanatos. And for him to think he was doing his father’s “dirty work” by checking up on him! It was his own choice. Everything he does for Zagreus is Thanatos’ choice alone. He does not have to share a drink with him, or meet after work, or challenge him in a competition. They should be past that. They must be past that.

So Thanatos continues to wait for Zagreus. Lord Hades laughs scornfully at him from his desk about his failed attempt. Nyx speaks to him in hushed whispers that inform Thanatos she knows more than she’s letting on. Hypnos makes a poor joke that not even Zagreus chuckles at. Achilles issues his warnings and compliments his weaponry.

Thanatos does not turn his back even as the heat of Zagreus’ feet inch closer and closer to the balcony.

“Thanatos,” Zagreus calls behind him. Thanatos does not answer, only lets the silence linger. “I wanted to thank you for your keepsake. The Pierced Butterfly. It helped while I lasted.”

Thanatos hums. He registers the glass in his own pocket. “Thank you for the nectar.”

“Right, right. And, um, I…wanted to apologize.”

Thanatos looks over his shoulder. Zagreus may sound sincere but there’s always the slim chance he’s acting. His eyes are drawn to the floor, hands behind his back, and he rolls back and forth on the balls of his feet.

He turns around fully. Zagreus is standing up straight when he was limp in his arms moments ago. Zagreus meets his gaze, a soft smile gracing his blood-stained lips, and sighs.

“I should’ve said goodbye. I should’ve told you.” Zagreus runs his hand through his hair knowing it does nothing to change it. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I didn’t want word getting out, which got out anyways, and I wanted only a few people involved in helping me escape—”

“Who?”

Zagreus blinks. “Huh?”

“Who was involved?” Thanatos presses.

“Oh. Nyx gave me information and confirmation. Hypnos helped me get it.”

“Of course.” The rest of his family could help Zagreus out but not him. Hypnos was the one to tell Thanatos it was a rumor. He likely slept through his own involvement.

“Look, I wasn’t sure what your reaction would be to my leaving. It could’ve been a double-edged sword. Finding ways to help me defy your master or convincing me to stay put. It’s cowardly but I didn’t want to risk your favor or opinion of me.”

What’s cowardly is how dense Zagreus can be. As if a decision like this could sway Thanatos into finding a major issue with him. He has held his lifeless form in his hands now, felt his radiant skin fall cold on his fingertips, and the frightening depth of his feelings for Zagreus only dug deeper in that instant.

Something as trivial as wanting to reach the surface could not make Thanatos care any less for Zagreus.

The lack of communication can be forgiven. Thanatos is already at its doorstep. It is one small error in a lifetime of close friendship.

But Thanatos cannot stop thinking of it. The thing about Zagreus that could make his escapes more risky than simply losing the favor of Thanatos.

“Your blood is red,” he says to him.

Zagreus scratches at a patch of dried blood on his arm. “I know that.”

Thanatos is taken aback. “You do?”

“Yeah. All the sparring I’ve done with Achilles has let a little blood out here and there.”

That’s…comforting, he supposes. Zagreus knows the blood in him is red. Surely he isn’t dense enough to not know what that means, but Thanatos double checks.

“It is not of the gods.”

What Thanatos knows of Persephone is very little. A long time ago, she was once queen of the Underworld, and for reasons unbeknownst to him, she left on her own accord. Lord Hades continued to rule alone since then. In Thanatos’ lifetime, her reign was so short that he hardly remembers it at all.

Her birth history is a mystery to him. All due respect to his boss, but his brothers on Mount Olympus don’t have the best record of celibacy whether it be with mortals or gods, so he can’t entirely put that behind Lord Hades either. Persephone being mortal would clear up some of his ideas of grandeur or her godhood could make Thanatos spiral even further. The only person he could get accurate information out of is his mother, who he knows won’t say a thing.

“I know. But, as you can see, I am not dead despite dying. I don’t have an explanation for it. I don’t know if it’s something to do with my father or mother’s side of things. Perhaps it is ichor in another color—”

“It is not ichor.”

Zagreus places a hand on his hip. “How would you know?”

“I deliver death. Even yours,” Thanatos admits. Zagreus seems to fold in at that. “I touched your blood. It is mortal.”

“But I am not.”

Thanatos nods. “You are not.”

They stand there awkwardly. Thanatos crosses his arms as Zagreus looks around the hall like he’s never seen it before. Thanatos has never sensed that Zagreus was afraid to look into death’s eyes, but he senses it now.

“Do you have anything more to say to me, Zagreus?”

Zagreus sighs. Thanatos can see his inner turmoil with the twitch of his brow. “I do. The words are just hard to pick out at the moment. But I want you to know that I’m not going to stop trying to escape until I’m out of here. Father has sent countless foes and Megaera and even you in my path—”

“He didn’t send me.”

Zagreus eyes him suspiciously. “Then what were you doing in Tartarus?”

“I went looking for you myself,” Thanatos says only half the truth. He doesn’t need to know he was checking up on him out of his own safety. “Testing your strength to see if you could make it out.”

He can tell it isn’t enough to convince Zagreus. “You shouldn’t get involved then. I wouldn’t want you getting in trouble with my father on my behalf.”

“I’ll make note of it, Zag.” He won’t.

With a curt nod and soft smile, Zagreus spins off down the wing. Halfway down, he turns around, holding his finger up.

“One more thing,” he says, a playful smirk on his stupid, stupid lips. “Is there any way you can make death a little more, I dunno, less painful?” He points to the small of his back and squints his eyes. “Hurts here a lot!”

“The death I deliver is painless,” Thanatos holds back a laugh. “It is the way you die that makes it painful.”

Zagreus groans. “It wasn’t even Meg.” He turns back around and heads out with a grumble. “It was a trap.”

It is almost hard to believe a trap killed Zagreus. Almost. The student of Achilles just might be able to hold his own over Megaera but falls victim to a trap all the same.

Once more, Thanatos looks over the Styx.

So Zagreus didn’t die. Not entirely. There is some comfort in the fact that he comes back through the River Styx and that maybe the only one capable of truly killing him is Thanatos himself.

Still, there must be an underlying reason to his mortal blood. It must mean more than just a direct relation to mortal hood. Thanatos can’t help feeling like there’s a clock on Zagreus’s life. There always is with mortal blood. Godhood may change that, but Thanatos would know about it already. A life without death still falls under his radar.

Zagreus has always been brimming with life. Thanatos thought death wouldn’t touch him with ichor in his body. Blood is far thicker.

******

The thirst for war on land has stumped Thanatos since the beginning of time. Each shift to a body of land painted in blood plows a pit in his stomach. Hundreds upon hundreds of souls to extract from the tainted chests of men with their hearts open to Olympus, holding weapons not yet thrown, with a battle cry caught dead in their throat.

Sometimes, Thanatos wonders what kind of rage must Ares instill in the minds of thousands. Is it for violence or loyalty? Is it all a need for blood or born from love? Is that why Ares and Aphrodite are so strongly drawn together?

Thanatos gazes down at a soldier by his hovering feet. Between the blood, mud, cuts, and guts, he is unrecognizable. The same fate lies upon the bodies around him.

“For what do these men fight for, Hermes?”

The messenger god, for all his high energy and fast living, does like to have a bit of fun and try to sneak up on Thanatos. Surprising death sounds like a challenge, he had once told him. There is no surprising death, he had said in return, but it hasn’t been long since he’s been proven wrong.

“My, I almost had you!” Hermes complains, as if the fluttering of his wings never fails to give him away. Thanatos turns to find him barely a hair away from getting too close. “Message from Ares, Thanatos. He says war has broken out between the Greeks and Persians, therefore expect to be busy. And, whew, busy it is!” Hermes looks around the field and wipes a metaphorical sweat from his temple. “These men in particular fight for autonomy. We are in Greece after all. They’re into that.”

“The right to govern themselves.” Thanatos believes that to be a worthy cause. He’s picked the souls of soldiers who have fought for far more meaningless things. Dying for Helen didn’t land many in Elysium.

“Yes, a right they lost after invasion. Seems a lot of them are devoted to it. A shame that most won’t see it come to fruition.”

Thanatos holds his scythe high in the air. “A shame indeed.”

He swipes down at the chest of the soldier and a purple breath clings to his blade. He pulls away, watching the soul drag out the soldier and into his scythe.

Thanatos leers at Hermes. The messenger god blinks back at him. “What?”

“Are you here to tell me only news from Ares or offer a hand?”

“Ah! Yes, here to help, Death Incarnate! Lots of dead today, and probably tomorrow, and the day after that…I’ll be seeing you a lot it seems! What would we do without war, hm? I’ll start on the other side of the field.”

Right. War on land meant frequent run-ins with Hermes, which meant frequent attempts to surprise him and even more frequent attempts to spur conversation with Thanatos. This job of his has never been quite easy, has it?

Still, the additional help is much needed and appreciated, so Thanatos works quickly to send these souls down to the Underworld. They will crowd the gates without obols, but should someone decide to bury them, then even Thanatos hopes they find a fitting resting place.

The sun has begun its descent by the time Thanatos and Hermes are nearly done. They’ve finally reached the halfway point of the field with only a handful of dead left. The two are swift enough workers to get this done soon. Proximity only encourages Hermes to talk though.

“So Zagreus is trying to reach Olympus, huh?” Hermes brings up as he scoops the next soul into his satchel. Thanatos freezes upon mention of Zagreus. “Athena let us get in touch with him! Glad we can be of some help in his journey. Who’d’ve thunk grumpy ol’ Hades would have a kid?”

Thanatos loses focus in his task, staring wide-eyed at Hermes as he works. “Yes, he is trying to leave the Underworld.”

Reaching Olympus is a detail he’d never heard before. He thought Zagreus was trying to find Persephone.

“What a gutsy thing to go against his father! I wouldn’t dream of it. But I’m sure our combined strength on Olympus overpowers even Hades himself.”

“You are helping him?”

