(no subject)
he thinks, perhaps with alarming frequency, that there is little he would not do for Pasithea. the thought worries him in odd ways that he is only barely acquainted with. it is not that Hypnos is learning to love - he loves often and constantly and deeply; he loves his mother in her all encompassing serenity, and his brother with his moods and the solid presence of a back against his own, and the inconsistent murmuring of mortal skin on mortal sheets - but there is, most assuredly, a realization that comes to him in the quiet and the dark that there are other ways to love and be loved that he has managed to unconsciously avoid for years.
one, he supposes, grows accustomed to the eternity of the unconditional.
__
he does not necessarily (technically) hate the Olympians, but there is a fear that crawls up from some terrible emptiness and holds him tight when he is in the presence of the Olympians himself. he knows he is an outlier, a stray thread. he does not belong but things would go to bits and pieces without him - acknowledging this is not misplaced pride or the deprivation of humility, but a simple fact, an awkward truth. he knows they know it, too. he thinks they loathe it. it is unsettling. he goes because Thanatos will not (and Thanatos is most adamant in his refusals) and because someone must, every once in a while.
bringing Pasithea along had made him nervous at first. would she:
long for the sunlight and wish to go home only to sulk when they returned to the dark?
taste the warmth of the air up there and remember to hate his (their) little cave?
compare the sweetness of the grasses to the somber stalagmites and realise there could be no comparison?
but he had brought her along all the same, as if he could resist her when she'd so innocently asked where he was off to today. it had not been something he'd thought about. she had asked, an arm around herself and the other up to shield the promise of light from her eyes, smiling as she is wont to do, like she has secrets, like she keeps secrets and little precious things he doesn't quite understand hidden away beneath their bed. now he cannot imagine going without her (it only seems right they go together) but it is still, and will always be, an awkward dance he does not know the steps to.
Olympus is light and life and noise, eternal bickering and song and ever flowing ambrosia. it is everything that he is not and while he appreciates all that it is it screams that he is wrong, bad, strange. he wants to love it but he cannot because it will not let him. Hypnos is a watcher and a dreamer, not a doer and a speaker, and he was not built for speed. everyone has so many questions about things he does not know how to answer or things that he simply cannot answer because they have no right to know and they laugh and tut and chide him for being 'mysterious' but he has never felt 'mysterious', he only feels silly and out of place and old.
Pasithea watches him like the rest, but she never looks curious or polite but uninterested or disdainful (never, never disdainful (yet); he would be a mess for weeks). she studies him openly, without shame. it makes it hard to concentrate on what others are saying. it makes it hard to think, to not trip over his words, but it is easy to blame it on the exhaustion that is a constant weight up here. the others just laugh. it is a simple excuse. Olympus drains him, makes his skin feel tight. he wishes (constantly, like a mantra) that he could hold (his) Pasithea before him like a shield, arms around her waist, eyes pressed to her shoulder, and she would laugh and pluck at his curls and nudge him to "speak up" and he would because it would be her and not others asking "what?" and not others saying "pardon me?"
he thinks she would do it, too, if he asked, but when she is not staring at him she is laughing with (at) others while she traces the lines of pillars with her eyes or glances frequently up at the clouds. it would be rude to suddenly turn away from whoever is talking at him and walk away; it would be most inconsiderate. he smiles and the sudden laughter catches him off guard and he catches himself blinking down at Hestia. there is a momentary spike of guilt - Hestia is a quite sort, kind and unobtrusive and he would normally enjoy her company. she is solid and warm, steady.
"go to her," the goddess reaches out as if to touch his shoulder, but he has already recoiled and settled into an apologetic sulk, "rescue her before her sisters catch her. it will be a kindness to you both."
Hypnos bristles, cheeks aflame. Hestia is laughing at him now (he can't blame her, really), her tone teasing, "if i were a young pretty maid i would want nothing more than to be rescued by my dearest husband."
