Chapter 1: Cruel and/or Unusual
Chapter Text
Tyson's eye shot open. He sat upright and stared into the darkness, listening hard. Amidst the peaceful sleeping sounds of the other campers, it was difficult to narrow down what had woken him, until it happened again.
A soft moan. Not like a sleeper in a nightmare, but something else. Something more desperate, the voice ragged.
I know what you need.
His eyebrow shot up. He thumped back to the bed and folded the pillow around his head, trying to block the sound.
"Tyson?" Percy mumbled from across the meter and a half that divided their bunks. "What is it? Are we under attack?"
"Uhh... Well, no, we aren't under attack." He grimaced as the voices, which he could now not NOT hear, continued, accompanied now by fumbling noises. "It's uhhhhh"
There was a pause. "Is it sex? Is someone having sex?"
"Mmhm." He blushed furiously. "I think so. I think it's... I think it's the directors."
"Oh. I'm uh... Sorry you can hear that."
"Yeah me too."
"I can go tell them to keep it down," he offered, sitting and regretfully abandoning the warmth of the blankets for the cool night air. He fumbled around for his shoes.
"Then they'll know we heard them."
"They shouldn't be having sex at camp if they don't want anyone to hear them, it's the least private place."
"But it'll be weird. Possibly forever. Forever weird."
He was already on his feet and had the door open. "I won't mention you heard them, they already hate me anyway."
The night outside was a few degrees cooler than in the cabin, still tolerable but not comfortable. The almost-new moon left everything to imagination, which Percy hoped was a portent for the rest of the night. The last thing he wanted was to get an eyeful of whatever Tyson was hearing.
The sounds got loud enough for him to hear as he slipped into the big house and followed down the hall to what must be the directors' own rooms.
A long groan of frustration.
Mr. D's voice, hushed, "I'm putting it in. Try to relax. You have to relax. Try swallowing." A gagging sound. "Shit. Shit, I'm sorry." More fumbling. A plastic-sounding click. "Look, we'll try again. Just, smoke some of this first. Relax. It will be a lot easier if you can relax."
The first voice-- almost certain to be Tantalus, if the reedy, ruined sound he heard next was representative. "Please. Please, I need it. It's been so long."
Mr. D sighed. "I know. I know. We'll try again. Just... Yeah, hit this. Breathe. I'll clean this up. We'll try again."
Deep breathing. The shift of fabric. A sigh, softer this time. Something that could have been skin on skin, then shuffling. The door opened, a puff of sweet smoke and Mr. D slipped out.
Percy, frozen in place, put his hands up.
Chapter 2: Immortality Without Parole
Summary:
Find out how Tantalus ended up in charge of a camp full of kids-- which seems like a bad job for a guy who cooked his own kid, right? Well.
Percy puts his foot in it by trying to do good.
CW implied alcohol, actual opium
Chapter Text
Mr. D moved faster than Percy thought was possible, putting down the bucket in his hand and moving into his space, clapping one hand over his mouth and pressing him to the wall. He gestured with the other hand for Percy to be quiet, urgency conveyed with held breath and an edge of panic.
Percy locked up for a second, then nodded.
Mr. D hesitated, then lowered his hand experimentally a mere centimeter. When Percy didn't shout or start talking, he lowered it the rest of the way and stepped back. With a scowl, he collected the bucket again and gestured to follow.
They walked into the woods, probably farther than was really necessary, before stopping. Mr. D dumped the bucket of rags on the ground-- soaked with what smelled like blood and sick, but the new-ish moon granted no favors. He fished a flask out of his pocket, doused the rags, and set them on fire.
With a light source at last, he could see how quietly furious Mr. D was.
"What brings you to the hut at this hour," you little shit.
Percy braced himself. "Um, you guys were... Audible. I could hear you. I wanted to ask you to... Keep it down. Whatever you were uh--"
Mr. D chuckled humorlessly. "Sounded like we were having some fun?" His giggle had too much madness in it. "Well. I wish we were, it would be better than this. But we weren't."
"Smelled fun. But that wasn't weed, was it?"
"You little deviant." He closed the flask and disappeared it in his pocket. "Opium. For the pain and to get him to relax. He's..." He trailed off, staring into the flickering remains of the small fire. Then he shook himself and continued. "He's in so much pain. It's been thousands of years." He sniffed. "Apollo said it would be easier to get the tube into him if he relaxed."
"The... A feeding tube?"
He nodded. "Yeah. We thought... The curse is that food and drink can't pass his lips, we thought the tube would be a loophole. The IVs keep him standing, and being out of Tartarus, seeing the sunlight. If you had heard him. He was just this... thing. Couldn't even speak. I had to stitch his lip and tongue. He'd... chewed them apart."
Percy felt sick. "Zeus and Hades didn't volunteer him to look after the camp."
Mr. D shook his head. "I asked for Hades to send him here. Like parole. Maybe if Zeus could see that he could be not a problem, he'd commute the rest of his sentence. Or at least kill him properly."
"Why?"
"He was my friend."
Percy wasn't used to the adults sounding so small. He panicked a little. "You're a good friend. Sticking your neck out like that is a big thing."