“Pft! As if he could do it without us!” Hermes gazes over his side of the field with pride. He takes a look at the last few soldiers on Thanatos’ side. He’s about to say something, but stops when he meets Death’s eyes. “Something the matter?”

Thanatos shakes his head. “No.”

More lies from Zagreus. Lies he hadn’t anticipated. His feet touch the floor. The blood-painted grass beneath his skin die to gray in wilting waves. Hermes watches how the earth meets death.

“How about I help you finish up?” Hermes decides instead, taking over Thanatos’ work.

“You bleed gold, correct?”

Hermes pulls a soul out of a soldier without looking towards Thanatos. “Ichor, you mean? Well, to be honest, I don’t bleed. Hard to knick a god as fast as me!”

In the blink of an eye, Thanatos strikes his scythe at the arm of the god. Hermes backs away with less than a millisecond to spare, wings flapping at the speed of sound. He checks his arm for any sign of injury, then regards Thanatos with incredulous judgment.

“And you believed you could do it, dear Thanatos?” Hermes taunts. “Spill my ichor?”

“I am not so below you to be unable to do it.”

Hermes flies closer to him with a small smile on his face. It annoys Thanatos endlessly. Hermes looks down at him. “You know that ichor flows in my veins. Just as you know it flows in yours. Our bodies do not need to be sliced to prove it. So why do you ask such a ridiculous question?”

If the gods are helping Zagreus, then they must be watching him dredge through the Underworld. They must know the blood on the tiles are from Zagreus’ body. And if they’ve helped him over and over again, then they must know that the deep red of his blood is not something of their bloodline. Why don’t they doubt his familial connection to the gods? What do they know that Thanatos doesn’t? That even Zagreus doesn’t?

Thanatos lifts himself back into the air, to where their gaze is level until he towers over the messenger god.

“Finish this up,” is all Thanatos says before he shifts back home.

******

Zagreus has formed a recent unfortunate habit of dying in Asphodel. It’s always something new: a dracon sprouted under his feet, he was hit with an inferno bomb, or the megagorgon-skull-crusher duo ambushed him. He’s tried escaping the Underworld only sixteen times, but Thanatos has heard a hundred reasons as to why he keeps dying.

The injuries Thanatos sees on him are usually easier on his death-riddled eyes. A chasmic cut here, the crush of bone there. The pain is evident on Zagreus in death, but he is still recognizable. A quick smooth over of his creased expression and he’ll look as he always did. Rugged and chiseled and so, so Zagreus.

This time is different.

When Thanatos senses Zagreus has perished, he immediately shifts to his location. Asphodel, again, but void. Not a single foe stands on any of the miniature islands. Worse, the body of Zagreus is nowhere to be seen.

“Zag?” Thanatos calls for him. There are no traps for him to be stuck in or pillars to be slumped against. Thanatos even looks above him into the endless ceiling of Asphodel hoping some idiot foe or god has decided to suspend him away from the heat. He finds it empty. “Zagreus?”

Strange. Thanatos knows Zagreus has died. He would never mistake it. The way his heart lurches and his breath still gets caught in his throat when he senses it. Reeling himself back from plummeting into the fear that he’s really gone. Preparing himself to hold his cold body once again. A constant dread that Thanatos refuses to put on anyone else. No one but he can be responsible for bringing Zagreus back from the dead.

Has Hermes plucked Zagreus from Asphodel already? Thanatos cannot deny that the god is faster than him. Hermes still harbors resentment from the last time the two spoke when Thanatos tried to splice his arm open. Is this his twisted revenge? This act alone could spur war for Thanatos.

The Phlegethon’s magma boils incessantly in the background as he tries to think of all the possibilities. The river never bothers him to this degree. Thanatos follows the sound, looking behind him to discover a single area in the river that practically overheats with bubbles popping over one another. He gets closer, trepidation scaling in his chest and heat evaporating the sweat off his skin.

Between the lava, camouflaged to the naked eye but a monument to Thanatos, a blood orange leaf of Zagreus’ laurel floats.

Thanatos doesn’t hesitate to reach within the Phlegethon.

Gods may be immortal but they still feel physical torment.

Scalding burns crease up his arms, scorching him like the Phlegethon wants to melt him into its body. Thanatos bites back a scream, his lip pierced by the canines of his teeth and spilling slippery metallic ichor into his mouth. A stray tear spills from his eye as he grasps at blazing liquid. The pain is unbearable, as if he’s being torn open by the eagle Zeus sent after Prometheus. A mere mortal would dissolve upon meeting the tide.

Zagreus is no mortal, yet his proximity to it strikes panic anew.

Thanatos focuses all his energy into searching the river for a body, stretching his bruised hands so that they can cling onto something of Zagreus. His fingertips swim through the thick blood until they slide against stray fabric. Quickly, he fastens his hold and pulls up.

Zagreus follows. His limpness tries to weigh him down with the current but Thanatos is stronger, he must be stronger. A war cry rips from his throat as he fights against the Phlegethon. He can feel the fabric disintegrating the longer it is in the river. He pulls even as the burns singe him to weakness and the chiton turns to air.

Magma splatters around Thanatos as Zagreus breaks the surface. He loses his balance in the air and plummets towards the islands of Asphodel. Midway down, Thanatos bundles Zagreus’ seared body against his, all too hot for someone whose feet are always on fire.

They tumble for a bit before Thanatos lands still on his back. His breath comes out sharp and pin pricked. His arm aches but clings protectively to Zagreus atop him. His uninjured arm feels all over Zagreus, runs his fingers against his burnt layered skin to feel bone and blood.

Anxiety rushes through him. Thanatos looks down at Zagreus. Beneath the remnants of his chiton lies his charred spine and ribs. The spikes of his hair have gone crisp. What skin hasn’t burned to the bone is landscaped by pockets of blisters.

Shaking hands reach for Zagreus’ face to lift his chin. Thanatos hopes to meet his ruby red and meadow green eyes.

A choked gasp is punched from his gut.

Zagreus is unrecognizable. Molten. Toasted black crusts the edges of his skin and crumbles off. Where his eyes should be are abysses. The heat does not subside and continues to melt Zagreus’ face like wax around a candle wick. His skull is blackened by the magma.

Thanatos shifts to Tartarus. There is no time to mourn. He sprints to the Styx the instant his feet touch the river bank.

Zagreus has never felt more lifeless. Should his body wind up at the House of Hades riddled in wounds, maybe no one there would recognize him either. But Thanatos is intertwined with him, knows Zagreus as a silhouette in the distance or by his ashes slipping through his fingers.

“Come back to me,” Thanatos says to Zagreus again. He says it every time. A demand rather than a favor. No room for contingency.

Gently, Thanatos places his battered body in the River Styx. The stream flows over Zagreus as Thanatos still holds him, unwilling to see him sink. He knows the end. Zagreus will step out into the Great Hall with the Styx dripping off him. His wounds will heal. Thanatos will recognize him.

None of it will erase this catastrophe from his memory.

Ichor-stained lips against his skull, Thanatos whispers it again.

“Come back to me, Zagreus.”

******

Thanatos has not seen Zagreus since his drowning in the Phlegethon.

He had taken him to the Styx fourteen times since then, but he hadn't seen him. Alive and brimming with energy. Defiance etched into his smile lines. The syllable of his nickname at the tip of his tongue. Faint irritation for the way Zagreus holds himself like he’s done nothing wrong. Like his consistent deaths have not poisoned Thanatos little by little.

Delivering Zagreus death has not become easier. He suspected it would. When he was a godling, Thanatos would throw tantrums over dealing with mortality. A life that faded away would bring him to tears. The ruptured arteries and muscles of those murdered would make him nauseous. He would shut his eyes when he had to slice down his scythe into the chests of the dead. But as the days went by and the deaths increased, Thanatos became immune to it.

There is no immunity to Zagreus. His death feels tenfold to Thanatos. The misery which escorts it has given Thanatos revelations he was not ready to admit in the time before Zagreus decided to escape the Underworld.

Convincing Zagreus to put an end to his efforts is fruitless. Telling him to stop dying won’t help his cause either. Thanatos would never dream of having control over Zagreus’ actions, but he can’t restrain the sorrow that seizes him without opening his heart.

“Death approaches.”

Thanatos is pleased to finally shift to Zagreus in the fields of Elysium. Despite its equal capacity for destruction, the river Lethe is more pleasing to watch pass through the Underworld than the Phlegethon or Styx. The grass here does not die when his feet touch it. There is vibrancy in the nature that grows in the fields. If it weren’t beneath the ground, Thanatos would tell Zagreus that the surface looks much like this and that there’d be no other need to reach it.

“Than!”

The beam on Zagreus could bathe Elysium in sunlight alone. Thanatos feels sunkissed in the dark. It takes all his strength not to meet Zagreus halfway and only watch his flamed feet scorch a pathway to him in the verdant. Thanatos wants, more than anything, to feel the warmth of Zagreus against him. Too many times have the Fates cut his string before Thanatos could get to him. Just this—now—a sliver of thread in the immortality of their lives, alive.

Blood swims through Zagreus’ veins. Red or gold, Thanatos doesn’t care right now. It has not yet stained the chambers of the Underworld. Hades has not won against his son. There is an abundance of life in Zagreus. Thanatos has witnessed so much of his death that he forgot he could live.

“Still at it, I see,” Thanatos manages to say without his voice cracking. He clears his throat.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!” Zagreus laughs in disbelief. Thanatos studies how his fingers push back his hair from his face. “I was beginning to think Death became itself.”

A harmless joke, really, but Thanatos has come to be more sensitive around the topic. “Let’s end this quickly.”

Zagreus watches wide-eyed as foes begin to sprout around him. “Wait, Than, I wanted to talk to you—”

“After.”

Zagreus barely has the time to summon his weapon before the foes launch after him. Thanatos swings his scythe and watches them disperse into purple particles in the air. For a brief second, Zagreus meets his gaze in slight surprise. Thanatos subtly nods before turning his back to fight other foes.