"you're a virgin," he blurts, devoid of social graces, "and you are charming."
she nearly interrupts him and gives him a gentle shove instead, her hand connecting now, "go! bring your bride back later, i will be here." (as always, he thinks) "and i haven't talked with her in a good long while. perhaps i'll tell her her dandy husband is gallivanting about calling other women charming."
"i do not gallivant." but he goes.
his timing is less than perfect and he has never been good at cutting in, so he dawdles about the outside ring of sisters (he names them all in his head as he paces behind them, muses and graces and charities) and worries to himself. Pasithea instantly spots him (a sixth sense, perhaps, and one that never fails to charm him), dark and disheveled and nearly gaunt over the heads of fair Olympian maidens. she smiles, obvious and pleased, and the devilish ball of panic in his chest grows that much smaller. he looks down (away) first, plucks at a few of his curls as if it puts him in order. she sticks her tongue out at him when he catches her eye again and it is a brief fantastic moment and he stop and stares for all his disbelief.
"my lord," she says, as if surprised, above the mild chatter of the other young ladies and their collective scrutiny instantly begins to pick him apart piece by piece.
he does his best not to squirm or look away or fidget with his hands. "my dear ladies, i beg your pardon. i - i hope you cannot begrudge a man missing the company of his lady wife." his smile is shy; he focuses so intently on the blur of background beyond young faces. a girl giggles. "Pasithea?"
she is on his arm in an instant and he beams at the way she leans into him. he tucks a finger of his free hand under the belt at her waist and stoops to kiss her then and there and she murmurs love into the scant space between them afterward.
__
they lay together - the three of them, his most precious trinity, a series of spoons: table, tea, and demitasse - as they often do some nights out of unshakable habit. back to back and front to front where Pasithea fills the hollow of his collarbone with sighs and Death is warm and silent.
"Thanatos," he tries, and hears a low noise in reply. (sometimes he wonders if his brother ever truly sleeps or feigns it to please him.) he is insistent, "Thanatos."
it is with immense satisfaction that he feels the body behind him shift, the press of a cheek against the crown of his curls, that he hears the stifled yawn and rough words steeped in fondness spoken to his shoulder. "it's a miracle she fell asleep with you thinking so loudly. what do you want?"
"am i spoiled?"
he expects (he knows it to be true, far down in the hollow places of his bird bones) the answer, a simple "yes", but does not know quite what to do with the laughter that follows: low, like a purr, like a grudging tomcat. Pasithea does not stir beside him, her fingers still and light against his side where she had fallen asleep counting his ribs, humming arpeggios. he is glad: that she cannot see his embarrassment, that she cannot see him sulk the way he does about something he already knows. Thanatos adds a hushed "terribly so" seconds later and Hypnos does his best to not snap in reply, to not jam his fingers further into the little wound he's created himself in his own jumped up pride. he holds his breath and imagines little creatures spun from the shadows on the ceiling.
if only Thanatos would elaborate, but Hypnos knows he will not.
"why," he starts, gaze averted, savouring the crisp darkness of Pasithea's eyelashes against her cheek and the way her lips quirk upwards at the corners for a mere second as if she knows he's watching (he is almost always watching), "would anyone put up with someone spoiled?"
this, Thanatos apparently decides, is a conversation for another time (or not at all), "am i really the best person to be answering these questions, Hypnos? you are my twin; it pleases me to treat you a certain way. i won't speak for others." he never does. it is something Hypnos appreciates: definitivism when (he) the rest of the world is so changeable. "rest."
they exchange glances; Thanatos plants an uncharacteristically noisy kiss to the top of his twins' head, and turns away. Hypnos closes his eyes.
she is there waiting for him - a silly habit, he thinks, and reassuring in ways it probably shouldn't be - and he wonders if there are rules and if he is breaking them.