"Thanks. You're a terrible camper, you shouldn't be out of your hut. I should have you executed or something. Brat."
He smiled a small enough smile that it didn't overwhelm the thing that hung between them, over the smouldering pile of evidence. "He's been through a lot. We're maybe a little bit unfair to him. I thought he was an asshole, but I guess he's just hangry."
Mr. D laughed darkly. "Hangry. That's an understatement."
"I want to make things right," fell out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "If you, or he, need help, with--" he waved his hands at the smoking remains, "--this problem. If there's anything I can do to make it easier, I mean."
Mr. D examined him for a moment, then kicked some dirt onto the ashes and gave them a half-hearted stomping. "Yeah alright. He's so drugged that he won't remember you. Is your stomach settled?"
"Oh. What? Now?"
He started walking back. "He's been waiting thousands of years, yes, yes right now."
I'm not old enough for this kind of thing, he wanted to object. Instead, he grabbed the bucket and followed after.
Chapter 3: Geneva's Conventional Wisdom
Chapter Text
He stopped just inside the door. Later he told himself he was waiting for instructions, but in the moment he would have admitted to being shocked.
A stack of black fabric took up the entire sofa under the curtained window, illuminated poorly by the hurricane lamp on the end table. Beside the lamp, an old pipe no longer gave smoke. Mr. D set the bucket by the end table and picked up the pipe, lighting it with a practiced motion. He smoothed back some of the shadows and lowered the pipe to grey lips.
"Hit it," he ordered.
Clumsily, Tantalus did, taking a puff and rolling the smoke around in his mouth for a moment, then letting it free with an indecent sound.
Mr. D put the pipe back on the table to continue preparing something in a plastic container.
Tantalus sighed deeply, and turned his head. The drugs widened the gaps and cracks in his eyes, making his already ruined face even harder to look at. After a long moment of looking through Percy, he smiled kindly. "My boy, did your dreams trouble you? Come sit with me, and we will talk until they are forgotten.
Most of his life, he'd been fatherless, and that little boy longed to throw himself onto the sofa and talk about the things that troubled him and receive explanations that turned them into nothings. It took all the willpower of a thirteenth of him and the stories his mother told him to glue his feet to the ground and not seek that from a man who'd served his own son at a dinner party.
Mr. D side-eyed him but didn't stop what he was doing. He did rescue the poor boy, though. "That's Percy Jackson, from the camp."
Tantalus's drugged smile didn't shift a milimeter. "Ah, my mistake. Percy, from the camp. You're a brave boy. You make good friends. Is something the matter?"
"If I'm brave and my friends are good, why'd you give us kitchen duty?"
He blinked. It took a very long time to do, and his eyelids didn't move together. "Why would you shun the kitchens? Everything good happens there."
Oh. Right. He took a step forward, then another, until he was just out of arm's reach.
"I think it's ready," Mr. D told them, hanging the top of a covered plastic funnel to the IV pole next to the sofa. "Move all that off him so he can sit up."
"Bread happens there," he continued longingly.
Percy peeled back a heavy blanket and a tattered black robe to reveal a too-thin torso and stringy arms in a threadbare tunic that left no horror to the imagination. He clenched his jaw and forced himself not to back away.
Tantalus would not have noticed. He was looking at the funnel and feeding tube in D's hand with visible anxiety. He struggled to sit up, mostly pulling at the back of the sofa, until he was mostly upright.
"It's going to work," D told him. "It's going to work. You remember what a full belly feels like. It will be like that."
His shattered glass eyes glittered up at him. "No."
"No-? You don't want to try?"
"No I... I don't remember." He licked his lips, dry tongue making the wrong sound. "I want to remember." He stared at the tube for another moment, then nodded to D. "Let's do it."
He nodded back. "Okay. I'll-- just hold still. That's it. Look up, and tilt your head back. Percy, hand me the-- yeah. Alright, try to relax and swallow. Over and over. That's it."
Percy averted his eyes, not wanting to see what was happening.
Mr. D shuffled them both until he was at the right angle to put the plastic hose down his throat and support the other man so he didn't move and choke. "There. Percy, turn the valve just under the funnel."
He obeyed.
"Now pour a half cup of liquid from the tumbler into the funnel, slowly."
He watched the liquid, barely thicker than water, move down the pipe.
"Relax," he reminded him. "It's alright. He said it will feel strange. That's it, you've got it."
"Should I-?" Percy had to speak before he was overcome with how weird the situation was.
"No, that's all. Too much might hurt him, and we don't know how much is too much. Close the valve." He stole a moment in the half darkness to run his fingers through his friend's hair. "Are you ready? I'll take it out now."
A boney hand squeezed his arm.
"Try to cough. I'm sorry." He pulled the tube and kept pulling until it came away, leaving a dribble of stomach acid.
Tantalus closed his arms over his middle as if to protect himself, and between coughing and choking, he prayed aloud. "Mercy. Mercy. Mercy."
Percy stood back, unsure if he should have the bucket ready, but Mr. D beat him to it.
When the coughing calmed and it was apparent he wouldn't sick up, Tantalus sagged back against the sofa. "Oh. Oh."
Mr. D held him up, but turned to make direct eye contact with Percy. "Thanks. You should go."
