Chapter Text
“Stupid hydra.”
Zagreus was panting, his arms screaming as he raised Stygius once again to slash at the hydra’s head. It collided hard, drawing a sharp roar from the beast and another hit to Zag’s chest. He stumbled backward as the too-familiar reflective crown of invulnerability flickered to life over its head.
Around the island, five heads of the hydra burst to life. They were smaller, but faster and just as annoying—if not more—than the main head. Zagreus swore and turned to focus on the tight cluster of three heads at his left, earning a bite to the thigh that tore his leggings and another head slamming into his shoulder.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t have the breath. Instead, he shoved forward, pain crackling like fire through his nerves, and slammed Stygius through the skull of the biting head. The blade punched through bone and ash in one violent thrush. Crushed bone split upward as the head disintegrated, coating Zagreus’s arm. He shook it and the dust fell off his skin.
Another shot flew toward his neck, this time the barbed point as the second head spat. Zag twisted at the last moment, the razor teeth barely grazing the curve of his jaw before flying toward the far head at the other end of the island. He felt his skin split, and hot blood started running down his neck. It’d gone deeper than he’d assumed, apparently.
Zagreus swung his sword in a full spin, Stygius arching wide in a brutal sweep that cleaved another skull clean in two. Bone cracked like dry wood, and teeth exploded outward, flecks of pulped brain matter slapping wet against his cheeks.
The remaining head shrieked and lunged low, toward his thighs. Zag met it with a downward punch of his pommel, smashing the blunt end of the hilt into its snout. He drove it down into the ashen red ground, stomping on its neck with his heel until the vertebrae snapped.
He staggered. Blood pulsed freely from a new wound in his thigh, and his neck felt sticky with the same substance. A heavy breath rasped out of him, and he barely turned in time to see the other two smaller heads shooting their own barbs at him.
“Come on, then,” Zag muttered, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth.
He darted forward, ignoring the pain that flared in his leg with every step. The nearest head lunged, its jaw stretching wide enough to grab him. Zagreus threw himself into a slide, his feet making the ground catch fire for a short moment, and ducked beneath the fangs of the hydra. Teeth scraped sparks against the ground.
Zag popped up on the other side, reeled, and drove Stygius into the space where its head connected to its neck and torqued the pommel up and to the right.
The beast screamed, a deafening, guttural bellow that shook dust from the cavern ceiling. Zagreus held his ground, and with a sickening pop, something gave way—and the head popped from its neck, hiding the ground before crumbling to ash.
And then the other head grabbed him by the leg.
Zagreus shouted, yanking Stygius back and swinging blindly. His thigh burned where the beast’s fangs sank in, and even with his flaming feet he wasn’t in a good position to writhe out of its hold. His chin collided hard with the ground as he was tugged backward.
Beside him, the main head snarled and spat more barbs. Zagreus pressed himself against the ground, but two still skinned his shoulder blades.
The skin peeled. Hot blood gushed, running slick down his sides and staining the red-ash earth beneath him a deeper crimson. He cried out—no dignity was left in him—as the smaller head twisted harder on his thigh, fangs grinding into the bone like a dog tearing through a blood-soaked carcass.
He stabbed behind him blindly, Stygius sinking into something solid. The head jerked in pain but refused to let go.
Zagreus stabbed again, and again, and on the fourth thrust the sword slid into something and twisted. There was a dry crunch, then a blast of bone dust as the head let go, jaws falling slack and the rest of the head falling backward into the magma.
Zag hissed and dragged himself up. His leg was mangled—ribbons of muscle hung from the thigh, torn and slick, and he could feel the bone grinding unnaturally when he moved.
“Damn it,” he rasped, spitting blood and bile onto the ground.
There was no time to recover, though.
The main head of the hydra reared back, invulnerability crown flaring once more before vanishing. And then the sound of rattling came, echoing around the chamber.
Bones.
They clawed their way up from the magma pits, skeletal hands breaking through the crust, followed by grinding skulls adorned with limp-hanging jaws and loose limbs. Their spines twisted as they rose, lava sliding off their bodies as the foul stench of old death hit him.
