Page 26 of Patron of Mercy

Thanatos straightened in his seat and reached out for his plate. Lach took a spot at the end of the bench. With his back to the cabin’s wall, he could watch Thanatos while Thanatos watched the stars.

For a few minutes, they ate in silence. Taking smaller bites, he watched for any indication that Thanatos liked it. Or that he didn’t.

“What?” Thanatos asked, turning his way. He smiled around a mouthful in his cheek.

Lach blinked. He could stare creepily with the best of them, but when it came time to talk, he floundered.

“Are things hard now?” Lach asked. He blanched. That kind of question ought to come with more specificity, dammit. “I mean with so many people in the world. Like, you probably deal with a lot every day.”

“It’s not as bad as you’d think,” Thanatos said. Of course, Lach didn’t think there was any circumstance that’d get Thanatos to complain. “Charon and Hermes have to deal with the worst of it.”

“Yeah? I guess that makes sense...” Anyone who got greeted on the other side of life by Thanatos was lucky. Or nice. Probably both.

“Still, the world’s changed a lot.”

“You’re telling me.” Lach laughed. “I just bought a gods damned cell phone, and now Hermes is insisting I get a smart one? What the fuck is a smartphone, Thanatos?”

Thanatos blinked at him. “You don’t have a smartphone.”

Groaning, Lach threw his head back. “You’re all helpless. If people are relying on their phones to be smarter than they are, we’re already fucked. This is the bad timeline.”

Thanatos’s soft laugh warmed Lach’s chest. “There’s no such thing, Lach. It’s a fine timeline.”

“You’d say that no matter what,” Lach complained. “You always see the best in everything.”

Once upon a time, he’d seen the best in Lach too.

A small line appeared between Thanatos’s eyebrows. Silence blanketed them, and Lach knew he’d made a misstep.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he blurted out before Thanatos could think too hard about the time he’d wasted on people who weren’t worth it.

Thanatos blinked. At this rate, Lach was going to give him whiplash on top of making him seasick.

“I just mean,” Lach continued, “it might help to give yourself something to focus on when we go back below. Something other than, you know, the rocking.”

Thanatos grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”

“Hey, you’ve been fine most of the day. You’re doing great. You’ll get used to it.” He had to, or Lach was officially the worst ex-boyfriend to ever trick his potential paramour onto a sailboat.

Okay, he was already the worst ex-boyfriend to ever do that.

“So, you up for it?” Lach asked.

With a sigh, Thanatos shrugged. He finished the last bite of his food and stood up.

“Why not?”

Lach grinned. It might be a small victory, but it was a victory nonetheless.

“Great! I’ll take your plate.” He shoveled the last of his own food into his mouth, then stacked one on top of the other. “After you.”

He let Thanatos lead the way down and stopped in the kitchen on his way to the back.

“I’ll clean the dishes,” he said. “Why don’t you go pick out a movie? There’s a whole shelf in the bedroom.”

“I saw.” There was something tempered in Thanatos’s voice that made Lach uneasy.

“Well, whatever you want. I’ll be there in a minute.”

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