Zagreus collects himself and fights valiantly. So valiantly that when the chime goes off, he’s killed more undead than Thanatos. He moves to the next chamber entries and Zagreus follows with a skip in his step.

“I must admit that the last time you challenged me was quite an embarrassment,” Zagreus says. He puts his Adamant Rail away and collects his obol reward. “These shades get easier to fend off the more I go through it. I’m happy to meet you in Elysium over the other two any day.”

“The Bone Hydra didn’t give you a rough time then.”

“Lernie would never.”

“Lernie?”

“Lernaean Hydra, Lernie. All the same. Now, what I wanted to speak to you about—”

“Here.” Thanatos plucks a centaur heart from thin air and drops it to the ground. It bounces toward Zagreus.

“Oh.” Zagreus picks it up. “What’s this for?”

“Besting me.” Zagreus was so relieved to receive a centaur heart the first time Thanatos challenged him. He figured it would be a good gift. “Rewards are given to champions. Do take care of it. Death Defiance only lasts you so long.”

Zagreus considers him for a second. His shoulders sag when he takes a deep breath. “It isn’t the Styx that takes me back home. It’s you, isn’t it?”

Thanatos quirks his head. He is dead when this happens. How would he know?

“What do you mean?”

“All these rivers interconnect. The Acheron with the Lethe, the Phlegethon with the Styx, so on and so forth. My father says I arrive too quickly back home. That my body does not get lost in the current as it should. He’s relatively upset about it, I think. I asked Charon if he did me the favor of taking me to the House but he said no one leaves me with fare to go on his boat, so no.” Zagreus’ expression falls stone-like. “You deliver death.”

“To the Acheron,” Thanatos clears up, “where the gates to the Underworld are. To Charon if they have obols. I deliver souls.”

“For the rest of humanity, yes. But you deliver me to the Styx.”

“Your soul is not cut from your body when you die.”

“That is not what I’m asking!” Zagreus pushes the palms of his hands against his eyes, shaking his head. When he lets go, his gaze at Thanatos can only be described as pleading. “When I die, you take me home. Don’t you?”

Thanatos should just admit it. It’s what he wants to do. And when he does, a whole list of admissions will come tumbling out if he doesn’t keep calm.

“Lord Hades would kill me,” Thanatos says under his breath. “I leave you in the direct current of the Styx that’ll take you straight home. Nothing more.”

Zagreus is quiet for a moment. He shifts his feet, moving ash like chalk against the ground. “There is war on the surface. Hypnos told me of it. You should be handling business there instead of down here with me.”

“That is not my priority.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No.” Death does not discriminate but this does not apply. It would be Zagreus. Over and over again. His life means more than their deaths.

Zagreus tears his eyes away from Thanatos. “I know what’s between us. I don’t fully understand it or know how to navigate it. I want it despite it all. But I know and understand even less why you would do such a thing for me.”

It clicks for Thanatos then. That the weight between them is equal but lost in translation. Zagreus’ failure to have faith in his own worth, a result of a lifetime of neglect from his father, has rendered him unable to accept his importance in Thanatos’ life.

But how does he tell Zagreus that when life zaps out of him, Thanatos feels his love swell more than it ever has before? That it threatens to rip him from seam to seam so that it can render him dead too? Immortality can only be so bittersweet. There is still unexplained crimson in Zagreus’ veins. It makes Thanatos feel like he is running out of time with him. He very well could be and no one would be the wiser.

“Do you remember,” Thanatos starts hesitantly, “when Apollo begged for your father to kill him?”

The Olympian gods never came down to the House of Hades except for that very day when Apollo did. Though favored by the sun, he looked pale and ill when he came stumbling through the Great Hall.

Zagreus scans through his memories. “Vaguely.”

“His mortal lover Hyacinthus was the victim of an accident. Some say it was murder by Zephyrus. During a game of quoits, a discus ricocheted into his head, killing Hyacinthus on impact. Apollo was the one to have thrown it so roughly. He went mad with grief. He tried healing him with his own powers, with herbs, with ambrosia, and nothing brought him back. On the day I brought Hyacinthus’ soul to the Underworld, Apollo came to your father asking to kill him so that he could be with Hyacinthus. His godhood and immortality could not be stripped, so he could not join his lover in death.”

Thanatos recalls the way Apollo wept at the feet of Lord Hades. The House had never been so silent. Lord Hades reprimanded his nephew over wanting something so foolish: a mere mortal.

“Apollo tried to kill himself on Achilles’ spear,” Zagreus remembers. “Achilles did not stop him.”

“Correct.” Thanatos can tell that Zagreus is trying to piece this puzzle together in his head by the crinkle between his brows. “Zagreus.”

Zagreus refocuses his sights on Thanatos. His chest rises and falls with the tranquil cadence of his breath.

Thanatos clenches his fist behind his back and releases it in a stretch. “I am not good with these…feelings. I do not know what to do with them. But I sense your deaths and it brings them back up. It is not by choice that I go to you, it is by need. The body is a fragile thing and when yours is constantly eviscerated, I cannot bear to think what further horrors these hellish rivers will wring it through without my intervention. You are not alive to see my grief, so you don’t know how your deaths affect me. But I would know the weight of you with my eyes closed. When you walk into the House without a sign of injury, know that I have washed your blood from my own hands. Each time I carry you to the Styx and your head lolls back and your eyes have lost their light, I, too, wish I could join you in death. I think it would be better than laying you to rest a thousand times over.”

Zagreus stands still in front of Thanatos. A breeze rakes through Elysium, ever slightly lifting the garments Zagreus wears. For once, Thanatos can’t read him. He doesn’t know what to make of the short flare of his nostrils or the fidgeting of his fingers. Zagreus bites the inside of his mouth, a nervous tick Thanatos has come to recognize, and yet nothing reveals his truest emotions.

Thanatos comes down to the ground. He walks the few steps between them to close the space. Their gaze meets at so that there is no mistaking Thanatos’ sincerity.

“Whether you’re trying to simply meet the earth, find your mother, or join the gods on Olympus, know that should I sense you need me, I will be there. Priorities damned.”

Zagreus stares at him with gentle uncertainty. Thanatos knows Zagreus believes him.

“So what am I to you then?”

“Thanatos,” Zagreus delicately admonishes. “How could you expect me to answer that with all that’s going on?”

It’d hurt less to physically crush his heart. “Let me know when you have an answer then.”

In one swift motion of his scythe, Thanatos shifts back to the surface.

******

Zagreus doesn’t speak to him when he sees him at the House afterwards.

Thanatos shouldn’t have gotten involved, like he warned so long ago. But what could Zagreus have expected?

******

Demeter has to find happiness in something. Anything. Thanatos wouldn’t kill everyone on earth if things didn’t go his way. Why does she get to blast ice from Olympus because her daughter’s missing?

The battlefields have been empty of war. Men are frozen to death in their encampments instead. The deaths are only a little less, so Hermes doesn’t show up as often. It seems he still holds a grudge but has understood Thanatos’ situation a little better. Charon once told him that, despite all his yapping, Hermes always knows. The messenger god can decrypt anything—even emotions.

Thanatos is pulling the soul out of a frostbitten commander when he senses Zagreus’ death. Only this time he feels it.

Blades of steel struck into his chest. A sharp gasp forced out of his lungs. The sensation of being lifted up, up, up, then slammed into the snow.

Snow.

Zagreus is on the surface.

Thanatos shifts to his location.

Between the snowy trees, off the shore of a frozen lake, bright red blood splotches over icy white. The blood increases from droplets to pools as it leads to Zagreus, splayed motionless in the dense snow. Lodged in his chest is a two pronged spear coated in red and gold metallic. A pale gray, burly hand draws it out. The disturbing sound of squelching blood follows.

Hades himself has killed his son.

Thanatos cannot look away. The wilt in Zagreus’ mouth as he watched his father spear him. The quiet glance down to his son’s dead body beneath him. The blood that does not stop flowing from his orifices.

The blood. Mortal blood. It has touched the earth. Has the countdown on Zagreus’ life begun now? Will the lost blood never return to his godly body? Is it now, over forty tries later, that Zagreus’ mortality kicks in?

Thanatos lets his feet touch the snow. The cold is supposed to numb the pain of mortals. It could work for him too.

He crosses the small distance between them and gets down to his knees beside Zagreus. Thanatos begins to hoist him up into his lap.

“Thanatos,” Hades bellows from deep in his chest. Death Incarnate does not consider him. “I will deal with this death on my own.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“‘No?’”

This could get him in trouble. He can already hear the stern lecture his mother will give him when he returns to the House. Thanatos’ job is dedicated to making Hades’ a bit easier. Defiance won’t earn him any favor.

“All due respect, Lord Hades,” he begins as he holds his son’s dead body, “I cannot entrust you with this death.”

Hades hums in disapproval. “You continue to break your vows instead of rectifying them. I know it is you who leaves souls of the dead in their chests so you may help this idiot escape my haven.”

“So that I may help him escape the wrath of you,” Thanatos corrects, clutching Zagreus against his chest. “And even on the surface, you await him to meet it.”

“Your affections for him run deep, but your loyalties lie with me.”

“My loyalty is to him.” Thanatos floats up with Zagreus in his hold. Gravity brings his arms down into a faint swing. His eyes roll back into his head. Blood drips to the snow like water slides off a leaf. “I would hope you became aware of that some time ago.”

At last, Thanatos glares at Hades. His master does not look angry to his surprise. Rather, he looks at him with composure and understanding, though empty of emotion.

“Love is not made for Chthonic gods,” Hades says in a low grouse. “It is made to be alive. We are of the Underworld. Our touch is death.”

It’s hard to believe Zagreus shares blood with such a pessimist. Thanatos wonders what Persephone is like. How could Hades have loved her with such an outlook on love and life?

“We are of the Underworld,” Thanatos emphasizes, “but he is not, is he? Not entirely.”

“Do not make assumptions,” Hades warns.

“Ichor does not stain the snow. Mortal blood does! Why does he have it?”

