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“I don’t know what’s more embarrassing,” Meg scoffed, “his majesty sending me back here, or the fact that he didn’t last two seconds on the surface.”
Beneath her annoyed demeanor, Thanatos sensed an undercurrent of concern. Suffice it to say, everyone in the Underworld was currently concerned over prince dearest. If he had to guess, even the king himself.
“Both.”
Meg glared at his indifferent face before her scowl softened.
“So that's it? Zag’s just going to rot?”
Not if he could help it. A drop of amusement trickled into his tone. “Why, will you miss him?”
She rolled her eyes. “Please, don’t make me laugh. If anything, things would be more quiet around here.” Meg paused while glancing at his scythe. The frown on her pink lips deepened. “Nyx says it’s pretty bad. There’s a strong chance that was his last stupid attempt at escaping.”
He briefly pictured a dull world without Zagreus, and it was enough to chill his insides as if Demeter herself were standing behind him. He knew she felt the same chill. Of course, none of this was reflected on his face. Thanatos readjusted his grip on his scythe.
“If only it was his last attempt, but who knows? Maybe almost dying will finally help him see that he’s better off staying here with us… I still doubt it.”
She shot him a knowing look. “Yeah because when has Zagreus ever stayed down? Look, I’ll stop stalling you so you can go do whatever the hell it is Asclepius told you to do. Besides, it’s not like our responsibilities stop just because that idiot runs to get himself killed. Later, Than.”
His golden irises narrowed at her. “Have you been spying on me?”
Meg regarded him steely. “Just call it a hunch.” Ah.
“You went to see him too,” he concluded. “Well…seems like I beat you to it.”
She looked away, almost bitterly. “Yeah, well, looks like you saved me the trouble. Not that I can do anything about it. Just don’t tell the idiot if he wakes up because if you do, I guess Lord Hades will somehow find out about your little “lunch breaks” in the middle of work.”
The First of the Furies clearly took her assignment of punishing the Underworld’s prince seriously. That’s the only explanation as to how she was able to observe his brief absences from his duty, all to check on Zagreus and toss him a centaur’s heart now and then. Still, he had no energy to waste on Meg’s threat. Not with Zagreus waiting.
“Goodbye Meg.”
He could sense her lingering gaze on him as he disappeared into a swirling black cloud, only to reappear in the prince's chambers. Thanatos threw his scythe toward the entryway, securing the door. No one would be able to pass through death’s lock. No one would be able to disturb them. He relaxed under the welcomed blanket of privacy.
As the god of death, he had to maintain a tight schedule. He and the others in the house of Hades bore the mantle of responsibility. He, Meg, his mother, his brother, pretty much everyone aside from Zagreus. He had no idea what this pressure felt like, and it frustrated him further when he wouldn’t even try to understand before selfishly running away.
Alas, he was in no state to try anything. Zagreus was lying in his bed, his skin somehow even more pallid than normal. His red and green eyes were closed, and Thanatos watched the shallow rise and fall of his chest. It was such an odd sight. The young prince was a fierce and energetic fighter, always moving, sticking his nose into everyone else's business, or challenging the god of death with a wry smirk to a competition.
Thanatos wished they could race right now. He blinked that desire away. If the prior god of medicine was to be believed, everything would be back to normal.
Only that it wouldn’t. Not with the way he was supposed to cure him. This could change everything for him, even if Zagreus wanted nothing to do with him afterwards.
His fingertips ghosted over the prince’s feverish brow. Zagreus had a talent for provoking the worst and most dangerous parts of his affection all at once. Anger came easily. Concern came easier than Thanatos cared to admit. The rest was deeper than any grave, and he was so entrenched in it; describing it with words was a feeble attempt to name his feelings. And why bother, really? Some feelings were better left unspoken, especially when they attached themselves to princes who kept trying to die.
His touch slid down the handsome face to touch his lips. Even under the tips of his fingers he was warm. That’s how his lips would feel against his, should Thanatos choose to bridge the gap between them. But he didn’t. He still had a job to do. He had to bring him back. The god of death didn’t bother with wishing they’d do this under different, less dire circumstances. This was their reality.
“Zag?” Nothing. “Zagreus,” he called out again, but there was no reply. Only the continued rise and fall of his chest. Thanatos admired his symmetrical features. There was something infuriatingly arresting about Zagreus even now, stripped of all motion and wit. Thanatos had spent centuries pretending not to notice and yet it was all he could do now.
He stared at the near-perfect curve of his uncharacteristically still lips and traced them with the pad of his thumb. Sometimes he wondered if Zagreus would ever shut up; his mouth typically curved in a taunt, almost always parting around some smug remark Thanatos would later brood over. But then he’d always say something sweet to cuff them back together again.
His toga hung loosely off his shoulder, exposing a quarter of his sculpted body underneath. Thanatos ran his fingers down the taut muscle, feeling the curves and dips of his chest and abdomen, and finally stopping at his hip. Why did it suddenly feel like they were transported to Asphodel?
