Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Information Systems I

Assignment Grade: 95 / 100

Instructor's Comment: Keep up the great work, Thanatos!

They can't believe it.

They cannot believe this shit.

Ninety-five percent? And the teacher called them that? What in the fucking ten hells did he do to their laptop?

"Hm," the now-familiar hum comes from their throat - their hand moves of their own accord, to the "add-ons" section of their browser's address bar, and clicks on it. The menu cascading down shows an icon of a trans flag with the add-on name "Deadname Remover" on it. When he clicks it, this appears:

Your Preferred Name

First name: Thanatos

Middle name: Mors

Last name: Letum

 

Your Deadname

[Show/Hide]

[Save]

"Dude. You replaced my deadname with that?"

A mental shrug is the reply they receive. "I don't know your name. And I'm content to let deadnames stay dead."

"Ha ha, death jokes, are you done?"

"I thought my sentences implied that I want to know your chosen name?"

"I don't have one," they say, and the lie will eventually feel like the truth if they keep repeating it.

There is a sensation in their head, then, like a hand sifting through folders in a cabinet - intense, then suddenly gentle, but that brief intensity is enough to make them shudder, like something deep inside them has been ransacked, but put back into its original position, as if-

I was never here.

But he was. And they wish he wasn't. They wish they weren't, either. They don't need a name. They don't deserve it.

"Stop going through my memories," they snap, "It's bad enough that you're doing that for my homework."

"A 'thank you' would be nice," he says.

They stiffen, fists clenching both inside and out. "I thought you're not like the Olympians, begging for offerings and shit."

"That's not what I was asking."

"You're just a figment of my imagination," they growl, mentally pushing them away, out, far fucking away from them forever and locking the imaginary door. "One day I'll wake up and you won't be here. Or at least you're going to admit that you're just a part of me."

"If I weren't here, you wouldn't be waking up ever again."

"Fuck you, you piece of shit!"

And he fades away, again, because that's what he is: unreal. Imaginary. Unhelpful. They did that homework on their own. That 95% was theirs, theirs, and THEIRS alone. They didn't painstakingly leave their old religion and wade through all that trauma just to be forced into stupid possession with some death god from a myth they barely know.

They'll master their own...

life...

from now...

on...

...

Thanatos clicks away from the Deadname Remover and looks into their academic calendar. There are death-lines to meet.

Ha ha. Death jokes.

He's never done doing that, thank you very much.

Chapter Text

A sight unseen in myths brightens the kitchen of a certain house: Thanatos is preening and beaming. Back straight, his phantom wings almost flutters as he proudly watches the mortal's little sister whisk eggs for the first time.

The child, Arunika, whisks animatedly in the presence of the Embodiment of Death, blissfully unknowing that their sibling isn't currently with them - and hasn't been able to do so, as the misgendering and deadnaming have slowly been killing them from the inside.

As Thanatos heats the margarine in the pan, she asks him, "Would you climb Mount Everest?"

She must have watched people talk about it in the youtube videos she's been watching.

Thanatos' smile twists. He knows what it is like up there, for he has welcomed many mortals on the way to, and on, and back from its summit. "Hm, I would be too scared. So many people didn't make it."

"Really?" asks Arunika.

The margarine melts and sizzles at the press of Thanatos' spatula.

"Mmm-hmm," he hums, "People would die there, and the bodies could not be recovered because it's freezing and there's not a lot of oxygen... so, up there, dead bodies are used as direction markers."

Arunika frowns. The cute, round baby fat on her makes it look like a pout. "I think it'd be a cool way to die."

Arunika did not yet understand the weight of death. The grief of having to leave your friend, family, or climbing teammate behind. Still, Thanatos melts like the margarine; he cannot lecture a ten-year-old about this, and it's not like gallows humor is outside of his ballpark.

"Cool? Because it's icy up there? That's an-ice pun!" Thanatos grins - the false siblings laugh together. "Come and pour the eggs in here. I'll fry it."

"But I'm scared," she says.

"I'll turn off the stove," Thanatos reassures, doing just that. "Will it help? Just take it slow. Put your hand and the bowl far away from the heat."

Arunika raises her hand up high and pours the liquid egg out of the small bowl. Thanatos watches her miss the mark. Spilling a great amount on the stove instead of the pan.

The child looks guilty. "Don't tell Mom."

Thanatos, thanks to the mortal's memories, locks the kitchen door for a reason. He only takes the child to the kitchen when her mother is asleep for a reason. Mistakes should not be punished - the child has expressed her desires to be a chef, she can't be scared off of cooking forever.

"She's still asleep," Thanatos replies, voice low. He puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Could you pass me one of the rags in the cupboard, please? We'll just clean this and have another go."

"Yeah," Arunika says, and quickly does as requested. "Thanks."

"No - thank you," he replies. He wipes the stove. The rag absorbs most of the eggs. Then, he washes the rag in the sink.

Amongst the running water, he implores, "Arunika?"

"Hm?"

"Could you please get me some wet wipes and clean the rest?"

"Yeah!" She is buoyed now by his encouragement, and the mortal watches jealously from their shared mind.

"I could never be so patient," says the mortal, inwardly, so bitterly their chest hurt.

