Archive of Our Own

It didn’t take Patroclus very long to resign himself to the misery of his bountiful afterlife. His acceptance was quick, as quick as his death had been, and he had made his own peace with it with surprising ease. This was it. This was all it ever would be.

Or so he thought.

It was a few centuries after that acceptance (and a lonely existence alongside it) that the endless, slothful monotony was suddenly broken by an infant’s cry from the pale River Lethe.

Patroclus did not react to the sound at first. The river’s whispers were constant, sweet like a siren’s song, and he had long since learned how to tune it out, to keep from succumbing to its temptation. He even had a system to ignoring it. The first thing he did was close his eyes and imagine himself elsewhere – another life, another time, another world. He tried to recall sounds that would distract him from the river. The strum of a lyre, the crashing of waves on a beach, a familiar voice in his ear – singing, whispering, chuckling, humming. Patroclus hummed with him, lolling his head back and digging his fingers into the false Earth as he waited for the Lethe to quiet again, as it always did, eventually.

Instead, it squawked.

But Patroclus continued to ignore it. His lips mouthed with the lyrics of a song he should have forgotten by now. He wouldn’t actually sing it, however. His voice could never stand to compare to the one in his memory.

And then it squawked again. A sharp, indignant sort of sound that reminded Patroclus of a bird or kitten. It was somehow, suddenly, similar enough to the crack of exalted spears and swinging blades to set Patroclus on high alert, assuming there must be a trespasser in his glade trying to catch him unawares. It wouldn’t be the first time – shades here were always on the hunt for their next glorious battle, and unfortunately the Myrmidon’s second-most famous martyr was burdened by a rather large bounty.

His spear materialised in his hand, ready to swipe and send them away. Patroclus may not have participated in the gladiatorial rituals of Elysium, but gods would he fight for his privacy and isolation. He desired no company but the one that he could never have.

The glade was empty at first glance, but when the foreign squeak and a series of crunching and snapping sounds rang out, Patroclus rose to his feet for the first time in – gods, years, maybe. His phantom bones were practically creaking with disuse. Patroclus narrowed his gaze at the thatches of grass and pale blue flowers that could be concealing a small intruder. Nothing from there. He stepped closer to the bend of the river…

And there it was.

Right on the banks of the River Lethe, where its milky fingers curled over the edge of the not-quite-earth, a basket was tangled in the thorns that had grown over the edge (almost as if the Elysian plant had been unable to resist the river’s call itself). Patroclus had to numb himself, despite his jolt of surprise and sickness, to see past the beauty and enticement of the river’s frothing visage, focusing on the strange basket that disturbed its surface.

It was a basket. Woven from some sort of black wicker, mixed with fibres of gold and silver and red and purple; it was intricately decorated with embroidered Cthonic motifs, and bore an emblem most prevalent in this realm – the sigil of Hades himself. The basket must have taken the river’s bend too fast, because its lid had been knocked open, revealing its shocking contents: a humanoid baby, wrapped in glittering black silk, wriggling within the basket as it bobbed on the Lethe’s current and the thorns overhead seemed to grow around it.

A pudgy arm flailed, drawing a sharp wail – the same squawk from earlier – from the baby as it was nicked by a thorn. A streak of crimson appeared on their otherwise bone-white skin. The baby whimpered, but didn’t screech as most babies did, wriggling and wriggling as if they knew they needed to free themselves, they just had to figure out how.

Patroclus, sensibly, believed that he should help. But he also didn’t know how.

Patroclus was a child of ancient Hellas; he knew of myths, he had lived myths, and many a fable had been told (and would be told again) of babies being sent down rivers in baskets, cast out for safety or for disposal at the wills of different gods. He had no doubt that this was what he was witnessing, and in the Underworld no less. The only question was, which outcome had been fated? Should he…move the babe along, and stay out of the business of gods, or intervene?

The answer came to him quickly. No. Patroclus took a step back, turning his back to the babe. He would not involve himself in any god’s games, not again. A child in a basket that looked like that, sailing down the River Lethe – it could only have come from one place, and though Patroclus was already dead, he had no interest in pissing off the Lord of the Underworld. Not happening.

He tightened his grip on his spear and turned around again, decision made, and used his weapon’s butt to poke downwards and nudge the basket. If he could dislodge it, he could be left to his ‘peace’.

