BOSSEIDON

a genuis, a gamble. an advocate, an adversary. a glory and a gutting.

a teen with their father’s blood staining their knuckles like ink and solder, a god with the horizon itself tucked under his tongue.

There’s a degree of satisfaction that rings hollow when Poseidon knocks his elbow on the door at his words; he can’t even take the moment to relish in it, to have it ebb and flow within as he wants. Nowhere for it to go but the soles of his feet. It vanishes completely when as he watches Poseidon slip on a wretchedly familiar veneer, the Rhea’s face absent of any overt expression, and it’s the closest thing to a dagger he could lob at him. At least afford me the courtesy of honesty. After all of this. After everything. Don’t look at me like I’ve come to you with a fucking complaint.

“If it wasn’t a matter of trust, then what was it a matter of, if you went out and told someone else? Protection?” Scoffs. Even if it is true, even if Poseidon echoed Zeus’s words, it feels like a platitude when the latter all but confirmed the former had shared the secret so eagerly with someone who was decidedly not himself, who was, in all likelihood, someone Poseidon had met after they’d gone in their own directions. At least it rang truer with his brother, didn’t even tell his fucking wife.

“What of me?” Feels his pulse skip and skitter, his palms go numb. Their voice takes on an edge, and Hephaestus lets it scrape across his skin. He swallows incredulously. “I—I’m doing it for you! All of us! I was kept in the dark, all of my life, and this opportunity to prove I’d do anything for this fucking family is given to me, you think I have a choice?” He calms himself, digs his trembling hands into the crooks of his elbows. “His what, Poe? Whore?” He pauses. “Why can’t you say it?”

He flinches again, chest curving over his sternum like a gut-punch, chin turning to the side like a hook shot. He let himself get emotional, let it bleed through and crack his armour. He can’t afford this. He's watching something slip through his fingers and he -

He's fine. Poseidon opens his eyes, blank and cold, looks over to catalogue Hephaestus' every tremble. He can feel himself shutting down, can feel his emotions turning to ice. " Spare me your selflessness, Hephaestus. For me? For us? " He barks a laugh, sharp and cutting, then finally breaks the distance that gulfs between them. He takes a step forwards, drops his voice into something slow and cruel. " Really, Fae? His whore? " The word drips out like venom, like poison, corrosion in his thoat. He can feel himself coming apart, fraying at the edges, melting from the heat within his core.

he had a cutting of the main plant done within the day of his texts with zagreus, hadn’t wanted to risk the transplant going wrong for his nephew, for the move back to - wherever zagreus would end up next.

finally he has the chance to show the plant off, even if the kid has seen the inside of his office before, now there’s more to it, more understanding of the choice’s he’s made. the glass base to one of the sections of the room, the terrarium lining the back wall, the selection of plants within.

Hephaestus doesn’t bide his time, doesn’t search for anything to fill the thirty minutes. He heads straight to lab 14 and spends the entire thirty minutes with the lights left off, seated, thinks of the cost of ignorance, the price of freedom that was never meant to last. Thinks of the stinging on his neck every time his shirt brushes against the scratches, the bruises, how he’d trace them with the pads of his fingers that very morning when he was sure no one would see; smiled. 

His lips are pressed into a thin line by the time Poseidon opens the door, and he doesn’t speak when the door shuts, when silence floods the lab once more. Feels his throat close, every word he’d had prepared die in his mouth. Betrayal hot on the heels of novel intimacy is harder to swallow.

He sighs, shakes his head. Shifts, crosses his arms. Finally, he meets the Rhea’s gaze, forlorn, wet-eyed. Furious. “You would claim me, mark me, but you can’t even trust me?”

he’s fine. he scans his arm and the door slides open.

he’s fine. he steps inside and watches as the lights blink on with the motion.

he’s fine. watches as they illuminate the figure who’s been sat in the dark, casts their face severely, highlights every bruise that peeks over their collar, the flat line of their mouth, the hurt in their eyes.

he’s -

the door slides shut behind him, automatically locks into place. he doesn’t move at the latch, doesn’t move as hephaestus crosses his arm, doesn’t move as he meets his eyes. instead he flinches at the question, knocks his elbow back against the door, hears the crack of it echo through the lab.