Thanatos says nothing to that. He squeezes the wet rag, before walking out to the backyard to hang it out to dry.

"It's not fair. Nika actually likes you!" the mortal whines.

"I doubt you are as bad as the egg donor," Thanatos says as he carries their body to the kitchen. Their memories can confirm it. The bar may be on the floor, but this mortal has passed it by leaps and bounds.

"I would cry in stress. All this gives me sensory overload and I hate standing while cooking and I hate being seen as her... her..."

They trail off.

"I'm traumatizing her," the mortal continues glumly.

"I don't think so," the god replies, "You're just disabled."

"Being disabled is everything wrong with this whole bullshit!" the mortal screams. "If I weren't disabled, you wouldn't be here, and I would be out of this hellhole with a nice high paying engineering job, instead of being stuck as an unpaid babysitter while trying to get a bachelor's degree for the second time in a fuckass humanities major. I'm already thirty!"

"You're only thirty."

"All my friends are either married or have jobs! I'm fucking useless!"

Arunika is back, now. Thanatos moves the pan out of the stove so she could have ample space to clean.

It isn't the first time the mortal has called themself useless. When Thanatos first came here, he would psychically wrap them a soothing blanket, a sweet embrace of Death made manifest, the way he would console a recently-taken grieving raging shade-

"No! No! Please-! Stop it! Stop it, stop it, stop, fuck you, you're not real, gods aren't real-"

He stopped doing that since.

Thanatos sits down on an imaginary sofa, its backrest low as to allow him to stretch the only features the mortal could perceive: his wings. Raising his arms, he stretches his back, then rolls his shoulders... a shadowy figure that thrums with power, terrifying to get near (they did try to get close. They felt an indescribable pain that is not quite physical-), yet packed into such a small core, like a black hole. The mortal supposes that this fits him. Throughout the two months of his stay here, he never sticks with a single form.

Outwardly, he also stretches their body's back: arching backwards, bowing forwards, slowly, carefully. Stretching their arms next. The doing push-ups and alternating "OK" signs with their fingers.

"You're not useless just because you did not pass all the able-bodied capitalist milestones in your twenties," Thanatos says at a particularly satisfying stretch, "And I think you might not have been out of here if you managed to get that bachelor of engineering degree. Where are you going to work? A competitive consulting company with a backbreaking work schedule? A corrupt government branch? An oil rig in the middle of the ocean? The lack of medical attention would have killed you - same as here."

"How dare you," the mortal growls.

"Sorry for breaking your able-bodied grind culture fantasy," Thanatos says lightly.

"Maybe Hermes would be a better god than you here," they snap, "He could make me work hard and get extra credits and he's probably not a morbid bitch like you! How could you talk about this Mount Everest corpse shit with a child?!"

Arunika has finished cleaning and is now looking at them expectantly. Thanatos grins at her and gives her a thumbs up.

"Thank you so much for helping me clean the stove," Thanatos tells her. Then, taking more eggs from the case: "Let's try again!"

"As long as you're the one pouring the egg."

Thanatos smirks and offers a hand. "Deal."

She shakes his hand, she cheers, and they take another crack at it.

The mortal adult, meanwhile, has retreated into gods know where, fuming the entire time at being ignored.

"Do you know what's the coolest way to die?" Arunika asks, as she whisks the eggs a second time.

Thanatos widens his eyes and raises his eyebrows dramatically. "I don't know, what?"

"You should get a dog to drive you on a helicopter, fly on top of Mount Everest, and then you gotta jump down." Arunika says with utmost seriousness. "After that, when you're declared dead, the police will put the dog in jail for murder."

Thanatos reheats the margarine and pours the egg into the pan.

"Or," she continues, still chipper, "you could do it on top of a volcano, but I want a body left behind."

"You're not only freezing yourself to death, but also framing the dog for a crime?" Thanatos gasps. "That is ice cold!"

"Yes!" Arunika is louder now, bouncing in joy with her hands on the counter. "That's why it is, snow doubt, the coolest way to die. I want a world record for it."

Thanatos pats the cooking-egg with the spatula. "If you're dead, how can you accept the record?"

"The dog can accept it. So he can feel guilty."

The next sight, too, is unheard of to those who conceptualize Death Incarnate as an unfeeling force of nature: Thanatos bursts out laughing. Arunika looks delightfully devilish. And the eggs? They come out perfectly.

Chapter Text

The mortal is mercifully unconscious.

Not on their own volition, mind you, but Thanatos has grown less concerned about using his godly powers to force them to be a decent person during these past few months. Finals are approaching, and the last thing he needs when reviewing his studies is the mortal’s harassment.

And it’s been working out quite well for the both of them. Time and time again, the mortal would find food on their lap, as he’s cooked for them, or at least taken food from the dining table, or bought them takeouts. They would find their textbooks dog-eared and highlighted and their homework completed (well, most of them). They would be clean in the flesh, brushed in the teeth, and acting alive in their increasing amounts of interactions with Arunika—

All it takes is Death himself!