(If this existence could be called that)

Patroclus tried to avoid it, he really did, but as he hooked the end of his spear under the basket’s wicker rim, his eyes returned to the quiet child, and somehow their eyes met.

Well, that was the end of everything.

“A godling?” Patroclus mumbled, frightening himself – it had been so long since he had spoken any words that he’d forgotten what his voice sounded like now, ghostly and echoey. Disconcerting, to say the least. Though not as disconcerting as the child’s mismatched, ethereal eyes.

The ‘normal’ eye could barely pass for normal itself, as its emerald green shade was far too bright, too gemlike to be natural or human. The other eye had a distinct…monstrosity about it, though it was more enchanting that horrifying. Where the eye should have been white, there was only black. The iris was red as the Styx (Patroclus had taken only one ride down that river, and still it was a shade he would never forget).

The eyes sat largely in the babe’s sweet cherub face and swam with glassy tears. It moved its arm again and the thorns dragged through tender skin; this time, instead of squealing or whining at the pain, the child kept its gaze locked with Patroclus’s and began to wail. Which led Patroclus to discover that you could get headaches when dead, but that was besides the point.

He had a choice to make, that much he knew. He could wriggle his spear until the basket came loose and wave the child away as they continued their journey down the Lethe – or, rather, up the Lethe, as the basket itself seemed to be trying to move and past the current, which would take the baby to the surface. Who knew what would happen to it up there, no less on the rest of its journey without the lid of the basket shielding it. Now, Patroclus could just close the lid, but he felt like that would be too cruel now. The child was looking at him, crying at him, now writhing to the point where the thorns were ripping through its blanket and tangling around its limbs, catching his face.

The cry, which had started out as attention-seeking with an edge of pain, turned into true pain, the baby quickly working itself up and making its own situation worse. Not that it knew that. It was a baby (a baby god, albeit).

And for fuck’s sake, Patroclus was still human enough not to abandon a baby to a fate like this.

He cast his spear down and dropped to his knees, leaning down, dangerously close to the Lethe’s clutches. He carefully unwound the clever thorns from the babe’s arms and ripped away the rest, the scratches on his palms bothering him very little. They would close up when Elysium willed it.

Patroclus (who had never felt even the smallest fatherly instinct before, he might add) was suddenly in a rush to free the poor baby from his plight. He strained as far as he could, risking a splash from the river as he clawed at the thorns. The river, however, had never been easier to resist. Patroclus just had to mind that if he wasn’t careful, he’d accidently splash himself or, worse, accidentally tip the baby out of the basket and into the depths of the Lethe, for which he’d never forgive himself and probably plunge in after him.

“Come on, strange child,” Patroclus mumbled. He found himself rushing out a few senseless apologies as he was forced to nick the babe’s skin with the thorns he was pulling free, until at last he could scoop up the little godling – who was small enough that Patroclus could hold him in just two palms. He fumbled, panicked by the limpness of its body. Which should have been obvious, really. Patroclus had been a healer, once, and he had delivered many babes in his ten years at the Greek beach camp. He knew how to handle newborns – he needed only to remember.

First, Patroclus laid the baby down on his lap as soon as he got his legs out from under him and watched a little helplessly as the child cried and cried and cried, as if it hadn’t yet realised that it was rescued. He brushed his fingers over the cuts, scattered up and down the baby’s arms and torso, to determine their depth. He wracked his memory for some way to resolve them. While Elysium provided ways of healing to its residing spirits, to be used by those who continued their glory-seeking battles, Patroclus kept none on hand. The only place to get them were in the phantom ‘marketplaces’ and ‘towns’, which the heroes of Elysium inhabited. Patroclus had no desire to travel to any of those settlements, lest he see a face he recognised (an old friend or old foe – he wasn’t sure which would be worse). He could only hope that the cuts would clot and fade in time…if such a thing even existed in the Underworld. Patroclus still hadn’t figured it out.

He reached to the side, grasping the hem of his cloak and tearing off a generous strip. The clothing would regenerate soon enough, if he willed it. “Let’s see here,” Patroclus mumbled, getting to work with cleaning away the blood. Blood – did gods bleed like so? Patroclus had always imagined that they would have veins of gold, if they had anything at all, except this child was bleeding red as if it was human. Was the child a god at all? The eyes were unnatural, to be sure, but that didn’t make them godly, did it? Perhaps a demigod, like…

No, now was not the time to think of him. Only that he had inherited a few odd characteristics from his sea-goddess of a mother, like webbed toes, unusually sharp teeth, and the ability to hold his breath under water for an absurd amount of time. Strange eyes within a demigod seemed plausible enough.