“There’s no other way,” Thanatos told himself. He must welcome the fires of lust and keep it at that, lest anything else set his heart ablaze. It’s not as if he’s never thought about this, so why was he…afraid?
He lay on his side and gathered the prince into his arms. Zagreus’s strong heated body was now cold and pliable, most likely thanks to the frigid weather above. Thanatos grazed his lips against his brow.
“Oh, Zag,” he sighed into their embrace. If only he were awake. If only there would be some guarantee he wouldn't hate him afterward.
The god of death buried his face into the young prince’s shoulder. For once in his entire existence, Thanatos felt small. They stayed like that, limbs tangled, Zagreus’s limp body embalmed in his secure hold, and he allowed his immortal yet not entirely infallible heartbeat to soothe him.
They stayed like that for fates know how long. Thanatos could’ve kept holding him for an eternity, but then he’d miss that annoying prattle even more than he does now. Time to bring him back.
Thanatos buried his nose into his neck and nearly lost himself in his scent. The prince’s hair smelled faintly of smoke, but the rest of him smelled like amber and clove. If the mere sight of him was enough to appease his eyes, his scent was enough to pour oil onto the fires of his lust. “Zag,” he mumbled into his skin, inhaling again.
He secured his arm over Zagreus’s waist and snaked his other arm under the crook of his neck. His back was to his chest, and he enjoyed every second of their bodies being pressed together like this. He started to grind his hips against his perfect backside, the pleasurable friction awakening his body.
His shoulder mantle and belt were long since removed, so it made sliding off his clothing all the more simple. You see all kinds of terrifying wonders as a god of death: great disasters, war, plague, and so on. Yet no devastating earthquake or ocean of blood could make Thanatos’s fingers nearly tremble with excitement as he slid down the prince’s garment.
He came prepared and fished out a small vial of oil, thickly coated his fingers, and brought it to his entrance. Thanatos slipped a finger inside and thrust his clothed, hard cock against the back of the prince’s thigh. A part of him couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Gods,” he gasped against Zagreus’s ear.
Thanatos made sure to take his time preparing the prince. The last thing he wanted to do was pain him, and it didn’t matter if there’d be a verbal protest or not. When sufficient time had passed and he could easily slip three fingers inside and out with ease, Thanatos sensed his gut flutter as if there were an excited soul catcher stuck in his ribs.
He slowly, gently thrust the tip of his cock inside.
“Zagreus,” he moaned quietly.
Once fully sheathed inside, Thanatos hugged Zagreus even closer. He wrapped his arms around his torso, holding him tight as his hips began to move. They were lying on their sides, fused together as Thanatos thrust his cock repeatedly into the prince’s hole. He kept a steady pace, forcing himself not to chase pleasure too quickly and instead letting it build gradually.
"Zag…reus…uhn…gn…"
Look at him. Reduced to an incoherent mess, with the only coherent thing to come out of his lips was Zagreus’s name. It wasn’t his fault the prince’s body was like a bottle of ambrosia. The walls of his plump ass squeezed and embraced his stiffened cock, drawing out of him quiet moans and shivers.
“Zag, I—”
He was close. What started as a ripple of pleasure soon grew into a maverick that would soon swallow him whole. Zagreus would be awake soon. This fact should’ve paralysed him with fear, but it instead spurred him to go faster, and faster, until—
He emptied himself into the slumbering prince with a strangled cry. Panting from his extreme orgasm, Thanatos drew in deep breaths, bracing himself for what was coming. Zagreus began to stir.
“What—what’s happened?” He watched realization dawn on his face. “Than what are you doing!”
He began to struggle. Thanatos wrapped his arms more tightly around him. It was both a panic and joy to hear him for what really wasn’t a long time, but it seemed like an eternity to Thanatos.
"Zagreus, please don’t struggle. I can explain.”
“Yes by all means Than, please explain why the bloody hells I seemed to have awoken to you inside me!”
“What do you remember when you reached the surface?”
“I—I… I found my mother, but something’s wrong. I barely spoke to her before I started feeling awful. I blacked out and woke up in my chambers with you still— Than whilst I was asleep? How could you—"
He didn’t let him finish. The betrayal in Zagreus' tone hurt him too much to hear. About as much as his departure from the Underworld did.
“You wouldn’t wake up,” he said solemnly, remembering how he carried his body from the pool of Styx and to his bedroom with Nyx and Achilles worriedly stalking behind them. “You got sick while you were up there, but you thought you could just leave here without any consequences, right?”
Thanatos closed his eyes for a moment. You thought you could leave me. You did leave me. The words don’t leave him, not just yet. Not with Zagreus struggling weakly in his hold, wriggling his hips with Thanatos still inside him. He ground his teeth at the sensitivity, trying to focus.