“You’re taking over my life—selfish prick,” the mortal would barb whenever Thanatos has some pride in what he does, and the death god would roll his eyes. “Taking over my friendships, taking my sister away from me-”

“What would you do without me?” Thanatos would ask. His form is akin to the Grim Reaper now, all skeletal, but he’s only dressed in sunglasses and black swim trunks with a white pelvis print. Leaning onto a folded arm on a beach blanket in their shared mind, he lowers his shades with another hand. “Starve yourself? Not shower for days? Lock yourself in the room and get yelled at for being ‘lazy’ when all you need is medical attention? Watch video essays about shows you don’t care about until your eyes go bleary and you don’t feel like you exist?”

“You’re proving to me that I don’t need any medical attention,” the mortal would say glumly, kicking a sandcastle they willed to exist. The castle crumbles in one hit, an impossibility in real life with their own weak flesh.

“I don’t mean to do this forever,” he would say gently, once again, “Only until you are safe and moved out with your partner. Then, I’ll let go of you. You can be as sick as you naturally are, and a hospital will probably look after you-”

“I used to have actual interests!” the mortal would scream, kicking imaginary sand into his eye sockets. They go straight through, of course, which rips a scream out of the human’s throat. “Argh! I used to watch fuckin’ Hades Game let’s plays until you came in and ruined everything! I wanted to make fan art… write fic… Now all I can think of is you, and how you would snicker and smirk at every aspect of the game or some shit.”

“What, do you prefer me to look like this?” Thanatos would ask.

His bony form would fill out into the chiseled, muscular form of the game’s Death Incarnate, silver hair spilling into the sand around him like the waves lapping up on the shore. His golden armor pieces, wing-pauldrons, and gorget glint in the sun. The glare of the metal would make the mortal wince.

“My brother says the guy is really handsome, which is deathly unfair if you ask me. He never calls me handsome.”

“You’re insufferable,” the mortal would sulk. Heat would rise up in their shared flesh vessel, as though the beach is actually roasting their skin. “You’re nothing like Thanatos Hadesgame, anyway. Even someone as positive and kind as Zagreus Hadesgame wouldn’t love you. No one would ever love you. And stop mentioning your brother like he exists. And don’t tell me you want your brother to be attracted to you, you disgusting freak.”

“I’ll tell you this: you’re not insufferable at all,” Thanatos would say mildly. He would rise to a sitting position, and rest his face on an armored knee. “You are truly a paragon of kindness.”

The mortal would step forward and kick him in the head. He would laugh and fall down, dramatically wailing, “Oh no… you’ve beaten me… you’ve killed Death…”, and the mortal would yell, “Shut up!”

And then:

“If you’re so nice, prove it by cleaning my room once in a while,” the mortal would growl at one time.

“If you don’t want to live in my mind rent free, go pay rent—tell my partner you love them,” they would command another time.

“If you want me to stop calling you annoying, try teaching Arunika how to touch-type,” they’d snarl at another.

And so on and so forth.

He tried to tell their partner that he isn’t the mortal, that he can’t love someone he’d just met but is willing to befriend them, but the mortal retaliated by beating their own body black and blue, preventing him from doing homework for the next few days as he put ice and rest for the wounds. Later on, they forced him to apologize to their partner for “lying”.

He tried teaching Arunika how to touch type, but being in a disabled mortal body has its “perks”; he can’t do it regularly. And today, Arunika is going home late—cooking club, which is awesome.

He supposes that he could clean their room.

Their room is basically a storage room now; eight years of living in another city for their first stint in university meant that their old bedroom was unused mosts of the time, so their gene-sharers used it to put whatever they wanted in here. So they live surrounded by random junk of dubious hygiene. And their gene donors wonder why their already-disabled kid is getting worse!

Thanatos chuckles, an ironic sadness lodged between his ribs.

Anyway, he can start by sweeping the floors and wiping the vanity with a wet cloth.

So he does.

The thankless job continues.

Thanatos is used to thankless jobs—in classical antiquity, the only reason people would pray to or praise him was so that he’d leave them alone. Nowadays, there are pagans, deity-possessors, godspouses and the like who wish for—and build!—a less passive-aggressive relationship with him. He still feels the tugs of said relationships from here—Death is everywhere—personal, systemic, natural, unnatural—the infinity of his own Selves means he’s also currently having them as we speak. As a universal experience with much weight in every culture, he’s very much remembered by mortals. Feared. Studied. Seen as a source of fascination. His myth interpreted, reinterpreted, bastardized, expanded and distorted and combined with other personifications of death, he has never been or felt more powerful.

And yet.

That mortal needs to pay their debt to you eventually, Hypnos says as Thanatos scrubs a particularly naughty stain on the mirror’s surface.

“Hello to you too,” Thanatos mutters. A corpse puppeted by Death, the mortal’s face twists into an unfamiliar grin in the mirror. “No greeting for your evil twin?”

I still think I’m the eviler twin, Hypnos argues, playfully flicking him on the forehead.

Thanatos feels Sleep’s cool finger; the flesh vessel shudders at the touch. “I can’t extract the debt, Hypnos. Not yet.”

Don’t be daft, Hypnos says, flying to his back to massage his shoulders. Thanatos sighs in bliss, flesh vessel sagging and shuddering at the soft kneads of his tense muscles. The Fates won’t harass you, but you know this mortal body won’t be able to handle you indefinitely.