"Is he--"
"You should go. Don't tell anyone about this." He focused on the shaking man beside him. "How is it?"
"It's warm," he gasped, awe on his face and in his voice. "I feel warm." His shaking frame contradicted his claim somewhat.
Percy turned and booked it out of the room.
Tantalus caught Dionysius's hand and brought it to his mouth to kiss his knuckles. "I'll follow the rules," he breathed. "I'll never question a god again. Please."
He pulled the half-human wreckage into a hug and arranged the robe against his back, willing some warmth into him. "Shut up," he advised fondly. "We'll do this every day you're here."
Tantalus laughed, and then cried, and then laughed some more.
Percy speed-walked as fast as he could in the pre-dawn darkness back to Poseidon cabin. He toed off his shoes and climbed under the blanket, his mind a swirling mess of confused sympathy and hatred.
"Percy?" Tyson wondered blearily. "How'd it go?"
He considered how to answer. He wanted to shout about how fucked up it was. He wanted to rant about cruel punishments and irresponsible authorities. He wanted to scream until he didn't feel feelings anymore. He could hear two voices in his head, one his mother, telling him the tale of King Tantalus, and the other a ruined voice begging mercy from a god he dearly hoped hadn't heard what they'd done tonight.
Tantalus was born a half-blood son of Zeus, and was raised first by his mortal mother. When he excelled at geometry and architecture, organizing and leadership his father invited him to live on Olympus with his other family. He learned the ways of the Gods, their designs and sciences, their arts and culture. He grew bold and opinionated, which displeased his father. He stole his father's dog and questioned his father's wisdom, and was thrown out of Olympus.
On earth, he practiced the skills he learned from the Gods and shared their knowledge, helping to design and build the Kingdom of Lydia. He built a city in the image of Olympus, which the citizens called Tantalis. The people benefitted so much from his leadership that they made him their king. He married, and had a mortal family, and was very happy, but also sad, for he had known a life with his other family and missed them dearly.
His people saw this sadness in him. They prayed so often and made such sacrifices to Zeus that he could not ignore them. On their behalf, he invited King Tantalus back to Olympus for a feast, one night to be with his other family again.
He was so happy to be among his beloved family that when the night ended, he didn't have the strength of heart to say goodbye to them. He promised to host the next feast, so they would be together again, and so they could see the city he built to honor them.
Zeus, still angry with him after so many years, and seeing how his relations still adored this bastard son, declared there was nothing mortals could make which compared to the feasts of the gods, and therefore no one had any reason to attend his feast.
Tantalus agreed that this was true, he could only give all that he had, and serve even that which was most precious as a sacrifice to them. His aunts and uncles were impressed by his dedication and loyalty, so agreed to attend his feast.
When Tantalus returned him to his city, he realized what he had promised. For though his city flowed with precious materials and spices from foreign lands from Sudan to Normandy, India to the End of the World, that which was most precious to him in any world mortal or divine was his family. And of them, the most precious was his young son, who had barely begun to live and already stolen his whole heart.
King Tantalus announced the feast to his people and they prepared as best they could. On the night before, with a heart of lead, he gathered up his son and went to the temple of Zeus, where he laid his son on an altar and prayed all night for mercy. When Zeus did not reply, he wept and killed the boy, and took his body to the kitchens, where he himself prepared a stew salted with his own tears. He went mad with grief.
When the gods arrived to the feast, he barred the servants from the hall and served the meal himself. The gods, who had been eaten by their own father, recognized quickly what was happening, but not before Demeter nibbled the flesh of the boy's shoulder. With their power, they reassembled the boy and gave him life again, restoring his damaged shoulder with ivory from the table.
"Now you all see what a monster this man is," Zeus told them. "And I will destroy him utterly, and raze this evil city to the ground."
"Spare the city," Tantalus begged him, bent to the floor by grief and guilt. "The citizens are blameless, and even I have kept the promise your pride demanded."
Zeus would hear no more from him. The other gods agreed the city should be spared if in return King Tantalus were disintegrated by the thunderbolt and his soul subjected to whatever eternal punishment Hades designed.
In Tartarus, there wastes a man who tried to be both a son of a god and a father of a son, a struggle he could only lose. If you miss the love of the family that made you, embrace the family you choose.
"Pers?" Tyson prompted again when he'd been lost in thought for too long.
"Did you hear anything else?" He asked.
His eyebrow wrinkled. "Laughing, a little bit. But other than that, no."
"It went ok. Hey Tyson? I'm glad you're my brother, and I'm sorry I've been a jerk. I was just getting used to having my mom all to myself. But I'm over it. I'm really glad you're here."
His smile could be heard in his reply. "Thanks. I'm glad we get this time together. Goodnight, Percy."
"Goodnight."
Chapter 4: Dumpster Diving
Summary:
Flashback chapter. Sometimes you get what you want, but it isn't what you thought it would be. (Every myth ever)
Chapter Text
"Hey boss," D greeted, wandering into the office with as much casual indifference as he could muster. "I'm going to need a replacement for the activities director."
Hades raised an eyebrow but didn't stop writing.
"It's not that I don't want to look after half a thousand brats on my own. And to be clear, I do not. But I can't."
