#persephonyx

OKAY HI HELLO WELCOME TO MY MADNESS

i’ll do this chronologically. cw for aids crisis mention, internalized & externalized homophobia, lil bit of ableism and racism, and a buncha really tiny things the game deals with in canon like postpartum depression and abandonment and mommy issues. mostly this is long angst to fluff i don’t go too deep into any of those things i think

chaos pantazis was born 1930 in epirus, greece, to greek and sudanese-greek parents. at age eleven they escaped during wwii by the skin of their teeth given the state of greece after german invasion and came to live in baton rouge, louisiana; in the state, especially new orleans, the greek diaspora was/is pretty strong. they grew up to be a small-name but locally popular jazz musician. they’re intersex and extremely nonbinary and don’t care who knows, though just to get by in the industry and frankly racist 50s society in general they tend towards more masc presentation. by 1958, age twenty-eight and both parents passed, they’ve figured out they want a kid, and have and raise nyx alone within their immigrant community. she’s a very manageable child, never any trouble, and they’re a loving little family. then in 1976 at age eighteen nyx finds out she’s pregnant which wildly throws off her neat orderly ‘i’m going places’ thing. but, kinda inspired by her own parent, she keeps it, and has charon. he’s also born intersex and develops selective mutism. nyx is… a good mother, but she can’t help but feel her son’s ’failings’ are her fault after being so irresponsible so young. chaos is ecstatic, absolutely loves charon, and for another seven or so years helps raise them. nyx never marries the father, erebus, even though she tries, even though they’re still sort of together, even though she has to because it’ll prove she’s normal and good and in time she could even be perfect. she works in a crystal shop and teaches charon his love for geology, especially gems and metals. for a little while the pantazis family is happy.

ok stick with me here cos now it’s 1981. which is. the aids crisis. “hey whalii why the fuck are you talking about the aids crisis in your silly modern greek diaspora au of the hit roguelike hades” i never got to meet my grandfather and my art is dumb cringy fan shit moving on

chaos has a close scare with it and nyx succumbs to the Bad Person Disease propaganda pretty quickly. there is an actual reason for this i’ll get to later. she’s independent and established and cuts all ties with her parent, moving herself and seven-year-old charon to new orleans, getting a temporary job in a funeral home. her only remaining tie to baton rouge, greek community, or any family besides her own child, is erebus who visits them occasionally. she’s technically connected to the greek community in new orleans, but keeps to herself. charon does not take this well, but they love their mama and try to understand. nyx eventually realizes the funeral home thing is permanent; it’s stable, she doesn’t mind being alone or the morbid field, and.. well, there’s plenty of work right now. she becomes more and more aloof. charon grows up pretty lonely, watching boats on the mississippi river and wishing they could bring him back to his grandparent. this is also how, alone, chaos realizes how much they expected of nyx and how that hurt her. but it’s too late. all they can do now is reflect.

in 1992 at age thirty-six nyx becomes pregnant again, this time intentionally, still by erebus. charon is sixteen and goes against their mother’s wishes for the first time; he finds chaos, who retired from jazz and took up hobby astronomy after nyx left (“i prefer absolute silence” <- desperate lie), to tell them the news. charon has a positive family relationship for the first time in nine years!! nyx only knows they’re reestablished contact, and allows it on the condition that chaos never meets her or the twins she’s had, hypnos and thanatos. the two boys are both blessedly beautiful and perfect and Normal. she got issueeeesssss

offscreen in 1994, hades kollias, forced by his brothers to do something successful but less successful than them, bought the funeral home nyx has become director at. he’s an alright boss, very good at paperwork but kinda useless at actual funeral work. nyx meets his fiancée persephone mylona and without really understanding it falls in love with her. in 1995, persephone finds charon privately and asks them to help her disappear. she’s obviously suffering from something. grief, they think. he’s not an ideal choice, being only nineteen by this point and trying to get a business degree while balancing a menial secretary job, but she must know he’ll never tell, and he’s got a car. they don’t ask any questions. their hair has already started to go gray. persephone disappears and nyx acquires an adopted son in zagreus. charon doesn’t ask anything at all.

charon adores his three brothers and helps raise them and teach them sign, but his relationship with nyx fragments in some quiet tragic way as he realizes how much her independence and high standards have hurt him and his grandparent. he refuses to do to her what she did to chaos, he’ll never abandon the twins and zag, but he and his mama aren’t close anymore. nyx only kind of realizes this through her own loneliness and preoccupations. she still holds him to high standards, especially once 2000 arrives and he turns twenty-four and lands a ludicrous job at a financial firm. they’re doing really well for themselves, financially if not emotionally. the twins have a bit of a weird childhood, generally happy but with periods of tension where they only have each other, their much older brother, and their much younger brother-friend. nyx doesn’t tell them the truth but they both sort of know.