As Patroclus wiped the cuts, he examined the baby further, unwrapping it from its black silk blanket. The child was a boy, he discovered with a glance. His pale colouring was consistent all across his body, his skin unblemished. Five fingers and…five, uh, toes. Strange toes. It looked like they were on fire, the orange bottoms of the baby boy’s feet spitting embers as he kicked.

Patroclus blinked and took back everything he had thought earlier about the child not being a god.

This sort of thing would only happen to me, he thought wearily, and he was sure he could hear a familiar loving chuckle over his shoulder. Of all the foundlings to rescue, Patroclus’s was a cast-out godling with flaming feet. Naturally.

Trying to keep professional, Patroclus continued with his examination, though found little else of note – there was a breathlessness to his cries that didn’t sound very normal, though who was Patroclus to judge what was ‘normal’ for a god? He ran his fingers over his head, feeling through the downy tuft of raven hair that crowned him, and tried not to think about how pleasantly fluffy it was to touch. He judged that the babe had no signs of any trauma, nor anything even remotely ugly about him to explain why he had been cast out down the Underworld’s rivers. In fact, even with the strange eyes and stranger feet, the child was very fair and sweet-looking. ‘Cute’ would have been an apt word, were Patroclus affectionate enough to use it.

Humming, Patroclus met the baby’s gaze, as best he could while the baby was still crying. Out of nowhere he summoned every ounce of child-minding skills he had – which wasn’t much at all – and lifted the baby boy from his lap to prop him against his shoulder.

“I am sorry for my hesitation, little stranger. I should have freed you immediately,” he said, patting his little back delicately. He seemed cold, too cold? Or was this normal too? “That must have been quite unpleasant, hm? It’s alright, now, no more nasty river throwing you around,”

The baby’s cries turned from a wail into a whimpering after a few moments of back-patting and shoulder-bouncing and muttering random things. Patroclus could feel the baby wriggling as if trying to burrow closer to him, his downy hair brushing the side of his neck as he nuzzled close. It was…a very pleasant feeling. Patroclus hummed, enjoying it; the baby seemed to enjoy his hum, in turn, feeling the vibrations of it through his chest and making it gentle cooing sound.

With his free hand, Patroclus shook out the black satin blanket (which shone as if the stars were woven into the very fabric of it – how extraordinary) to rewrap the baby. His thumb brushed over something embroidered into the fabric – words, Patroclus realised. A name.

“Zagreus, is it?” Patroclus read, tilting his head to nudge his chin against the baby’s hair. The baby didn’t react, its nose prodding into Patroclus’s shoulder. “‘Little stranger’ is more fitting, I think, but ‘Zagreus’ will have to do too. Whatever were you doing in that basket, Zagreus?”

Why has Hades cast you out of his realm via the rivers? Patroclus added internally. Something kept him from speaking the Underworld King’s name out-loud. He could not be certain of much, not with so little evidence, but he had a strong feeling that Zagreus had come from the House of Hades itself…and for better, or for worse, the Fates had cut his journey short before he could reach his intended destination. He was only just realising how strange the appearance of thorns were – Elysium was a paradise, and Patroclus found peace in the gentleness of his glade. Those thorns had not been there before. Nor were they there now. And he had never seen thorns ensnare something so…so intelligently, intentionally.

Zagreus’s arrival in his glade was no accident, he realised.

Who were Zagreus’s parents? Were they residents within the House…a child of Hades himself?

It would make sense, given the basket and the eyes and all…but why would Hades cast out his own son? A child that looked, as far as Patroclus could see, harmless and innocent? Prophecy, perhaps? The gods had done worse to their children under the shadow of prophecy and Hades, while often cruel, was fairer than most gods. Abandonment to the Underworld’s dangerous rivers was harsh for an infant, yes, but still better than the fates of other godly children.

Had Zagreus come from a different godly stock, like Zeus, chances were that he’d be little more than a pile of ash by now. His survival was not, however, necessarily a good thing for either of them.

“Oh, you have complicated my afterlife, little stranger,” Patroclus found himself speaking to the baby as he continued to soothe him, rubbing his thumb over his embroidered blanket. His mind felt swollen, stuffed with so many questions. He wasn’t used to so much thought that didn’t involve lamenting his past. “What am I to do, hm? Send you back down the river? Carry you into the Underworld’s depths to return to…to your father?”

