Work Text:
Thanatos’ been working so hard he didn’t even realize he’s asleep until his dreams started to get weird.
It’s probably worrying that up until this point his dreams had been nothing but work, work, work, trying to ignore Helios’ sun as he freed the souls of countless mortals.
The only thing that’s missing is the insistent little buzz in the back of his brain that goes itchy itchy itch- and he usually shoved that aside anyway.
It’s not until the dream shifts to a battlefield that things start getting… freaky.
First off, the battlefield is in hazy dusk, and Ares isn’t there. The war god is never one to miss a chance to see Thanatos.
Oh, and the entire field is covered in poppies, red flowers pushing up everywhere a soldier isn’t.
“Ah. This is a dream,” the realization does nothing, as usual. Even Thanatos was not free of his twin’s domain.
He floated over the battlefield, the cool breeze of his wings soothing his headache.
Wait, what?
Thanatos rarely wore his wings, having them tucked away in a little pocket of the aether along with the other bits of himself that were not suitable to his duties.
He and Hypnos had mastered that from a young age, how to make themselves look just mortal adjacent, and he hadn’t even thought about his wings in far too long.
Out of sight, out of mind. Except for that little part of his mind that still says 'scratch scratchy itchy itchy' like a particularly annoying big bite. But bug bites, and itchiness are a mortal problem, and if Hypnos can ignore it, surely Thanatos can too.
He shrugged it off, going through the motions of reaping souls. If this is what he was dreaming, who was he to fight it?
He swept over corpses that were full of poppies, red and black varieties both finding homes in still-warm soldier’s bodies. Thanatos shivered despite himself. The movement dislodges feathers from his glossy black wings, but he pays it no mind, even as he leaves a trail of them behind him.
Turning away from the battlefield, Thanatos spread his wings, wanting to stretch them a bit before he inevitably folded them away.
The dream turned quickly into a nightmare as he felt a skeletal hand grab his ankle.
His scythe is mysteriously gone, but Thanatos is too panicked to notice as he tries to kick away the corpses that have sprung to life, clawing their way up to him.
“Get off! Get back!”
The decaying hand of a soldier comes clean off as he breaks free, shooting up towards Helios’ dying light, his plumage falling like ash.
Thanatos thought he was free, and that’s when he made the number one dream mistake of looking down.
It’s not a battlefield, but the pits of Tartarus, open like a great wound in a field of flowers.
There’s a ramp leading up to the surface, and Thanatos feels his stomach drop when he spots a figure standing on top of a boulder.
It’s the Knave King, Sisyphus. He has a fistful of Thanatos’ feathers in one hand, Death’s chains in the other.
He moves faster than Thanatos can soar away, his wings suddenly weighing a ton and dragging him down.
A golden chain, thick as his wrist wraps around his waist, instantly locking into place.
No, not again, not like this! Thanatos is gasping for breath he doesn’t need, tears filling his eyes as his wings flap uselessly, struggling against his bonds, but it’s no use, just like it was no use all of those years ago.
He screamed as a poppy filled Sisyphus drags him down, plumage raining from him.
~~~
“Than. Thanatos. Bro, wake up!”
Thanatos’ eyes shot open as he jerked himself away from whoever was shaking him.
“What do you want?” He snapped, a lot more harshly than he meant it.
Hypnos’ normally sunny face looks concerned, and his feet are planted on the carpet. That in it of itself should have been enough to worry Thanatos, but he’s too groggy to pick up on it.
“That was an intense nightmare you were having, Than!”
“No thanks to you,” Thanatos grumbles, rubbing his face. He’s blessed enough that Achilles wasn’t at his post, he had fallen asleep on the small seating area that Zagreus had commissioned for him. Was he really that tired?
He looked up at Hypnos, who’s still frowning, and he realized he’s been terribly rude, “Sorry, I’m just… very tired, evidently.”
“C’mon, I’m on break, let’s go to the Lethe! I’m not shirking any duties, and Zagreus won’t be back for a while, it’ll be like old times!” Hypnos reached out to him.
Thanatos wants to leave, nearly does leave, but there’s something in Hypnos’ happy, earnest expression that makes him take his hand. Perhaps his brother has some level of influence over him, since he’s still blinking sleep from his eyes.
Hypnos’ teleportation is not a flash of green light, instead it’s a soft feeling of mist on one’s skin, leaving a cloud behind that dissipates in seconds.
Thanatos hasn’t been here in eons…
They’re at the cave at the mouth of the Lethe where Hypnos has carved out a little existence for himself.
Well, not so little.
The cave is sprawling, but Hypnos knows the way, pulling him along.
“Wow, I can’t believe you actually agreed to come here!” Hypnos is closer to his normal chipper self, in his element now, “It’s been forever, hasn’t it? None of my kids are around right now, which is all the better for you, so you don’t have to go through introductions.”