Zag’s vision blurred as pain hammered his skull, but he forced himself up on one knee, Stygius hanging low in his hand. His wounded leg buckled underneath him, something he didn’t care to name audibly popping, but he gritted his teeth and stayed up.
The first skeleton lunged.
Zagreus met it with a scream and a diagonal swing of his sword that cleaved from collarbone to hip. The skeleton shattered, bone fragments clattering across the floor. Three more replaced it instantly.
One jammed a rusted sword deep into his side.
Zagreus howled, the metal grating between his ribs, punching through lung. Air hissed from his mouth in a red foam as he stumbled, turning the movement into a backhand slash that decapitated the offender. Another stabbed down from above, carving a furrow across his back where barbs had already split his skin.
This run was over. He was dying, he could feel it.
And that was the routine.
Zagreus bit his tongue, only drawing more blood, and threw his sword like a spear. It whistled through the air and impaled a skeleton mid-charged, nailing it against a tall stone where it crumpled like chalk.
Since when did the skeletons have weapons? Was Hades going through more precautions to keep him from escaping?
He wheezed a curse as one skeleton slammed a shield into his jaw, breaking something—Zagreus felt teeth, and tasted something sharp and bitter—and then another rammed a blade into the meat of his left arm, and as he fell it pinned him to the ground straight through his bicep.
Zagreus screamed.
Not in rage, or in triumph, as he usually did.
This was just raw pain. Human pain.
With his free hand, he grabbed a shattered spear tip from the floor and drove it upward into the skeleton’s skull, twisting until the light in its eye sockets went out.
Another skeleton raised a mace. Zagreus didn’t move fast enough.
The weapon cracked down on his shoulder, and he felt the joint dislocate with a sickening pop. Nerve endings flared. His vision flashed white. It was by reaction alone that Zag managed to grab the mace and held fast, even as his ailed shoulder screamed in protest.
“I’m not done yet,” he snarled through broken teeth. Blood poured from his mouth.
He tore the weapon from the skeleton’s grip, twisted it, and brought it down in a crushing arc that splintered bone like twigs. The thing collapsed with a hiss of dust.
They didn’t stop coming. There were always more.
The hydra loomed above them all, hissing and charging another volley of barbs. Smoke curled from its nostrils. Its mouth dripped with burning magma.
Zagreus staggered as he tried to move. His ribs grated against the rusted sword still jammed into his side. The shift tore something deeper, and the pressure in his chest exploded.
He dropped to all fours, coughing wetly. Blood fell from his mouth in long, stringy ropes, splattering the ground with something darker than crimson.
A skeleton kicked him in the gut, driving him flat. Another leapt onto his back and buried a dagger between his shoulder blades.
Zagreus howled.
The blade pierced deep, grinding against bone. His legs spasmed uselessly beneath him. The only thing he could feel now was fire—fire in his chest, fire in his limbs, fire in his skull.
He rolled onto his side, teeth clenched so hard he heard one crack. His hand found the hilt of the sword impaled in his ribs. With a snarl, he ripped it out—flesh tearing, the angle of it making one rib groan in protest—and the wound flooded. Blood poured like wine from a broken amphora.
Zagreus swung blindly with it, catching the skeleton on top of him through the neck. The head flew free, clattering against the cavern wall.
He pushed himself to his feet and screamed. Not in triumph or hope, of course not. Just raw agony and fury. His whole body was pulp now, one stitched-together collection of shredded muscle and shattered bone, held upright by pure rage and divine stubbornness.
Thank you, Lord Ares.
“I’m still— fucking —here!” he roared.
The hydra screeched.
Its head reared back, forming six more. The invulnerability crown flickered to life again, and its eyes blazed like gold. Their jaws opened.
Zagreus stood tall. He raised the sword—shaking, bloody, and his arm dangling half-useless—and met the monster’s gaze.
“Do it,” he whispered, blood running from his lips.
The hydra struck.
Barbs rained down. The first pierced his chest—straight through his sternum with a crack of bone and a hot, sucking sound. Another skewered his thigh. One slammed into his forearm, nailing him through the radius. Two more punched through his abdomen, carving jagged holes that geysered blood across the ground.