There are only so few people who could have the answer. Never has Thanatos been so bold, especially to Hades, and never has Thanatos been so desperate either. No god Chthonic or Olympian has mortal blood. All of it is ichor.

Hades exhales and takes off his Helm of Darkness. “That boy is an anomaly.”

“If Zagreus is truly born of gods, then his body would run off ichor.” Thanatos feels more cold than ever now. Nothing of his touches the snow. Zagreus is colder than usual.

“He is truly born of gods. He does not die.”

Thanatos holds out Zagreus’ body to his father. “You killed him!”

“He comes back again and again. No other godly being can do that.”

“That is not certain. Gods are never wounded. There is no proof that I’ve seen—”

Suddenly, Hades twists his spear in his hands. Thanatos prepares to back away and shift, but then—

Hades stabs himself in the chest. He does not grunt or shout as the blades slice through his skin. Thanatos gapes at the scene. He’s only ever seen this kind of self infliction on mortals. But for a god to do so? It is unheard of. It does not make sense.

“You will not pick up my body,” the god huffs, hands tight on the handle, twisting his insides, “because I will not die. My wounds will recover.” He yanks the spear out of his chest. Ichor drenches his chiton and drips down into the snow. “I will bleed out but the ichor will stitch me back up.”

Slowly, the holes in his body begin to grow skin over them, flesh and muscle pieced back together. Thanatos watches enraptured.

“I do not know why Zagreus doesn’t do the same,” Hades confesses, “nor do I know how his wounds recover. But if you think it has some depraved thing to do with me, you are gravely mistaken, Thanatos. Zagreus is imperfect.” For once, Hades looks down at the lifeless body of Zagreus. “But he is not only my son. He is also Persephone’s son. I would not let him die. For her sake.”

Hades disappears then. In a blink of an eye, Thanatos is left alone in the cold with Zagreus.

He doesn’t know what to make of all he’s learned. Hades claimed Thanatos loves Zagreus and he didn’t deny it. Hades inflicted self harm to prove a point. Thanatos argued with his master and lived.

Still, he’s left with no answers.

The blood on Thanatos’ fingers has frozen over. Zagreus is turning pale blue with bits of snow crusted into his skin and lips. The moisture in his hair has turned to ice.

The Styx is warm. Thanatos better get him there soon.

******

Nyx does not often move from her position in the East Wing, but when Thanatos returns to the House, she is already waiting for him by the entrance.

“Mother,” Thanatos greets with a bow of his head.

“My son,” she says ever so tranquilly. “I hadn’t the foresight that you’d be such a fool in the presence of Lord Hades.”

“Thank you,” he grumbles.

“Nor the sarcasm.”

Thanatos straightens his posture. Nyx does not deserve this treatment from him. But he feels so useless, like this lack of direction with Zagreus and the truth behind his mortality is as big a stain on his career as the Sisyphus situation. Neither did Thanatos have the foresight of becoming so pathetic. He’s never put this much effort into anything. It’s backfiring.

Nyx sighs. She rests her hand on his shoulder. “Let us discuss in the lounge.”

The two float over to the lounge and take up one of the newly furnished chairs Zagreus bought to piss off his father. Thanatos can’t help agreeing that they look outrageous, but the comfort is at maximum.

The two sit there in silence. Nyx does not look away from Thanatos as he actively avoids her leer.

“I am waiting for you to speak up,” she states. Thanatos drums his fingers on the table. “You are not so naive for me to need to list your troubles.”

“I do not want to hear them out loud,” Thanatos says.

“Then should we let Lord Hades do it when he orders your termination?”

“He wouldn’t terminate me. He doesn’t like Hermes enough to do it. Neither do I.”

“Then that is another thing you two have in common.”

Thanatos deadpans to her. “I do not believe we have anything in common, Mother.”

“Everyone in this House has something in common. We all deeply care and love Zagreus.” Nyx summons a glass of nectar from thin air. Zagreus must have given her a bottle too. “Though you feel those things in a different manner, yes?”

Thanatos peeks up at his mother. She smiles serenely at him, as if caught. He scoffs to try to remain aloof but his shoulders sag as the truth resettles. “It seems I’ve made it obvious.”

“So has Zagreus. I suppose reducing yourself to a fool before Lord Hades is the result of loving him.”

Thanatos thinks about what Hades said to him on the surface. “Mother, forgive me for the intrusion of your personal matters, but…have you ever been in love?”

Nyx takes a sip of her nectar. “No,” she says too easily. “Sounds difficult.”

“Lord Hades told me it was not made for Chthonic gods. It is meant to be alive. Life is on the surface and we dwell beneath it. ‘Our touch is death,’ he said.”

Nyx reaches over to Thanatos’ thrumming fingers and squashes them against the table. “Stop that.” She slips her fingers under his palms and holds them softly. “I am a person with no experience in the matter. But Lord Hades—his experience left him wounded. Persephone has not been with him for some time. He loved her more than he could express. And down here, in his House, it was not enough. It has rendered his own decision making. Orpheus remains separated from his love Eurydice after scourging through hell for her. Achilles is forced to serve a house that isn’t his, meanwhile Patroclus resides alone in Elysium. All because Hades could not keep his own love alive.” She clasps Thanatos’ fingers between hers. “None of it means you cannot prove him wrong.”

Resentment will always reside within Hades. His domain does not reflect it but his relationships do. With his son, his old love, his family above, his choices for the shades that occupy his terrain. Death is the loss of many things. Those who mourn the dead grieve shared moments through life, laughter so boisterous it could be heard down the road, touches that conveyed more than words, so on and so forth. All that boils down to one thing: love. In all its forms, it is grieved at death.

Thanatos is Death Incarnate. He is what takes life away, and with it, love. Perhaps he is not worthy of receiving it.

Yet even at death, love lives on. It has a life of its own. It resides on earth in the shape of memories, art painted on vases, and words written into script. Love is life, and even life takes on a new form in the Underworld.

So what if the love Thanatos has does not last and leaves him wounded? Can he not try to keep it alive?

Nyx smiles at him as the gears keep turning in his head. “Do not let Lord Hades, of all people, dictate what you can and can’t do.”

“I appreciate your kindness, Mother,” Thanatos says.

With that, he heads out of the lounge, making his way to the West Hall when Zagreus runs right into him.

Thanatos grabs his shoulders before he can stumble back. The two keep still, locked eyes and muscles, until Zagreus clears his throat. Thanatos’ hands pounce off his shoulders like they’re flames.

“Sorry,” they say in unison, which makes them laugh in unison too.

It’s been a while since they spoke. Thanatos has challenged him in the time since he asked Zagreus what he meant to him, was given nectar, then left as quickly as he came. He hasn’t shown up at the House after he’s left him in the Styx. He knows he said too much too soon. Zagreus knows the same too. Thanatos wouldn’t take it back.

“I reached the surface,” Zagreus says, a gleam in his eyes. The excitement that shakes his voice makes Thanatos melt. “It’s freezing. And the sun, I can’t look directly at it. Is it always that cold? Or that bright?”

Thanatos smiles at his curiosity. “It is not always that cold. In certain places, it’s very warm. The sun is not always up, so it’s bright only for a portion of the day.”

“How interesting.” Zagreus nods, observing his surroundings as if they’ve changed. His eyes linger on the empty desk for a bit longer. “I thought he would be back before me.”

The sound of Hades’ spear breaking through skin makes a shiver run down Thanatos’ spine. “I didn't think you’d want to see him.”

The happiness on his face fades. Zagreus’ briefly touches his chest. A phantom pain.

“You saw.”

“I always do.”

Thanatos expects Zagreus to lash out towards his father or him. This particular death must have been more personal. Blood and darkness, he was killed by his own father. It’s probably the worst act of parenthood Hades has put Zagreus through. There’s endless problems between the two that Thanatos can only scratch the surface of.

Instead, Zagreus growls low in his chest. “I almost made it. I almost made it to her. She was just beyond my father. I know it. I won’t let him stop me next time.”

“Your father is a difficult opponent.” The image of him stabbing himself in the chest could elicit fear in anyone else who lived to see the tale. Thanatos would never dare challenge Hades. This is where Zagreus is more like his cousins on Olympus—daring, headstrong, and frankly, a little stupid.

“Hasn’t he killed me enough? Sending me all these corrupted shades to put an end to my journey then making me face him in the end? For what good reason?”

Yes. He’s killed you enough. He’s killed me enough. Thanatos clenches his fist, running his thumbs over the fingers that have touched his dead body more than his living one.

“For no good reason, Zag.”

“Next time, there won’t be a body to take to the Styx, Than.” Zagreus seems set in this. “Not anymore. I’ll make it to her. I swear.”

As nice as it sounds, the implications of it are far deeper than carrying him to the Styx.

Zagreus wants to leave the Underworld. For good. He’s gone through Tartarus over forty times, fought all of the Fury sisters, the Bone Hydra, Theseus and the Minotaur, chambers full of rats, and now his father just to reach the surface. Once Zagreus is truly past all of it, he’s rid of this place. Rid of the mistreatment from his father. Rid of the constraint the walls of the House put on him. Rid of everything he hates with the help of all the people he loves. He won’t come back, not even to Thanatos.

“I see,” Thanatos whispers, studying him. He knows the answer is still the same, but he can’t help asking it, “If you’re set on this decision, then I assume you have an answer to my question. Of what I am to you?”

“You know what you are to me, Than.”

“Use your words, Zagreus.”

“I like you!” Zagreus blurts out. It even surprises him. So much so the rest comes out rumbled. “You know me better than I know myself. I know I’ve hurt you in more ways than you let on. You were right. I don’t know how my deaths affect you. For the longest time, I didn’t even know it was you who helped guide me back here. Now I do, and each time I know death strikes next, I think of you. Death isn’t so bad when I know you’ll be there with me soon, and still I ache over the pain I know I’ll leave blemished on your arms. So when it comes to us, I think we’ve made it clear that we want each other more than we hurt each other.”

It’s all Thanatos has ever wanted to hear. Truth over dancing around assumptions, no matter how correct they were. An equal admission. Had nothing changed from before Zagreus decided to up and leave his home, Thanatos feels he’d be overwhelmed by his simple “I like you.”