The first option was a no-go. It was nothing short of a miracle that Zagreus had made it to his glade without earlier issue in that basket. He shuddered to imagine how dangerous his trip through Tartarus and Asphodel both had been. Patroclus was not putting the baby back in that death-trap, immortal godling or not.

The second option was just as unviable. Patroclus was confined to Elysium and had little interest in battling his way to the depths of the Underworld, with a babe in his arms no less, to confront a god who may or may not have wanted the infant to ever been seen again. Did he take such a risk?

Well, what else was he meant to do?

He took his time with cleaning all of Zagreus’s cuts, pleased to find that they stopped bleeding quite quickly, and careful movements didn’t cause them to reopen and weep once more. Zagreus’s eyes had closed while he’d been propped up on Patroclus’s shoulder – with his feet hidden by his blanket, he almost looked like a regular human child, albeit on the dangerously pale side. Watching him made Patroclus suddenly remember of a secret, hidden desire of his past life, that silly little parental one (the one and only, he might add) that had rose up in wake of his fondness for his sweet Briseis…

Briseis. Patroclus hadn’t thought of her for a long, long time, too full with mourning for one man to consider anybody else. He wondered what had become of her, whether the dream had come true for her, at least. He imagined her face and the laugh she’d give if she could see him now.

Patroclus and Zagreus. Surely the oddest current pair in all of the Underworld.

The rhythm that they fell into after that was too natural to be un-fated, Patroclus thought. After finishing up with cleaning and covering all of the cuts, Patroclus carefully figured out how to swaddle Zagreus in his blanket and propped him back against his shoulder. He began to walk, aimlessly, patting his back and humming until he felt his breaths even out and his little limbs relax, drool pooling into the edge of his cloak. He thought, oh, that was easy! Returning to the river, he leant down to retrieve the basket from the thorns, giving it a shake and a fluff before lying Zagreus down within it…

Only for the babe’s eyes to pop open with a horrible, pitiful whimper. Patroclus drew him back to him instantly, and thought to himself, oh no, never-mind. Am I doomed?

Zagreus grasped his beard in a fist and tugged, cooing, smearing drool everywhere as he made soft baby sounds.

I’m doomed, Patroclus decided with certainty, his ghostly heart melting.

He resolved to keep hold of the child for a while, only a short while, before beginning to plan how he would right the accidents that had brought him to his glade. It was only sensible.

Some undetermined time later, Patroclus had Zagreus strapped to his chest in a harness cobbled together from scraps of leather and cloth. He needed both of hands ready to wield his spear and defend them both on their pending journey to the border of Elysium and Asphodel.

Zagreus had napped the entire time that Patroclus spent putting the harness together and so was quite lively now, a cheeky little personality revealing itself. He delighted in chewing on his flame-licked toes and grasping at everything and anything, from tufts of grass to Patroclus’s clothes and hair. To reign in his childish curiosity from somehow giving them away, and to keep his little head from flopping, Patroclus strapped him in facing his chest. His chiton was quickly saturated with drool, but it was no bother – preferable to the alternative, which was Zagreus facing forwards and witnessing some possible battles.

That would only add to the likelihood of Patroclus getting smote for traumatising a god’s baby after effectively kidnapping it from Fate’s hands.   

It had taken him some time to realise that this, journeying from his glade, was his wisest course of action. He couldn’t send Zagreus back down the river, nor could not send a message, nor could leave the baby with some other shade while he went off alone, and he couldn’t…he couldn’t keep him here, no matter how endeared he became in such short time. Patroclus’s only option was to hand-deliver him to wherever it was he belonged – not the easiest thing to do, especially when he didn’t know where he belonged at all, but it was the right thing to do, to be sure.

Wise and sensible; two words that described both the plan and Patroclus himself. Patroclus hadn’t been much of a preacher of good morals in his lifetime but, ‘do the right thing’ had been the cause that he’d died for, so it felt best not to be hypocritical now.

So long as Zagreus found a place where he would be cared for, loved, kept safe and healthy and warm, Patroclus knew that this empty existence would feel perhaps a bit fuller when their quest was done. In the short time that he had known the babe, he had grown on Patroclus greatly. His innocence, his sweetness, his infantile cheekiness and his clear love of being cuddled…they lessened Patroclus’s own loneliness, his misery and heartache, at least temporarily. The happiness that Zagreus had created in Patroclus’s afterlife, though so unexpected, would warm the embers in his dead chest for decades to come. His memory alone would be good enough for Patroclus. That was the thought that spurred him along, marching himself out of the glade.