he takes a breath, forces the emotion from his face, pulls on the cocksure arrogance. poseidon tilts his head like the answer is obvious, leans back against the door like he’s guarding it and not just ready to escape, shrugs like it’s all inconsequential. “ what would you have me do? apologise? it wasn’t a matter of trust, fa-, fes. and what of you? ”

as soon as the plane touches down, poseidon is on the deck, completely ignoring where the other plane lands. doesn’t look back, half a dozen different holo text threads dancing over his knuckles, striding straight for his office. he pulls up the immediate to-do lists, shoots off a text to hephaestus, to the head of operations onboard, catalogues what his presence is needed for.

it takes 15 minutes, maybe pushing 20. the tension in his shoulders fueling his speed, tension that hasn’t left since zeus hung up. it leaves him with 10 minutes to stand, hands white-knuckle on the back of his chair. 10 minutes to dismiss every way the next conversation could go. 10 minutes of anger and anxiety and fear and guilt and frustration and want and need and -

It hurts. Not in the way that a scraped knee or broken ankle hurts. Not in the way it had hurt when she had broken things off with Dion, or grown apart from people she once knew. This hurt differently – in a heart-rending, primal way, like a piece of Circe, something which made her so fundamentally herself, had been ripped away.

That’s what it was – wasn’t it? Circe had never existed without Perses. From the moment she was born, he had been by her side. He had been her balance, her anchor, the one person who looked at Circe and understood everything that she was. Press had been the one who had brought her to Pontius – together they had been able to elevate something good to something great, and now Poseidon was simply giving up on all hope of ever finding him?

“This is different.” She insists – it may seem selfish to think that Perses is any more valuable than anybody else, but, to her, he is. “And you’re simply taking his word for it? How do we know he has done all he can? You said it yourself, Tartarus is a place of shadows – they can’t all have been searched yet. I don’t believe him.”

She shakes her head – what would she have him do? If she thought he would allow it, she would ask to search Tartarus herself, to dive into the darkness and return with her brother or let it swallow her, too. “I just thought you would do more.”

she doesn’t take his hand but he doesn’t lower it, doesn’t press forwards or step back. takes the failure, takes the dissapointment, foreign and bitter tastes as they are. he takes no responsibility for the loss, refuses to let himself, so bears no shame or guilt there. but for the lack of answers? acid curdles in his ribs.

“ more? cee, circe, i have to take his word for it. even if you and i went, what are we going to do? ask questions that don’t get us any closer until we piss off the wrong guy? ” the frustration rips through his voice like a stain, irritation and hopeless anger and grief for the first time. fates, is this what it’s like to actually mourn?

These days, she feels as though her heart were caught in her throat every time Poseidon came to see her. He acted as the singular conduit through which any and all information about Perses would be transmitted – he could deliver her saving grace, or her doom, at any moment. She was not used to feeling so helpless in these situations – Circe was a fixer, something she knew she shared with Poseidon. Problems didn’t exist in a vacuum – they all had solutions, it was just a matter of finding them.

Perses’ disappearance had an explanation. He had to be somewhere, it was just a matter of asking the right questions.

She watches Poseidon for any clue about what news he has brought before he even has a chance to speak – watches the way his face seems to fall as soon as she requests news, something cold taking root deep in the pit of her stomach before Poseidon delivers the blow. I don’t think there’s anywhere left to look, he says, and Circe shakes her head furiously. “That’s impossible.” She says it before Poseidon finishes speaking, almost talking over the top of him in her haste to get the words out.

It was impossible – as far as Circe was concerned. If Perses hadn’t been found, it was simply because people hadn’t been looking hard enough, or because somebody was hiding something – this question couldn’t remain without an answer, she wouldn’t allow it. “People… people don’t just disappear without a trace.” She leans forward, bracing her hands against the side of her desk, “They haven’t looked everywhere, then. Or somebody is hiding something. We – we need to investigate ourselves, surely the situation calls for this now.”

A lifetime spent rebuilding the universe to suit him, refashioning family and desire and power and success to the point where impossible, well, felt impossible. But now, now it weighs like a yoke, the falibility of being human, that despite the stretch of his networks that nothing can be found.

What’s more impossible? His failure or his success? Of finding a ghost or being unable to find a solution?

“ They do, endlessly. Children coming out of nowhere, going nowhere. I’ve been investigating, had people looking, but Hades’ himself has said there’s nothing - ” His voice breaks, raises his head to meet her gaze.

Every week, he sits at a different cafeteria on Pontius, makes it a point to speak to anyone who approaches. Part of the image, part of the myth, integrate himself into the story from the ground up, hears every grievance, waves his hand and watches it mean something.

This week, he walks onto Isthmia, walks past a Richard Floros and a recent hire, pair tucked into an office, the new guy with his head low and something cruel in Floros’ body language. Subtly, Poseidon alters his path towards the office, tunes his earpiece into the cameras within the room, feels the anger build with each step.