"you came," she beams from where she sits, half hidden in the grasses he would have been lost in if they had not been through the same song and dance before when she had not expected him and he had been floundering in his curiosity. it is dark and warm (her cheeks are flushed and the thought makes his breath catch), safe but strange and perfect. a tapestry hangs in the air before her, a thing made up of grass and dark spaces and soft spots of light glow bright and cold; a basket at her side is full of the same light, and it twinkles secretly from the places it has been woven into her hair. it is all very not-Pasithea: devoid of her bright colours and the curiosities she can speak into being. it is a warm-up, a chance to prepare himself.
he smiles. his chest aches. he is so love sick he does not know how he functions at all.
her gaze is magnetic, a steady dedicated thing that is unnerving at the worst of times. a study in ox eyes. he vaguely wishes he had something to do with his hands, his restless fingers. "i did." another step is a practice in restraint, in what he thinks is maturity. "what are you doing, dearest?"
she reaches for him, slender white arms going right through her work and he watches, transfixed, as bits of grass fall away to the ground but the lights and the darks stay right where they are. everything hums. he stoops and let's the tips of her fingers of her left hand graze his cheek; she twists them into the curls at the nape of his neck. "i was waiting," she sighs, all wicked impatience of youth; he stoops and presses a kiss to the ball of her thumb on her right, "for you. i am done waiting now."
with a gentle tug he lurches through her pattern and feels the lights: cool and fresh, like mint against his skin. he likes it best when she kisses her hello's like this, like they are worth more than two syllables (and they always are). on his knees he is so lost in her. she giggles against his lips.
he is so lost. "what?"
"you have stars in your hair, love."
"stars?"
"yes." their noses touch. he closes his eyes and she brushes the lights (the stars, he wonders, she has dreamt down the very stars!) from his hair. fingers skim his eyelids, trace his cheek to his chin. his smile twists, flickers.
she is still there when he opens his eyes, just right there. "i have so much to show you."
his cue. he draws her to her feet and makes to grab her hand but she side-steps him, eyes lowered, and she is wicked. she picks up her basket full of light by one handle and flings the mess up into the air. stars cartwheel out madly across the black and her smile threatens laughter as she ushers them on, back up to their places, and they go obediently. the field is suddenly that much brighter and Hypnos is ready.
"show me," he says, voice low, in something that could be a command if he ever thought he could steer Pasithea (he never does and he never will, he can tell) and offers his hand again. this time she takes it and points out a rapidly spreading glow on the horizon. she is good at this, far better than he'd ever imagined. he thinks, perhaps, that she is better than he. she mimics and learns, she expands; she builds without thought or hesitation. it (she) is just what he needs.
one, he supposes, grows accustomed to the eternity of the unconditional.
__
he does not necessarily (technically) hate the Olympians, but there is a fear that crawls up from some terrible emptiness and holds him tight when he is in the presence of the Olympians himself. he knows he is an outlier, a stray thread. he does not belong but things would go to bits and pieces without him - acknowledging this is not misplaced pride or the deprivation of humility, but a simple fact, an awkward truth. he knows they know it, too. he thinks they loathe it. it is unsettling. he goes because Thanatos will not (and Thanatos is most adamant in his refusals) and because someone must, every once in a while.
bringing Pasithea along had made him nervous at first. would she:
long for the sunlight and wish to go home only to sulk when they returned to the dark?
taste the warmth of the air up there and remember to hate his (their) little cave?
compare the sweetness of the grasses to the somber stalagmites and realise there could be no comparison?
but he had brought her along all the same, as if he could resist her when she'd so innocently asked where he was off to today. it had not been something he'd thought about. she had asked, an arm around herself and the other up to shield the promise of light from her eyes, smiling as she is wont to do, like she has secrets, like she keeps secrets and little precious things he doesn't quite understand hidden away beneath their bed. now he cannot imagine going without her (it only seems right they go together) but it is still, and will always be, an awkward dance he does not know the steps to.
Olympus is light and life and noise, eternal bickering and song and ever flowing ambrosia. it is everything that he is not and while he appreciates all that it is it screams that he is wrong, bad, strange. he wants to love it but he cannot because it will not let him. Hypnos is a watcher and a dreamer, not a doer and a speaker, and he was not built for speed. everyone has so many questions about things he does not know how to answer or things that he simply cannot answer because they have no right to know and they laugh and tut and chide him for being 'mysterious' but he has never felt 'mysterious', he only feels silly and out of place and old.