By the gods, though, he’d forgotten how inhospitable it was beyond his chamber’s ‘walls’.

The first few chambers that they passed were not too terrible. Patroclus was light on his feet and had always been adept at blending into the background, hiding in plain sight (even after the surprise growth-spurt of his late teens that had set him inches above most of his fellows!). It helped that Zagreus was contentedly quiet most of the time, especially when Patroclus touched a hand to the back of his head. It was as if he realised that he needed to be extra quiet now.

The exalted shades that prowled around looking for challengers, provocative or not, did not even see them in those first five or so chambers.

It was within a chamber full of Nemean chariots that their luck ran out. The sentient, almost hound-like chariots seemed aware of Patroclus’s presence instantly, as if catching their scent or somehow hearing their quiet movements. Patroclus covered Zagreus with one arm as he dove out of the way of one’s charge, rolling, landing in a crouch and stabbing out with his spear. The butt of it jammed in the chassis of another charging chariot, sending it squealing away from them. Patroclus hopped back to his feet and sprinted for the nearby exit from this chamber. To their detriment, this chamber door remained sealed at his touch, which wasn’t like the rest. The Nemean chariots – three of them, Patroclus counted – readied their attacks once more.

Fuck. Patroclus dropped his head to Zagreus’s, concealed by the fabric of the harness. “You’ll be alright,” he promised. He heard Zagreus’s muffled coo against his chest, his face nuzzling closer and tiny fists grasping at his chiton. As if he were bracing himself, understanding their danger.

The chariots exploded into clouds of purple dust some indeterminable minutes later, with as much ease as Patroclus could manage whilst so out of practice and unreasonably panicky about the wellbeing of his tiny partner. It took some mental cajoling to calm himself down once the fight was over, to bring himself back to a sensible frame of mind. Paranoia for Zagreus’s welfare would only do more harm than good, he told himself. Patroclus considered himself a very level-headed, content sort of person – in his mortal life, he’d been the only person on Earth capable of tempering the storm that was the son of Thetis, which hadn’t been for naught.

Zagreus is fine. Zagreus is unharmed. You kept him safe, and you will continue to do so, he told himself in a mantra. He moved on once his heart believed it.

In the next chamber, Patroclus did not even waste his time trying to avoid the chariots. He launched himself straight into the fray. Zagreus squealed, but it wasn’t in terror. It was delight. The sound spurred him on. That second wave of chariots did not stand a chance, nor did the exalted warriors that prowled around alongside them.

The next few chambers continued in a manner such as this. A shift in his phantom’s being made Patroclus aware that they were, indeed, progressing deeper into the Underworld, nearing Asphodel with every chamber conquered.

It was in the last few chambers that further issues began to arise.

More enemies, for one, with stronger guards and more extravagant attacks. Patroclus began taking more and more hits, out-manoeuvred and cornered and forced to twist his body to intercept blows that would have hurt Zagreus. Zagreus, for that matter, was becoming disillusioned to the fighting, no longer entertained. He began to fuss and squirm and cried as soon as blades crashed overhead and their enemies were fell, only to quieten again when the next wave came, his whimpers purposefully muffled. Patroclus’s soothing was distracted and half-hearted as his senses branched out elsewhere, hyper-alert and almost separate from his body. It was as if some spirit had possessed him, the protective and territorial soul of a pack-animal, defensive over its young.

Despite his awareness, it was looking less and less likely that they would make it out of Elysium unscathed, nevermind through the burning fields of Asphodel and the nightmarish pits of Tartarus. Patroclus still pushed on, however, determined to see the attempt through after coming this far.

He was bleeding, limping, struggling to breathe (despite his lack of need for breath-) when the next chamber they entered transformed from blue-green fields to metallic corridors to a stiflingly hot cavern, encircled by magma and the groping arms of spirits. This was Asphodel, Patroclus knew; he’d have to be deaf to have missed the whispered gossip of the Asphodel Meadows overflowing with magma from the flaming River Phlegethon, even isolated in his glade.

There were no enemies, at first. Patroclus found a raft of bones and stepped on to it, carefully, gasping when it moved away of its own accord. They were ferried through the heat until docking at a random, seemingly empty island – Asphodel’s first true chamber.

