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Hydralite has a peculiar taste. Bitter, spicy, faintly sweet. Oddly gritty. The stuff from Charon’s wells is mild, but the contents of Patroclus’ canisters burn on the way down. Zagreus coughs, smacking his lips as the heat of it settles in his stomach, radiating out through his veins. A fresh cut on his shoulder seals, leaving only a slick wedge of blood across his arm.
“You’ll wash that off, won’t you?” says Patroclus. “Before you sit with me.”
The tacit invitation feels like a little hook dangling before Zagreus’ half-open mouth. He hesitates, feeling the ever-present impatient wrench in his chest– go go go, move move move– but it can wait. This once.
He’ll bite.
Death, he knows, is the worst thing that can happen to a mortal–at least in the mind of a living one. He has done his best to be sensitive to that, and the circumstances that brought Patroclus and Achilles here, and the pain it caused them. Still...he can’t help feeling terribly lucky to have them. And if Patroclus is in the mood to keep company (as he has been more and more often these days-or-nights), Zagreus can hardly say no. Even if it means letting a real hot streak of an escape attempt cool off.
So he washes himself in the Lethe. Its waters, so ephemeral at a glance, pool easily in his palm as he scoops up a handful, splashing it over his arm. In an instant the blood is gone, swept away by rivulets of mist. As if the wound never existed.
Zagreus frowns at the thought.
When he turns, Patroclus is waiting. Sprawled against one of the columns, one knee drawn up, the other stretched out with a sort of inviting openness, long and sinewy. Zagreus approaches and crouches, tucking himself close by Patroclus’ body, resting at an angle across his hip and chest.
A heavy, muscled arm settles on him. He registers soft flesh, the angle of an elbow, and the cool ridges of a bracer. He is trying to decide whether he likes it. He’s certain he ought to.
“It’s not that I have any particular need for cleanliness,” Patroclus says, his voice humming thick through Zagreus' left ear. “But our friend fusses if he sees your blood anywhere.”
“He is prone to that." (Achilles’ stricken expression the last time the last time he was summoned to fight–taking in Zagreus’ face, entirely coated in crimson.) “Honestly, some wounds just bleed a lot for no reason, sir. I usually look much worse than I feel.”
“I shouldn’t think that’s saying much, at times.”
“I don’t know,” says Zagreus, as lightly as he can, thinking of the blood soughing off his skin like nothing. Like he’d never been wounded at all. “Sometimes I think of them as trophies, you know? All those injuries. Show how much I’ve done.”
“Ah,” says Patroclus, noncommittal. Former mortal Patroclus, who still remembers how it felt to fear death. Zagreus bites his lip. “I’m surprised you take anything but the chimaera jerky, then.”
What to say to that? What to say at all, ever? He’s still fighting his body’s incessant urging (go go go move move move). It’s terribly hard to focus.
“Lets me take on more going forward,” he says at last. That’s not quite it either, but it’ll have to do.
“Then…it’s the cessation of pain that gives you the space to crave it again?”
“Not crave, exactly. Although...” He puts his head on one side, rolling it over Patroclus’ sternum. “...there are times I want it rather a lot.”
“Oh?”
“I’ll tell you about it when you’re older,” he murmurs, and Patroclus swats his chest, scoffing.
“You're a bit cocky, aren’t you?”
“So I’ve been told, sir.”
“Well. Continue with what you were saying.”
“What? Oh. Only that…you know, pain and struggle make sense to me. They always have, even when I was less…” Waving an idle hand, grasping feebly at the soft green not-sky. “...constructive about it. But when it comes to this, I–”
His chest tenses.
“This?” says Patroclus softly. His arm tightens faintly, and Zagreus wishes he would squeeze. Wants his ribs to ache from it.
“This,” he manages. “Not you and I and Achilles, but…lying here. Relaxing. How am I supposed to…” Again, again. Sometimes he feels the right words are like the butterflies he can see fluttering across the glade–something he can see, but which cannot be grasped.
“We’ve all the time in the world,” says Patroclus.
“That’s it, though.” Relieved, he follows this new thread. “I sort of wish we didn’t, somehow. I feel like–like a bedsheet, I suppose. Sometimes. Like I could get blown away and tossed about any moment. That’s something the wind could do to a bedsheet, right?”
Patroclus’ chest jumps suddenly under his head, but when he looks up, the smile that greets him is only a little teasing.