I know, Thanatos says. He gives up on the stain and decides to wipe the mirror’s wooden frame. It’s intricately carved, probably traditional. Lots of old furnitures in this room are styled like that. His favorite is a carved wooden relief of Rama and Shinta’s story in this room, two meters in length, laid on top of the precarious pile of everything else. The mortal’s gene donors planned to sell them, but never did, and they had no idea why. They’re not complaining, though, as they enjoyed such stories—Thanatos had read through enough memories that no matter how much they hide their interests in mythology, they devoured Mahabharata comics in their childhood.

You really know? Hypnos asks.

Thanatos sits down to wipe the vanity’s table. All the makeup on it are inside a plastic basket on the floor as Thanatos moved it before starting the vanity-cleanup. The mortal doesn’t wear makeup, but their egg donor does—she puts her used makeup on here, and the mortal doesn’t bother to clean them. Because 1) they’re too tired all the time, and 2) Arunika loves to put them on. Less on herself. Moreso on the mortal, and now on Thanatos, painting a clown’s mask on his face. It always cheers him up.

I know, Thanatos presses on. I’m not stupid. I know better than to defy the Fates again.

I know you better than to let you wing it on this matter, Hypnos insists. His massage continues downwards and Thanatos arches his back, sucking in a breath. You can’t wing it. You need this mortal to give you offerings before you lose the ability to keep this Self small.

Thanatos huffs, wiping harder on the vanity table, before moving onto wiping the basket. I can handle it.

Hypnos leans his head on Thanatos’ back, squeezing his arms. The forearms, then down, down, down to the wrists.

I know you can, dear, Hypnos sighs—Thanatos leans back on the nearest wall as his brother intertwines one hand with his, then presses his soft fingers on the tired joints, but the mortal may not be able to. How are you going to extract that debt when that happens?

I’ll keep helping them! Maybe, they’ll one day see, and thank me by writing a poem for me or drawing a picture for me or…

I don’t think they will.

Thanatos closes his eyes. In his mind’s vision, Hypnos appears, pale-skinned with silky white-hair and a plumpness on his bones. His poppy-red coat falls beautifully down his figure as he cascades down the stairs. Despite the flowing, Stygian waterfall that he brings on his way to Thanatos, the coat is fluffy on the collar and sleeves.

In contrast, Thanatos is dark-skinned and made of skin and bones. His hair falls in black curls, and he is dressed in a suit that looks best on an embalmed corpse.

“You look like a widow whose husband died of mysterious circumstances,” Thanatos remarks, “Care to enlighten me what he ate for dinner last night, Madame Somnus?”

“Oh, he barely ate my cooking,” Hypnos giggles, willing a fan to appear in his hand, and then he bashfully covers half his youthful face. “He just didn’t wake up this morning, Officer, please believe me.”

“Are you going to say that your evil twin did it?” Thanatos questions.

Hypnos closes his fan in a snap with a mock-scandalized gasp. “I’m the evil twin, Officer!”

Thanatos walks towards Hypnos and leans on his soft shoulder. Lips on Sleep’s ear, Death purrs, “Sure you are.”

Hypnos rolls his eyes. “I’m the smarter twin, then. I’m not the one who enters an unwinnable gambit with a mortal whose domain is denial.”

Thanatos puts another arm around his brother, hanging from his back. Thin hand presses on Hypnos’ shoulders, brushing the fluffy fur on his collar.

“The Fates told me that they were supposed to die last June, Thanatos. You’re already overstepping your bounds. If your goal is what I think it is, you should get another mortal.”

“I see the end of every thread. I know the Fates’ will more than you do. ”

Thanatos’ words are like the plunge of a dagger. Hypnos shakes his brother off and hugs himself, shuddering despite the lack of wind. A stare-off ensues, then, the heavy-lidded eyes of Sleep, and the hardened eyes of Death; they are so close, and yet separated by a thick wall of glass-

“What did you do to this mortal?” Hypnos asks, the timbre of his voice a crack on the wall. “What did you do?!”

Thanatos flashes him the kind of smile that looks at home in the curve of a blade.

“Deep within my immortal spool is a severed thread that frays into millions,” Thanatos explains, “This vessel doesn’t have to die.”

“This vessel,” Hypnos echoes, “Does that mean you’re trying to get someone else to pay their debt to you? Is that even possible?”

Thanatos’ finger touches the epicenter of the crack and presses. The crack on the glass wall creeps further across, creating a rift. “This vessel.”

“That doesn’t pay.”

“No, but it doesn’t really matter,” Thanatos replies, “If I tie those frayed threads with the mortal’s, I’ll have ample time to extract my payment. And they’ll cooperate, when the time comes.”

“I can’t believe you’re trying to do this,” Hypnos sighs, “I feel like this shouldn’t be allowed.”

Thanatos shrugs. “It is- argh!”

A piercing headache smashes the imaginary wall into pieces. Thanatos clutches the mortal flesh’s head, and Hypnos flees their mind-scape, which crumbles under the weight of two deities- It feels like the brain is throbbing inside his skull, crushed by the greedy claws of Death-

“No,” Thanatos hisses, bodily. He walks to the mortal’s desk and takes a painkiller from the medicine box. It’s good that he’s refilled the water bottle; he swallows the pill easily.

