Chapter Text
Charon boards the ship with the anger of betrayal thrumming in his blood and the weight of heartache weighing down his steps.
He’s spoiling for a fight, prowling the docks half naked in a ratty fucking shroud, surrounded by people in their burial finery. It’s crowded, but they give him a wide berth anyway, refusing to look directly at him or the raw fury blazing in his eyes. Anything other than peaceful acceptance of their fate makes them uncomfortable. Anything other than the beauty of renewal they've been promised. He's a threat to them, in that way.
Bastard. Bastard.
He lifts his hand and touches his neck, fingertips light against the ghost of remembered pain.
*
The moment he sees Hades’ flickering image up on that screen, he decides he hates him. He knows enough of Zeus, of the gods and of Prometheus to know something is happening here, something unfathomably cruel. The twee little soundtrack, the smile that doesn’t quite reach the eyes of the god of the dead - it speaks of empty promises. Placation.
Charon takes a deep breath, and he burns.
*
Hades and Persephone don’t greet them at the docks. He wonders how long it has been since they gave up on that charade. A great grey tower rises up out of the earth in front of them and he imagines them at the top, sequestered in their own little world as they look down on the insignificant souls below. They don’t care - none of the gods do, and that’s the secret he’s gleaned after all of this, that it’s all in vain because what awaits them after the pain of existence and the ache of living is not glory and renewal after all - it’s indifference.
Why would he be here if that were not the case?
He’d set fire to them all if he could, but all he can do is wait in line like the rest of the cattle as they shuffle forward in five lines.
He can still feel it, the knife entering his neck. The gurgling as he tried to draw breath through the hot gush of blood.
I love you.
I know.
He’d been saying goodbye, the bastard. Taking one last look. Savouring the feeling of Charon’s lips against his scar perhaps. He wishes he’d been paying more attention in those last moments, but all he can remember is confusion and fear as Prometheus' eyes drilled into his, demanding his promise.
A dog barks at him, and he’s guided away from the line. He already knows what’s coming. Two hundred years.
Prometheus hadn’t given him a timeline. All he has is bits and pieces to go on, and “a few years from now” might be a decade, it might be a century.
Something inside him burns white hot, and it’s the final straw as he lashes out, shoving his way out of the crowd, storming off back to the river, to the docks, to the waters edge where he stands looking up into the grey sky like if he squints hard enough he’ll catch a glimpse of whatever the fuck Prometheus is still doing up there.
Something churns under the water. Something impossibly large and unknowable. Power and endless finality. He shivers.
“I’ll jump,” he calls to the sky, “I’ll fucking do it, you bastard. Then I’ll never get to carry out your stupid fucking plan.”
Nobody answers him. His breath hitches, lungs heaving with emotion as his grip on his anger gives way to the grief underneath.
“I’ll do it!” he shouts again, though this time his voice cracks.
Footsteps behind him. He doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s those guards, prison officers with batons, the ones who try to keep out of sight lest they break the fragile illusion that this whole charade rests on.
“Just push me in and be done with it,” he grits out between clenched teeth.
And he does take a step towards the water - but before he can go any further, a hand closes on his wrist.
“I heard we had a problem down here?” says a quiet voice.
This is the frame. I built it for you!
Charon knew he’d been faking it. Hades’ voice has none of the sheen of enthusiasm in person; he’s soft spoken and threaded with fatigue.
“Come on,” Hades says, and the hand that pulls on his arm is firm, his grip strong.
Charon turns to face him, and glares into tired grey eyes.
“Let’s get you back where you need to be.”
It’s like a father speaking to a wayward child.
The anger returns, burning through him and consuming all thought, leaving nothing but instinct. Charon’s hand curls into a fist.
And though he moves quickly, Hades still has time to react. His expression shifts as realisation - or perhaps resignation, dawns on him.
But Hades makes no move to defend himself, and Charon finds that he doesn’t give a shit as his fist collides with the face of the god of the dead.