“So far, so good,” Patroclus told Zagreus.

He was eating his words within seconds, when the magma bubbled and a great beast burst from its depths, releasing a hiss so loud that it seemed to shake the island

The Lernaean Hydra had spotted them, its bony body clicking and rattling. It reared back to strike…

“Bloody fuck that,” scoffed Patroclus.

He pivoted on his heel and ran, leaping on to the little boat that had carried them here. The Hydra hissed again, impossibly louder, and Patroclus raised his spear with one hand and folded the other over Zagreus. He didn’t want this fight but he braced himself for it anyway, eying the Hydra’s fangs and trying to plan ahead for its attacks, guessing where the heads might strike and where he should dive if it did-

Instead, the Hydra rattled its great body beneath the river of magma, creating waves that sent their little boat churning back the way they came. The Hydra slunk back into its fiery depths once they were on their way, the boat rocking haphazardly across the flaming currents until it bumped against the metallic corridor.

He understood the Fated message and slunk, wounded, back into Elysium. At least the way home to his glade was already cleared, the Underworld’s ever-changing chambers thankfully not yet rearranged.

“I am sorry,” he whispered to Zagreus, now swaddled in the aqua depths of Patroclus’s cloak in his basket while Patroclus himself sat and…waited for his wounds to heal up. He’d never regretted his self-imposed isolation until now. The pain, at least, was like the faintest shadow against his skin. “I couldn’t risk that sort of fight, little stranger, not with you,”

Had Patroclus fallen to the Hydra, or to any of their enemies beforehand, he would have been perfectly fine; he would have been regenerated somewhere in Elysium, whole and new again, unharmed and unscarred. Had he been alone, perhaps he would have taken to the challenge of vanquishing the Hydra, would have continued to fight through the Underworld until he found – well, until he got some answers to his questions. But with Zagreus? If Patroclus fell, what would happen to him? Would he reform still strapped to Patroclus’s chest? Would he remain where Patroclus had been killed (again) until something else killed him? And when he reformed, godling that he was, where would it be?

Too many questions. Patroclus had thought he was past asking new questions, since no answers ever came.

“We shall try the opposite direction,” he told the boy some time later, once his wounds seemed to have healed (how much time had passed…?) and they were tucked up safely under the shade of the great statue that overshadowed his glade. Zagreus wriggled around on Patroclus’s chest, pulling at his beard and gnawing at the circular badge that pinned his chlamys in place. Patroclus rubbed the little godling’s back, smoothed back his hair. Had it grown longer already? It seemed more unruly than before. “It appeared that you were destined for the surface as it was. I will not be able to go all the way with you there, but…perhaps we will make friends along the way?”

He didn’t believe his own words, and neither did Zagreus, if his flat green-red gaze said anything. Patroclus flicked him on the nose before bundling him close and humming until he fell asleep.

When next he was ready, Patroclus and Zagreus set off again.

The journey ‘upwards’ through Elysium was shorter than the reverse journey, which was good, to some extent. Unfortunately, they faced stronger enemies the nearer they came to Elysium’s peak. Not only enemies, but more regular shades too, some faceless bodies and other shivering whisperers. Patroclus made sure to avoid the chamber doors that would lead to Elysium’s occupied settlements, where most souls settled permanently in eternal paradise. Patroclus had his own untouched home among them, he knew. An envoy of Odysseus had tracked him down once to inform him that the old Ithacan king had arranged for him. The envoy never made it back to Odysseus, however, and he assumed that the house continued to lay empty. It was the one act of anger that Patroclus had carried out here, though he didn’t regret it.

He hoped now that whispers of his escapades would not get back to the spirit of Odysseus or any other soul that Patroclus had known in life, at least not until he could retreat to his glade to hide away if he was found. There were many meetings Patroclus did not wish to have. He would avoid all ‘heroes’ for the rest of eternity.

…Funny how he thought that way, when the final obstacle between himself and the final Elysian chamber was the hero Theseus himself. And his great enemy, the Minotaur.

“Look here, Asterius!” the Athenian king boomed, spreading his arms. “A new challenger! State your name, you brave little fool, and prepare for your reckoning!”