But vertigo strikes as the death god walks back towards the vanity. He sways, and stumbles onto the bed, falling face-first. Thank God (the god is himself) it’s soft… He slides himself onto the floor to see if he’s knocked anything under the bed. There shouldn’t be two gods in our head at once, noted-

He’s knocked something further inside when he crashed. A… box?

He takes the mortal’s phone and uses its flash to light his way to said box. Right. The body’s arm is long enough to reach… there… yep. There it is. A dusty shoe-box, labelled “DO NOT OPEN”.

Thanatos grins. “Reverse psychology wins again.”

He opens the box to see personal belongings he has never seen before: a silver pin shaped like an ouroboros, a booklet that seems to be self-printed (the ink is so little that everything is stripy), and a thick notebook whose cover has been pasted by a collage of “spooky” stickers. Severed eyes, insects, skeletons, rotting flowers and fruits, gravestones, urns, silly death puns…

Thanatos turns the booklet to see the front. The cover says, “Memento Mori”.

What the hell?

He turns over a page. It says,

Please give this book to Arunika in the event of my death, preferably if she is of age.

If she is not yet of age, mail this book (and the rest of the box) to…

Thanatos’ eyes widen. That’s… the address of the mortal’s partner.

If not possible, please scan every page of this book (and if possible, the rest of the box) and send it to…

That’s the partner’s email address. He can’t stop reading. So he reads on. The headache makes it hard to focus, but he can do this. The meds will probably kick in soon.

Table of Contents

List of Passwords
- University E-mail
- University account
- Personal E-mail
- Tumblr
- Instagram
- Discord
- Line
- Telegram
- Youtube
- Twitter
- Facebook

Bank Account
- Number
- PIN
- Address

Letter to Arunika

Thanatos flips the book to the end, until they find the letter. He didn’t know the mortal had this. He thought the mortal was suicidal without proper plans. Sure, there’s no actual will to be found, but the mortal doesn’t really have many possessions they can call their own.

Letter to Arunika

Dear Arunika,

If you’re reading this, I’m already dead. I’m sorry I left you so soon. I wish I could’ve seen you grow up ███████████████████
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

So much of it has been blacked out with large lines of permanent marker. He can even see the ink from the other side… He squints to try to see it, but it’s no use. If he knows anything about the mortal, they don’t like to do things in halves: they probably covered everything with a correction pen beforehand, then a paper-white label.

I’m not the person you thought I was. I’m sorry I lied to you. But it is for my own safety, and for yours, I never want you to get in trouble because of me. I don’t want people to find out because if I have to go to conversion therapy or be kicked out, you’re going to be parentless. I hope someone will support you in your studies and your friendships and personal life, and teach you how to be a good person.

████████████████ That means I’m ████████, I don’t want to get married ██████ man or a woman, ███████████
█████████████████████████████. That person I’m always texting isn’t just my friend, they’re my ███████████ partner.

One more thing: I’m ██████████████████████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

I love you. I wish I could’ve told you everything… but now you know. I hope you can forgive me. I hope you’ll still love me, despite all this.

L. D.

“L.D.”… Thanatos didn’t know that name, either. From his time intruding into the mortal’s memories, he didn’t find any chosen names or usernames starting with either letter. Thanatos wonders… when the mortal tried to end their own life, did they put this book on their bed for Arunika to find? Was this book relevant at all, since it was an egocide? What the hell happened?

Maybe the answers lie in the other book…

And so he opens it.

First page…

This book is the property of
L████ D███████

This “L.D.” again.

Second page…

Humanist Funeral
→ Non-religious funerals that celebrates the deceased’s life, what they like, what they were as a person, etc.
→ Interring the dead: any method preferred by the deceased or caretaker(s)
→ Humanism: rationality, Earth as only living space (no afterlife), eco-friendly funerals

Eco-Friendly Funeral Options
Funerals: X only expensive, also bad 4 environment
High energy consumption (burning, CO2, greenhouse gas)
Toxic materials (formaldehyde etc. embalment fluid)
→ Natural burial: No embalment, biodegradable or no coffin
→ Alkaline hydrolisis: Water “cremation”. Water + alkali + heat as catalyst (150 C > normal cremation 900 C)
decomposes corpse with less energy than fire cremation

Islamic Funeral Rites
→ Relatively eco-friendly (no embalment, no coffin, no cremation)
→ All processes must be done by Muslims
→ No eulogy, only prayers

The next pages have excessively detailed drawings of how an Islamic funeral works: how the body is bathed while covered by fabric, as they value modesty; how to wrap the deceased with a shroud; how to build grave specifications… Fascinating. He has to learn more in this body. His memories are quite lacking due to the human brain limiting his information access.

He flips to a random page…

Death Doula
→ Death midwife
Company Companionship, spiritual + emotional support for those close to death (terminal illness, eld old age, preparation and decisions) → X medical
→ Tasks
- Help caretakers
- Honest and detailed discussion of death and dying
- Help with grief
- End of life decisions (will, caretaking)
- Physical care of the dying client

Another random page…

Anatomists
→ Grave-robbing to teach medical students, cadaver is best method for human body model
→ Religious concerns from the church, Christians wanted body to be whole but this view changed after the world wars

Another…

Process of Decomposition

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████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

What the hell. He turns to another page further into the book… but the black-out ink increases in frequency. Pictures are torn off. Or covered by something stuck by super glue, that Thanatos fears he’ll tear off the original if he tries to peel it off.

