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“I can’t believe you found somewhere like this, sirs,” Zagreus murmured as he was drawn through a door in Elysium that he never would have found.
It was desperately late, as far as time moved in the Underworld, though it had taken Zagreus some ungodly amount of time to get up here. Elysium’s bright lights were dimmed and up above glimmered like stars, a close enough facsimile to the ones outside in Greece to make the atmosphere soft, nearly romantic.
“Well lad, Pat found the place, in truth,” Achilles replied, patting a little blanket set up in the center of the chamber. The soft grass was pitted by small ponds filled with the same water as the Lethe, so transparent and foggy that Zagreus could see the golden scales of charp flashing as they swam close to the surface.
Patroclus chuckled, and set a hand on Zagreus’s shoulder to guide him to the blanket as well. “That I did. Come, sit, stranger—we have something we would like to share with you, if it’s amenable to you as well.”
Zagreus sat, obedient and curious, his attention caught between the glittering star geodes in the ceiling and the two beautiful older men—were they older, or was that simply Zagreus’ perception as a god who fashioned himself a young man?—sitting next to him. “Well, what is it, sirs? I’ve an open ear.”
Achilles first pulled out a bottle of ambrosia, three glasses as well, and poured for the three of them. “We got this for you, lad. Or, Pat did.” Achilles laughed, and it was a lovely sound—Zagreus loved to hear him laugh. “Have a glass, first.”
Zagreus took his cup of the amber liquid, the drink always shifting in gorgeous hue but monochromatic all the same, and sipped from it, and the taste, as always, was only barely describable. For him, this bottle was something warm like spring and with an aspect of dulled steel like a training weapon used for sparring with friends and mentors. Patroclus and Achilles drank as well, and Zagreus wondered what they tasted. Companionship? Loves regained after so long?
“You’re going to kill me with anticipation, and then I’ll be long gone in the Styx,” he joked. “It’ll take me far too long to return here again, if I can even find the door.”
The joy of shared space did not leave Achilles nor Patroclus, but the two of them fell solemn too, and each reached out a hand to hold onto Zagreus.
“We would like,” Patroclus said.
“If you also want—” Achilles interjected, but his voice was soft.
“We would like for you to be with us,” Patroclus finished. “As a lover.”
Zagreus found his throat suddenly tight with emotion. He had never thought that this would happen, but—
“Yes!” Zagreus blurted. “Oh Zeus, yes!”
And that was how, tangled together on a blanket underneath the closest thing they could get to stars in the Underworld, the Prince and Achilles and Patroclus ended up sleeping quite some time away.