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Zagreus let them go.
Standing at the gateway of the garden, his mother there and real and smiling cunningly as she hinted at plots and plans, Zagreus watched his father. The old god’s eyes were soft in a way he had never seen and behind that ridiculous beard was a smile; soft and small and trembling. It was as if they couldn’t keep their eyes off of one another, his father’s gaze rapt and gentle and his mother’s roguish and bright.
Their relief and longing was palpable and Zagreus found himself suddenly exhausted.
So he let them go, assuring his mother he would be but a moment before settling himself down on the grass beneath the fruiting boughs once the two were out of sight. The house would no doubt be alight with gossip and wonderment at the Queen’s return. No one would notice his absence.
He didn’t even try to hold himself up but instead fell back on the grass, a long, ragged sigh escaping his lips. He was...tired. Since his first escape, his first true escape, it had been attempt after attempt, never stopping to rest, only desperate to get back to her, to untangle the twisted, complicated mess his family had woven themselves within.
And now, with his mother home and his family whole, with no more adrenaline to stave off the pain and hurt, it all came crashing down on him.
He was a child never meant to be born with a family that, on one side resented him for living and on the other cared so little for him that they would sooner send wretches to kill him than bear the smallest slight. Here, in the silence of the garden, Zagreus understood himself to be…unwanted.
Always he had had to labour for the love of those around him, persist in his efforts for affection and devotion, never had it been given to him freely.
Go home, she had said, do not return. He would never let her know how those words had ripped at his heart. He understood why; understood the dangers of returning there time after time, yet the words had torn through him more fiercely than any blade.
You were never supposed to live; his father’s voice echoed in his ears, why anyone would choose to have a child is a mystery to me.
A sob heaved up from his throat, his body shuddering with anguish as he pressed his knuckles into his eyes to stop the tears.
Would that he had listened and left Persephone to her garden and her cottage, content without him. Would that he had listened to his father and been the dutiful son, bearing each cruel word and thinly veiled show of resentment with quiet dignity. Would that he had not been born, and saved everyone so much sorrow and heartache.
“Zagreus?”
His father’s voice jolted him from his thoughts instantly. With a hoarse cry, Zagreus sat up, pushing his hands up from his eyes into his hair, face turned steadily away from where Hades stood across from him at the garden’s gate.
“Yes,” he answered and cursed how his voice croaked, “I’ll be right in. No need to wait up.”
There was the sound of grass crunching beneath restless feet but his father drew no closer.
“Persephone…your mother is speaking with Nyx. I thought it best to give them…”
Privacy, Zagreus finished, putting the pieces together. The thought made his lip quirk up just slightly. He was glad his mother was so well loved.
“Are you…well?”
The question, even spoken through the thick hesitance of his father’s voice, sobered him.
“Your encounters in Elysium and the Temple…were they –”
“I am well, father.”
The garden settled into silence, tense with something that Zagreus was unwilling to put into words and that Hades could not parse out.
“Ah.”
The sound of laughter floated in from the hall just beyond; light and full. A sound not heard within the House of Hades for many years.
“You’d best return to mother,” Zagreus stiffened his lip into a wry smile, “before Nyx absconds with her herself.”
“Hmph, never anything but disrespect from you, boy. Do not think that simply because your mother is home you can get away with such impertinence.”
This was familiar; this was comfortable; with this, Zagreus knew where he stood. And if his father lingered for a moment or two longer, the grass singeing beneath his shifting, restless feet well, Zagreus wouldn’t mention it.
“Do not be long.”
And he was gone, back out the gate into the hall, leaving Zagreus alone in the garden once more. His breath shuddered.
It seemed he would find no peace here, at least not for the time being. Slowly and with shaky legs, he stood, wiping at the tracks of tears that stained his face. It wouldn’t do to greet his mother with wet eyes; he did not want to burden her with that.
But if a mournful melody drifted from his room from time to time, no one bothered to mention it. The lyre, it seemed, was as good a substitute for cries of heartbreak and despair as anything else, and so he played, lips pressed tightly shut for fear his grief would be overheard.
To know that he had not been meant to be, that he should not have been, that his birth had been unwelcome; it shaped a special kind of heartsickness, and one he was unwilling to share.
No; he would let them go. He would not ruin their chances of happiness again, not for anything in the world. He would answer his mother with smiles brighter than the sun and curb his father’s uncomfortable questions with familiar acts of disobedience and irreverence.
His family was here and it was whole. Wasn’t that enough? Couldn’t that just be enough?