He’s got a box of electronics, going back an age. Tape recorders and drives that could be stored in a museum, built to last but still the sheer electronic degradation meant most of what was in the box was unworkable. It causes Poseidon to hesitate outside the door, reconsidering the ‘ get well soon / here’s something to distract you ‘ gift. Hermes was always more of a software than hardware engineer, as well, perhaps these wouldn’t -

Nah, the kid’s trapped in a hospital bed, they’ll want something to fidget with.

Sisyphus looks down at the little metallic bug in his lap, the listening device he was about to plant in one of Pontius’ temporary workstation computers. He blinks rapidly as his brain whirrs to life, after stalling out at Poseidon’s voice behind him.

“Well, sir,” he says slowly, “I wasn’t going to mention it until I was completely sure, because I didn’t want to start a fuss over nothing– not with our hosts being so gracious– but. Well, I had an inkling something was off in one of the computers, so I decided to take it apart myself just to check. No harm done, if I was wrong, but unfortunately…” He picks up the bug. Holds it to the light above himself, squinting at it like it’s the first time he’s seen it. “It looks like I was right.” 

He cranes his head backwards rather than turning around, looking at Poseidon upside down, his hair falling over his eyes. “What would you like me to do about it, boss?”

-

[ hc ]

Patroclus doesn’t want to need it, he has spent years living with his own pain, longing, shame and guilt. And yet the past few days shook him to his core, a feeling that he wasn’t himself for as long as he was staying at Olympe, then again maybe he has left his former self back in Tartarus and a new Patroclus was burn in Arcadia.

Instead of saying anything he opened the Tala and showed Poseidon the credentials he had to enter Achilles’ room, hoping it would be enough. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to speak of the things I was forced to do for Tartarus.” His body had the emotional and physical scars. “I was never a man for violence but it was worth it if I got to be with him.” 

Talking about made the memories float back and his solution was always work it away into the back of his mind but he couldn’t because Poseidon was standing there, a man that did nothing but give Patroclus a chance, somewhere to be free and do something he actually loved and after years of knowing Poseidon didn’t he owe him more than just a bedtime story over wine? 

“He wanted me to leave and we had an argument.” 

Come with me, love.

His own words echoed in his mind. Their late night talks of forever shuttering within a single argument. “I left the only man I ever loved and promised him to never return to Tartarus.” Maybe his refusal to visit Tartarus would make sense now to Poseidon whenever they would speak of it. “And he gave me the gift of a new life, I spent a lot of time wondering if it was worth doing it without him.” 

His throat was closed but he refused to break, not in front of Poseidon, not while someone could be watching him recount the worst day of his life and the start of what should’ve been the next best years of his life.

[ hc ]

2100 | just after cronus’ funeral | @hephaestusgalani​

The cameras and reporters are long gone, and all that is left are the brothers, a grave, and a vast, merciless future, free of guidance, free of anything at all once pre-ordained. Hephaeustus had already exchanged words with Hades, had been there for Zeus, and finally, searches for Poseidon in the silent expanse of the aftermath. Finds him alone at the grave, and makes a point to make his footsteps heavy and audible.

“Hi, Poe.” He offers a weak smile. The youngest Rhea appears shattered, hollowed - Hephaestus hasn’t cried once. But he reaches out, touches his forearm, a wisp of a touch, yielding, wanting to ground but not to startle. “What’re you feeling?”

He flinches at the touch, startling away before returning, cast line helplessly reeled in. His foot turns away before he stumbles in, eyes meeting Hephaestus’ before dropping away, and he lets out a bitter laugh. “ Good? Bad that I feel good? Good that I feel bad? Good that I feel good? “

The gentle touch on his wrist is too much and not enough, and he pulls away before he drops his forehead on their shoulder, thunking against Hephaestus’ collarbone, his arms hanging helplessly at his side. How dare he seek even this amount of respite, this amount of comfort? How dare he take even more?

he feels unearthed, hollowed out, a shell with fangs and iron in his throat. a torrent of relief and guilt and rage and horror and want and loss and -. it’s not hard to be caught silently crying by the cameras, nor for his voice to choke up as he gave his speech.

it’s true and it’s false and he’s tired but the world is opening up before him, so sue him for lingering at the grave long after even the paparazzi have left. back straight, eyes lowered, he’s been stood like this. until there’s a footstep behind him and it’s so different from the silence he can’t help but flinch, turning to look.