The Minotaur, Asterius, huffed and banged his axe – which was longer than Patroclus was tall – against the ground. The crowd chanted in time, the atmosphere in the…in the fucking arena beginning to buzz, growing headier and hotter, prompting Patroclus to flex and stretch his muscles and glance down at Zagreus with a grimace. Zagreus seemed to be grimacing back.

“Now, now, friends,” he raised his hands to the crowds and to his apparent ‘opponents’. “I do not wish to fight you, heroes! I am simply passing through on an errand, sent by Hades himself-!”

Theseus snorted, interrupting. “Silence, brigand! I see through your lies! How unworthy of you to create such ruses to evade the battle you have brought upon yourself!”

“Oh, no,” Patroclus rushed to say. “No, king, you are mistaken! I would not lie about-,”

“Enough talking,” Asterius growled, huffing. “Now we will – wait, your highness, do you see that? On his chest,”

Theseus gasped loudly in horror. “A bald rat!”

“I think not,” scoffed Patroclus, offended on Zagreus’s behalf. He removed his hand that covered Zagreus’s head against every instinct urging him to keep him covered and protected. That Zagreus was visible at all made him realise that he must’ve grown to fill the harness better. Hm. “This is an infant, you see? Perfectly humanoid. I am journeying to take him to the surface to return him-,”

Both contenders raised their weapons – Asterius, his axe, and Theseus, his spear and shield. The crowd roared in eager excitement, the very air vibrating. Zagreus twisted in his wrap, pawing at Patroclus’s chest as if trying to push him backwards out of the arena. Patroclus held firm, at least for the moment. He still had a shot of talking their way out of this, if only he could prove that he wasn’t a ‘challenger’ and-

“Be ready, challenger,” advised Asterius. “For only one party shall leave this arena in victory,”

Patroclus had to physically restrain a sigh. The Hydra was one thing, but King Theseus and the Minotaur was another. Once again, he didn’t stand a chance, and he hated the idea of potentially leaving Zagreus in the hands of these fools for babysitters than the Hydra. Asterius, for one, had a reputation for eating children that he couldn’t yet overlook. And Theseus was…he just seemed like an asshole, and a fool besides, who’d throw Zagreus into the Lethe just for passing wind.

With that thought, Patroclus checked his options. There weren’t very many. He could try, and probably fail, to take the pair down, or…

He went with or, and turned around and began to run. “Farewell, gentlemen!” he called. The doorway behind him had sealed upon entry, so Patroclus launched himself at the side of the arena – he clambered up the straight wall (he was good at that, scaling walls), drawing cries of shock from the spectating shades as well as curses and protests from his abandoned opponents. Patroclus threw himself up the benches and beyond, scrambling rather ungracefully to freedom.

By some miracle he found a door, presumably one that the shades and other viewers used, and made his escape through it before he could be stopped or pursued. Complaints of his cowardness followed, but that was of no matter to Patroclus. He hadn’t been born with a thirst for glory as most men were, and the safety of the child on his chest would forever outrank anybody’s view of him.

For that reason, Patroclus back-tracked all the way to his glade without pause, wary of being followed. Thank the Fates, they had survived their expedition, though it was ultimately unsuccessful.

Which meant that Patroclus was lost. The only two directions he had known to take had turned out too risky to see through. Patroclus was no closer to knowing what he should do with Zagreus – why had he been sent down the rivers, why had Hades cast him out, why had the Fates led him to this lonely shade? What else was Patroclus to do now? He could call upon Hades himself to bring answers and assistance?

He tried it. He stood within his glade and called upon Hades at the top of his phantom lungs, to no effect. He invoked the names of Nyx, Thanatos, Chaos itself – every Cthonic god that he could think of, and even the Olympians after. No divinity let him know that he was heard, and Patroclus couldn’t tell if that was out of ignorance or disdain.

He set Zagreus in his swaddle and said prayers before him, gave him all the measly dedications he could find and treated his meals as offerings. He recreated rituals that he only half-remembered but hoped would prompt some sort of power from the immortal infant. Zagreus just blinked at him, drooled, and stuck his flaming toes into his gummy mouth until he gagged. Patroclus sighed. It had been a long-shot, but Zagreus was clearly keeping no secrets.

These processes were repeated in different orders at different times, anyway, as if all he had to do was find the right combination. He braved the journey beyond his glade a few more times, but neither pathway had changed. No matter what pattern the chambers arranged themselves in, the Hydra and the arena were always there on either end. It soon became too tedious and too dangerous a venture to keep trying and trying, fruitlessly hoping that the outcome would one day change. And so they remained in the glade.