Further on…

Santa Muerte
→ Lady of Holy Death

Thanatos perks up. Finally, some clear text! He excitedly reads on…

Personification of death, patron saint of the downtrodden and discriminated ████████████████████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

“Come the fuck on,” he mutters. His headache is throbbing even more intensely now. Shit. He needs to eat, maybe. Or sleep. But… Santa Muerte… Is there no hope?

On the next page is a drawing of Santa Muerte that must’ve been beautiful, but it has been vandalized—the lower half of the page is torn off, and what is visible of his fellow death deity is also blacked out. He thinks he can make out her scythe under that dark ink, but he’s not sure. Unfortunately, this makes sense, knowing the mortal’s usual shame.

Thanatos sighs. Rifling through the book’s edge, he finds one is dog-eared. Please let it not be redacted to hell and back.

TO READ LATER (papers videos etc)
- Jigoku
- Other afterlives (████████████████████████)
- Body Worlds Museum
- Embalming process
- ████████████ (not just that channel but search for all related)
- First responders
- Suicide hotlines
- Suicide survivors
- Death ████████ and ████
- Bog bodies
- Mummification
- How to not get buried under your deadname

This book is a treasure. It’s truly a shame that there’s nothing after this page… and if he turns back, more and more are blacked out! Thanatos has half a mind to continue this… but… if the mortal gets angry and harms their body, he won’t have the time or energy to do his responsibilities.

Hypnos’ voice comes back to him: If your goal is what I think it is, you should get another mortal.

But how could he leave? He enjoys the company of the mortal’s partner. He is intrigued by learning about death through a mortal lens. He’s enamored by sunsets and sunrises; he revels in mundane tasks like cleaning a bedroom; he’s fascinated by how disgusting going to the bathroom is. He grieves for the mortal, dying inside and out, deadnamed constantly. He wants to explore this body carnally. He thinks about how the world systematically kills humans and other organisms who cannot fit into the capitalism machine. He adores Arunika and wants to make sure she grows up to be kind and safe and protected.

And he wants to read and complete this thanatology scrapbook!

God fucking damn (the god is himself), he thinks as he walks unstably to the dining room to get dinner, I am so fucked.

Chapter Text

thanatophobicThanatophile

Here's the link! Enjoy ;D

SouperBowl

thanks dude!!!

thanatophobicThanatophile

Anytime!

Also, please don't call me "dude", thank you, I prefer no gendered terms ^^

SouperBowl

oh man, sorry, I use that gender-neutrally!!

thanatophobicThanatophile

Sorry, I'm non-binary and it feels gendered to me ^^;

read 12:57

"I hate people like this," they grumble. "Why do I have to say sorry about this?"

The clock on the room's vanity reads 22:57 exactly, the hands in perfect alignment with their respective 10s and in-between lines. They want to be optimistic, that this person is merely busy or tired... but the creature crawling under their skin shifts their alignment several inches, their broken self fractured anew - another nestling in their heart is torn between howling in despair and ravaging this mutual. The beast tears itself out of their heart instead - bursting with proverbial blood, blood that's not real, not real until the mortal makes it so-

They move their hand towards their skin, thankful for long, uncut nails-

And the limb seizes.

Falling onto their thigh, burning heat weighing tonnes more than the mortal could lift- please, please, you lazy fuck, up, up, up! to no avail, and when they decide they'll just make the pain real via screaming until their throat is hoarse and their voice box finally breaks permanently (good riddance, it's got such an ugly voice, untrainable and unchangeable)...

Their tongue feels that weight, too.

"Motherfucker!"

The expletive may be directed inwards, but it's far from an indoor voice. And thus, the fiery burden in the mortal's mind, the entity that lives rent-free, may he fucking die, finally responds.

"I'm not attracted to Nyx," the man says, "Come up with a better insult."

The mortal ignores the dig. Better to make it quick - they now know better than to have a battle of wits with this... part of them that embodies wits and steals it away from them, they're speculating now. "Let me move, dude!"

"I must say that you don't deserve to be called 'dude', knowing that you don't like it," he says instead of doing what they said, because of course, "I'm sorry to hear that this Soup person kept misgendering you."

"I don't need your pity," they hiss. Their hand hurts. The weight grows heavier and hotter, stiffness contagious - its flames had licked their upper arm, and now their other hand and arm, and soon, they know this would ignite their legs and torso. Maybe even their lungs, if this infernal cunt is feeling particularly evil. Please don't be evil. They try to shift their legs - straighten them from this cross-legged hell... contrary to their expectations, it works. Now, they can try the head... shift down the pillows propping their fucked-up spine so they could give the back of their head a few kisses from the wall-

And it refuses.

In less than a minute, they find themselves completely anchored to the bed, lying supine with their hands folded below their chest. A passenger in their own body. Posed like an embalmed corpse. Fitting work for so-called "Thanatos".

Flame, of a different kind this time, erupts out of their eyes in boiling streams neither of them is willing to clean. "Let me do it- let me- let me, fucking bitch-"

"I don't deserve to be called 'fucking bitch'," he says. His voice is ice, now, of course, he can't ever support them, can't ever match them except to make everything worse. "And it's not pity, it's basic decency. No one deserves to be misgendered."