One entered through his lower jaw and erupted from the top of his skull.
Zag’s body twitched.
And kept twitching, spasming as more barbs struck, turning him into a grotesque pin-cushion of red blood and gore. His legs gave way. His torso convulsed. Blood bubbled from his lips, his nose, his ears.
Zagreus collapsed, the barbs pulling free as he fell, leaving gaping holes that poured dark blood onto the dirt. His limbs sprawled out at unnatural angles, his chest rising once and shuddering.
The skeletons gathered around, grabbing him by the wrists and ankles and dragging him onto his back. Their fingers sunk into his skin until it caved under the bone. They didn’t attack, just watched, silently standing there.
The hydra roared once in victory and formed back into one head. The crown shimmered and vanished.
Zagreus choked once, blood and bile filling his throat, and welcomed the River Styx as it swept him away once more.
Chapter 2
Notes:
hi! sorry this came out later than expected lmao. initially all three chapters were meant to come out at once but i fell asleep at my computer and then had things to do all day. so, uh, maybe this will be finished by tomorrow. who knows. this one is short and for that im sorry.
anyway, writing hypnos was hard. like, i wanted to write him as a playful sweetheart, but he's also a playful dickhead. so, idk. good luck with him.
enjoy! (i want to tear my hair out.)
- arlo
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Death was cold.
Not icy—empty. Numb and colorless. A silence so heavy it rang like glass against the inside of his skull. The pain was gone, his body mended. He was weightless, Stygius-less. He was out of Asphodel, but it also felt like he was out of his own body. The river was a bottomless tug, and Zag felt like he was submerged in oil.
Then there was foggy sound, like his ears were filled with water. And distant footsteps.
Zagreus gasped.
The Pool of Styx rejected him violently, and his back arched as the first real breath ripped through his lungs, wet and sharp and ugly. Water cascaded off him in sheets. He blinked fast, coughing hard, and spat red water from his mouth.
He was back.
The House of Hades loomed around him, stone walls cold and familiar. Fiery torches flickered overhead. Blood pooled in thin, diluted strands around his limbs, dissipating into the water of the Styx like smoke in wind.
Zagreus didn’t move.
His body was whole again—by the usual miracle, though it was starting to feel like a curse—but he felt none of it. His breath trembled out of him. His hands didn’t twitch. His heart thumped slowly, slower than it ever would outside the House.
He just lay there, cheek pressed to the first stair of the pool.
It would be easy to stay. To let the water lap at his legs. Let the warmth of rebirth settle and stay unclaimed. He would have to go back and fight the hydra again and again. The skeletons would come back. Death was all he knew, always just ahead. The pain would return.
And gods, he was so tired.
Zagreus was content to lay there and listen to the babble of shades or the occasional bark of Cerberus (his father also barked, but he wouldn’t openly say it). All he wanted to do was drag himself to his chambers and get away from the noise. The shades pointed at him and talked as if this wasn’t a daily occurrence.
Normally, he got up a lot faster, though.
Footsteps sounded above him, sharp and familiar. Then a shadow fell across him.
“Zag,” said a low voice, tight with exasperation and something straying dangerously close to concern.
He didn’t lift his head. “...go away, Meg.”
“No.”
She stepped into the shallow edge of the pool with a sigh, water licking at her boots. Her whip was coiled at her hip, but for once her hands were empty. Until she ultimately had to fight him again in Tartarus.
“Come on.” Those same hands grabbed him by the biceps, gently but firmly dragging him from the pool. Meg sat back on the last step, half-lifting his top half into her lap and running her fingers through his soaked hair.
“Didn’t know you gave up so easily now,” Meg said. Her voice was as cold as ever, but Zagreus had learned to associate that with her love. “Come on. Get up before Hades takes a swing at you.”
He didn’t want to move.
His limbs weren’t listening. His whole body felt wrong, like the blood hadn’t settled properly, like something inside him had been reset crooked. And even if he was perfectly fine, the idea of rising just to be torn apart again…
Zagreus sank deeper into Meg’s lap, eyes fluttering closed.
A loud, high-pitched voice split the room.