Yet things have changed since then. It’s all very long ago now. As elated as he is to have mutually shared feelings, Thanatos knows what lies beneath.

“But your mother,” Thanatos starts and finishes for him.

Zagreus purses his lips. “I have to meet her. I have to know her. Your priorities may be damned, but mine aren’t.”

His deaths hurt less than this.

“I understand,” Thanatos relents. “The surface and your mother is where you wish to call home. Not here.”

“My relationship with my father is damaged beyond repair. I cannot live in a house with an angry man. He haunts even the shadows in the corridors. I want nothing to do with his realm.”

Thanatos wants to yell at Zagreus. Lord Hades is not all that is left here. Achilles raised him to be a steadfast man. Nyx nurtured him as if he was her own son. The chef gives him an extra bit of fish when he orders, free of charge. Cerberus lets no one but Zagreus pet him. Orpheus only plays music now because Zagreus inspired him to. Even as exes, Megaera still keeps a protective watch over him.

There is so much more than just an angry man in a house. Love does not die beneath the surface. It, too, lives in the places most despised.

“You are the only Chthonic god that dwells upon the surface,” Zagreus cuts through Thanatos’ clouded thoughts. “We could make it work.”

Thanatos shakes his head. “I do not enjoy the surface. What I do there is a taxing ordeal. I do not stay for longer than needed.”

“Not even for me?”

Thanatos could do it for Zagreus. He could learn to let go of hate for a place. It’s Zagreus that can’t do the same for him.

“If you want nothing to do with your father’s realm,” Thanatos is extra aware of how his throat goes dry and his syllables crack, “then it is best you have nothing to do with me too.”

Zagreus’ eyes blow wide. “Thanatos, wait.”

“Goodbye, Zagreus.”

“Thanatos!”

A bell chimes. His scythe moves. Zagreus’ outstretched arm, reaching for him, just barely misses as he’s washed in emerald green.

******

When Zagreus dies, it is accompanied with a scream.

Thanatos almost doesn’t shift to him. Almost. To truly separate Zagreus from the Underworld and all its parts, Thanatos has to stop going to him. If he dies, he should trust the Styx with bringing him back down to hell. He must.

But the scream is so guttural, so personal. Thanatos knows that agony. It crosses the boundaries of the Underworld and surface. It’s attached to all of Zagreus’ deaths.

Thanatos can’t ignore it.

He shifts to a flourishing garden. Plants, fruits and flowers he both recognizes and doesn’t throughout his time on the surface. Long vines hug around corinthian columns which flank a clear blue river stream. Pockets of stone poke through the grass leading to a quaint home.

All is peaceful minus Zagreus laid on the earth, a frail blonde woman shrieking hoarsely against his heart.

Persephone. Zagreus has found her. Somewhere distant from the snow, untouched by Demeter’s sorrow, where there are no foes to beat him down and bleed him out. Persephone wouldn’t do this to her own son. Hades would, but she wouldn’t. Thanatos’ memory is so limited of her, but he knows this much.

What could have possibly killed Zagreus in a safe haven?

Slowly, Thanatos approaches them. He doesn’t let his feet touch the ground lest he murder everything Persephone has worked so hard for. She doesn’t notice him until his shadow casts over her, darkening the blazing sun.

Persephone looks at him with a fear he’s only seen on soldiers murdered on a sword.

“The Styx will take him!” she yells at him. She gathers Zagreus in her arms so his chest is out of sight from Thanatos. “He said so himself!”

Thanatos watches the grieving mother rock her son’s corpse back and forth, wailing his name over and over.

“What killed him?” Thanatos asks. The pain of his death is only faint in comparison to the fact that he doesn’t know why he’s dead.

It takes a while for her to calm down and respond.

“He can’t stay here,” she says so, so broken, so failed. “He is tied to the Underworld. He won’t survive on the surface.”

And that is a death within itself.

Zagreus is bound to the same fate as his father. Stuck in the Underworld, unable to exist outside of it. All his efforts are now labeled useless. Every death has been pointless. The one thing Zagreus wants, he cannot even have. Thanatos mourns it.

A fresh stream of tears cascades down her face. “I’ve lost him once. Why must I hold him dead again?”

Thanatos blinks. “Again?”

“He was a stillborn. The Fates warned me. I don’t know how he was brought back to life.” Then she narrows her eyes at him, scowling. “I will not let you take his soul, Thanatos.”

“I will not. I will take him to the Styx.”

“By taking his soul!”

“No, that would certainly kill him, and I would never hurt Zagreus.”

Though suspicious, Persephone asks, “How can I trust you?”

For the real answer, Thanatos would be telling her how she could trust him until nightfall. Fill her in on all their moments from childhood, like when Zagreus showed Thanatos how to use his scythe like a weapon. The time Thanatos covered a short shift for Zagreus because his eyes were bloodshot from reading for so long. Or the time he held his flaming feet under Hypnos as he slept in the air and set his chiton on fire as a badly planned prank. All that would mean something to her, but they don’t have the time. That is the flaw of the mortal world. Time.

“Your son has tried valiantly to reach you. He has failed many times in the process, falling dead by the hands of foes in the Underworld. But he always comes back.”

“He said he would.”

“Because I personally take him to the Styx. Again and again and again.” Thanatos sighs, unsure how much to reveal to his love’s mother. “I prioritize his safety over everything, always.”

Persephone loosens her hold on Zagreus. He slumps down her arms, placed gently above her knees as if they’re pillows and he’s sleeping. Here, Thanatos can instantly see the resemblance between the two. The shared look of defeat, the strong structure of their noses, the vibrant green of their eyes, down to the signature hair that styles itself. Zagreus has always despised having similarities with his father. He’s never had a frame of reference for his mother. How joyful he’d be to compare himself to someone worthwhile.

Thanatos hesitantly floats forward and reaches out to take him from her. She does not pull back.

“You must help him come back to me,” she insists before giving him up. The determination in her eyes looks so much like Zagreus’.

“I will.”

“Swear it.”

“I swear it,” Thanatos does without doubt. “I swear it on the Styx.”

Persephone nods. Thanatos takes Zagreus in his arms. Perhaps the only thing different in this instance from all the others is that his woe is shared. That Persephone, too, is afraid to let him go.

******

Thanatos arrives in the Main Hall with his spirit concave. After leaving Zagreus in the Styx, he did not immediately return to the House. He watched his uninjured form sink into the calm current of the river. It was not as vigorous as usual, almost like it sensed the gravity of his death. Thanatos returned to the surface to do his work. Hacking away at the chests of the dead did not make him feel better.

He believed grieving the death of Zagreus was a solitary experience. Something only he has experienced repetitively. But Persephone has too.

Not a moment in his life did he believe Zagreus was a stillborn. He’s always known they never shared the same mother despite the lies they tried to feed him. Zagreus has come back from the dead before, has even defied the Fates, a power larger than his father.

There are more things to try to uncover. Thanatos can’t designate them as anomalies.

Nyx is speaking with Hypnos when they catch his presence. The look they send his way means he can’t escape them. Thanatos sulks over to them.

“Zagreus came through,” Nyx tells him.

“And he didn’t talk to any of us!” Hypnos exclaims, bouncing in the air with his energy. “Bought those towels in the corner and didn’t even wipe himself off!”

“Where did he go?” Thanatos asks.

“His bedroom. Wish he would buy me one of those.”

“I’ll be on my way then.”

“Thanatos,” Nyx stops him before he can leave. “What happened this time?”

The respect he has for his mother is far too high to lie to her. Zagreus is the same. His reasons for skipping by everyone are unknown, but he doubts it has anything to do with hiding the truth. Zagreus doesn’t keep much to himself.

“He found Persephone,” Thanatos tells them, “but he couldn’t survive long on the surface.”

Nyx turns her head, looks at the empty desk of Hades, then towards the entry of Zagreus’ room. “There must be a lot going through his head.”

That’s a given. Zagreus’ meeting with her is more than getting to know his birth mother. He wonders if his family knows how much death is associated with these new discoveries.

“She said a few things to me. That he has the same fate as his father and that he was dead at birth.”

Hypnos rambles on about something Thanatos pays no attention to. He observes his mother’s stare instead. She’s the wisest in the House, but she also withholds the most. “What do you know, Mother?”

Nyx and Hypnos glare back at him. There is no malicious intent behind it, but Thanatos immediately makes himself smaller.

“It’s no use trying to know,” Nyx says.

“‘No use?’ There’s more to it than just fate, isn’t there?”

“It is none of your business, Thanatos. It is for Zagreus alone to know should he ask. If he shares it with you is up to him.”

Thanatos looks to his twin to see if he’s a little betrayed as well, but he’s already dozing off into sleep. With nothing more to say, Thanatos heads off into Zagreus’ room.

The entryway remains dark into his bedchambers. The vaguest form of light comes from the East Wing and entry to the armory. Small bits of it reflect onto the Mirror of Night, allowing Thanatos to see a lump under the bed covers.

Thanatos doesn’t move, only watches for a while. Zagreus does not like to sleep. It’s a waste of time and energy he could be putting somewhere else. Though, when he complained about it, said energy and time was never put into the work his father assigned him.

“I know you’re there,” Zagreus mumbles.

“I know you do,” Thanatos responds.

Zagreus turns over and pulls the covers beneath his chin. It’s hard to see him in this light, but Thanatos can see enough. The skin beneath his eyes is puffy. His green eye almost looks as red as his other eye. Dried paths of tears still glisten over his cheeks.

“Oh, Zagreus.”

Thanatos finally makes it to his bed and sits on the edge. Zagreus looks up at him, as if reading how much he understands the gravity of the situation. And Thanatos knows, better than ever. He’s always been so tuned in to Zagreus. He knows, he knows, he knows.

“I’m stuck here,” his voice shatters. Zagreus shuts his eyes tight and exhales. “I can’t escape. I can’t be with my mother.”