“Certainly.” A pause. “Or–I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“Oh, ha ha,” says Zagreus amiably. “Old enough to, what, learn about the weather? I’ll have you know I’ve seen clouds and everything. It was even raining, last time I went up there.”
“Raining, even? My.”
“You’re patronizing me,” says Zagreus, dignified. “You’re patronizing the God of Blood.”
“Mm. And is that why you like to be covered in it? An identifier of sorts?”
“Nnno.” Zagreus hadn’t thought of this. “At least, I don’t think so. It’s more that it…weighs me down. Not the blood, but–the pain. The limitations.”
“The struggle.”
“Yes. Makes me feel like…well, like I am, I suppose. And this…” he runs a hand up Patroclus’ arm, the hard corner of his elbow, the curling hairs under his chlamys. “Gentleness, and lying still…something about it makes me feel…not there.”
“A frightening thought.”
Zagreus holds his breath for a moment, letting the words echo in his ears, searching for some undertone of resentment or judgment. Isn't fear for the weak? But, no. Again he relaxes, or tries to.
“...Yes. Or…upsetting. I don’t know.” He peers up, and Patroclus’ thumb presses into his cheek, and he tries to like it. Part of him does like it. But to another part of him it feels so terribly dull. Wrong, even. Not like being praised after a struggle, or comforted after a fight. Not like Meg wiping a tear from his cheek as he begs her for mercy, enamored, submerged in servitude.
(That, he thinks, he can hardly lose interest in no matter what else changes. Not entirely separate from this craving for extremity, but not the same either.)
When things finally settle with Than, when the tense needling of their arguments peters out, and they’re simply sweet and in love…will that feel dull and wrong as well?
“It is difficult to compare our experiences,” says Patroclus, now. He must have been thinking for a while. “I am dead, after all, and you were never mortal to begin with. I think you may have some kinship with my exalted brethren, however.”
“Not the most flattering thing you’ve ever said.”
“I’ve offended you.”
“You haven’t.” The words come out as a sigh. His breath is a weight in his lungs. “Sorry, sir. It’s just that…I see where you’re going with this.”
“And…?”
And: is he one of them, really? So accustomed to strife that the thought of peace seems almost repulsive?
“I was never in a war,” he points out, somewhat weakly.
Patroclus hums, thumbing a bruise on his neck the Hydralite seems to have missed. “A war of sorts,” he says. “Achilles and I, we did what it took to survive, as long as we could. And so have you.”
Zagreus opens his mouth to point out that the concept of “survival” is quite foreign to him, or rather something which, like death, he is incapable of escaping. Something he swims in, like a bonehead at the bottom of the Styx. He has not, he thinks, always done what it took. Survival was guaranteed. Living, on the other hand...
But that's not what Patroclus meant anyway, was it?
He shuts his mouth again.
“What are you thinking?” Fingertips sweep through his bangs now, feather-light, too light. But it feels nice. On impulse, he takes Patroclus' wrist and pushes it down, pressing that big, cool hand to his head. The next scratch is firmer, sends a pleasurable shudder down his spine.
“I’m trying to keep myself from being contrary for the sake of it,” he says, letting his eyes fall shut.
“Oh, stranger. I love a contrarian, didn’t you know that? That’s my own little vice.” Patroclus pauses, exerting pressure, fingers digging into his scalp. “Though I confess, for my part, I’ve long since released the need for true conflict. I may understand something of what you mean, however… At times, love seemed sweeter in war. Seemed to burn hotter when it might be extinguished at any time.”
“And?”
“Love,” says Patroclus, “is bread. And work, and trust, and other things you share. And when a dog lies down on your foot. Fear does not improve it.”
“That makes sense,” murmurs Zagreus, half a smile tugging at his mouth. “Even if– Well. I can’t quite… You make it sound so easy, sir.”
“That wasn’t my intention.” Patroclus kisses his forehead. Black, glossy curls touch his jaw. “I won’t pretend I have all the answers. Mainly, if I’m honest, I seem to keep uncovering more questions. On which subject…what do you need from me, do you think?”
The question reaches into him, warms his veins all over again, jumpstarts his heart. Bitter, spicy, faintly sweet. Some of the tension drains from his muscles.
“Just…hold me tighter, please,” he manages, around the lump in his throat. “As tight as you can. And let go when I ask.”
“Nothing easier,” says Patroclus, and weighs him down, makes him something again. Zagreus is skin and blood and breath, the tingle in his cheeks and the ache in his chest. Existing from the places he’s held, and, still, the places he’s been hurt.