Page 5 of Patron of Mercy

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It was still lightout when he arrived at Hysteria. Hermes hadn’t said anything about going at a certain time. Glaucus—Lach—was probably right inside, acting ridiculous and looking beautiful and impossible and like the most frustrating thing Thanatos had ever known.

He stood there and watched the sun go down.

People came and went, and a long line formed around the club. People stared at him, and one or two tried to talk to him, but he didn’t pay much attention.

Every time the door opened, he tensed, as though Lach were going to come out and immediately tear his heart out again. Could he do that? Was Thanatos so weak?

He couldn’t leave. Masses of lives were at stake. Maybe they wouldn’t die right away, but the short-lived weren’t especially forward thinking. If the crops didn’t grow anywhere for a whole season, they’d start to starve. It’d hit the poor first, the people least able to take care of themselves. They might have a handful of months, but it would move fast. If they did nothing, by the time they began to notice, it would be too late. He wasn’t the kind of god who could ignore that kind of suffering.

Still—

“I knew you’d come,” a voice said out of nowhere. That voice. Filled with so much self-confidence and snark, like everything out of his mouth was a joke at someone else’s expense. Thanatos had always found it charming, until he’d been the joke. “How about a drink?”

He spun to look at Glaucus—at Lach—and narrowed his eyes, refusing to acknowledge how kind the millennia had been to his erstwhile lover. He’d put on pounds of muscle, making him less whip thin and more wiry. He was a little broader, but nothing close to bulky. Those sharp cheekbones were the same though. The wide mouth, set in a constant arrogant grin. Those perfect lips that had taken his own, always so demanding, like no other mortal Thanatos had ever known.

He shook his head, trying to clear the haze that always descended when he got caught up in memories of this man, who had made his life incredible for a few short years, and then miserable for so much longer. Remembering that Lach was watching him, he straightened his spine and tried to act unaffected. “If this is just about what you can manipulate me into doing, I’m leaving.”

Moving faster than Thanatos would have thought possible, Lach got in front of him. “No drink then? How about, ah, pizza? I know a place.”

“I’m not here for food.”

Lach sighed and leaned forward, the dark circles under his eyes suddenly much more prominent. “Just come eat the pizza. I swear, I’ll tell you everything.”

Pizza Parley

Lach sat under stark lighting on a plastic bench at a grungy pizza joint a few blocks away from Hysteria. It hadn’t occurred to him until they got there that, while he had no real idea what Thanatos liked anymore, he was pretty fucking sure it wasn’t this.

Somehow, he’d always imagined his reunion with Thanatos would be something more. He’d fantasized about a crash of lips and tangled limbs—about shouting and glaring and an airing of grievances that would’ve put the Costanzas’ Festivus to shame. He’d expected passion or anger orsomething.

Instead, they sat down with paper plates on a table that clearly hadn’t been wiped off since the last diners, and neither of them said anything. Thanatos reached for the napkin dispenser, pulling out brown paper napkins and dabbing the grease from his single slice of veggie.

“Oh, come on now,” Lach said, shifting in his seat. “That’s the best part.”

Thanatos shot him a dry look. Wilting under it, Lach thought about stuffing his own face for the distraction. He went so far as to pick up his pizza before he set it down again. He wasn’t there to hide from Thanatos, and he only had so long before the god’s patience with him disappeared.

“So, how’ve you been?” he asked. “You good? You look good.”

“Glaucus—”

“Um, Lach. It’s Lach now. If you want to call me Glaucus though—” It’d have been fine. It wasn’t his preference. His given name reminded him of his family, of the world that was lost to him forever. And only the Greeks pronounced it right anyway. But Thanatos was Greek, and hearing it reminded Lach of the way he used to say it—back when he’d liked him.

Lach fell silent as he watched Thanatos’s tongue press against the inside of his cheek. Thanatos had never been cruel outright, even when he’d deserved it; he could only imagine the things Thanatos was thinking now.

“I can see why you’d want to shed Glaucus.” There was no bite in his words but a deep chill settled in Lach’s chest at Thanatos’s flat delivery.

“Uh, well, yeah.” His finger pressed into the edge of his paper plate, smoothing out the scalloped edges. “After I left Greece, I traveled north. Spent some time with the Norsemen. Sailed to Britain. Lach just worked better there, not an uncommon name, and I—”

“Lach.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t care.”

Lach’s nose flared as he took a deep breath. Under the table, he pinched his hands together between his knees. “Okay. Fair enough.”

He wasn’t surprised. The last time they’d seen each other had been so long ago, and while the weight of guilt and loss had never lifted off of him, there was no reason for Thanatos to still think about him. Lach hadn’t burned that bridge; he’d bombed it and left a smoking crater in his wake. And he’d known exactly what he was doing as he’d done it. Thanatos shouldn’t have wasted any time thinking about an arrogant immortal human who’d wounded him on purpose.

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