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You must look odd, Thanatos and you both, side-by-side watching the bloody River Styx lap lazily at the entrance to the House. Like a welcoming committee. It’s always bothered you, the set of several steps that souls must ascend when they arrive. The recently dead.
“I don’t want him to succeed or fail necessarily,” Thanatos relents in a quiet tone. The goody two shoes as always. “I want him to quit this foolish quest. There is no escape.”
You scoff. “Zagreus isn’t exactly known for his obedience to Hades, Brother, let alone anyone else. That includes Death.” You smile at the irony. “In more ways than one.”
“I’m aware,” he says dryly. His bright yellowish eyes flicker to you. “Yet I… I can’t help but aid him. You have more faith in him than I.”
“I know.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it, Coma.”
Always so impersonal. You roll your eyes. "Death.”
You don’t know how likely it is, this time versus all the others. Zagreus always exudes the same determined sheen in his eyes on his way out, after a kiss goodbye. You never quit wishing him luck. All the times you can get away it, you meet him in Erebus for a trial to his strength, then a reward… But you couldn’t fine the time, this time.
At last, the thick, bloody waters ripple and undulate at the arrival of a powerful soul. That fluffy tuft of dark hair, dark as night, appears first, before the rest of him wades out of the shallow Styx.
You sigh tightly at the dreadful sight of him. “Zagreus.”
“It’s you,” he murmurs. He seems even paler than usual—and the blood that clings to certain wounds doesn’t help.
To your surprise, he stumbles at the top step. You shoot out to brace his fall when he collapses to his knees, right into your arms.
“Agh,” he grunts softly. “As… if I need one more injury. Damn… Damn Theseus.”
“Oh, Zag.” You throw a glance over your shoulder at the wide hall laid out behind you. Hypnos is sleeping on his seat as usual. No one is looking, much less the shivering, pathetic shades in their cloaks.
He slurs his next words severely, muffled by your neck and its nightly collar adorning it. “I’m used to it. It’s… Having someone waiting on me isn’t a bad deal.”
Your heart trembles for Zagreus in his current state. You simply kneel and hold him, stroking underneath his sash, his toned back. The weakness lasts only a little while. Dying is disorienting, normally. Not that he even shows that measure of weakness.
Time passes. Too much time for your comfort.
"I shall help you,” you murmur. “It’s the least I could do.”
Both his arms wearily rise and touch your waist, surprising you with how quick he is to allow help. In a whispered flutter, the faint shift in space, you appear on the wrinkled rug before the foot of his bed and the massive, overstuffed trunk that sits there. As before, you’re embracing on the floor.
“…That’s enough shifting time and space for one day, I think,” he sighs, already sounding like the usual headstrong, dry-humored Zagreus again. He leans back, and braces himself on one knee to rise back to his feet.
Although wary, you let him be. He drops to a heavy sit on the side of his bed.
“There are other ways to aid you, love,” you say warmly. “Speak to me.”
He gives you a lazy stare. “Theseus.”
You chuckle bitterly.
“Blast…” He touches his regal sash. “It ripped. Again. That’s what I get for—”
“For not wearing armor like not only Achilles, but I advised?”
With a huff, he nudges the frayed silken cloth off his shoulder, until the blood-red sash entirely drops to his lap. He’s left more or less shirtless. What’s left holding the rest of his garb together is the skulls, fashioned into a belt above his waist.
You stare, a little longingly. Across his chest, a heavy gash you hadn’t seen before is now out in the open. “You’re too fashionable, Zag.”
“Something like that… Maybe if I dressed like a shade I could sneak my way past Theseus and his companion, you think?”
With fresh linens in your arms, you approach, and wipe away the blood dutifully. Zagreus is no simple man—no simple shade, either—but that doesn’t mean he has to bleed all over his bed. “I’m sorry. I hear he’s insufferable.”
Not one for conversation anymore, he grunts, and delicately places his crown aside. It’s hues like autumn, shared between himself and Hades. And once upon a time, his mother Persephone. It’s extraordinary to you that he continues to wear it despite him. But then again, if Zagreus cared not for family, he wouldn’t pursue his mother. Again and again and again and…
Less care is taken to sliding down the two golden rings on his arm. When he leans, he wavers precariously for a moment, as if he’s moments from falling on his knees to the floor, but he—and you, your arm slung across his chest—catch him just in time.
His one crimson eye never shines so brilliantly as the green. Both are dull now. The most lively thing about his appearance now is the dull flames seething under his feet, which doesn’t say much at all.
“Sit still,” you say firmly. You should’ve added, and that is final.
You kneel down in front of him, and click free his skeletal belt, followed shortly by the rest of his royal garb. Obediently, he raises his bottom up so you can collect the ruined clothes. Dusa will have them mended in no time.
“I suppose if there’s anyone in this world—or under it…—I’d be willing to obey, it’s you.”
You huff fondly. "The highest of compliments, coming from you.”
You ease him onto his back, bundling up the thick duvet and silken sheets around him like a sort of cocoon. You’re tempted to tie the ends in a sort of knot, if it meant he’d rest for once. He watches you tend to him through lidded eyes until you toss his nappy black hair off his forehead, and they finally close. He’s not even at liberty to complain that you should stay, he was so exhausted.
You lean down and kiss his forehead. Luckily for him, you already planned on it.