Ah, right. His kids. Thanatos had forgotten he’s an uncle to so many small godlings.
Most, if not all of them don’t hang around the underworld, drifting off to bring dreams, nightmares, and rest to mortals everywhere.
“They’ve been busy! I’ll tell ya, the only thing mortals do more than die is sleep!” Hypnos is coming up to the very middle of the cavern, where his prized possession is.
It’s a bed, because of course it’s a bed. A huge nest of blankets, pillows, and even a few stuffed animals is in the middle of the cavern, converging on a small pool in the center where an urn sits, filling up with drops of Lethe. The plink plink plink is comforting, rather than annoying.
Hypnos could easily fit all of the chthonic gods in this one bed, but for now, it’s just him and Thanatos.
“Hypnos, why are we here?” Thanatos asked suddenly as Hypnos sat him down.
“Get comfortable, Thanatos! When’s the last time you properly relaxed?”
“I just did. I was… taking a nap, apparently.”
“Nah, not like that, like this!” Hypnos lay back in the pillows, and dissolved.
Thanatos watched as, layer by layer, Hypnos’ ‘default’ form started to melt away. His third eye, swirling in golds, reds, and purples was revealed in the middle of his forehead, his hair melting into clouds like it was supposed to, his legs dissolving entirely to instead be bluish mist. His face was speckled with starlight, like freckles.
Last, his wings unfurled, all three of them, two on the left, one on the right. They were white wings, akin to a dove, soft and well maintained.
“Hypnos! You can’t do that!”
“Yes I can! We’re the only one’s here, loosen up a little!” Hypnos’ voice had layer upon layer of voices, silky smooth of a mother singing her children to sleep, to the quiet rasp of when you’ve just woken up. He’s fuzzy around the edges, and spreading out further as he loosens his form. A gentle halo rings his head, full of sleeping eyes of gossamer light.
Thanatos remembered when they used to run around like this all the time, Chthonic features out in the open as tiny little beings of barely any substance, and even less worries.
How often they used to cuddle here as little godlings, tangled up in a way only children of Nyx can be.
What happened?
Responsibilities.
Even now, Thanatos can feel the distant call of mortal souls, ready for his scythe.
“I don’t have time for that, Hypnos,” Thanatos says sternly, pressing himself against the pillows with straight backed posture. There’s more than that, but he doesn’t want to admit that.
“You did it in the dream, and that was fine. Just your wings? Maybe your third eye?”
“If I do it will you stop pestering me?”
“Sure thing, bro!”
Thanatos sighs, unfolding himself. Maybe it’ll satiate the pestering feeling of 'scratch scratch skritch skritch.'
Instead of being pleasant, the itchy sensation only gets much, much worse.
“Oh, my gods, Than, how did your wings get like that?!”
Well, that certainly wasn’t the reaction Thanatos was expecting. He was expecting a sort of release, too, now that he has bird’s claws for feet, his third eye glittering gold on the center of his forehead, his hair long again and speckled with stars and nighttime.
His wings are spread too and… oh. Hypnos’ reaction was warranted, it seemed.
They were deep black like a raven, two sets one on top of the other, and looked like absolute shit.
They weren’t the glossy black wings that reflected all the colors of night back at him like he remembered, they were patchy and mottled, some areas devoid of feathers entirely, leaving only leathery gray skin in their place, goose flesh where plumage has been ripped out.
And god did they itch. It was more than just an irritation, Thanatos wanted to scratch off his own skin and it hurt like all the fires of hell.
“When’s the last time you preened?? My wings have never gotten that bad!” Hypnos’ crawled to him over the blankets, a hand outstretched to touch.
Thanatos backed away, pressing himself into the mountains of pillows, “Erm… must’ve been since we were children.” How was he the messy one in this situation??
“Well, don’t shy away, let me preen them for you!”
“There’s no need for that.”
“Uh, yes, there is! Can you really fold them away again knowing they look like that?”
Thanatos' need for order would not allow that, no. He sighed heavily, as if this was a great burden placed upon him.
“It’ll be just like when we were kids, and it’s making your break productive too.”
Dammit all, why did Hypnos have to choose now to make perfect sense??
Thanatos grumbled, “Fine.”
Hypnos clapped his hands in delight, “Oh, I’m excited! Turn around.” he snapped his fingers and a small box appeared in front of him, settling on a cushion.
Hypnos pulled out a wide toothed comb, meant for straightening out feathers. It’s a pretty thing, twisted gold and pearls.
“I’m gonna be as gentle as possible, but well, I don’t know if it’ll be entirely comfortable since your wings look so terrible.”