“You can,” Thanatos insists. “You can still visit her. Be with her for as long as you can.”

“But I can’t be with her, Thanatos.” Zagreus sits up, slouching forward. “I can’t live in her home. I can’t rid myself of my father. I can’t get to know her for longer than a few words.” He rests his head against his palms. “All this time, she thought I was dead. I can’t make up for lost time.” Then, the tears he hoped wouldn’t drop. “I don’t want to keep coming back here.”

Thanatos pulls his trembling form to his shoulder. Zagreus catches his breath against it. He pushes his wet eyes against the jut of bone. Thanatos wants to cradle his face in his hands, hug him securely till he melts into him, tell him all the many things he believes Zagreus can do though the Fates try to stop him. Instead, he places his cold hand on the small of his back, rubbing comforting circles into his spine.

“I want you to come home,” Thanatos tells him. “Voluntarily.”

“This isn’t home, Than.”

He glances up at the ceiling, reeling back his anger that wants to be louder than his empathy. “It could be.”

“Only because I don’t have a choice.”

“What is home then?”

Zagreus shakes his head and looks at Thanatos. “I don’t know. That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

Thanatos has never seen him this destroyed. The wound punctures and burns and spilled blood couldn’t amount to this. His inability to take this pain away from Zagreus is what finally trumps the dozens of deaths he’s held.

Without thought, Thanatos runs his thumb against a stray tear against his cheek. Zagreus doesn’t flinch when he reaches out or leaves his hand cupping the side of face. He leans against it instead, an insistent pressure that sets Thanatos’ nerves alight.

“You do know, Zag,” Thanatos whispers. “It’s with Persephone.”

“I can’t be with her,” he repeats.

“But it’s still with her. It’s what you want it to be, so it is. I told you before.”

Zagreus takes Thanatos’ hand away from his face and holds it loosely in his lap. Thanatos waits for Zagreus’ fingers to fold with his but it never comes.

“I’m going to keep coming back to her,” Zagreus says quietly. “No matter how difficult it gets, I won’t stop.”

“I know.”

“Then just let the Styx take me when I die, okay? You don’t need to guide me back here so mercifully.”

Thanatos’ chest constricts. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“I don’t want to be the reason for your suffering anymore, Than. You’ve already said that dying is better than putting me in the Styx over and over again. And that my resistance to this realm, for reasons unknown to me, means my resistance to you. To us. So stop putting me in the way of your life.”

Thanatos takes his hand from Zagreus’ lap and lightly grabs Zagreus’ chin, guiding it up so that they may look at one another with clarity. Thanatos wants to get lost in this level of intimacy.

“You are not in the way of my life. You never will be. I’m here to help you when you need me.” Thanatos lets go of him and gives a small smile.

He asked too much of him then. To ask Zagreus about them when his focus was entirely somewhere else. A question that could’ve been asked ages ago, before Zagreus tried to escape, before he dated Meg, way before, when they noticed the spark in the first place. Thanatos will admit it was selfish. He will leave it behind so they can go back to it later. But he will not fault it for revealing how they feel in more than just cosmic notions and glances and actions.

So close like this, Thanatos desperately wants to kiss him. It could convey all the things he feels. Death on the surface is not so detrimental. This place could be home. He could be home for Zagreus. There are ways to repair this.

Zagreus keeps looking at his lips. Thanatos can’t help looking at his either, but he can’t make this move. Not now.

Zagreus knows this too. He shakes his head. “We should take our time. I want too much. I can’t compromise it all.”

“You won’t need to.” Thanatos has no way of being entirely sure Zagreus won’t need to compromise. It’s all just a gut feeling. Zagreus thinks his inability to be with his mother is the end of it all. Thanatos thinks it is the sign of new beginnings. Good ones at that. “You won’t need to.”

Zagreus eventually tires himself out from his own heartache. Thanatos helps lay him down on the bed, staying with him until he falls sound asleep. He brings the covers back over his shoulders. Before he psyches himself out, Thanatos chastely leaves a kiss on Zagreus’ forehead, the warmth there heating his lips.

As he begins to head out, Thanatos remembers what he told Persephone. Rather, what he swore on the River Styx. That he would help Zagreus make his way back to her.

He had been thinking about it since. The random challenges he gives every now and then aren’t much help, though Zagreus wins every time. Picking up his body isn’t a direct help either and more for Thanatos’ own peace of mind.

Well, there is…

From thin air, Thanatos summons an old friend of his, Mort. An old mouse turned toy that Thanatos held closely to his heart. Nyx made Mort into a protector for him because he was so afraid of his duties and the amount of death he had to deal with as a kid. Though he doesn’t need it anymore, much like the Pierced Butterfly, he still held onto it.

Should Zagreus need his help on the way to the surface, all he would need to do is call upon this companion, and Thanatos will show up with help. This he can compromise.

******

Thanatos used to see Zagreus every few times during one of his runs, but now with the help of Mort, he’s seeing him up to six times in one escape attempt.

Not that he’s complaining, no. He’s only there to help for a few seconds, summoning a large abyss under surrounding foes to zap them back to where they came from. It gives him an excuse to check up on Zagreus more frequently. Zagreus is a focused fighter but does it so effortlessly. Every strike is calculated, every target aimed perfectly. Awe is not enough. His talent alone needs to be memorialized.

Zagreus is smart with his usage of Mort. Thanatos shows up to help mostly in the chambers of Elysium and the Temple of the Styx. This run, Zagreus has used him a total of four times. The fifth time is normally saved for his fight with Hades, which he knows his master is far from fond about.

Thanatos hasn’t been called yet.

He tries his best to not seem so anxious in front of Charon. Things have been a little busy down here, so Thanatos is doing his part in helping separate the souls from those with obols and those without. During war times like these, Charon should really upgrade his boat capacity.

Zagreus dies without using his last call. Thanatos senses it on the surface. It’s possible that his father killed him before he could use it.

“I’ve got other things to tend to, Charon,” Thanatos tells his brother.

Charon heaves, “To Zagreus?”

“Tch. Goodbye.”

Thanatos shifts to the surface and is met with the green grass of Persephone’s home. Zagreus lies his head on her lap, a small smile on his face. Persephone combs his hair back.

She has gotten better with Zagreus’ little deaths. The promise of his return gives her something to look forward to, but they share the notion that watching him die and holding him breathless never gets easier. Persephone still cries a bit as she waits for Thanatos. Thanatos still tells him to come back to him. Things like that won’t change.

Persephone has also gotten better at sensing Thanatos’ presence. Without any movement on his end, she says, “His father let him through.”

Thanatos pauses. “He did?”

Persephone nods. Though she still cries, they are happy tears. “Hades let him through without a fight. Zagreus says something in him has changed.”

Thanatos wouldn’t dare believe it if someone else had told him the same. “Did he really?”

“I’m baffled as well. Zagreus has told me the most outrageous things and that topples them all.”

“Was he ill? Master Hades? Or something wrong with his Helm of Darkness?”

“No, nothing like that. I think he remembered something far more important. A feeling.” She looks up at him with a smile. “Zagreus tells me a lot about you, Thanatos.”

“Oh.” Unsure what to do with that, Thanatos crosses his hands behind his back. “We’ve been good friends since we were children.”

“Those friendships don’t always last.”

“Well, there aren’t many options for friends in the House of Hades.”

“My apologies. I meant that, sometimes, they turn into something more.”

Thanatos blinks at her. She looks at him so expectantly it makes him want to leave. Maybe the Styx could take Zagreus this time. Persephone laughs at him behind her hand.

“Have you heard of Zagreus’ codex?” she asks him, still petting his hair. Thanatos just wants to take him home.

“I have not.”

“It’s a book of Achilles’ travels that he gave Zagreus. He wrote it himself, so much of it is his own thoughts. Zagreus has gotten to know his mentor quite well through it. Information is revealed when Zagreus comes across it in his escape attempts. About foes and places, gods, goddesses. You.”

“Me?” Thanatos repeats. “I don’t think Achilles has any information on me outside of my job.”

“He most certainly doesn’t. But Achilles does have his own musings. With extra time allotted today, Zagreus showed me something new in his entry for you.”

Thanatos thickly swallows. He knows his love for Zagreus is, at the very least, obvious to those who work in the House. Achilles included. Persephone didn’t have to know about it. Not yet.

“It’s why you personally take him to the Styx, isn’t it?” she probes, though Thanatos doesn’t feel very invaded somehow. “Achilles wrote that you adore him.”

It must be painful to be human and experience the quickness of a beating heart. Thanatos swears it’ll jump out of his chest. Maybe even his bones have cracked with the pressure.

Persephone gazes back down at Zagreus. How she keeps smiling without going sore is a mystery. “I’m glad someone feels that way for him and that Zagreus returns it.”

Thanatos nods. He is also glad, immensely glad, that Zagreus feels the same about him. They aren’t doing anything about it, sure, but he’s secure in the fact that it’s shared.

“Zagreus showed me your entry because it revealed something about him too,” Persephone continues. “One bit which is still for him to figure out. The other bit claims the two of you are ‘inexorably drawn.’”

Thanatos thinks on that.

Inexorably drawn. There is no way for Achilles to know how much those words fit reality. Thanatos is inexorably drawn to Zagreus in more than just terms of affection. He knows where Zagreus is at all times. He knows Zagreus’ thoughts and feelings like his very own. To date, there have been very few hiccups in this almost telepathic wave between them. Thanatos doesn’t know when it all started, only knows that it’s always been there. This pull. This draw.

Could Zagreus feel it too? Thanatos always assumed he did.

“I’d like to take him home,” Thanatos says abruptly. He shouldn’t let his thoughts linger too long. He motions to Zagreus. “May I?”

“You may,” Persephone says as she rises to her feet, carrying her son.

Thanatos takes him from her carefully. Persephone brings her hand up to Thanatos’ forehead and swooshes a piece of his hair behind his ear. He almost flinches at her touch.

“Who knew death was so gentle,” she remarks softly. Her eyes glisten thoughtfully. “I’m glad that when my father met his end, he met you, Thanatos.”