“Oh wow, he really bit it this time, huh? That’s—what, death number two-hundred and… thirty-six? Only the twelfth death by the hydra, though!”
Zagreus groaned into Meg’s thigh. “Not now, Hypnos.”
Too late.
The sleepy god was already beside them, hovering, his arms crossed over his chest and a lazy grin on his face. “I mean, you do keep dying in Asphodel. Kind of your thing. Hey, you know what might help? Ducking!”
“Hypnos,” Meg said in a voice that could flay skin.
Hypnos opened his mouth to respond, but another voice cut him off. It was colder, deeper, and wrapped around Zagreus’s throat like chains.
“Enough.”
Zag didn’t have to look to know who it was. His father’s presence sucked the playful tone from the room—at least, the playfulness from Hypnos.
“You embarrass yourself,” Hades growled, barely leaning over his desk. “And me. Again, and again, and again. How many times must you fail before you realize the futility of it?”
“Gods,” Zagreus hissed, trying to sit up but failing halfway. “Can’t I die in peace for once?”
“Peace?” Hades snapped, his eyes crackling with red flame. “You forfeited peace the moment you defied me. You think your petty rebellions grant you rest?”
Shades were gathering now. Normally, they gave Hades a wide berth, but apparently the take-a-hit-at-Zag contest was more interesting. Their cloaked figures huddled on the sides of the room, their whispers too loud as they watched. Judged. They always came to watch when he came back broken.
Zagreus tried to lift his head again. A thousand needles pressed against the inside of his skull. The pain from the Styx hadn’t faded—it just curled in new places now. His heart thudded unevenly. His jaw clenched.
Meg’s hand tensed at his scalp.
“I said get up,” she muttered.
“Get up!” Hypnos annoyingly echoed. “You always get up so quick—what’s the problem now, Zag? Hmm?”
He couldn’t breathe.
“Just—” Zagreus started, his voice splintering, “—just shut up. All of you. Please.”
Of course, no one listened.
Hades grunted, muttering something under his breath. The shades whispered. Cerberus barked. Meg didn’t let go of him and Hypnos was already halfway through some half-witted comment about barbed hydra teeth.
“Shut up!” Zagreus barked.
And suddenly it was too much. The weight of all of them—Meg’s hands in his hair, his father’s voice in his bones, the shades’ vacant stares, the stench of blood and water and judgement—was too much.
He shoved himself off Meg’s lap, nearly falling face-first into the floor. The room tilted. His knees buckled.
“Zag—” Meg reached for him again.
He flinched back like she’d burned him. “Don’t. Just—don’t touch me right now.”
Silence, for a second. Hypnos drew still.
Zagreus staggered upright, standing only because the pain grounded him. His hands trembled at his sides. Blood dripped from his hair, down his arms and off his fingertips, one reopened gash on his heart from words alone.
He looked at the floor. At no one. His throat was tight.
“I don’t want advice. I don’t want pity. And I definitely don’t need my corpse to be counted like a damn scoreboard.”
Nobody moved.
He wiped a hand down his face. It came away slick with red river water. His eyes were raw, rimmed with black. He couldn’t tell if he was shaking from rage or exhaustion or both.
“I just want one moment,” he said, quieter now, “where I’m not reminded how much I’ve failed.”
He was shaking to keep his voice even, for the sake of not shredding the wallpaper and maybe a few faces right then and there. His fingers curled into fists so tight his palms bled.
He gritted his teeth and limped away, past Meg. Past Hypnos. Past his father’s desk, not even looking back when Cerberus whimpered. He ignored Nyx and the tavern and dipped into his room, throwing those damned soundproof curtains (that he used to love with Than) out of the way.
Zagreus threw the nearest vase and crumpled against the wall.
Notes:
word count: 1239
Chapter 3
Notes:
i am... really not feeling it today.
enjoy.
- arlo
Chapter Text
The vase shattered against the wall with a hollow, brittle crack, fragments scattering like teeth across the floor. Zagreus barely heard it.
He slid down the cold stone, spine scraping against the rough walls until his body slumped against the floor. His legs folded awkwardly under him. One arm hung limp across his lap, the other smeared with blood to the elbow. His head dropped back against the wall.
