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The Styx heals all his wounds, without leaving even a faint scar behind. A blessing and a curse both in one, especially now, that phantom pains haunt his limbs. He doesn't think anybody would believe him if he told them that an arrow point is still stuck between his ribs, making it hard to breathe.
He hears Megaera clicking her long nails against the edge of her cup, eyebrows furrowed in that specific way that Zagreus knows means she's deep in thought.
He raises one hand to gently massage between his collarbones, there's a piece of metal stuck there, and he can't dislodge it no matter how much pressure he puts on it. He let's go just before cutting off his air supply.
"Can I waste your time for a bit?" He sits down before he gets an answer, tracing the patterns on the tables he recently commissioned with his pointer finger.
"I don't have much of it." No outright rejection is about the best Zagreus is going to get out of her right now, so he gives her a weak smile in return. "What do you want, Zag?"
"I just want to talk to you... about nothing at all, really. We spend all our time killing each other out there that I sometimes forget that our time here is supposed to be different." He wants to reach for her cup, he wants to reach for the ambrosia he has somewhere on himself; he does neither.
"We're Gods, Zag." He doesn't feel like one. "Our relationships look nothing alike mortal ones. So long as you're happy with our present arrangements, the oddities are not important."
"And if I'm not happy?"
"Well, that wouldn't be talking about nothing."
She takes another sip of whatever drink she ordered, an alcoholic one, no doubt, before setting it in front of Zagreus. There's pink on the side of the rim that's facing him and he faintly wonders if she did it on purpose.
He takes the cup as is, hesitant for only a split second too long and then swallowing what was left. It burns on the way down, past the broken piece of metal in his throat and pooling around the arrow head, engulfing everything in a sort of suffocating warmth. Strangely enough, it makes him take his first deep breath ever since walking out of the Styx.
"You look like a mess. Now, we can either talk about nothing, or you can voluntarily tell me why you dragged yourself over here instead of going to Nyx."
The lingering taste in his mouth turns to cotton. There's so much he wants to say, wants to get off his chest, wants solutions for, and yet he wouldn't know where to start... nor when to end. There's always one negative thought or another circling his brain, questions he feels are ridiculous, but he can't get rid of them, and words said to him which shouldn't have the slightest effect, but they do.
On the other hand... he doesn't know. He doesn't know what he wants to talk about, what the issue even is. He always has countless questions for Megaera when they are in the midst of their jobs, but whenever moments of reprieve like this come up, his head is empty. There's a faint background buzzing in his mind, like mumbled words, but he can't make them out well enough to remember anything he wants to ask her, to tell her.
He finally pulls out that bottle of ambrosia. "Just... would you mind drinking with me?" She raises an eyebrow at that and steps to stand next to him, hand on his shoulder. He can't help but lean into it, even if she is colder than him.
"I believe we've done enough of that for the time being. Let's talk." Her expression is pinched in that same way that it always is when she's dissatisfied. What does he even talk about? He can't even remember how his run went.
He huffs out in frustration. "I don't know, Meg. Been harder getting that sense of fulfillment from the job. The constant fighting and adrenaline rushes are certainly invigorating, but... I want to talk to you. Outside of clever quips and attempts to dig under each other's skin. I want to get to know you."
Megaera clicks her tongue, tightening her grip on Zagreus' shoulder. "Our circumstances are different. We remain the same."
"I can't accept that. After all these years, after all the effort I put into-" he grits his teeth. "I refuse to believe I'm still the same past everything. I can't be."
She sighs, bringing her other hand up to rest on Zagreus' other shoulder, massaging the tense muscles there. "You changed your circumstances. Our circumstances."
"That's not enough-"
"You got a lot of things to change by brute forcing them. I was seething when you first forced me into cooperating with my sisters, and your smug look at seeing us together only made it worse but, it worked. We... tolerate each other now, after all the forced proximity."
Her nails lightly dig into skin, stopping just short of breaking it. Zagreus sighs in relief at her motions, the fancy bottle sitting on the table forgotten, along with any sort of audience they might have had.
"It's worked for you thus far. So much so that you've grown comfortable with forcing everything. Listen, Zag, I'm not the person to be going to for advice on this. My role isn't exactly helping people become better versions of themselves, but I have witnessed change."
She lightly tugs him backwards, and the back of his head hits her abdomen. He stays still partly because he's afraid of what she'd do if he didn't, and partly because he can breathe and untense his overworked body. His eyes close on their own accord.
"I may not deal with betterment, but I'm far too familiar with hubris. Believing you can outmatch every other being and change everything within one day or night..." Zagreus doesn't look, but he can imagine the smile that's painted on Megaera's lips. "Well, perhaps it's that overconfidence that brought you straight to me."
He allows a smile to grace his own lips as well, not as weak as before, but not as charming as it usually is.
"Maybe you should consider a change of career? Harbinger of retribution turned therapist-" She whacks him over the head before he can continue.
"You're insufferable." Fondness bleeds into her voice despite the words. Zagreus opens his eyes to look at her.
"You still deemed me worth wasting your time on."
"Same as always."