The boss continued scribbling. 'Choose from the lesser dead.'
Dionysus wandered around the office, pretending to be thinking about it. "Putting someone who killed their kid in charge of a bunch of kids would be funny."
'Medea?'
"Too volatile."
Hades put down his quill finally and made eye contact with the fidgetting god. 'Do you wish to work for the forgiveness of she who you wronged?'
I was wronged too, he did not say, but it was a close call. He was wiser than to clap back at an elder god, and wiser still to acknowledge he had indeed been the instrument of hurt and though he was not to blame, he was still responsible. "No. If... If she's at peace, don't remind her I exist."
He waited.
"Give me Tantalus."
Hades resumed writing.
"Has he already moved on too?" He tried to sound disappointed, but the lump in his throat was something more delicate.
'His punishment is eternal.'
D bit down on his argument and held it until it stopped struggling. "I can't think of anything more punishing for him than being in camp, surrounded by children."
Hades paused, considering. 'I shall add children's voices to his punishment.' He resumed writing. 'You are very creative.'
Shit. No, wait. "You're joking."
'Yes.'
Dionysus crossed his arms and tried to look disapproving but in a dark way, it was pretty funny.
'He is outside,' Hades said at last. 'When you finish with him, dismiss him and his soul will be drawn back to the lake.'
"What's the exact phrase to dismiss him?" D wasn't falling for this shit again.
'Say...' Hades rolled the quill in his fingers, considering. 'Say, Return To Sender.'
Weird. "Ok. Any other rules I should know about?"
'His torment is eternal. This isn't a holiday. I reserve the right to remove him back to Tartarus if he breaks any rules.'
"Got it." Tartarus, still?
'If he is no longer of use, send him back amd we can think of another substitute.'
D nodded, gave a half-hearted salute, and left the office. "Thanks boss!"
Outside the office, there was no one. He frowned and looked up and down the corridor, wondering if his former friend had already detected the opportunity to escape and been put back in his lake. He was a fool sometimes, but not that much of a fool.
A stench assaulted him all at once. He gagged, fished a handkerchief out of his cargo shorts pocket, and clapped it over his mouth and nose. His eyes watered. The stench radiated like a miasmatic cloud from the wooden cart standing near the opposite wall. ...ah. He lifted the canvas cover and leaned back as a more intense wave of smell washed over him. He peered in.
A skeleton swimming in an orange jumpsuit shivered in the cart, gnawing on something with a wet, sticky sound. Black, infected blood covered the lower half of his face, and pieces of his cheek and lower lip were missing. Yellow teeth poked through the absent flesh. Cracked eyes stared up without seeing.
Fuck. More than he could ever remember, D needed a drink.
He took the cart back to his home. Camp didn't have the facilities to deal with something like this. And his friend needed some privacy.
And if he couldn't drink himself into a stupor, he needed Ariadne.
He was careful to be as gentle as possible with the cart while not displaying his concern for anyone who might be watching. Once he got to his home and the protections it offered, he set the cart next to the garden path, went inside, buried his face in Ariadne's hair, and howled.
"Oh?" She wondered, closing her book and twisting so she could wrap her arms around him. "What's happened?"
"I can't stay long," he said, not a complete answer. He squeezed her harder for a moment, then led her outside to the garden, wrapped one hand in hers, and used the other to throw back the canvas.
Sensing the change in the air, the thing in the cart stopped chewing himself and stilled, waiting in blindness and weakness for whatever came next.
"Oh," Ariadne said. She squeezed his hand and bravely went to the cart, examining their guest with concern.
"I need your help," Dionysus told her. "He's trapped."
"Yes," she said after a moment. "Well. We'll need water, soap, and rags. I'll get my sewing kit but he's your friend, you do the stitches. I'm not putting my fingers anywhere near his mouth."
He caught her hand and she moved past him and kissed the back of it. "I don't deserve you."
She smiled sadly. "No, you don't. But here I am."
Chapter 5: Unmiraculous Resurrections
Summary:
I guess we're going to stay flashed back for a bit.
Notes:
CW lots of eugenicsy classist bullshit. This is a VERY different chapter than what I had planned.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The rag went into the soapy water, then along paper-thin skin in gentle circles, dislodging mildew and infection. There was not enough blood left to rise to the top when it was too much, so they had to guess at the time and pressure they could apply. And slowly, slowly he emerged, both from the long neglect of body and from the terrifying stillness of mind. A timid return of pressure, a questing finger, then hand. He didn't grasp their hands back, but neither did he startle or fight them.
The sun set. They lit lanterns and continued. Behind the noise of crickets, they almost missed it, or maybe they did miss the first sound. When the rasping registered, Dionysus dropped the rag and grasped his friend's hand. "Hey. We're here."
Too-dull mismatched eyes drifted over to him and struggled to focus. Hhh?
"It's me. Ariadne's here, too."
The hand in his finally tightened a little.
Ariadne's hand stilled, then she dropped her rag too and checked at his neck. "His heart is beating."
Dionysus smiled and made a sound somewere between a laugh and a sob. "Welcome back."
Tantalus mirrored his smile mechanically, then panic took over. He choked.
"Shit. Turn him," Ariadne ordered.