“So you just decided sticking yourself inside me would make me feel better, is that it? Let go of me!”
“I can’t,” Thanatos bit out.
Zagreus renewed his efforts to escape because of his answer.
“Zagreus, you know I’d never betray your trust like this.”
Confusion made him pause. “That makes no sense.”
“I had to…do this.”
“What aren’t you telling me, Thanatos?”
The hard edge in the prince’s voice coaxed the god of death to confess. These moments were few and far between in their relationship; usually it would be Zagreus pushing, pressing, or prodding the lines Thanatos set. He hated being the one on the other end.
“Where do you want me to start, Zagreus?”
He should’ve kept calm because his irritated voice made the prince snap.
“Why do I bother trying to understand? Get off me, good gods, get out of me!”
Even while ill, his reflexes were fast. Thanatos managed to dodge the hand that flew his way, but not the elbow that clocked his temple. The surprise bloom of pain distracted him and Zagreus used that small window to distance himself, slipping out his cock with a gasp.
Thanatos lunged at him, tackling him back down to the bed. They grappled for mere seconds before the god of death wrestled the prince into submission. He was no match for his strength in his current condition.
“What has gotten into you, Than? You’re scaring me, it’s like you’re someone else entirely!”
He didn’t know who was trembling, but one glance to the prince's weak, yet steady palms captured above his bed told him it was himself. He was a guilty, wanton mess.
“If I am,” Thanatos growled, yanking his body further down the bed, “it’s because of you.”
Zagreus’s eyes were as wide as the moon hanging above his mother’s sky on the surface of Greece. He gulped hesitantly, disbelief curling hot in his chest at what Thanatos was doing to him, forcing him to shift tactics entirely.
“Than, please, let’s just calm down and—"
“Calm?” He laughed hollowly. “Tsch, what would you know of calm, Zagreus?”
“I could know plenty of it if you’d just tell me what’s going on? You said I got sick? It certainly feels that way. This all feels like a fever dream.”
“You got sick alright,” he bit out. “You got so sick I had to come collect you. Then you wouldn’t wake up.”
Any trace of remnant anger on the prince’s face melted away into surprise. He continued.
“You were…” dying. He couldn’t say it. Not about Zagreus. It pained him more to think about it again. “The whole House scrambled to find a way to help you. I tracked down the only shade who’d know how to cure you. This, us being together like this was the only way I could bring you back.”
Zagreus studied his face until pity broke out on his handsome features. “Thanatos, I…”
“You what?” He spat bitterly. “You made it clear you hate being here.” Thanatos closed his eyes briefly, as if it would soften the blow, but it didn’t. “You must hate being here with me if you’re willing to risk death on the surface.”
His red and green eyes welled with visible sadness and pain. “Than—"
“It’s just funny to think that I always have to clean up the mess you leave behind. You might even cause me to give Dusa a run for her coin.”
There was nothing funny about their situation. Zagreus didn’t laugh, despite his crude joke. Instead, Thanatos could see the prince begin to challenge him with his sickly kindness. Something he usually adored about Zagreus, but he couldn’t stand it in that moment.
“Thanatos I don’t—mph!"
He clamped his hand over the prince’s mouth, stifling whatever false reassurance he was just about to give. Thanatos bridged the space between their faces, the tips of their noses touching. His yellow irises glared at him.
“Just be quiet and let me do my job.”
He would always hate himself for the fear and shock he put into those mismatched eyes. Thanatos realigned himself and slowly entered the prince once more. That sweet heat engulfed his cock again and it caused him to arch and groan. Zagreus’s muffled protests cut off into muffled moans, but he still struggled under his grip. He still wriggled and heaved his hips, trying to get away from him but all it did was drive his cock deeper inside.
He began to fuck him. In his room where he trained, posters adorned the walls, weights littered the floor, the mirror of night reflected how they were fucking. Rather Thanatos was fucking him, Zagreus’s mouth and voice now working out far more than the equipment ever did. The smack of his hips pounding into him mingled with the sound Zagreus’s attempted stifled moans and pants sent the god of death’s mind reeling. He’d never recover from this.
Thanatos removed his hand from his mouth, instead he slid their palms together so that they were holding hands, but he was still pinning them to the bed. He channeled all of his frustration and bottled up everything into his thrusts, the motion causing the bed to rock and pound against the wall.
“Thanatos!” Zagreus cried, “N-no! Pl-ease ah! Ah!”
“Please what?” He ground out.
“I—"
Whatever Zagreus was going to say was cut off when Thanatos delivered a particularly sharp thrust. A part of him relished the confusion in the prince's eyes. No doubt he was torn between feeling weak and conflicted yet so good from what Thanatos was doing to him.
A deep-seated hunger blossomed within the god of death. He needed to see more pleasure cloud those mismatched eyes. It encouraged him to experiment with angling his hips, actively seeking a particular spot in order to render the talkative prince completely speechless.
