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Zagreus tensed, his whole body thrumming. The Infernal Arms always seemed to have energy of their own, but this new Aspect of Malphon was a savage, bestial vitality unlike anything he had ever felt. He dashed forward, swinging the claw-like fists upward at his enemy, who fell backwards with a (slightly overdramatic) scream and disintegrated into dust.
“Wow!” chirped a voice a perky voice from behind him, accompanied by enthusiastic applause. “That was amazing! Keep that up and there’s no way those Redacteds are getting you this time!”
“Uh, thanks, Hypnos,” Zagreus said. “But I don’t want to underestimate the... Redacteds.” There was a familiar whir of chthonic energies as Skelly started to reform. “I’ll probably be practicing with these for a bit yet. You can leave whenever you get bored.”
“Oh, this isn’t boring at all!” Hypnos said. “Why, I’m not bothering you, am I?”
“Well, no. I’m just not quite sure why you wanted to watch me spar.”
“If you can call it sparring when your opponent just stands there and takes it,” Skelly interjected.
Zagreus ignored him. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“It’s my day off!” Hypnos explained. “And I already got a jump start on my paperwork, and took an afternoon nap, so I have lots of free time. Watching this is really interesting! You use those weird claw-gloves like you were born with them.”
“Well, that’s promising. They seem a little… wild. But I do feel as though I’m getting the hang of them. Shall we go again?” he asked Skelly.
“Actually, can we have a little talk, boyo? In private?” the skeleton asked, cocking his skull towards Hypnos.
“No problem!” Hypnos floated toward the farthest corner of the sparring area, next to the Adamant Rail, put his fingers in his ears, and started humming to himself.
“What’s the issue, Skelly?” Zagreus asked, temporarily lowering his clawed fists.
“Oh, it’s not an issue, pal, not exactly,” Skelly explained. “I just wasn’t sure if you were aware that your spectator there’s got a major crush on you.”
“What? On me? Hypnos? Don’t be ridiculous,” Zagreus scoffed.
“I’m telling you, pal. Why else would he want to be in here watching you batter me repeatedly on one of his few vacation days? It’s because he likes watching. Watching you, specifically. I’m not saying you have to do anything about it, just, y’know, you probably could, if you wanted.”
“But that’s… he’s…” He looked across the room to where Hypnos was happily humming to himself. “Ugh, I don’t even know how to start unpacking that. How about I just punch you some more instead?” Skelly, fortunately, was only too happy to oblige, and Zagreus let himself get absorbed in the act, almost but not quite able to ignore Hypnos’ eyes on him.
And they were definitely on him, wide and raptly attentive, not an expression Zagreus normally associated with Sleep Incarnate. It was, he had to admit, a little flattering. Maybe Skelly was right? As he bashed the skeleton to bits one more time, Zagreus decided he might as well make an attempt to feel out where things actually stood.
“So, Hypnos,” he said carefully. “I think I’ve finished sparring for now. Do you have to get back to work, or...”
“Oh no, not yet,” Hypnos said. “I’ve got plenty of time.”
Zagreus wasn’t quite sure how he knew; the passage of time in the Underworld was always a tricky thing. But he figured Hypnos must know what he was talking about.
“Well, if you’d like, maybe we could go to my chambers and play a needlessly convoluted board game?”
“Oh, wow! That’d be great!”
No one had ever actually agreed to play the thing with him before, and after poring over the rules, printed in almost unreadable script on a very long roll of papyrus, Zagreus could see why. It seemed to take hours to get through a couple of rounds of gameplay, consulting the rules every time they wanted to do anything, but Hypnos remained cheerful and patient throughout the whole tedious process. It struck Zagreus that that was how he’d surely be in bed – affable, eager to please, delighted to be receiving attention. What a strange thing to be thinking now, about a person who had very recently declared Zagreus his best friend. Surely Skelly had misread the situation. The distraction made the already inscrutable game even harder to parse.
Hypnos ended up winning, but Zagreus wasn’t entirely sure they had scored the thing correctly.
“Wanna try again?” Hypnos asked.
“No, that’s all right. Maybe another time.” Zagreus was suddenly very aware of how close they both were to his bed. He cleared his throat, casting around for something to talk about. “So, when you have a day off, do mortals just not die for a while, or...”
“Oh no, they definitely still die! They always die. Except for that one time when Sisyphus-- well, I probably shouldn’t tell you about that, my brother gets pretty mad any time anyone brings it up.” He chuckled to himself. “No, they just kind of mill around by the pool for a while until I get back and check them all in. I mean, it’s not like they can go anywhere anyway, right?”
“Right,” Zagreus said. He was grateful that his own deaths were apparently a bit more informal. Though if he had to be honest with himself, on the rare occasions when he came out of his pool and Hypnos wasn’t there to greet him, he did miss it, a bit. Sometimes Hypnos’ cheerfulness took the sting out of the failure.
“So,” Zagreus said after a moment. “Um, Hypnos, do you want to...”
Hypnos looked at him expectantly. Zagreus’ throat suddenly felt dry. Blood and darkness, why was this so difficult? Most immortals had no qualms about asking a friend if they were interested in a tumble. Maybe Zagreus was a little more like his father than he thought.
Now that was distressing.
“Do you want to… ah… listen to me play the lyre?” Zagreus was almost good at it now, even if he missed a few notes in his frantic attempt at distraction. His hands felt exceptionally clumsy at the moment.
Hypnos’ hands, now. Hypnos had big hands, with long, graceful fingers that Zagreus had never really noticed until they’d been moving pieces across the game board. Those hands would be good at playing the lyre, or at wrapping themselves around certain parts of Zagreus’ body.
The lyre faded to silence on one final discordant note. “How avante-garde!” Hypnos said, applauding. “Are you going to do another one?”
This was getting ridiculous. If he could face down the Furies (all at once, even) and all of Lernie’s heads and the strongest warriors of Elysium, surely he could ask a simple question.
“We could go… there,” Zagreus managed, inclining his head in the general direction of the mattress. “And do… things.”
“Oh!” Hypnos gasped. For a horrible moment Zagreus thought it was a gasp of shocked disgust, but then he said, “I have some things in mind, can I show you?”
Relief washed over Zagreus, sweeter than the life-giving fountains in the pits of Tartarus. Skelly had been right after all. Blast, he was going to be smug about it later, but that was a small price to pay.
“I have some things in mind too,” Zagreus said, grabbing one of Hypnos’ hands and kissing the fingertips. Hypnos, bless him, was blushing now, as Zagreus guided him towards the bed. “Why don’t we show each other?”