Silence.
For a moment, it was everything he’d wanted. No voices. No gods. No lectures.
Then the silence stretched too long.
Too deep.
Too loud.
Zagreus exhaled shakily. The air burned in his throat. He stared blankly at the shattered porcelain. The painted figures on the vase—some little victory he didn’t remember earning—lay in ruined pieces. It fit. It all fit.
His hands were still clenched into fists. His nails had broken the skin in his palms. Fresh blood welled up with every pulse of his heartbeat.
Good.
Let it bleed.
He leaned forward, dragging one hand through his hair, which was still damp and stinking of river water and smoke. He could taste the Styx in the back of his throat. He could feel the way it clung to him—like it knew he’d be back soon.
He would be. Of course he would.
Because that’s what he did, wasn’t it?
Die. Return. Fail again.
Rinse. Repeat.
He laughed once. Just once. A low, broken sound that barely left his chest.
“Two hundred and thirty-six. That’s a good number, right?” he muttered. “Heroic.”
His voice cracked halfway through.
No one answered. No one was supposed to.
He grabbed the edge of the bed frame and pulled himself partway up, but halfway there, his body gave out. He collapsed back onto the floor, face buried in his arm. The pain flared across his ribs—something was definitely still broken—but he didn’t move.
He didn’t want to.
Let them wait. Let them knock. Let Meg stew and Hypnos wander and Hades scowl behind that monstrous desk. Let Thanatos do his silent watching from the shadows like he always did.
Zagreus was done.
He was so, so done.
He didn’t sob. Not really. But his breath stuttered, and the back of his throat tightened until it hurt more than any sword ever had. His eyes burned, dry and hot.
It was too much.
The dying. The coming back. The pressure. The eyes.
The way everyone acted like it was his duty to keep fighting—keep bleeding—like that was the only part of him worth anything.
He curled tighter, forehead pressed to the stone floor.
“I can’t keep doing this,” he whispered. Then he curled into a ball and passed out.
It was the hushed murmur of voices that pulled him up from the dark.
Not words at first—just sound, like wind threading through old cracks in the House. Then clearer: voices he knew better than his own heartbeat. One sharp, low and clipped. The other slow, colder, but laced with tension just beneath the surface.
Meg.
Thanatos.
He didn’t open his eyes yet. His body felt too heavy. His chest ached with each shallow breath. His mouth tasted like metal and bile and dust. He hadn’t even made it to the bed.
“...he said he couldn’t keep doing it,” Meg whispered.
Zagreus flinched internally. He hadn’t meant for her to hear that.
“He’s said things like that before,” Thanatos replied quietly. “But this was different.”
There was a pause. Fabric shifted beside him. A callused hand brushed the hair from his forehead. He knew Meg’s touch even in a coma.
“He didn’t even close the curtains,” she said.
“Because he wanted everyone to hear how pissed off he was.”
Zagreus cracked one eye open. Dim light filtered through the heavy curtains. Shadows fell across the floor like bruises. Meg sat with one arm propped on the bed, chin resting on her wrist. Than stood just behind her, hands folded in front of him like he was waiting to reap someone.
They hadn’t noticed he was awake.
“Looks like I’m out of dramatic exits,” Zagreus rasped, his voice a ruined thing.
Both heads turned toward him instantly. Meg’s eyes snapped wide, and Thanatos exhaled softly, the way he did when something important hadn’t been lost after all.
“Idiot,” Meg said, but her voice broke halfway through. She leaned over and gently touched his cheek. “You’re such a fucking idiot.”
Zagreus closed his eyes again, pressing his face into her palm. “I know.”
Than knelt beside them, his usually impassive face twisted into something just short of grief. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Would you have listened?” Zag murmured, eyes still closed. “Would I have listened?”
The silence said enough.
“You’re not a burden,” Thanatos said eventually. The words were slow, deliberate, like he had to pick them through centuries of emotional armor. “You never have been.”
Zag scoffed softly, but it came out more like a cough. “You're Death. Meg’s a Fury. I’m the guy who can’t even make it past the Hydra without folding like wet paper.”