Pasithea watches him like the rest, but she never looks curious or polite but uninterested or disdainful (never, never disdainful (yet); he would be a mess for weeks). she studies him openly, without shame. it makes it hard to concentrate on what others are saying. it makes it hard to think, to not trip over his words, but it is easy to blame it on the exhaustion that is a constant weight up here. the others just laugh. it is a simple excuse. Olympus drains him, makes his skin feel tight. he wishes (constantly, like a mantra) that he could hold (his) Pasithea before him like a shield, arms around her waist, eyes pressed to her shoulder, and she would laugh and pluck at his curls and nudge him to "speak up" and he would because it would be her and not others asking "what?" and not others saying "pardon me?"
he thinks she would do it, too, if he asked, but when she is not staring at him she is laughing with (at) others while she traces the lines of pillars with her eyes or glances frequently up at the clouds. it would be rude to suddenly turn away from whoever is talking at him and walk away; it would be most inconsiderate. he smiles and the sudden laughter catches him off guard and he catches himself blinking down at Hestia. there is a momentary spike of guilt - Hestia is a quite sort, kind and unobtrusive and he would normally enjoy her company. she is solid and warm, steady.
"go to her," the goddess reaches out as if to touch his shoulder, but he has already recoiled and settled into an apologetic sulk, "rescue her before her sisters catch her. it will be a kindness to you both."
Hypnos bristles, cheeks aflame. Hestia is laughing at him now (he can't blame her, really), her tone teasing, "if i were a young pretty maid i would want nothing more than to be rescued by my dearest husband."
"you're a virgin," he blurts, devoid of social graces, "and you are charming."
she nearly interrupts him and gives him a gentle shove instead, her hand connecting now, "go! bring your bride back later, i will be here." (as always, he thinks) "and i haven't talked with her in a good long while. perhaps i'll tell her her dandy husband is gallivanting about calling other women charming."
"i do not gallivant." but he goes.
his timing is less than perfect and he has never been good at cutting in, so he dawdles about the outside ring of sisters (he names them all in his head as he paces behind them, muses and graces and charities) and worries to himself. Pasithea instantly spots him (a sixth sense, perhaps, and one that never fails to charm him), dark and disheveled and nearly gaunt over the heads of fair Olympian maidens. she smiles, obvious and pleased, and the devilish ball of panic in his chest grows that much smaller. he looks down (away) first, plucks at a few of his curls as if it puts him in order. she sticks her tongue out at him when he catches her eye again and it is a brief fantastic moment and he stop and stares for all his disbelief.
"my lord," she says, as if surprised, above the mild chatter of the other young ladies and their collective scrutiny instantly begins to pick him apart piece by piece.
he does his best not to squirm or look away or fidget with his hands. "my dear ladies, i beg your pardon. i - i hope you cannot begrudge a man missing the company of his lady wife." his smile is shy; he focuses so intently on the blur of background beyond young faces. a girl giggles. "Pasithea?"
she is on his arm in an instant and he beams at the way she leans into him. he tucks a finger of his free hand under the belt at her waist and stoops to kiss her then and there and she murmurs love into the scant space between them afterward.
__
they lay together - the three of them, his most precious trinity, a series of spoons: table, tea, and demitasse - as they often do some nights out of unshakable habit. back to back and front to front where Pasithea fills the hollow of his collarbone with sighs and Death is warm and silent.
"Thanatos," he tries, and hears a low noise in reply. (sometimes he wonders if his brother ever truly sleeps or feigns it to please him.) he is insistent, "Thanatos."
it is with immense satisfaction that he feels the body behind him shift, the press of a cheek against the crown of his curls, that he hears the stifled yawn and rough words steeped in fondness spoken to his shoulder. "it's a miracle she fell asleep with you thinking so loudly. what do you want?"