It took time, but he relished every second of it. He revelled in their clasped hands, in their slick abdomens pressed together, and in the way Zagreus’s weeping cock was trapped between them. Each movement sent tingling friction up his hardened member and caused his lips to part open from the sensation. When the tip of his cock finally prodded the ball of nerves inside of Zagreus, he arched into his body, his red and green eyes rolling back into his head.
This was his revenge.
“You did this,” Thanatos panted. He had never been so aroused in his existence, inside Zagreus, watching his glazed eyes flutter open. He gathered his crossed wrists into one hand and grasped his jaw, turning his chiseled face towards the mirror of night. Their reflection gazed back at them, Thanatos above his sprawled, trapped body, holding and thrusting inside him. “This is what happens when you try to leave.”
He moved faster now, though each thrust remained purposeful, driving into the spot that kept pulling breathless sounds from the prince. Zagreus’s pale face was flushed with a beautiful red, a mixture from their exertions and the fever. His body was warm and his hair became even messier.
“I had to!” Zagreus bit out. “Oh fates. Than…ah! Gods, what are you, hn, what are you doing to me?”
“Fixing you.”
There was an amused glint in his yellow eyes as he watched the prince struggle against his body in vain. Neither of them liked to lose. Zagreus, least of all. Yet the prince had failed to escape the House, failed to escape Thanatos’s grasp, and failed rather spectacularly in bed. The thought nearly drew a smile from him.
“What’s wrong, Prince Zagreus? Not enjoying yourself?”
"Please, Than,” he begged, and the need in his voice caused lustful fire to pool in Thanatos's belly. “Gah, oh please, let’s just, mmh, talk.”
Talk. Zagreus always wanted to talk. To pry and push and dig at things until they unraveled into some uncomfortable truth, neither of them knew what to do with it after.
“Time for talking is over,” he frowned.
“Like hells it is,” Zagreus snapped. “At least I ran toward something. You run the second a conversation starts meaning anything.”
“Careful,” he warned, voice flattening into a dangerous calm. “You are in no position to provoke me right now.”
“Oh, there it is,” Zagreus laughed bitterly. “That’s your solution to everything, isn’t it? Shut me up before it gets inconvenient, right Thanatos?”
The words scraped against something raw inside him. Shame threatened to surface for the briefest instant before Thanatos buried it. He refused to yield now. Not to Zagreus. Not when the prince already looked so thoroughly unraveled beneath him. Zagreus was waiting, glaring up at him with flushed cheeks and swollen lips, and the ugly twist of shame was swiftly consumed by something hotter.
“Maybe,” he murmured coolly, tracing the curve of the prince’s hot lips with his thumb, “but you’re forgetting one thing, Zagreus.”
He leaned down until his mouth brushed the shell of his ear.
“I know your weak spot. And you’ve just given me every reason to exploit it.”
The prince’s mismatched eyes widened. For a fleeting instant, something uncertain flickered across his face before stubbornness rushed in to cover it.
“You’re insufferable,” Zagreus muttered. That was the last word he would be able to breathe for a while because Thanatos would rob him of all speech soon.
And true to his word, he did.
Thanatos had always been observant. Patient. He noticed every sharp inhale Zagreus tried to swallow back, every twitch beneath his hands, every stubborn attempt to glare at him through increasingly unfocused eyes.
It became almost unfair after a while.
“Still feel like talking?” Thanatos murmured against the corner of his mouth.
Zagreus made a strangled sound somewhere between a scoff and a gasp, which only earned him the faintest curl of amusement from Thanatos.
Gods, but the prince frayed beautifully. His flushed face betrayed every reaction he tried to hide, every sharp inhale, every trembling moan. Heat painted his pale skin pink beneath Thanatos’s hands and his dark lashes fluttered each time Thanatos’s hips plunged into that weak spot inside him. It sent the prince reeling, hands no longer pinned but holding onto Thanatos’s back, fingers digging into his skin as the bed rocked repeatedly against the wall.
"Than…a…tos…ah…ah…hn…"
Hearing his name fall apart on Zagreus’s lips sent a sharp thrill through him, hot enough to steal the breath from him for a fleeting instant.
Thanatos had spent so long holding himself rigid, silent, untouchable. Yet here Zagreus was beneath him, unraveling piece by piece and dragging something dangerously possessive out of him in return.
“Got you now,” he murmured, quieter now, almost reverent despite himself.
Zagreus made another helpless sound, fingers tightening sharply against his back as if the prince could not decide whether to pull him closer or shove him away entirely.
Thanatos suspected it was both. He continued to fuck him, their bodies twinned in that same pleasurable electric current that flowed inside of them. Zagreus’s flaming toes curled and his breath caught in his throat. He looked almost panicked.
“Than—I’m—”
Then suddenly—nothing.