2006 and all its damage hits. in 2007, in a desperate bid for an insurance payout, someone burns down the financial firm; charon, thirty-one years old, is caught in it. they lose an eye, a lot of skin, and vocal cords they didn’t use anyway. he’s always been smart with money and though the medical bills hurt he comes out the other end still practically set for life. chaos is the only one who doesn’t look at their scars before the rest of them, even after they change their hairstyle drastically from silk press to long, graying wicks. he pivots career paths and takes up ferrying across the mississippi. something comforting about travel over the water, especially when his extensive scars ache. the twins are fifteen, zagreus twelve, and hypnos is starting to exhibit symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome. nyx’s favoritism and high standards get worse, but the three kids idolize their mother and her regal, untouchable attitude. charon tries his best to mitigate it, and even offers to disobey his mother a second time so they can meet their grandparent. the twins have never been told anything about the situation, and zag doesn’t know anything at all. thanatos, nyx’s favorite, takes charge and refuses the offer. he’s always been the trio’s de facto leader.

their relationship grays a little after that, though charon is still there for them as much as they want him to be, and a pretty regular babysitter besides. life becomes routine. monthly dinners with his family. weekly visits with chaos where they watch the stars and if they speak at all, they speak in sign, without noise. he doesn’t rock the boat. in 2010, when the twins turn eighteen, thanatos starts undergrad, planning to work in end-of-life care; nyx is very proud. also in 2010, hypnos succeeds in getting a chronic fatigue syndrome diagnosis, aided almost entirely by his own friends and charon; nyx denies it exists. she can’t cut him off from charon, by now thirty-four, but she cuts him off from her, expecting to teach him independence the hard way. hypnos moves in with charon, his relationship with thanatos rocky, his relationship with zagreus strong but confused. eventually, hypnos comes along with charon to meet chaos. this newfound family brings hypnos a little more joy again and he starts recordkeeping for the ferry business charon works for, something he failed miserably at in the funeral home but does pretty well at for the boats.

2013. the twins are twenty-one, thanatos enrolling right away in higher ed, hypnos content in his secretary job. zagreus, eighteen, has just found out the truth about his parentage, and has told no one yet. charon is thirty-seven and has never had much in the way of friends, let alone partners. then someone breaks into the bridge of his ferry while it’s en route. he’s hiding from family, he says apologetically, with this sweet sheepish laugh and definite greek accent. he’s not even sure if they made it on the boat, but better safe than sorry, and he’s always wondered about the bridge! stunned, charon lets him hang around, and soon this bright beautiful golden person is willingly interacting with charon every day even though he should be doing his job alone.

hermes kostopoulos is twenty-five, holds a double major diploma in linguistics and econ off a track scholarship, and has just disinherited himself from his family’s acquisitions empire. his mother died to a bad shot from someone hunting off-season in 1997 when he was nine, which made zeus kollias officially recognize him and bring him from arcadia, greece, to new york city. he retains an accent and greek fluency which he’s extremely proud of. he’s still tight with some half-siblings and cousins, even following dionysus goulas to new orleans to support his mixology passion, but he’s gonna prove he can make it in the world too. but he’s just moved to ‘party city’ and doesn’t have enough money for a van quite yet, so his clandestine delivery service is bikebound, and the ferry soothes his anxiety about car crashes (one of his maternal aunts died trying to escape a stalker in 1993. hermes was five, old enough to remember). charon is his first and best friend. he improves on his rusty sign (learned in service of his hard-of-hearing half-brother hephaestus), they talk all through charon’s shifts, and soon charon is showing him the real new orleans after work and on off days. hermes connects quickly with the local queer and greek diaspora communities, having always had a gift for it, and his open embracing of his greek heritage (he misses home), gender expression (masc, but like, all over the place) and sexuality (previously, anyone willing to listen to him for longer than five minutes; nowadays, just the one) brings charon out of his shell. hermes also gets better at not whiling away work hours yammering at him to compensate for never buying a van. upon meeting, hypnos instantly likes him and picks up on what’s going on before either of them do, and despite thanatos’s best efforts even he appreciates hermes’s company a little bit. then, hermes meets zagreus, and thus begins the long arduous process of getting back into his family’s good graces so he can introduce his new cousin to that whole mess. a couple years later, zagreus confesses to him that he knows nyx isn’t his mother, but doesn’t mention who else she might be.