They moved together to roll him on his side just as he started to heave. Dionysus's legs took the brunt of it, but he didn't let go of his hand or move out of view.
He brought up more than he should have been able to contain; bile, acid, blood, pus, chunks of tissue. Dionysus stamped down his panic and didn't look away from his face, wanting to reassure his friend whenever there was a pause in between heaves.
Finally, exhausted, he fell still.
Ariadne rubbed his back comfortingly and gave Dionysus a significant look. "A doctor."
"Yeah. Yeah, right. Who's going to come for him?"
"You did."
He accepted a clean rag and wiped the stinking mess from his friend's face, then off his own shins. "Apollo will answer but only to send him back."
"Let me talk to him first. If he's too angry, we'll ask to borrow someone from Asphodel. Or one of his daughters?"
D considered, then nodded. He was too exhausted to think of anything better. "Let's put him in the study."
The electric car whispered up the drive, lack of engine contributing absolutely nothing to cover the thump of the bass coming from its aftermarket subwoofers. The music cut as the door opened and out stepped Apollo in the most expensive track suit imaginable.
Ariadne waited to greet him outside next to the cart and its mess.
He pushed his sunglasses up to sit on his bleach-blonde hair. "Oh," he commented on the congealed pool of sick. "It's that kind of visit."
Over a cup of tea in the den, Ariadne doled out the truth in small doses. "We're having trouble getting a lesser dead back on his feet. As you saw, as soon as his heart started again, he brought up all that mess."
Apollo raised an eyebrow.
"Chiron is unavailable this summer, so Hades loaned him to substitute as activities director."
He sipped his tea.
"We were hoping you'd be able to help, either with medicine or as consulting physician. It's an unusual case, and you're the best doctor there is. Probably the only one ever who will know what to do."
He sighed and set the teacup on the coffee table. "You can stop lathering me, once I saw the whole atrophied liver and spleen, I knew who you're hiding."
She cleared her throat. "We're not hiding anyone."
"Then show me where he is." He spread his hands to demonstrate how simple it was.
"Are you going to heal him?"
He pressed his lips together and the lines at the corners of his eyes became strained. "Probably not. Mangey fuck got what he deserved."
"Three thousand years ago." She refilled their teacups, refusing to get riled. "Hades loaned him for the summer. He's still being punished. But we want him on his feet to help run the camp."
"This was your husband's idea. He's nostalgic for the old days and wanted his wingman back."
"My husband does not need a wingman."
Apollo raised one hand. "Sorry. Sorry. I meant, this was his idea, and I don't support it."
She sighed. "Yes. It was his idea. And it was out of friendship. This punishment is beyond what anyone could deserve."
"He killed his son on my father's altar."
"Then you know who asked for it."
"You think Father had something to do with this?"
"And since we're talking about murders, you've killed more of his family than he has. You can't pretend it's because you loved any of them."
"Uncle did," he snarked.
"We've treated them like pets," she insisted.
Apollo grimaced. "The bastards are pets. Little oopsies, no plan or purpose. And even he could have become a lesser god if he'd known his place half so well as your husband. They could have been the God of Parties and the God of Losers together, like a divine 'Hot Tub Time Machine'."
Ariadne threw her teacup against the wall, where it shattered and left a smear of tea across the fine wallpaper.
Apollo's mouth closed.
She stared him down.
He opened his mouth and closed it again, then opened it, no sound coming out.
"Go get your bag," she ordered him in a tone that left the room several degrees colder.
Apollo did as he was told.
When the electric car zipped back up the drive, it did so in complete silence.
In the study next to the door sat a crate of supplies with a sun and lyre stamped on it. The chaise was pulled over close to the iron wood stove, in which crackled a docile little fire. Next to the chaise was an IV pole with a bag of saline, 40% w/v nectar, and a tube leading into a nest made of every blanket in the house. And in the nest was a thing that was slowly healing and becoming more person-shaped.
"You should've let me hit him," Dionysus opined.
"I should've put him in a labyrinth," she corrected. "Still might do." They settled into the armchairs for a potentially long wait. "I could put your whole family in one, tell them there's someone in the center that thinks they're better than them."
D snorted. "That will keep them busy for a millennia." He admired her for long moment, watching her long-fingered hands working complicated knot patterns into her knitting. "Thank you."
"Thank you. You've changed, in a good way."
He scrubbed his palms over his eyes. "It's taken me such a long time. Almost forever."
She smiled sadly, but not at him. "None of us thought eternity would be so horribly long."
Notes:
Someone on Tumblr said 'I hope his internal organs attack each other' and I didn't stop reading fast enough so now neither will you.
I think Apollo would love electric cars since they can be sun-powered.
D was supposed to be point defense but Ariadne took the ball and would not pass.
Chapter 6: Throwdown
Summary:
Still flashed back.
Thank you for your patience as I invade your fandom, I am not well-read. I'll correct mistakes as they are pointed out.
CW: attempted non-con, past non-con
Chapter Text
By contractual necessity, they went onward to camp before Tantalus could stand or speak, but he was conscious and responding to external stimuli, which was a vast improvement. When they arrived to the mostly-empty camp, Dionysus set him in the big house near a window and did his best to explain the terms of their indenture. Then he explained what a summer camp was. Then he explained that demigod children were theirs to protect, and that there were a lot of rules, and that they were being watched.