Thanatos withdrew just enough to leave the prince gasping beneath him instead of diving over the edge.
The broken sound Zagreus made would have been satisfying enough on its own.
He watched the prince’s chest heave with frustration. Watched confusion and betrayal flood those mismatched eyes before they snapped sharply toward his face.
“You absolute bastard.” Zagreus stared at him in open disbelief, chest still rising unevenly beneath him. “You stopped.”
At that, the faintest smile finally ghosted across Thanatos’s mouth.
“I noticed.”
“You know,” Zagreus panted, glaring up at him, “I genuinely wonder if the mortals on the surface realize the great and terrible Thanatos is actually just catastrophically petty.”
“And yet you never seem discouraged.”
Zagreus looked ready to argue further. Thanatos could already see the words gathering behind those bright red-and-green eyes, sharp and indignant and entirely too stubborn.
Then Thanatos shifted his hips again.
Whatever furious retort Zagreus had prepared dissolved instantly into a helpless sound against his mouth. His fingers tightened hard against Thanatos’s back, breath catching so sharply it almost sounded wounded.
The reaction sent dark satisfaction curling low through Thanatos’s chest.
“How about it, Zagreus?” he asked softly. “Still need more discouragement?”
Zagreus glared at him with what dignity he could still manage. “I think I hate you.”
The lie would have been more convincing had he not immediately leaned into the next touch like a dying man reaching for air.
Thanatos exhaled a quiet, almost inaudible laugh against his throat.
“No,” he said, voice low and certain. “You do not.”
Even if Zagreus truly hated him after this, Thanatos still could not bring himself to stop.
The current between them pulsed again, deeper this time. He felt it move through Zagreus’s body beneath his hands, felt the prince tense sharply before another helpless cry broke from his throat.
The Underworld was settling back into him. Thanatos could feel it in the uneven pulse of power crackling beneath flushed skin. Zagreus jerked beneath him with a sharp inhale, fingers digging hard into Thanatos’s back before loosening into something almost boneless afterward.
“Than…”
The name left him in a weak, uneven breath with no real bite to it. Instead, it was warm and familiar, spoken with a tenderness Thanatos did not think he deserved to hear again.
“Here you are saving me,” Zagreus murmured weakly, lashes fluttering as he struggled to focus on him, “and I’ve only made this difficult for you.”
“Zag—”
“You must’ve been scared.”
“Shut up, Zagreus.”
But the prince only smiled faintly through his exhaustion, fingers sliding upward from Thanatos’s back to cradle the dark pallor of his face with startling gentleness.
The touch nearly made him recoil.
“Who knows what must’ve gone through your mind when you found me,” Zagreus continued quietly. “Probably floating face-down in the Styx like some knucklehead…”
His thumb brushed slowly beneath Thanatos’s eye.
“You could’ve been frightened,” he said softly.
Fear struck Thanatos then. Sharp. Immediate.
Before he could stop himself, he caught Zagreus’s wrist and forced his hand back above his head against the mattress with a growl.
“I said shut up.”
“I… take it this isn’t exactly standard House of Hades medical procedure,” Zagreus surmised carefully, still pinned beneath him. “And I’m guessing a centaur heart wasn’t quite enough this time.”
Silence answered him. Not the cold, dismissive silence Thanatos usually wielded like his scythe. This one was heavier, cornered.
The undeniably carnal current between them surged again, sharp enough to pull a strained sound from Zagreus’s throat. Thanatos felt the prince tense beneath him immediately afterward, as though finally recognizing the foreign pulse of Underworld power threading through his body.
Red-and-green eyes widened slowly.
“Thanatos…”
Gods. There it was again. That unbearable tenderness in his voice.
Zagreus looked up at him as though the answer should have been obvious all along. As though Thanatos giving pieces of himself away to keep him breathing was the most natural thing in the world. It made something twist painfully in his chest.
Another pulse rolled between their bodies. Dark. Heavy. Ancient. Thanatos felt it leave him in strands each time the current surged through Zagreus instead, weaving itself into flesh that had nearly slipped beyond his reach days ago beside the Styx.
The prince shivered sharply.
Then his expression changed, softening his features into a gentle, understanding stare. Thanatos hated it immediately.
“Don’t,” he warned quietly.
Zagreus blinked up at him. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
The words escaped harsher than intended.
Zagreus’s brows pulled together faintly, confusion flickering across his flushed face before softening into something even worse. Pure affection.
“Than…”
“Stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” Zagreus asked softly.
“Don’t play coy,” Thanatos warned. “You know what.”
Zagreus held his gaze for a long moment after that. There was no teasing grin; instead, they were tender and solemn. Then, very carefully, Zagreus shifted beneath him despite still having one wrist pinned overhead.
He arched off the bed and pressed closer.
The movement sent another sharp surge through the bond between them. Thanatos felt the prince shudder beneath him almost instantly afterward, his breath catching hard in his throat.