“Just get on with i-ow!” Thanatos prickled as the comb is brushed gently through his wings, tweaking them in place and dislodging many loose ones, “Gah!”
“Bro, do you need a safeword or somethin’?” Hypnos teased with a giggle, even as he smooths his hand gently over his wings.
“Don’t make me regret this, please.”
Hypnos cackled at that, “Pull out the lotion for me, my hands are full and you’re in serious need of it.”
Thanatos does so dutifully, the bottle is more than half empty, and it’s about the size of a jar of nectar.
Hypnos works diligently to massage in the oil into dry and irritated skin and Thanatos can’t help but shiver.
“You could stuff a pillow with how many feathers you’re losing,” Hypnos is near the base of the first wing, and it’s true, they're surrounded by a flurry of jet black.
“You’re free to, if you want, but mine have never been that soft,” Thanatos actually has a red pillow in his grasp now, hugging it to his body like he would have if they were children. There’s something comforting in this, and it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it was relieving.
“That’s what a lot of these cushions are, actually!” Hypnos slapped one of them proudly, “I molt pretty regularly still, and waste not want not!”
A thought occurs to Thanatos.
“How do you keep your wings in order?” It comes out a little miffed, because well, he is a little annoyed at the idea of Hypnos being able to groom himself and he can’t.
“Pasithea absolutely loves doing it,” Hypnos smiles softly at the mention of his wife. She’s the goddess of relaxation and hallucination, and really exists more in an in between state of being than anything tangible, and Hypnos couldn’t ask for anyone more perfect, “She could spend hours combing through them in the dream world, and of course it carries over to the real one, since I want it to.”
Oh. Thanatos can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy at that.
“I’m sure Zagreus or Meg would be more than happy to learn how to do it,” Hypnos has moved on to the next wing now, collecting feathers in a basket he magicked in from somewhere, “Honestly, that’s what I thought you were doing, or getting Mother Nyx to do it for you.”
“I haven’t revealed my wings to anyone since we were children,” Thanatos is ashamed of that fact, despite if you had asked him half an hour before,he would have proclaimed it proudly.
“Why not?? There’s nothing wrong with them,” Hypnos says it so casually, and Thanatos finds himself at a bit of a loss.
“I’m not some whimsical creature, I’m Death, and I try to be solemn as such.”
“Suit yourself, but you’re not even the only winged one here. Meg’s only got one and no one thinks that’s weird. She strikes terror into everyone too.”
Hypnos has several points, and Thanatos can only grumble.
“Why do you keep your wings hidden?”
“Eh, it makes it hard to sleep if you’re crushing your own limbs. And if I get woken up I don’t want to knock over the torch next to me.”
All fair points.
“I wonder why Mother Nys insists on us having such… normal forms, relatively speaking.”
“Yeah, makes you wonder what convinced her they were bad things,” Hypnos shrugged, “I only let go in dreams, or here, which is just fine with me.”
Hypnos has nearly finished, and all Thanatos can feel is immense relief at the fact that his mind finally stopped screaming 'itch itch' at him as his brother works with a different type of ointment, made to give his feathers back their shiny luster.
“Hypnos?”
“What’s up?”
“What else do you do while you’re sleeping?”
“Well, kind of everything else,” Hypnos laughs nonchalantly, “I help mortals sleep when I sleep, traverse their dreams, crank up the good one’s here, tone down the bad ones there. Sometimes it’s vice versa though! I’m always meeting Pasithea too. Most of my work is done when I’m asleep. My only job isn’t just greeting shades, you know.”
Thanatos hadn’t really acknowledged that, or at least not heard it directly from Hypnos’ mouth. He feels a knot in his stomach as he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me? So I’d stop waking you up… berating you for not doing your work.”
Everyone in the house does that, and now Thanatos is realizing how wrong it was.
“How else am I going to get people to talk to me?”
That made Thanatos cringe, “I’m… I’m sorry,” he said, so incredibly quietly Hypnos thought he imagined it.
“...You don’t need to apologize.”
“No, no, I definitely do,” Thanatos turned a bit to look his brother in the eye, “I’m sorry, for how I treat you. For how everyone treats you, because they don’t understand you.” it’s hard to get the words out right, but he has to. He owes it to Hypnos.
All three of Hypnos’ eyes start to water, “It’s ok, Than. I know you didn’t really mean it.”
“I want to be better. To keep doing this. To be close like we were as kids.”
Instead of responding right away, Hypnos puts aside his preening tools and launches himself at Thanatos, starlight and clouds tangling with darkness and claws in a big heap.
“Thank you,” Hypnos murmured into what was probably Thanatos’ shoulder. They were both unraveling even more, essences mixing in a cuddle only the twins could achieve.
“Thank you, too. For giving me a second chance.”