By this time, Tantalus's focus had drifted and he was fighting sleep. D left him to nap in a sunbeam like some kind of rescue cat while he rummaged for something to replace the soiled orange jumpsuit. When he returned, his patient was still deeply asleep. The sunlight made the sunken eyes more obvious, the dead grey of his skin more severe. But the sounds of year-rounders playing and laughing outside and birds singing brought a peace to the scene. His twitching brow and the flickering under his eyelids were not the flinches of pain and microseizures of the previous day.
D heaved a sigh of relief. Thank you, Morpheus. The knowledge of the dream god's mercy-- complicity?-- fortified him. First Ariadne, now Morpheus. Could there be others that would help? How could he contact them?
He sat nearby and waited patiently for the other god's work to play out. An hour passed in gentle silence, then tension returned. Tantalus's eyes flickered open. He took in his surroundings slowly, then his good eye fell on Dionysus.
He cleared his throat. "I found some clean clothing and something to keep you warm. I think it might be spare black-out curtains. Not fit for a king, but better than that jumpsuit. Is it ok if I help you change?"
He processed that, then nodded.
"Ok good. Yeah. It feels nice to be clean. We'll go at your pace, tap when you want to stop."
They took a break when the jumpsuit was around his waist, again when the trousers were on, then again when the first layer was complete. The second, heavier vest hid more of the desolation, and the belt brought his center of gravity to a more normal altitude.
During one of the breaks, while his eyes were screwed shut and boney fingers twisted in D's hawaiian shirt, he rasped, "you put yourself in danger for me. For this moment of relief. An eye-blink. Why?"
Dionysus huffed a small laugh. "I put myself in danger for me. It's lonely here. I missed you and I wanted this eye-blink with my friend."
The dessicated skin at the corners of his mouth cracked as he smiled wryly. "I understand."
"Thought you might."
As the afternoon settled into evening and the heat of the day left the cabin, Dionysus wrapped a small blanket around his friend's shoulders like a shawl. "I need to go for a bit. Evening constitutional. Do you want to stay like that or lie down?"
"Stay," he whispered. Then, "Read?"
"Yeah buddy, I've got some books around here."
"...books?" Confusion.
"They're like scrolls, but packed together in a little box. You'll love them. They make libraries way more efficient."
A glimmer of interest. "Remember...?"
Dionysus grinned as he rummaged around for reading material. "When we got kicked out of dad's library? Yeah, I do." He put a stack of books and magazines next to the chair and lit a lamp. "We deserved that one."
A repetitive rasping, coughing sound. A laugh.
D wanted to tuck his hands around the sound like a little flame sitting at the end of a candle wick, trying not to extinguish. He watched with satisfaction that slowly turned to dread how the smile lifted the veil of time for a moment, and his friend was the forty-year-old father and partner in crime he remembered before he spoke from his heart to the wrong god and broke everything to pieces. His smile must have turned sad, because Tantalus's own had fallen away, and he was studying him with a heavy look. He patted his friend on the shoulder. "I'll be back soon."
Tantalus watched him go. "Bring... food?"
D paused and was glad he was facing away. "Oh buddy. I'm sorry. Your curse isn't lifted, you still can't."
He took the disappointment like a professional, but set his jaw and tipped his chin up in as much of a challenge as he could. "Want to... watch you."
He held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. "Yeah. Okay. We can do that."
Thus began a tradition. Every evening after the curfew started, D would bring his supper back to the big house and explain the mostly unfamiliar foods, where they came from, how they were made, their flavor profile, the level of formality when they were served, what else the key ingredients were used to make. Tantalus would listen and ask questions as if at a lecture, but it was hard to miss the half-crazed obsession, which to his credit he was trying hard to control, with watching Dionysus eat. First he thought it was the only thing that reliably kept his attention off the more mundane aspects of the hunger curse, then he realized it kept his attention because it was the hunger.
On the first night, he didn't know what to do about it, so he put it out of his mind and settled them both for bed, himself on the couch and Tantalus on his bed.
It was past midnight when he woke to a new sound. His first thought was joy that his friend's vocal chords had healed. The second was how unfair it was that the first sound he made with them was that.
And his third was to arm himself. He tore back the curtains to let in the waning moon, and grabbed for the baseball bat he kept under his bed-- but he wasn't on the bed. Something winged and the size of a person crouched over the dimished form, its head bent down. For a moment, he hesitated, in case it was Tyche, but he should have known better.
"You still are the god of parties, aren't you?" Nemesis purred. "Did you throw this one in my honor?" She leaned in and licked a stripe from Tantalus's collarbone to his ear.
"Get off him," D warned.
"Did you think we wouldn't smell him? He's a demigod." She sat back, straddling him. "He's become like a prayer. A perfect revenge for an unspeakable crime. I could taste him the moment you left the underworld."
As she looked over her shoulder at him, his eyes fell on a familiar arrow shaft sticking out from under her left shoulderblade. Two skinny arms struggled to push her away, shoving and striking out ineffectually from below.
"He can't eat food, but I bet he eats pussy like he's starving to death."