Still, Zagreus did not look away.
“I think you were frightened,” he said quietly this time, not teasing now so much as stating the obvious. “When you found me.”
Thanatos’s jaw tightened.
“I was angry.”
Zagreus’s expression softened in that unbearable way again.
“Than,” he murmured, almost fond despite the exhaustion weighing down his voice, “those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“You’re making it hard for me to continue,” Thanatos forced out, his voice roughening despite every effort to keep it controlled. “And I need to do this. I need to finish this.”
Zagreus did not bother asking why. The current thrumming between their bodies carried too much now for questions to matter. Instead, he slowly shifted beneath him once more until his legs slid around Thanatos’s waist in silent invitation.
The movement drew them impossibly closer, Zagreus’s legs tightening around his waist with surprising certainty despite the lingering weakness still clinging to his body. Another pulse surged hotly through the bond between them, sharp enough to pull a shaky breath from the prince, but instead of recoiling from it, Zagreus only pressed nearer afterward, forehead brushing briefly against Thanatos’s jaw.
Thanatos felt something in his chest pull painfully taut at the gesture, and he swore he stopped breathing.
“All right,” Zagreus murmured softly against him. “Then finish it.”
He closed his eyes at that, silver bangs falling to shield them as he rolled his hips into him once more. Their sounds mingled together, Thanatos’s rough grunts intertwining with the prince’s unsteady moans until they filled the room. Across from them, the Mirror of Night reflected their bodies pressed tightly together, dark and pale limbs tangled so closely they looked almost fused beneath the Underworld’s glow.
“Zag,” Thanatos whispered, finally slipping.
“Than,” Zagreus breathed back immediately, his voice warm and urging, as though coaxing him toward something softer instead of letting him retreat again.
Not a drop of nectar nor ambrosia could compare to the intoxicating, titillating euphoria unfurling between them, threading through flesh and bone until even the bond itself seemed to hum with it. They sank deeper together, deeper than even Lord Poseidon’s blackest trenches, until the current thrumming between them no longer felt separate at all, but like the Underworld itself pulling Zagreus back into its grasp through Thanatos’s hands.
Zagreus surged upwards and pressed their lips together. He kissed him with a tenderness so instinctive it nearly undid Thanatos on the spot, fingers slipping weakly into silver hair. It swallowed him the way the Styx swallowed the dead: wholly and mercilessly.
The kiss ruined him instantly.
A rough sound tore free from him as the ancient and vast powers of the Underworld rushed through his veins, spilling from him and into Zagreus in trembling pulses. The prince arched his body sharply beneath him to receive it all, and suddenly Thanatos understood why mortals likened ecstasy to death.
Faint traces of that euphoria still shimmered beneath Thanatos’s skin each time Zagreus exhaled against his forehead. He hadn’t realized his eyes had drifted shut until fingers began moving soothingly through his silver hair again.
When he finally opened his eyes, Zagreus was already watching him through heavy lashes, flushed and thoroughly exhausted beneath him yet undeniably more alive now than he had been floating in the Styx.
“Hello again,” Zagreus murmured softly, fingers continuing to comb through pale strands. “You sort of disappeared on me for a moment there, Than. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this tired before, and considering what just happened, I feel rather justified in being at least a little concerned whenever you start fading in and out on me now.”
Thanatos frowned faintly at him, though the effort of maintaining the expression already felt strangely heavier than usual. “You are being dramatic.”
“Mm, perhaps,” Zagreus conceded, though the slight curve at his mouth suggested he did not believe that for a second. “But I also think you may have just poured an alarming amount of ancient death magic directly into me while overworking yourself to exhaustion, so I’d say I’ve earned at least a little dramatic concern.”
His fingers slipped lower afterward, stroking slowly beneath Thanatos’s ear before settling warmly at the back of his neck, and the god of death hated how quickly his body responded to the touch now that the adrenaline had finally begun abandoning him. He felt heavier draped over the prince beneath him, his limbs slow with lingering strain while the remnants of the bond still pulsed lazily between them like embers glowing low in the House’s infernal fireplace.
“You look tired,” Zagreus murmured, the teasing edge from earlier fading. “Actually tired, I mean, not your usual mysterious and brooding then gone in a flash sort of tired.”
Thanatos shut his eyes briefly at that, silver bangs slipping forward once more as Zagreus’s thumb continued its slow path against his neck.
“Don’t start,” he muttered.
Zagreus’s quiet laugh brushed warmly across his mouth. “See, now that sounds much closer to the Thanatos I know.”
“How…” he trailed off awkwardly, but the prince waited patiently with him in silence. “How are you now?”
“I, um…”
Thanatos unconsciously tensed at the way he trailed off. Zagreus noticed that too, of course he did. He always noticed more than Thanatos wanted him to.