There was one more option, which Patroclus considered only once. The River Lethe was still there, as it always would be, trickling through every Elysian chamber, serene and enticing. Zagreus was still just about small enough to fit into his basket; Patroclus could wrap him up in his cape, which seemed to be the favourite of his two blankets, and send him on his way. Perhaps it was just that simple, and Patroclus was irrational – foolish, even – in fearing for his safety.

In the end…what did it even matter?

No god had come searching for Zagreus when he did not reach his destination. No god had listened to his calls, which had ranged from respectful to deranged. The Underworld had no intention of setting Patroclus free, if only temporarily, to deliver Zagreus to his home. If anything were to happen to Zagreus, nobody would know or care, nobody except Patroclus. And for that reason, Patroclus eventually came to a final conclusion.

Zagreus was lay on his back, gazing upwards at the twilight mirage that acted like a sky over Elysium. He had grown bigger in the time that Patroclus had known him. In his limited knowledge of children, the infant was now a few months older. He was longer, stronger and more vocal; he seemed to look at things more than he looked through them (with the exception of Patroclus, whom he had always enjoyed staring at). He could hold his head up and could almost sit without support. His hair was thicker, his features more distinguishable – he’d have a sharp jaw and a prominent chin when he was grown, and Patroclus could envision a tendency to smirk already. It was like seeing into the future, and it was fascinating.

Zagreus seemed to enjoy looking at the ‘sky’, as well as at anything else that gave off light. It made him coo adorably. Patroclus had a list of other things that made him coo. Rolling around in the grass, being lifted into the air so that he could kick his legs, being swaddled by Patroclus’s cloak – Patroclus himself. The coo he made when he looked at him was unique. It made Patroclus’s heart ache; it sealed the deal.

If the gods would not come for Zagreus, then Patroclus would not send him away. He did not want to, no matter how much his mind tried to reason how impossible it was. But, it wasn’t impossible – this had been their reality for a while, now. Besides, Patroclus didn’t think he could give him up now, not when Zagreus cooed at him like that, when he snuggled into him and nuzzled into his beard and rubbed his face against Patroclus’s cheek in an infant’s imitation of a kiss. He was getting big enough now to roll himself on to his front and attempt to pursue him whenever he wandered. He wouldn’t settle until he was atop Patroclus’s chest, and Patroclus couldn’t settle in turn.

He had given so much, and had always refused to take anything for himself. He’d stubbornly committed himself to a punishing eternity of solitude and bitterness in response to a mortal life that he could now scarcely remember, beyond his love for his Achilles. Love that he’d had nothing to compare to, until now.

Patroclus was stretched out on the grass besides Zagreus, propping himself up to lean over the happy baby. He gave him that coo and kicked his legs rapidly, his little body trying its very best to express its excitement despite his limited ability. Patroclus smiled fondly; a gesture he had never thought he would grow used to again.

“What do you say, little stranger?” he whispered to his boy, his nose skimming the baby’s forehead as he giggled in delight. “Shall you stay here? We have both done alright so far. Besides, this family of yours, whomever they may be, I shudder to think of what would become of you given their negligence of their care so far,”

Zagreus blew a spit bubble as if in agreement.

“I cannot promise I will be a very good father, but I will love you,” Patroclus continued, trying to keep his emotions at bay. “Nor can I promise that all the wrath of the gods will not fall upon us when they discover that one of their own has fallen into the hands of a rather grumpy shade…but I will protect you, over and over, no matter what they may do to me. I’ll give you the happiest life I can, my boy. This I swear,”

Zagreus hummed, squealing with sharp babyish laughter as Patroclus ducked down to blow a raspberry against his ticklish belly. His flapping hands grasped his hair and yanked with rather frightening strength, for one so young. Patroclus chuckled with him, carefully untangling his curls from insistent fists and pressing kisses to both hands. Another coo came from the baby, whose chest hitched with leftover giggles while his eyes glazed over softly. Warm and sweet and innocent and filled with only one thing – pure, unconditional love, the likes of which Patroclus had never known, and he had spent his life on Earth loving and being loved.

Patroclus was no father, and he knew he had no right to Zagreus’s love. But, the Fates had all-but brought him here to him, had prevented every method that Patroclus employed to send him elsewhere.

Who was Patroclus to deny this child any longer? For better or for worse, they had each other.