"Fuck you," the words flow like magma out of their mind-space and sprays his. They imagine him being drenched, melting, cracking, becoming ash under their feet. They can't breathe. It feels like the volcano is burrowing in their chest - not erupting, but dormant. Heavy. Full of sediment they wish they can cough out. "You're an asshole with no decency. If you're really kind, you'd let me have agency in my own body. If you're really Death, let me die. Let me die! Stop trying to control me into being your fucking pawn! And stop making my dysphoria about you! I can call you whatever I please, you shithead faker! And you're literally a cis man. You have no say in this. You like being called 'dude', don't you, dude?!"

"No."

The audacity! "What? Because 'dude' is gender neutral?!"

"The term 'dude' doesn't have to be gender neutral to you, I respect it," he replies, as if he is capable of any respect at all! "I just prefer..."

Their legs loosen. Suddenly, each breath they take is deeper than the previous, as if the death grip crushing their lungs is slowly unfurling.

"...my name, really."

Ah. Of course he had an over-long pause between "prefer" and "my name".

"I hear what you're really saying. I bet your preferred terms are 'my lord' or some entitled bullshit like that. Ha! I love having a raving lunatic in my mind - not just a lunatic, but one that never left the medieval era! Are you a LARPer in your past life or something? Not that past lives are real."

Even though they can't see him, they feel him bristle. Their recently heat-heavy back becomes a pillar of ice.

And worse yet, he acts oh so surprised at this. "I never asked you to call me that."

"Oh, but you're thinking it right now, aren't you, Your Lordship?" They laugh in their brain. Their body lets them echo it. "Aww, you silly little guy. Just a poor little meow meow, just a pathetic wet cat who just wants to be called 'my lord'!"

Man. This guy would be hysterical to hang out with if he didn't ruin their death or their life. Or, better yet, he would've been perfect if he'd lived in another fucking body. He would've been insufferable, still. But he would've been fun if he was a LARPer. Maybe he would be open to cosplay talk, teach them how to cosplay. Maybe he would've been somewhat attractive - they do love to see men in tailored, dandyish suits. And! He wouldn't be dragging them into a bachelor's degree! Or redecorating their room with printed fanart of Thanatoses from multiple media interpretations and artists just to taunt them and never letting them tear these cringe shit off! Or stopping them from making their pain fucking real again!

"Stop," he pleads. Like a coward.

"You don't have to pretend to be a god of death 24/7 just to get off to being treated like a god, you know! I won't kinkshame, but maybe you can find a partner to do that for you, because I don't consent to this clownery!"

They won't stop. Why should they? He's distracting them from their self inflicted punishment for being a snowflake who can't be a man or a woman. An overly-sensitive child who can't even handle a simple 'dude'.

"But, instead of disrespecting Greek culture and people, or shitting on any fiction writer with a brain, just be some edgy sexyman with a sharp tongue and a dapper suit! Your ugly mug would still get in my way, but you'll be far less annoying to deal with, Lord Onceler."

"Please, stop."

If he's so powerful, why doesn't he make them move? Why isn't he forcing them to stop saying these words? A real god should be able to kill them with one stroke. Goes to show that gods aren't real, much less fucking Thanatoasted, Thanatoesies, or whatever his epithets are. Healer of all Incurable Ills my ass. They make sure to will their thoughts to be as loud as possible, a storm of volcanic clouds of the stupidest name of some minor deity the ancient Greeks barely care about, and modern people think is less cool than Hades or Olympus gods. He has to hear it. He must suffocate in it.

When there's no response, they will themself a fedora onto their head and tilt it towards where they think he is. "What do you prefer, m'lady? Is it The Greatest Bill Cipher? Exalted Cecil Palmer? Your Excellency Sans Undertale? Oh maybe Underfell, since you're soooo edgy. Or maybe you want a guy who's related to death? Most Eligible Bachelor Daniil Dankovsky? Lord English Homosuck?"

"I prefer my name," the entitled idiot insists, "Thanatos. Mors. Letum, if you will. Simply Death. Hell, you can even call me the Grim Reaper for all I care."

They snort. "Dude, I don't care. I never have, and I never will. You're probably just my weird side that wishes they were a man because things would've been easier. Newsflash: it isn't. Now shoo. Let me move, fuckwad, maybe Soup has replied to me again."

A mental sigh from the unwelcome intruder.

"If I call you ██████, will you stop calling me names?"

Their latest chosen name.

The name they've given up on anyone using.

How dare he?

How can it be so easy for him?

He's just a part of them. He's just a them that's in denial of his nonbinary and genderqueer identity.

But... are they a man all along? Should everything be this so easy for them? But they've tried being a man. They hate it. They want nothing to do with it anymore.

"I hope you die," they snarl, "I hope you die. I hope you die. I hope you die. You are me, and I hope you die."

Chapter Text

"Aeons ago, Death was a force of nature, primordial and endlessly an end in every living being. Earth, sky, sea; cells, planets, nebulae; to exist is to be awaited by his embrace.