“Well… I suppose that rather depends on whether or not you can forgive me,” Zagreus admitted at last, fingers slowing briefly where they rested against the back of his neck. “And I know, I know, it’s probably the last thing I deserve after disappearing and nearly dying horribly in the process, but Than, I had to see her. I never imagined any of this would happen afterward.”
His thumb brushed absently beneath Thanatos’s ear before he continued more quietly.
“But I can’t regret it either. I won’t.”
Thanatos’s gaze narrowed slightly. “You would still go.”
“Yes,” Zagreus answered honestly. “Because she’s my mother, and because there’s still a chance she might come home someday, and… well.”
A faint flush rose higher into his cheeks then, though whether from embarrassment, lingering fever, or the remnants of the bond between them, Thanatos could not tell.
“We wouldn’t be here like this otherwise.”
Zagreus had a point, loathed as he was to admit. Had the prince never left the House, never chased the surface with that reckless determination of his, then perhaps none of this would have happened. No frantic search through the edges of the Styx and no bond blazing violently between them. They would have remained exactly what they had always been: circling one another endlessly, wanting and avoiding in equal measure. Thanatos hated how deeply that possibility unsettled him almost as much as the quiet relief curling low in his chest at realizing it had not come to pass.
The prince must have noticed the shift in his expression because his thumb brushed slowly along the sharp edge of Thanatos’s jaw.
“You’re quiet again. What are you thinking about?”
Thanatos’s gaze drifted back toward him slowly. “I think you’re right,” he admitted at last, the words leaving him with suspicious ease.
Zagreus immediately narrowed his eyes.
“Gods above and below,” he muttered gravely, pressing the back of his hand dramatically against Thanatos’s forehead. “You agreed with me voluntarily. This is serious. We may need to summon a physician immediately.”
Thanatos scoffed and batted his hand away. “Don’t get used to it. Though… it is good that your immortality no longer appears to be in immediate danger. So, did things go well with your mother?”
“I don’t exactly know,” Zagreus admitted after a moment, his fingers slowing slightly where they rested against Thanatos’s neck. “She was elated to see me, truly, it wasn’t that. But she seemed… reluctant about returning home.”
His mouth twisted faintly afterward, more thoughtful than bitter.
“I mean, honestly, if I had to return to Father under normal circumstances, I’d probably have a few reservations myself, so I can hardly blame her for that part.”
Zagreus exhaled softly through his nose before continuing softly, “But he loved her, Than. Gods, he still does. He still keeps her portrait in his bedchambers.”
Thanatos quirked a brow at that. “How exactly did you get in there?”
Zagreus immediately developed the sort of expression that usually preceded either a terrible idea or a lengthy explanation involving House contractor renovations.
“Well,” he began carefully, “Achilles may have helped a little.”
Thanatos stared at him.
“A very little,” Zagreus amended. “In the sense that he reluctantly informed me which records Father kept in his chambers and then repeatedly advised me not to go looking through them while knowing full well I absolutely would anyway.”
“Tsch, of course.”
“In my defense, I was actually searching for information at the time, not invading Father’s privacy for sport.”
“That distinction seems extremely important to you.”
“It is important,” Zagreus insisted immediately, sounding almost offended now despite the lingering exhaustion softening the edges of his voice. “I’m nothing if not resourceful and determined, but without said distinction I rather sound like some invasive satyr cultist rifling through Father’s belongings out of pure spite.”
Thanatos’s mouth twitched faintly.
Zagreus noticed at once, naturally. His expression brightened with quiet triumph beneath him as his fingers resumed their slow path through silver strands.
“There, see? I knew you found me charming.”
“I find you immensely difficult.”
“Mm, yes, but you’re saying it while draped across me in my bedchambers, so I feel my point still stands.”
Thanatos exhaled sharply through his nose at that as Zagreus’s quiet laughter brushed warmly across his mouth once more.
“Anyway,” Zagreus continued after a moment, his expression easing into something more thoughtful once again, “the portrait was tucked away toward the back of the room near his bedside, almost like Father didn’t quite know what to do with it anymore. But he kept it. After all this time, he still kept it.”
His thumb slowed where it traced along Thanatos’s face.
“I don’t think people hold onto things like that unless some part of them is still hoping.”
“Yes,” Thanatos said after a moment, his gaze lowering briefly toward the dark tufts messily spread across the pillow beneath him. “Rather like how I have kept every bottle of nectar and ambrosia you have excessively insisted on spoiling me with.”
Zagreus blinked up at him.
Then his expression fell in genuine confusion.
“Wait,” he said slowly, fingers stilling in silver hair. “You… kept it all?”
Thanatos immediately realized, far too late, that he perhaps should not have admitted that aloud.
“Than…why in all the realms have you not been drinking it?”
A faint flush crept unhelpfully higher along the god of death’s pallid face.
“That is not the point.”
“No, I really think it is.”
