Page 46 of Patron of Mercy

Lach was staring at his own sheet-covered lap, looking as downcast as Thanatos had ever seen him. He was responsible for that. It was like the fantasies where he’d spun tales of better lovers, told Lach how he had never truly satisfied him with his wildness and his demands. The truth, of course, was that the unexpectedness of everything Lach did was why Thanatos loved him.

He sighed, but even as he did it, he reached for Lach’s hand.

“I love you,” he whispered. It was so quiet he could barely hear it himself, but Lach’s head snapped up, eyes bright and hopeful. Thanatos cleared his throat. “I don’t think I stopped loving you, as pathetic as that is. I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to fall into this trap again. I wasn’t going to let you hurt me again.”

Lach flinched, and maybe it was wishful thinking, but everything about him did seem regretful about how things had ended between them. He was so earnest. Thanatos had always loved that.

He had always loved Glaucus, but this Glaucus, Lach, was somehow even more than the scrappy, stubborn man he’d known. The man he had become was different, but everything Thanatos had loved was still there. And now there was a little more self-reflection, a little less cocksure arrogance, and more unflinching loyalty, all hidden beneath that same dashing pirate smile.

But could that loyalty apply to Thanatos in a way it hadn’t before?

Glaucus had clung to those he loved, like his brother and father, but it hadn’t extended to Thanatos then. Could it now?

“I don’t want to,” Lach said, his eyes shining. He grabbed the hand Thanatos had rested on his. “I don’t ever want to hurt you again. It’s not a trap. I swear, Thanatos. I won’t—”

Instead of letting Lach make promises he might not be able to keep, Thanatos leaned forward and cut him off with a kiss. Maybe it was doomed to failure. Maybe there was no way to make it work, and Lach would always leave him. But right here, right now, he could have this. He could have the Lach who said he loved him, whose emotions seemed so easy and transparent.

Lach returned the kiss with force, his tongue sweeping into Thanatos’s mouth and claiming. He wound his left hand behind Thanatos’s neck and pressed their bodies tight together, bowling him over and landing on top.

He didn’t break the kiss until he had to gasp for breath, and then he pulled back, eyes sparkling. “You wanna try this again, lights on, full kissing?”

What could he say to that? The same thing he always said to Lach in the end. “Yes.”

Lach gave him that brazen grin and reached out for the lube that had been discarded to one side.

Thanatos wasn’t sure more was necessary, but Lach was careful in ways Glaucus had never been, too. He caressed instead of groping, built a rhythm instead of a frenzy, and focused on Thanatos’s body more than his own. Maybe it was a side effect of millennia of experience, and Thanatos had to chase away a flash of jealousy at the image of Lach having sex with thousands of men and women over those years, but whatever it was, the result was kind of nice.

He still hit like a tornado, but his touches were less force and more care than they had been before.

Lach ran his hands up and down Thanatos’s chest, soft and almost tickling, at the same time as he used his knees to press Thanatos’s legs open and settle between them. He slid their cocks together, reaching one hand down to wrap around both and stroke a few lazy times before slipping the same hand down to press at Thanatos’s hole. The first finger slipped in easily, and Thanatos let his head fall back against the pillow.

It had been good, feeling Lach in him again, even when he’d given up and used his hands instead of his dick. There was a moment’s self-consciousness at the memory of it, a niggling reminder than nothing like that had ever happened to Lach in their previous lovemaking. Did he want Thanatos less now, or had it truly been simple shock at the idea that he didn’t want to kiss?

No, worry was for later, when Lach wasn’t pressing a second finger inside him. He pushed into the hand, even though it wasn’t what he wanted. He wasn’t going to pretend to be demanding again. It wasn’t him, and hadn’t worked anyway, so he let Lach take over.

After a few more pumps of his hand, Lach took his fingers away and replaced them with his cock. Thanatos was grateful for the extra lube, because the position was a bigger stretch.

Lach leaned down to look him in the eye as he pressed inside, slowly and inexorably pushing himself into Thanatos in the way that only he had ever managed.

Thanatos didn’t try to pull away again when Lach wrapped his left hand around the back of his neck. He pulled their faces together so close that Thanatos’s vision was distorted, full of nothing but bright blue eyes that seemed to drill into his very soul, if he had such a thing. It was moments like these, with Lach so close that Thanatos could feel every part of him, that he thought maybe he did.

How could he feel this tremor in his entire being if he didn’t have a soul?

When he was fully seated in Thanatos’s body, Lach let out a breath and leaned in for another kiss. And then another and another, as he pulled back out and built not a rhythm, but a slow, gentle glide that felt like it could be suspended forever between them. He pushed all the way into Thanatos and slid slowly back out, their breaths syncing up and bodies working in tandem, like they were parts of a single being.

This would be his Elysium, if creatures like Thanatos were allowed eternal rest. This moment, with Lach, forever.

They were so aligned that when Lach slid his hand between their bodies and wrapped it around Thanatos’s dick, it felt like a natural extension of his own will. It wasn’t Lach’s sometimes impatient need for Thanatos to get off so he could as well. Instead, Lach stared into his eyes as he slid his hand up and down, more invested in Thanatos’s pleasure than his own.

When Thanatos saw stars and his vision whited out, Lach’s face mirrored the ecstasy that rolled through him. He pushed all the way in and froze there, breathing in Thanatos’s ear.

Quietly, so very quietly Thanatos wondered if he’d intended to be heard, he whispered, “Stay with me.”

* * *

The tripacross the Mediterranean wasn’t long enough, Thanatos decided two days later as he and Lach sat on one of the benches on deck watching the sun rise. Not that he wanted to put off their search for the scythe, but part of him wanted to stay right here, doing exactly this, forever.

He couldn’t put off work indefinitely, but he wanted to, a little. Other gods had hired—or created—help over the years, and for the first time, he was tempted to do the same.

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