“You’re the one who keeps getting up,” Meg said. “Even when you shouldn’t.”
“Not this time.”
“You don’t have to today,” Thanatos said, and something in his voice gentled, turned raw. “You don’t have to proveanything today. Or tomorrow.”
Zagreus blinked hard. The floor blurred and reformed in his vision. Meg’s hand slid into his hair. Than’s rested over his bleeding knuckles.
He wanted to argue. Wanted to say he wasn’t worth this. That he wasn’t their equal. That they’d be better off with someone who didn’t scream into his pillow at night or bleed out on a chamber floor like it was part of the routine.
But his throat burned. And he was so tired.
So instead, he just whispered, “Stay.”
Meg’s fingers tightened.
“Yeah,” she said. “We’re here.”
It was later that Zagreus woke again, squashed between Thanatos and Meg. His head rested against Than's collarbone, Meg pressed against his back. Than was cold, she was warm.
Zag sighed and nestled closer to Thanatos's naked form, one arm slung over his waist. It wasn't often that he got to see Than, and actually spending time with him was even less. It was comfortable like this.
"Next time I'll beat Hypnos's ass for you," Meg muttered in his ear.
As if summoned, hours later Zagreus dared to venture out of his room. Both Meg and Thanatos had been called to duty, but Zag felt too exhausted to attempt another run.
Hypnos ambushed him almost immediately, his tired eyes rimmed with red and his hair mused.
“Zagreus!” he chirped, far too loudly for a House built on the bones of the dead.
Zagreus flinched and closed his eyes for a breath, bracing himself. His steps slowed, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop, or he’d go back to bed and never come out again.
Hypnos practically tripped over his own robes trying to catch up, scrolls spilling from his arms like paper feathers.
“I just wanted to say—um—you know, I didn’t mean to keep count in a bad way! It’s part of the job! The list! Lord Hades makes me—well, not makes me, but expects—and sometimes I just sort of say things, and—”
Zagreus stopped walking. Slowly. Deliberately.
Hypnos froze mid-sentence. His eyes went wide, anxious.
Zagreus turned, and the look on his face made Hypnos reel back a half step. It wasn’t rage, or even disappointment.
It was worse.
Zagreus looked tired.
Hollowed-out. Bone deep.
“Hypnos,” he said, voice low, level, and worn thin like a blade used too long without sharpening. “Do you think I don’t know how many times I’ve died?”
Hypnos opened his mouth.
Zagreus raised a hand. “Don’t. Just think about it. Think about what it’s like to wake up choking on blood every day, then walk past you just to hear it recited back like a punchline.”
Hypnos’s shoulders drooped. “I wasn’t trying to be cruel.”
“I know.”
Zag ran a hand through his hair. His fingers caught in a dried patch of Styx water. He tugged, anyway.
“I know you didn’t mean it,” he repeated, softer. “But it still hurts.”
Hypnos looked down at the floor, his wings drooping like wet feathers. “…I’ll stop. I’ll tell Lord Hades the list can stay on parchment from now on.”
Zagreus nodded once. “Thank you.”
They stood there for a beat. Somewhere, Cerberus barked once in the distance. A shade coughed awkwardly and shuffled away.
Then Hypnos stepped forward, more hesitant than usual, and touched Zag’s wrist.
“You were gone a long time this time,” he said, voice suddenly small. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
Zagreus hesitated. His jaw worked once.
“I almost didn’t. I almost just hid in a chamber and lived off Charon's shop."
Hypnos blinked, and Zag could see the realization hit him like a tidal wave. But instead of launching into more frantic chatter, the god of sleep just gave a solemn little nod and let go.
Zagreus lingered a moment longer, then gave Hypnos a small nod before turning away. His steps were slow, dragging. The walls of the House felt colder than usual, like the stone was still steeped in the Styx, echoing with ghosts of his last run. His ribs still ached. His soul ached more.
He didn’t know where he was going at first. Not until his feet turned toward the training hall on their own, instinct and memory dragging him like the River itself.
Achilles stood there as always—dutiful, silent, watching. The soft blue glow of his form cast long shadows against the far wall. His spear rested at his side, but his posture shifted when he saw Zag enter.