Thanatos looked away at once, which only seemed to confirm Zagreus’s growing suspicion. The prince stared at him for another stunned moment before something unbearably soft overtook his expression as he pieced it together.
“Oh, Than.”
“Do not say it like that.”
Zagreus’s quiet laugh brushed warmly across his mouth again, though there was too much affection tangled into the sound now for Thanatos to mistake it for teasing alone.
“Gods, Than,” Zagreus murmured softly, looking altogether too pleased with the discovery. “I never realized you could be such a sentimental thing. I think I rather like that.”
Thanatos frowned faintly, though the lingering flush across his pale face betrayed him immediately.
“You are becoming intolerably smug about this.”
Zagreus’s grin only softened further. “Can you blame me? This is a rather significant discovery, with you carefully safeguarding all my gifts to you and everything.”
“I am not ‘safeguarding’ them. I simply have not had occasion to drink them yet.”
“Don’t worry,” he laughed. “I’m guilty as well.”
Thanatos’s brow furrowed faintly. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
“I still keep your butterfly close whenever I leave the House.”
Silence settled between them as Thanatos felt something deep in his chest pull painfully tight all over again.
“Good,” Thanatos muttered after a moment. “You could certainly use the help with all the ill-conceived escape attempts you keep making.”
“Really? And here I thought you wouldn’t want anyone to deprive you of the opportunity to aggressively outdo me in front of shades.”
“Your survival record was abysmal.”
Zagreus laughed warmly enough to make something deep in Thanatos’s chest ache again. He smoothed a dark hand over his cheek, surprising them both.
“Speaking of,” the prince started, “who exactly was the shade who knew how to cure me? That seems rather advanced knowledge for an ordinary shade to possess.”
“He was not always a shade,” he said, remembering the chaos and pressure within the House. “Long ago there was… an incident involving him where mortals simply stopped dying properly for a time.”
Zagreus blinked up at him.
“That sounds catastrophically bad for the Underworld.”
“It was.”
The answer came flatly enough to pull a faint wince from Zagreus.
Thanatos’s thumb slowed briefly against the prince’s cheek before he continued. “My work began lessening. The dead stopped arriving. Even the Fates became involved eventually.”
“Gods…” Zagreus breathed. “What happened?”
Thanatos’s expression darkened faintly.
“Zeus killed him,” he said simply. “I believe he had to, so don’t go meddling, Zagreus. Especially about this, I know you.”
“Then you also know I indirectly owe him my life,” he pointed out softly.
Thanatos already knew this was a headache waiting to unfold later on. The prince was incapable of staying away from the tragic or the unforgotten.
“If you’re not going to listen, I won’t bother.”
“Than,” Zagreus sang, cradling his face in his hands. “Alright, alright, I won’t go meddling for now.”
“Tsch, ‘for now.’”
Zagreus’s grin widened faintly at the sound of genuine exasperation in his voice. He shifted in his embrace, and the action caused a pleasurable jolt to run up their bodies. His grin dropped into a serious line, clearly ruminating on something. It was Thanatos’s turn to study him carefully.
“Now you’re quiet,” he observed.
Zagreus huffed a soft laugh through his nose. “I was merely reflecting on the fact that within the span of a few days I managed to nearly perish beside the Styx, traumatize half the House, discover my mysterious savior was apparently some forgotten casualty of Zeus, and accidentally uncover that the terrifying god of death is secretly sentimental.”
Thanatos groaned quietly. “Please stop sounding so pleased about that last part.”
“I make no promises. Still,” he murmured, thumbs brushing slowly beneath Thanatos’s eyes once more, “thank you.”
Thanatos’s expression tightened faintly at his words.
“You do not need to thank me for saving your life.”
“Perhaps not,” Zagreus conceded. “But I’m going to anyway.”
His gaze lingered warmly against Thanatos’s face.
“I just…” Zagreus hesitated briefly. “I hope it won’t always take me nearly dying or attempting some catastrophically ill-conceived escape for us to end up like this together.”
Thanatos went still.
Zagreus laughed faintly at himself afterward, though there was something vulnerable beneath the sound now.
“Not that I object to the whole tangled-in-bed aspect of things, mind you. I think I’m rather fond of that already.”
His fingers slipped once more through silver strands.
“I just mean…”
The prince’s expression gentled again as he looked up at him.
“I’d rather have you without needing to lose you first.”
For a moment, Thanatos couldn’t believe this was all happening. But Zagreus was real and alive in his arms, cradling his face, telling him exactly what he wanted. It was almost suspicious how well things were going when hours before he predicted the opposite. His gaze dropped down to his lips.
Thanatos smiled. “I would prefer that outcome as well.”
Zagreus beamed at him, pulling him down for another kiss. Thanatos melted into it despite himself, one hand settling more securely against Zagreus’s waist while the prince’s hands wrapped snugly around his shoulders.
The rest of the House would be relieved to have its prince back, though none more than Thanatos in that moment.