He freezes then. Her father? Dead?

“You are mortal?” he asks without regard. That can’t be right. Zagreus is not a demigod. He can’t be. Persephone can’t be.

Persephone quirks her head. “No. My father was. My mother…she is an Olympian. She took me to Olympus as a child and granted me godhood.”

Thanatos could sigh with relief, but he doesn’t want to worry her. “I see. Sorry I asked.”

“It’s no issue. You are Zagreus’ caretaker in a sense. You can ask me anything.”

Honestly, Thanatos would never try to know anyone else too deep. He does not need any more relationships in his life. Acquaintances push it. Especially with someone so close to Olympus.

Still…

“Do you bleed ichor?”

Persephone nods simply. “I do.”

“He does not.” Thanatos peers at Zagreus, eyes closed, blood still in his body, unmoving. “He bleeds mortal blood.”

She discerns her son closely. “He is born of gods.”

“Hades calls him an anomaly.”

For some reason, that makes Persephone giggle. “It worries you, doesn’t it?”

“Always.”

“Take him home, Thanatos,” she says with a pat to his shoulder. “Speak with Achilles. For all his glory and hubris, there is a knowledgeable human beneath it.”

******

Thanatos has never spoken to Achilles before. The most he has done is walk past the legend on his way to the balcony he resides in. What little he knows about his personality is from what Zagreus has told him. Achilles is a kind but demanding mentor with a godly gift for fighting. Many things still haunt him from his life on earth. Thanatos thinks he let Apollo try to kill himself on his spear—directly in front of him—because of his involvement in Patroclus’ death. Not his own death, but Patroclus’. He is soft-spoken. He is blonde.

That is about it.

Achilles notices Thanatos coming his way, gets a look of wild surprise on his face, then immediately homes it back in and averts his eyes. He peeks back and forth from the floor and the god as Thanatos gets closer. When he’s already too close, Achilles decides to keep his eyes on Death Incarnate.

“Achilles,” Thanatos says curtly.

“Thanatos,” Achilles returns just as curtly.

They stand there awkwardly. Thanatos really should be the one to start the conversation but he has always been intent on that never being his responsibility.

Still, it falls to him every now and then.

“Former Queen Persephone told me I should speak to you,” Thanatos says.

“It is an honor she said so,” Achilles responds.

“Yes, it is.”

Achilles shifts his weight from his spear to his feet. “What did she say we should speak about?”

“Zagreus.”

“Alright.”

Thanatos drags his hand down his face. This is ridiculous. He’s going to ask someone else about his own feelings. Someone who, sure, knows quite a bit about love, but seriously. Thanatos is a god! The only help he ever needs is from Hermes, Charon, and Nyx. Now he has to ask a fallen demigod for it.

Achilles clears his throat. “Is it something I’ve done?”

“‘Inexorably drawn?’”

What kind of emotion could Thanatos have possibly shown for Achilles to know this? Zagreus isn’t half as obvious as Thanatos either. Blood and darkness, Thanatos thought Zagreus merely saw him as a friend for so long.

Achilles coughs into his elbow and straightens up. “You read my codex then.”

“No! Queen Persephone saw it. Zagreus showed it to her. How do you know?”

“I didn't mean to offend you. It’s more an assumption on my part. A gut feeling, if you will.”

“That I am drawn to Zagreus? That I know where he is, his hidden feelings, his presence and all?”

Achilles squints. “What?”

“I don’t know why it is so inexorable. I have tried to stop it. I don’t know what Zagreus has told you. I don’t even know if he feels and knows all about me as I do him. I think he does, but he’s never told me, and as far as I remember, I’ve never told him either. What I can’t understand is how you know of it. Did he tell you? And how much did he tell you, and why didn’t he tell me, and…”

Thanatos’ voice fades out.

Achilles is lost.

“...Do you know what I’m talking about?” Thanatos asks him.

“I do not,” Achilles confesses, scratching the back of his head. “I did not know you were connected to him so deeply. I do not know if he is to you, too. I would assume so.”

“Then what made you write that?” Thanatos places his feet on the ground to feel more balanced.

Thanatos can tell he is a bit nervous about this interaction. Thanatos has never been labeled the easiest god to talk to.

“Forgive me for what I say,” Achilles starts apprehensively. “I do not want to lie to you. Over what I suppose is the past few years, I’ve noticed your love for the Master’s son. You two share a bond that I do not believe you, Death, have with anyone else. Outside of your family, your responsibilities do not allow you to have bonds. You and Zagreus being ‘inexorably drawn’ was only a theory birthed from a different theory I have about Zagreus.”

Thanatos makes conscious decisions to not have “bonds” with anyone else. Ares is far from a friend. Hermes is less a colleague and more a nuisance. Master Hades is his boss. Those are the relationships he has outside his family. Zagreus is a bond. Zagreus is his everything.

“What theory about Zagreus?” Thanatos inquires. Achilles clearly knows more than he lets on, and correctly so.

“You are the god of death,” Achilles says, then sighs, “and I believe he is the god of blood. The god of life.”

Something in the vast universe clicks. Could it be that simple?

Death and life. One and the same. They cannot be separate nor exist without the other. To live is to die and to die is to live.

He hates to do it, but Thanatos thinks of the Olympian gods. Which of them are bound? Ares and Aphrodite come to mind. At the start of the war on land, he wondered why war and love went so hand in hand. People fight out of love for something. Sometimes that love is gained or lost. Proof of it stands before Thanatos. The difference between the two pairs of gods is that Ares and Aphrodite can be twisted. They create destruction together.

Zagreus and Thanatos create something stronger. Love?

He doesn’t mean to think about it. There is no question that Thanatos loves Zagreus. But Thanatos knows that to live is to love, and to die is to have been loved, and that Aphrodite has nothing to do with that.

Blood as life though. That is a new idea to Thanatos, yet perhaps just as obvious as his own affections. Blood flow keeps the body alive. Lack of it leaves them in Thanatos’ hands.

Blood. Blood.

“You know his blood is mortal,” Thanatos recalls. Zagreus had said his blood had spilled when training with Achilles. “He doesn’t bleed ichor but he is a god by nature.”

“Hence my theory that he is the god of blood and life,” Achilles informs. He is not so anxious anymore. In lieu, he is excited to share his hypotheses. “He dies as mortals do but continues to live as gods do. Zagreus told me he’s usually mauled or stabbed but returns to the House as if nothing happened. The Styx is made of mortal blood. I think it heals him. His blood functions as ichor, but it is representative of life.”

Persephone was right. There is more to Achilles than strength and hubris. Why hadn’t Thanatos thought about this? His mortal blood is not an anomaly. It's his godhood. It’s the reason behind why Zagreus lives.

“Alright there, Thanatos?”

In the distance, the River Styx breaks apart. Hynos calls Zagreus’ name from down the Main Hall. Thanatos can hear his fiery feet quickly make his way down to his brother.

“Thank you Achilles,” he tells the hero. “I greatly appreciate it.”

Before Zagreus can turn the corner, Thanatos shifts.

******

“Death approaches.”

“As it usually does!”

Zagreus beams at him. Not a usual look on his face when he’s blasting through the chambers, so Thanatos is skeptical of approaching him at first. Blessings from the gods are meant to help Zagreus in combat, but they can end up being much more powerful than that. Hermes and his playful banter could be at work here too.

“Is everything alright, Zag?”

Instead of responding, Zagreus takes out his Heart-Seeking Bow and drags an arrow taut against his simper lips. “Start the challenge.”

Even if this is just a trick of the Olympian gods, Thanatos can’t help being affected by Zagreus’ infectious smile. With a swing of his scythe, the abysses form and the timer begins.

Zagreus is beautiful when he fights. He does not use that word lightly. Thanatos has never seen him use a bow. When he pulls his arm back and flexes, it’s hard to not be distracted. Zagreus aims in less than a breath and shoots down three enemies at once.

By the time Thanatos begins to pay attention to the fight, the timer has run out. Zagreus has double the amount of Thanatos’ kills.

Thanatos drops him a well-deserved centaur heart. “I must admit your skill with a bow is—”

“Come down,” he commands.

His heart does a backflip in its cage. “What?”

Zagreus reaches out and softly holds his hand. His eyes glisten in the light of Elysium, as if there are stars above them. Has Zagreus ever seen the stars?

Slowly, Thanatos floats down to touch the ground. Zagreus keeps smiling at him to the point that Thanatos is closer to being freaked out than enamored.

“Why?” Thanatos whispers.

Zagreus almost topples him in a hug. He takes a step back to keep balance while Zagreus crushes his torso. Thanatos can feel his breath in the juncture of his neck, warm and faint. More than anything, he can feel the steady and rushed beat of his heart over his own. A sign of life, of blood flow.

Hesitating slightly, Thanatos wraps his arms around Zagreus’s shoulders.

He has never hugged Zagreus. Alive at least. He thinks he could do this again. Thanatos’ arms secure around Zagreus, wanting him closer, melded, and Zagreus reciprocates with a squeeze at his waist.

“You…you won’t have to carry me to the Styx, Than,” Zagreus tells him lowly. He pulls back to see Thanatos, making his arms fall down his shoulders.“I have a good feeling this time. Really! Something’s changed. My father is different, and my mother, she’s more driven than when I met her.”

It’s been a long time since Zagreus arrived at the House of Hades looking anything but woeful. Since escaping, he’s been a shell of who he used to be. But this moment—this smile that must be etched into his skin—reminds Thanatos of simpler times, when they were younger and tripping over rugs in the halls. Living in the moment over trying to escape it.

“It wouldn’t have been possible without your efforts,” Thanatos tells him. “I’m tremendously proud of you, Zagreus.”

“I have to thank you. You are the main reason I’ve been able to get this far so many times.”

Thanatos shakes his head. “I have nothing to do with it.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I am not. The River Styx deserves more credit. Its blood heals your own.”

Zagreus furrows his brows. He furthers the space between them, holding Thanatos at his elbows instead. “What do you know?”