Dionysus's vision went red for a moment. He saw himself heaving and grasping and taking, on top of a screaming Aurora, and all of the others, mortal and immortal, his fault or Eros's, all of them his responsibility. His dead children, his live children, all of them his responsibility. His crimes. No more.
There was something in his hands. Someone was screaming with his voice. A weight in his arms, then it was gone and there was a crash somewhere else. Someone else was laughing and telling him he really should learn to take a joke, but nothing seemed very fucking funny to him right then. A nose broke under his fist, then he was alone.
No, not alone. There was a voice. A voice he hadn't heard in three thousand years. A friend who understood him at his best and accepted his worst. He didn't realize until that moment just how badly he needed to hear it.
"Dion? D. I'm here. Look at me. I'm okay."
Without a thought in his head, D climbed under the blankets and curled up next to him, holding him close until the rage dissipated, then until the sun rose.
Chapter 7: At the Temple of Dionysis
Summary:
They make each other worse.
This chapter NSFW 18+ explicit -- minors skip to next chapter.
CW: non-graphic sexual activity (untouched, clothed, etc) Canon-typical manipulation
Notes:
Thank you to the four people reading this.
Thank you to the one person on Tumblr who saw them and thought 'yeah ok, both.'
Chapter Text
D spent most of his younger centuries waking up with other people, sometimes in wall-to-wall cuddle puddles, sometimes in the back of carts having been so hung over he'd been mistaken for a corpse. Waking up next to just one person was pleasant, peaceful. It quieted something noisy in his mind. He'd have preferred his wife, at home, but since he was stuck at camp then out of all the lesser dead he could name, this was probably his first choice.
Tantalus was pressed into his side, breath a quiet whistle.
He pulled the blankets up around him.
The motion woke him; he blinked slowly at D as if struggling to remember where they were. When they were.
"Mornin," he grunted.
Tantalus licked his dry lips, a gesture which solved nothing. "Are we okay? What happened?"
"Eros and Nemesis heard you were out and stopped by." He examined his bloodied knuckles. "I think I broke his nose and--" he looked at the disarray in the rest of the room. "Yeah, I threw her over there somewhere."
"Is it going to be trouble for you?"
"Probably. But she was hurting you."
He didn't answer right away. "You could have let her hurt me."
"What? No."
"What could she do that's worse than what's already been done?" His gaze fell away from D's frown and landed somewhere in his beard. "I don't want to cause you any more problems. You've done so much already."
Dionysus scoffed. "You're just lulling me into a false sense of security so you can make a sneaky escape." It was clear he didn't mean it.
Cautiously, Tantalus pulled himself a little closer, pressing his cheek into D's chest hair.
He stroked the back of his head idly for a few minutes, until his alarm went off, blaring 'Margaritaville'. He shifted out from the bed and slammed a palm on the clock, silencing it.
"What was that?"
"Alarm clock. It wakes you up at a set time."
"That is insane."
"Yeah tell me about it." He heaved himself out of the bed and pulled the curtain shut, starting his morning routine. "It's as bad as not being allowed alcohol."
"You're not allowed alcohol? You invented alcohol!"
"We covered this yesterday." He sighed and found some shorts that didn't smell too bad. "It was part of the agreement when they let me out from the mountain. No booze. Run the camp. Follow the rules."
Tantalus stared at him, mystified. "Yesterday?"
"Yeah, when we came here. Do you not remember?"
He chewed on his lip, thinking hard. "I remember it was cold and loud, then someone arguing in the next room. Then it was warm and quiet. Then... Children's voices and..." He shook his head. "I read from papers in a box?" He made a frustrated noise.
"Hey it's... It's okay. Maybe you vomited out your brains yesterday, I don't know."
"I what?"
"You puked, like, a LOT." He sat on the bed and rested a hand on the lump of blankets where he guessed the rest of his friend was. "I guess we should get another IV in before the day starts. It's uh. So: I'll put a needle under your skin. The needle is attached to a tube and the tube goes to a bag of fluid. It drips the fluid into your blood."
Tantalus stared at him like he'd grown two more heads.
"It's to hydrate you. It was Apollo's idea."
His eyebrows shot up. "Apollo helped? Things really have changed."
He shrugged and retrieved the IV pole and kit from the jumble of things knocked over in the altercation. "It's complicated." He made himself busy washing his hands and preparing a clean needle.
Tantalus waited patiently, letting him wipe his neck with disinfectant, slip the needle into the artery, and tape it down without so much as a sound.
Work done, he stood back. "How does it feel?"
"This is going to help?"
"It has so far. Does it hurt?"
"Everything hurts."
D frowned.
"I'll uhh... wait here," he offered. "Do what you need to do."
He coughed. "Yeah. Okay." He exited the uncomfortable situation as fast as he could without appearing to be running away.
When the year-rounders had had their breakfast and moved on to rambling the camp grounds in bands of half-feral childhood chaos, and D had had the chance to piss and wash his face, he returned to big house. At first, he thought Tantalus really had given him the slip, but the lump in the blankets was still slightly more than could be explained by the disarray. The empty bag on the IV pole still led to a tube that led to the blankets. And if he listened carefully enough, he could hear grinding teeth and short inhalations. He returned to the bedside and peeled back the blanket.