He straightened. Not stiffly, not with alarm. But with quiet readiness, like he already knew something was wrong. Of course he did.
“Zagreus,” Achilles said, his voice gentle as a war drum muted by cloth. “You look… not well.”
Zagreus gave a weak huff. “Thanks for sugarcoating it.”
Achilles watched him a moment longer, then nodded toward the bench tucked near the wall. “Sit, if you’d like.”
Zag did. Not gracefully. Not even willingly, really. He dropped onto the bench like someone unraveling, his shoulders slumping forward, arms draped over his knees. His head hung low. For a few moments, neither of them said anything.
Then Achilles sat beside him. Not too close, not crowding—but close enough to feel like a shield wall at his side.
“I died again,” Zagreus said eventually, voice rough.
“I gathered that.”
Zag barked out a bitter laugh. “Two hundred and thirty-six times now. That’s the count. Hypnos reminded me.” He rubbed at his eyes, his palms pressing too hard. “It’s getting harder to come back.”
“Your body?” Achilles asked, tone cautious.
“My will,” Zagreus muttered. “My want.”
Achilles was quiet for a time, his expression unreadable, but heavy with meaning.
“I remember that feeling,” he said softly, at last. “Every battlefield bled into the next. There was a time I stopped fighting. I refused to. It was so pointless. They were just using me as their demon on the field.”
Zagreus looked over at him. Achilles’s gaze was fixed ahead—on nothing, and everything.
“I hid in my tent like a coward. Yelled a lot. Refused to come out.”
Silence fell again. The words pressed on Zag’s chest like a new wound, deeper than bone.
“What pulled you out?” he asked. “Patroclus?”
Achilles snorted, then winced. "No. No, it never got better. The last time I saw Pat was when he was putting on my armor to go fight because I wouldn't."
Zagreus looked up at him slowly.
Achilles wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t pretending. His expression was hard—bitten down and honest in a way that very few people ever let themselves be.
“He died wearing my armor,” Achilles said, voice low and bitter. “I thought—I thought the worst had already passed. That the grief couldn’t go any deeper. But then I saw his body dragged through the dirt, still wrapped in my name, my legacy. And I realized I’d passed my cowardice on to him.”
Zagreus swallowed, but the lump in his throat didn’t go anywhere.
“I didn’t get pulled out,” Achilles said. “I jumped in deeper. I hunted Hector down like an animal. I killed him, and then I made a show of it. I dishonored his corpse. I tried to rip the world apart with my own hands.”
His hand clenched unconsciously over the haft of his spear, though the weapon itself flickered, barely real.
“And none of it brought Patroclus back.”
Zagreus sat in stunned silence, breath shallow. That wasn’t the myth. That wasn’t the story the poets sang.
“I thought you—”
“I died bitter, Zagreus. I died angry. I died knowing I’d failed him. And I wandered these halls for what felt like centuries before I saw him again. And when I did…”
Achilles let out a shaky breath and shook his head.
“He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t disappointed. He was tired. Just like I’d been. Just like you are now.”
Zagreus stared at the floor, eyes wet and burning again, but no tears would come. The pressure behind them felt volcanic, but still they wouldn’t fall.
“I’m so fucking tired,” he whispered.
Achilles didn’t say anything to that. He just sat with him, like he had for years, like he always would. Silent. Present.
Zag leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees, staring down at his hands like they weren’t his. Covered in faint scars. Old dust from the Styx still lingered in the lines of his knuckles. Blood crusted beneath his nails.
He rubbed his palms together. It didn’t help.
“I don’t know why I keep doing this,” he admitted.
“You don’t need a reason today,” Achilles said. “You just need to survive it.”
Zagreus closed his eyes and nodded once. Not because it made him feel better.
But because it made him feel less alone.
He exhaled slowly, shakily. His hands finally stopped trembling. The ache in his ribs wasn’t gone—but it was quieter. Manageable.
“I think I’ll stay here a while,” he muttered.
Achilles smiled faintly. “Then you’re in good company.”
waxonicarus on Chapter 3 Tue 10 Jun 2025 11:54PM UTC
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