over the course of about a year, charon finds himself somewhat pathetically in love. hermes has helped him find friends and community within new orleans, but charon always finds his way back to hermes’s side, greedily soaking up his time and attention and affection. they spend at least some of every week together, nearly every day, and throughout all of greek fest in may are inseparable; hermes reminisces about home and explains every single detail and charon has never felt so close to it before. hermes is so bright and loud and kind and accepting, and not only does he fill charon’s life with music but he listens, too, and charon wants him so fucking badly they could scream it with whatever voice they’ve got left. their understanding of romance, especially queer romance, is nigh unnavigable given nyx’s unconventional partnership and her lingering issues from 1981 as well as chaos’s stoic aromanticism, but they’re starting to learn. he confesses all this to chaos, who lends a sympathetic ear—they may be staunchly aro, but they enjoyed people in their own way. he only confesses to chaos but somehow hypnos still ends up figuring it out. little brothers, man.

hermes takes longer to realize, but once he does, he is SO torn. charon is beautiful and thoughtful and so sweet and he’s so affectionate and flirty with them already, that’s just who he is. but charon is just getting confidence so he can’t barge in and monopolize it with his stupid fucking feelings. so he tries to keep on like nothing’s changed, even though now he knows why he’s always watching charon’s hands—wants to hold them—and why he’s finally okay with silence—wants to know everything charon has to say—and for the first time since he left greece he’s not dreaming of running away. he’s just a little bit terrified of being so in love with its threat of being tied down, but he knows charon would follow him if he asked, and that scares him even more.

in late 2014, high off the costanza v caldwell win only some 130 miles away, charon takes hermes up to some sappy lover’s point to stargaze. in the dark beyond the city, he and hermes have a moment. a moment where their eyes meet and the bayou holds its breath and charon thinks deliriously that the star that fell from the sky into his ferry bridge might love him back and hermes isn’t halfway through asking can i kiss you? before charon pulls him in to press their mouths together. of course hermes kisses him back.

it might be the happiest he’s ever been, being with hermes. they make their long-standing dates official. hermes has a permanent if unofficial seat in the ferry bridge, and charon steals kisses between tirades of gossip and laughter. they alternate whose apartment they spend the night at, though hermes is partial to charon’s pretty lavish setup and hypnos’s comforting presence on the couch during movie nights, and charon loves seeing his partner in his sweaters in his home, like he belongs there. chaos loves him too; they share the experience of being first-gen immigrants, and chaos speaks in greek to someone other than themself for the first time in years. they talk a lot about their memories and difficulties. hermes even sorta helps them out of their sort of hermit lifestyle, and becomes semi-regular company on charon’s weekly visits. 2015 brings obergefell v hodges and celebration and they’ve only been together nine months but charon is already fantasizing about marrying him, which is as embarrassing as it is electrifying. he won’t ask, though.

in 2016, after about two years of dating, after charon is more sure about hermes than he’s ever been about nearly anything, they finally bite the bullet and introduce hermes to nyx.

it does not go well. twenty years of repression, grief, responsibility, and absolutely no support system has left nyx very, very fragile. she’s never understood why persephone leaving hurt her so badly, and instead of trying to decipher it, she’s walled herself off and as a result only really trusts thanatos, zagreus, and hades, and even then not very much. she doesn’t understand where it all went wrong when she was so in control of everything from the start. she meets charon’s elusive partner, remembers persephone, and in her own cool calculating way tries to save charon the heartbreak of losing someone bright and kind and beautiful. it’s not a fight like hermes has ever experienced, hera and zeus being prone to yelling, but the curt back-and-forth that nyx eventually forces him to sit out ends with charon returning to him in quiet, barely-withheld tears. they drive up to chaos’s cabin in silence, hands held tight between the seats.