Tantalus was curled as small as possible, arms wrapped protectively over his middle and knees brought up to apply pressure to them. His eyes and jaw were shut tight.
"Hey. I'm going to take the needle out and put some pressure on your neck."
"Don't touch me," he hissed. "Just... Wait a moment."
D ignored the edge in his tone. "It's worse?"
He focused on his breathing until he could unclench his jaw. "I feel stronger, but it feels deeper. The void. " He pulled his knees in tighter. "Do it."
He slipped the needle out and pressed a guaze pad to his skin until the bleeding stopped. He clipped the tube to itself and left it to hang.
"Talk to me. I don't want to be back there. I want to be here."
And damned if he didn't feel that one in his bones. "Alright. Let me tell you about here."
He explained the camp, the agreements that bound them, and as he slowly relaxed by force of will and straightened his legs amd back, D rambled about individual campers, the previous year's drama, the modern world. He kept going as Tantalus sat up under his own power and struggled to his feet. He pulled topics out of nowhere as he helped him dress. They went out to the deck together, and stood in the morning sunlight as he talked and talked. Finally he wrapped it up with, "I am really anxious about you being up, this seems fast-"
Before he could finish the sentence, a child raced up and crashed into them both, knocking Tantalus down like a house of cards and tumbling over on top of him.
Dionysus swore under his breath, lifting the boy back to his feet. "What's the hurry?"
"Camp is under attack!" The boy shouted far too loud for the short distance between them.
He spent half a second scanning the child for indications this was some new game, but no, there were some distant screams that corroborated the story. He turned and looked out across the yard. "Clarisse! Can you take care of that? Thank you!" He turned back to the boy. "Go show her where."
The boy rocketed head-first off the porch with the top-heavy head-first velocity only children can achieve.
Tantalus leaned back against the railing and wheezed. "Maybe something to lean on?"
"You gotta be a lot scarier with these kids, they all have so much microplastic in their brains that it takes a lot for them to notice you."
"Micro... What?"
He offered a hand up. "I'll explain later. Did he... Are you...?"
"Nothing new."
"Good. Right. Let's get you a stick or whatever."
In the interest of being a lot scarier, they got him a spear. He gave a few practice snarls, which had D cracking up, but the real help was finally being able to stand at his full height.
"Let's do Good Cop Bad Cop!" Dionysus decided.
Tantalus barked a laugh. "I don't have the energy. Let's do Boss and Henchman, and you be the boss."
"Bah. We can trade being the boss." He grinned. "This is going to be so much fun." Now that you're here, he did not say.
For only remembering a few hours out of the previous three thousand years and muscling through severe abdominal pain, D figured he did pretty well on the first day. There was the return of two of the Disaster Trio, and they brought their own replacement third which seemed to be the source of trouble on paradise island, but it was all manageable. They contained panic, found distractions, and kept the kids' material needs met, which is all that could be hoped from a summer camp.
When they returned to their own space after curfew, D's arms full of recently-invented food swiped from the kitchen and Tantalus so tired he could barely lift his feet, they settled around the table to enjoy their time together. He explained squash, corn, and black beans, and chili peppers, the trade network of the early Americas and the genocide that colonialism brought. Then the origin of tortillas from Lebanon and the invention of the taco. As he started on a second taco, he noticed that Tantalus's fingers had drifted up to touch his own lip, and his gaze was fixed on D's mouth. It was a very intense sort of attention, and it did very intense things to his blood flow. What came next made it many times worse.
"If you kiss me, will I be able to taste it?" he wondered quietly.
Dionysus stared him down, trying to gauge his headspace. "Is that what you want?"
Mismatched eyes lifted to meet his, and the impact was like a meteor strike. D understood what Nemesis had meant by 'becoming a prayer.' There wasn't much left of him, but every bit was want.
His own body stirred in response. He smeared a greasy finger over his lips and moved around the table, bent down, and hesitated.
Tantalus was stalk-still, breath ragged, mad with anticipation. He didn't blink. He just sat, tense and wanting, but not reaching.
What had always happened when he reached?
Very gently, D put his hands on the sides of his head to guide them together, and pressed their lips together.
The tension in his body became a trembling. He accepted the contact but didn't chase it, opening his mouth to allow D to enter and leave a trail of spices and hot wetness where there hadn't been anything in so long. It was physically painful and he couldn't help but want it to go on forever.
His ecstasy was stronger than wine and sweeter by far. Yeah. This is what I'm the god of, D thought fervently. He finally broke away with a last, slow lick along his bottom lip, and examined the effect.
Still trembling, pupils wide and dark, Tantalus looked on the border of blacking out from overstimulation.
Dionysus smoothed one palm along his hair while using the other to hold him in place.
He exhaled a thoroughly debauched sound wrapped around words of worship. Almost an afterthought, he shuddered and went boneless.
Unsettlingly, D understood exactly why Nemesis had been willing to visit neutral ground for this. Eros must have been here for the same thing when he saw an opportunity. But for once, Dionysus held all the cards. He had to decide whether to treat his worshipper like a tool, a toy, or a person. Tantalus would accept anything from him; he had no choice at all.