"am i spoiled?"
he expects (he knows it to be true, far down in the hollow places of his bird bones) the answer, a simple "yes", but does not know quite what to do with the laughter that follows: low, like a purr, like a grudging tomcat. Pasithea does not stir beside him, her fingers still and light against his side where she had fallen asleep counting his ribs, humming arpeggios. he is glad: that she cannot see his embarrassment, that she cannot see him sulk the way he does about something he already knows. Thanatos adds a hushed "terribly so" seconds later and Hypnos does his best to not snap in reply, to not jam his fingers further into the little wound he's created himself in his own jumped up pride. he holds his breath and imagines little creatures spun from the shadows on the ceiling.
if only Thanatos would elaborate, but Hypnos knows he will not.
"why," he starts, gaze averted, savouring the crisp darkness of Pasithea's eyelashes against her cheek and the way her lips quirk upwards at the corners for a mere second as if she knows he's watching (he is almost always watching), "would anyone put up with someone spoiled?"
this, Thanatos apparently decides, is a conversation for another time (or not at all), "am i really the best person to be answering these questions, Hypnos? you are my twin; it pleases me to treat you a certain way. i won't speak for others." he never does. it is something Hypnos appreciates: definitivism when (he) the rest of the world is so changeable. "rest."
they exchange glances; Thanatos plants an uncharacteristically noisy kiss to the top of his twins' head, and turns away. Hypnos closes his eyes.
she is there waiting for him - a silly habit, he thinks, and reassuring in ways it probably shouldn't be - and he wonders if there are rules and if he is breaking them.
"you came," she beams from where she sits, half hidden in the grasses he would have been lost in if they had not been through the same song and dance before when she had not expected him and he had been floundering in his curiosity. it is dark and warm (her cheeks are flushed and the thought makes his breath catch), safe but strange and perfect. a tapestry hangs in the air before her, a thing made up of grass and dark spaces and soft spots of light glow bright and cold; a basket at her side is full of the same light, and it twinkles secretly from the places it has been woven into her hair. it is all very not-Pasithea: devoid of her bright colours and the curiosities she can speak into being. it is a warm-up, a chance to prepare himself.
he smiles. his chest aches. he is so love sick he does not know how he functions at all.
her gaze is magnetic, a steady dedicated thing that is unnerving at the worst of times. a study in ox eyes. he vaguely wishes he had something to do with his hands, his restless fingers. "i did." another step is a practice in restraint, in what he thinks is maturity. "what are you doing, dearest?"
she reaches for him, slender white arms going right through her work and he watches, transfixed, as bits of grass fall away to the ground but the lights and the darks stay right where they are. everything hums. he stoops and let's the tips of her fingers of her left hand graze his cheek; she twists them into the curls at the nape of his neck. "i was waiting," she sighs, all wicked impatience of youth; he stoops and presses a kiss to the ball of her thumb on her right, "for you. i am done waiting now."
with a gentle tug he lurches through her pattern and feels the lights: cool and fresh, like mint against his skin. he likes it best when she kisses her hello's like this, like they are worth more than two syllables (and they always are). on his knees he is so lost in her. she giggles against his lips.
he is so lost. "what?"
"you have stars in your hair, love."
"stars?"
"yes." their noses touch. he closes his eyes and she brushes the lights (the stars, he wonders, she has dreamt down the very stars!) from his hair. fingers skim his eyelids, trace his cheek to his chin. his smile twists, flickers.
she is still there when he opens his eyes, just right there. "i have so much to show you."
his cue. he draws her to her feet and makes to grab her hand but she side-steps him, eyes lowered, and she is wicked. she picks up her basket full of light by one handle and flings the mess up into the air. stars cartwheel out madly across the black and her smile threatens laughter as she ushers them on, back up to their places, and they go obediently. the field is suddenly that much brighter and Hypnos is ready.
"show me," he says, voice low, in something that could be a command if he ever thought he could steer Pasithea (he never does and he never will, he can tell) and offers his hand again. this time she takes it and points out a rapidly spreading glow on the horizon. she is good at this, far better than he'd ever imagined. he thinks, perhaps, that she is better than he. she mimics and learns, she expands; she builds without thought or hesitation. it (she) is just what he needs.