this is where charon finally tells the story of persephone—nyx had brought her up during their argument, he’d connected some dots—and how they helped her escape something twenty years ago, no questions asked. they’re only half sure where she might even be. they, hermes, and chaos figure out what must’ve happened between her and nyx’s obvious repression and internalized homophobia, and hermes realizes the connection to zagreus. they make a sort of game plan. charon is emotionally a mess, but having something to do helps, and having his two favorite people in the world with him helps more. they spend a little more time decompressing before saying their goodbyes to chaos.

back in the city, they contact zagreus and lay out everything. he’s ecstatic to have the chance to meet persephone, but they do have to find her first—she never told charon exactly where she’d be going, and it’s been twenty years besides; she might’ve moved out of state, out of the country even. thus begins the search. hermes and some of his more sympathetic family drive him around or come with him on trips throughout louisiana. initially charon does not talk to nyx at all, but zagreus spills that he’s looking for his birth mother and suddenly nyx has a passion outside of work, outside of her slowly splintering family. she reaches out to try and make amends. charon agrees to talk to her on the condition that she make up with chaos as well.

this goes… it’s tough. nyx hasn’t seen chaos in thirty-five years. one meeting doesn’t reverse all the beliefs she’s held since 1981. but at age fifty-eight, she just wants her family back. so she makes an effort. they talk for a long, long time. nyx comes out of it with inklings of new understandings; that she’s probably not straight, that she probably loved persephone, that she held on so tight to her future she’s left it strangled. lots of mixed feelings and very old tears. she resolves to come back, and through this, chaos and nyx re-become parent and daughter. she ‘introduces’ chaos to hypnos and miraculously, instead of getting angry and cold at charon for breaking her rule years ago, she laughs. that’s a good day.

nyx and charon are still rocky, but after a few months of incremental healing and the hope of finding persephone again, she apologizes, no holds barred. she meets hermes again properly and finds she actually likes him quite a lot. he’s a little wary, but relaxes as charon forgives her (because of course he does, that’s his mama), and they end up having way more fun than they expected. he’s really interested in her work and her life, and in turn she enjoys hearing stories and gossip about both their families.

overall it takes roughly two years to find persephone. it’s hard and hades eventually wises up and tries to recruit his brothers to stop him, but zagreus refuses to give up, and uncles zeus and poseidon marinos are way too enthusiastic about giving their oldest brother a hard time. they pay to fly him and usually hermes or art or dio out of state on the thinnest leads, with the eventual promise that he come to new york to meet the whole kollias family properly. it’s actually kind of aggravating how close she was the whole time, living in, of all places, hide-a-way lake in mississippi. it’s literally only an hour’s drive. persephone had left originally not just because her postpartum depression hit like a semi-truck, but zagreus had to be intubated after birth, and a really terrible miscommunication meant she thought he had died. she’s overjoyed to have her son back but afraid to return after so long, so it takes a few trips to convince her to come back. at last she does. it’s 2018. we finally made it to the early release of hades the game y’all jesus christ this is almost 3000 words

she and hades and nyx all reunite and they’re a big weird happy poly family. thanatos returns from med school nearly entirely unaware of what’s gone on and it’s hilarious. instead of dragging them to new york, the kollias (and goulas/lamprou/marinos/triantafyllos/mylona branches of the) family spends greek fest in new orleans, and by some fucking miracle it goes well enough that zeus is considering reinstating hermes in the will. charon might be happier about that than hermes is, glad his partner can come and go through the family again as he pleases, though they’ve by now got it made—hermes’s little sensitive-delivery business is thriving, charon’s ferrying is steady as ever, they’ve moved in together and have a turtle to replace hypnos who now lives nearby with zag, and the love of charon’s life is bringing them to the banks of the river away from the festival revelry, something rather obviously in his pocket. hermes takes it out but he’s anxious enough that he fumbles and nearly drops it, charon has definitely seen and he’s ruined the damn moment, but charon is laughing with his lovely raspy stuttering voice and there are glittering tears in their eyes as they sign, “please, please ask me, god please hermes please ask me—”

so he does. of course charon says yes.