Thanatos’ mouth snaps shut. It just slipped out of him like ice. Persephone had said his godhood was still something Zagreus was figuring out. Achilles called it one of his theories. All of it stems from his codex, something Thanatos has no access to. Something he didn’t even know about until recently.

“My mother told you,” Zagreus guesses. “She talks with you, right?”

“Achilles told me.”

“Achilles?”

It can’t be that bizarre. Thanatos rolls his eyes at his tone. “More like I asked Achilles.”

“You spoke with Achilles?” Zagreus chuckles at that. His initial doubt seems to have disappeared. “You hardly speak with anyone, dear Than. I heard you didn’t even deliver his shade to Hades.”

“No, your cousins Ares and Apollo handled that for me,” he scoffs. They took care of one shade out of thousands during the Trojan War and Ares still tells him that he “alleviated the burden of his job.” Those idiots couldn’t even alleviate a bruise if they were faced with it.

Zagreus taps his elbows once and lets go of Thanatos. He stops himself from keeping his hold on him, hogging his warmth.

“I can’t be the god of blood,” Zagreus derides himself. “I can’t be.”

“But you are a god.” Thanatos has spent as long convincing himself of this as Zagreus has been trying to escape. Now it’s fact and Zagreus won’t take it as it is. “Gods are—there’s always something to be representative of. There’s only so few of us.”

“‘Few?’” Zagreus mocks with a lifted brow. “Your mother alone has birthed a few hundred.”

“In comparison to the many people on the surface and the many things to be the god of, we are a small percentage.”

“That doesn’t matter. Nothing I’ve done in this life has made me deserving of being the god of anything. Much less the god of blood and life.”

Thanatos crosses his arms over his chest. “Have I done anything to deserve being the god of death?”

“What? No!” Zagreus stutters over empty air. He moves his hands in circular motions, trying to recover his steps. “That’s not what I meant. You were born with it, so—”

“So you were born with it too, Zagreus. These attributes are not appointed. They are just as they are.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nothing about godhood does. But I can make a case for yours since you need convincing.”

“Don’t want to hear it,” Zagreus mumbles.

“You were a god born dead,” Thanatos starts. Zagreus seems surprised by the beginning. “Defied the Fates’ design. But you are alive with blood unlike gods. You die unlike gods, you revive unlike them too. There’s an adjacency you have to mortal life only with the luxuries of being immortal. Two warring faculties of being, much like your existence denying initial death. It can be in relation to your mortal heritage. It can be in relation to the powers that brought you back to life. Knowing makes us none the better. Despite that, Achilles writes his speculations, and one thing stands as truth. We’re drawn. Inexorably, it seems.” Thanatos smiles, the stretch of his muscles not so rare a sensation anymore. “Sometimes I feel like I know you better than myself.”

Zagreus takes a deep breath in and holds still. “You sense much more than just my deaths.”

Thanatos nods. A dreadful chill tingles his skin at the idea that Zagreus does not sense as much as he does. “Always have.”

“I do too, about you,” Zagreus breathes out. “You're more, say, hidden with your feelings. I’ve learned recently that it’s because you need to be expressive about them. I do feel drawn to you. But it can’t be just because I’m life and your death. I want it to be more than that.”

“It’s always been more.” Could he have forgotten all their befores? “You know that.”

It’s the self-deprecation clouding Zagreus’ thoughts. It always is, even when his kindness is stronger. Thanatos searches his eyes, hoping his own will bring him down from the clouds.

Then it returns. That beam of Zagreus, a bright little thing that Thanatos has had the pleasure of seeing twice today. Something never seen before he’s sure.

“You are a prankster today,” Thanatos laughs softly. He floats back into the air. “You’re wasting my time here, Zagreus.”

“There should be an award for flustering death,” Zagreus teases. “I’m the first to do it, aren’t I?”

“I left you a centaur heart.”

“That’s for something different.”

“Would you like another?”

“No.” Zagreus gazes up at him. He pouts, much like Cerberus does when he gets teased.  “Forgive me for this, Thanatos.”

Again, Zagreus reaches for his hand, except this time he pulls death’s flying form down to him. Zagreus cups the side of his face, closes his eyes, and quickly kisses Thanatos on his lips.

“I’ll meet you at the House,” he whispers against him, red and green seeing through his soul. “Voluntarily.”

Thanatos does not move from his position. He froze in time. Zagreus jogs into the next chamber and Thanatos is still hung in disbelief. He skims his fingertips against his lips, noticing how they’ve warmed by Zagreus’ touch.

Thanatos could get used to that.

******

Zagreus was right back then. Thanatos did not have to collect his body and take him to the River Styx on that fateful day. Charon gave a lift to Zagreus and Persephone, who had her bags packed, and the mother and son duo returned to the House of Hades together.

Thanatos waited patiently by the Styx. When the two docked, the House erupted in gasps and gossip. Persephone took the time to greet every worker, shade, and resident of the House, all while Zagreus giddily bounced his shoulders behind her. They made their way down the East Wing to a door that’s been closed off since Thanatos could remember. However, it opened under Persephone’s touch, and on the other end was Master Hades.

After the door closed behind them, Thanatos waited for Zagreus in his room, thinking of all the ways to parse his thoughts into words. Persephone’s return forced him to revisit their previous discourse. Thanatos had said there wasn’t room for them to exist if they were to be separated. Zagreus had said they should take their time after finding out he couldn’t survive on the surface. Thanatos didn’t think there’d be a chance for them at all, but things changed that day.

Zagreus met him in his room. Thanatos asked him what Zagreus was waiting for if they could both be in the present now. He was here. What use was waiting? They’ve waited nearly their whole lives.

It was easier to convince him of that than of his godhood. Zagreus surged forward to kiss him, open-mouthed and needy, and Thanatos nearly combusted with equal want. They pressed so close, tumbled in bed, and Thanatos was enraptured so quickly. Sex was not new to him but he’d never been consumed by desire this fully. He was overwhelmed by the fact that Zagreus was under his hands alive. When his palm was on his bare chest, he felt Zagreus breath beneath it. When his head and eyes rolled back, it was due to pleasure, not gravity. Life did not fall at the hands of death. Thanatos’ breath shuddered with every revelation, building and aching his heart and mind. By the time they were both done, it was Zagreus hugging Thanatos, shushing and comforting him as the tears came out of his golden eyes.

Without needing to hear it, Zagreus knew why he was so emotional. He apologized endlessly. There were still so many deaths for him to have now that Zagreus was appointed to keep fighting through the Underworld, reporting what needed fixing to avoid escape attempts from the shades. Zagreus would reach the surface, die, and come back to him every single time, like Thanatos always wishes. Still, they needed to find a way to make this a happy ending for them so that the trauma of the past deaths could ease bit by bit.

Thanatos had come up with an idea. Before Zagreus died, Thanatos—as much as he loathed the surface—would introduce him to something new if he could. They could spend time together so that, when Zagreus did pass, there could be some sense of joy in it. That they could look forward to new experiences over repeated death.

Now, it seems like Thanatos is giving Zagreus a new fear rather than a new experience.

“Than,” Zagreus warns, high-pitched. His arms around his neck tighten. “Than? Than?! THAN!”

Thanatos holds him more securely around his waist. Together, they fly up, up, up, the literal surface getting further and further from view.

“Don’t look down and you’ll be fine,” Thanatos says.

Because Zagreus does not survive long on earth, he cannot visit all parts of the world and explore it like he wants. However, there is one way to see it in the short time that Zagreus can survive out here.

“Do you do this normally?” Zagreus asks exasperatedly. He shuts his eyes and presses his face against Thanatos, his breath toasty. “This is so high, Than.”

“I know, but look, we’re not moving anymore. Take your time. I want you to see.”

“Okay. Okay. Yes. I want to see it too. Okay.” Zagreus takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. He looks at Thanatos first, blinking away the cold of Demeter’s winter, and turns to look at the horizon.

The blazing orange sunset floods the sapphire sky, blending at the fringes and splotching between the clouds. Directly below, the world is dense with pine trees. To the west, the ocean waves crash against the cliffs, white foam sliding down the rocks.

“Wow,” Zagreus whispers, amazed though still clutching onto Thanatos. “It’s beautiful.”

“Someday, I’ll get to show you the rest of it,” Thanatos promises. Zagreus looks so enamored with all he cannot experience. He presses a kiss to his temple just because he can. “You’ll have to get used to heights like these.”

“Sure, I can try to—” Zagreus groans and curls further into Thanatos, hooking his chin over his shoulder. His time is running out again. “I can try.”

Thanatos brings them back down to the ground. Zagreus’ knees buckle once his feet touch the snow. Naturally, Thanatos grabs him before he falls, fixes him into his arms, and waits for death. Thanatos knows it is not a patient process, and it’s not something he controls so extensively either, but he is grateful that death takes its time with Zagreus.

They wait for it to come together. Though in pain, Zagreus always has a smile when he stares up at Thanatos.

“What will you show me next time?” Zagreus asks as he huddles closer.

“If we time it right, maybe I could show you the stars.”

“The sparkly things in your mother’s hair?”

Thanatos laughs. “Yes, but there’s more in the night sky. I think you’ll like it more than a sunset. I won’t have to take you into the air to see it.”

Zagreus hums. “Sounds nice. Come here.”

A command Thanatos obliges without hesitation now. He bends at his waist to kiss him, breathe the last breath of Zagreus, and experiences the pang in his chest for the millionth time.

His deaths are still not easy. Every detail of it is nothing new and still, he takes a second to recollect his grief. But it does not devour him anymore. It is temporary now. Zagreus wouldn’t want him to dwell on it, so he doesn’t.

Thanatos shifts them to the same old river bank in Tartarus, where the Styx will take Zagreus safely home. He lays him in the blood, letting its healing powers wash over Zagreus, and kisses his forehead.

“Come back to me,” he whispers.

Then Thanatos senses it: Zagreus’ sentimental response pulling on his heart, reminding him once more, I always do.