He does not have to hold life forever. After all, his arms are always full. And thus to let go is to become a pause, a momentary taste - that impermanence became his brother, Hypnos. But it is only through the passing of time, through the the Titans and Olympians and especially humans, that he is bestowed personhood. The Fates had decreed that their mother cram his vastness in a humanlike form - his unliving lungs breathe Chaos, his veins flowing with the darkness of Night.

Death and his twin brother Sleep were inseparable under their mother's care. Hypnos of unconsciousness, his wife and children bliss and pleasant dreams and horrific nightmares. A youthful look becomes Hypnos. Doted by Nyx, he only grows softer and more beautiful, almost humanlike in the languid way he fills his form, full-figured from mortals' love and prayer.

But Thanatos wasn't loved so much, not really. While baby fat rounded young Sleep's cheeks, while soft blankets and stufffed animals filled his bed, his brother had no meat on his bones and no business going to bed. As young Death separated body from soul - most of them unwilling, many gruesome, many fighting back - he rushed into an ageless adulthood. Tall and imposing, old Death ceaselessly watched the living, embodying their fears. He imbued himself in every part of life - death can happen any Time, any Place, in any Season, under any Weather, from any Food, through any Cause.

He forgets that he and Hypnos were brothers, much less twins, sometimes. Hypnos, on the other hand, never forgets. Hypnos makes sure he remembers that they are, indeed, family. Sometimes Thanatos would bury himself in Hypnos's pile of pillows while Hypnos laid blankets over him. Sometimes, Thanatos would let himself be dragged into faraway lands by his nieces and nephews. Or maybe these lands were inside his head all along. Are they one and the same? Part of him wanted to ask, but he never did, feeling the ambiguity would suit him better.

But one day, ambiguity was lost from him as he was Fated to be Peaceful Death. He thus consoled the nearly-departed, and helped shades adjust to their afterlife, he was advisor and counselor and guide. Perhaps Thanatos was the most terrifying friend a mortal could get, but a friend nonetheless.

To pick up his slack, the infinite Keres, his cherished and envied Keres, became Violent Death, blessed be her names. Mortals call the fear of death 'thanatophobia', but for a short time, it was her power that was responsible for his reputation..."

Outside the window, Helios is peeking through Nyx's starry curtain - the perfect time to end his tale. Thanatos leans back, waiting for his wonderful conversation partner to respond.

A fidget in their seat. Fingers wringing. "Lord Death..."

"Mm-hmm?"

"Pardon me for asking," they said. They look at the window, then at him, then at the floor.

Thanatos gently lifts their chin with both hands. He keeps his gaze soft, not a glare, no Western-style eye contact, stare a bit lower. "You're always pardoned."

"But, d-did you..." They bow their head. Is he looking too intently? He looks up above their head instead. "Did you s-seriously take... take credit for her work?"

"I tried not to. Not that Keres would ever let me." A wry grin." But you wouldn't look forward to seeing me again if I told you everything in one go, would you?"

"No, never! It's- it's always... always a pleasure to see you."

Thanatos then rises to his feet. "Thank you for listening to me."

"Of- of course! And thank you for being here... I really can't thank you enough."

With a respectful nod, Thanatos turns towards the door, prepared to leave.

"W-wait! I- I have another question! Is... is that okay?"

"Absolutely."

"Can I meet Lady Keres... L-ladies? H-how many are there? Um... can I see them s-sometime?"

Thanatos stiffens. The temperature drops.

"I- I- I- I'm sorry for... for offending you, my lord."

"No apologies necessary. I'm not offended." An attempt at eye contact towards a lower angle, maybe their neck. By god (the god is himself), they're supplicating. He can't let that stand. "At ease, my friend, you should stand back up. Or sit down on your chair, if that's what you prefer."

They slowly push themself into a standing position and meet his gaze for exactly 1 second.

"You may meet her eventually," Thanatos says, "But there's no guarantee."

"Oh... are you on b-bad terms with each other?"

"Not at all. We're inseparable."

"Just like you and Lord Hypnos?"

If Thanatos's current form could smile, he would. As it stands, he decides to turn around and open the door, before turning his head 180 degrees to face his friend and saying in the brightest voice he could muster,

"Nope!"

Chapter Text

"All has suffered, gods and shadies, unionize to fight the Hades!

Didn't unionize back in life? Fix that mistake after you die!

We already perished from soul-sucking labor, let's unite, don't be a traitor!

Join the UWU, fight the blues, Together we stop workplace abuse!

United we stand in chthonic pain! Overwork? Never again!"

Keres straightens up from her seat - a plush sofa from Hades, given for some bribe or another - to give Thanatos a bewildered cringe.

"These are the worst union slogans we have ever heard. Are you seriously naming the union 'UWU'?"

"You have to admit that abbreviating 'Underworld Workers' Union' into 'UWU' is catchy," Thanatos shrugs, leaning back on his desk, eyes still on the messages on his union group chat. "These are entirely the shades' submissions. Are you sure we need to dismiss them all?"

"If we'd heard any of these, we'd never join a union ever again," Keres sneers. She licks her lips with a forked tongue - which then swipes the flat-surface of her incisors. She pouts, resenting that she doesn't yet have time to sharpen all the teeth in this vessel to match her spirits. "We don't even want to join it now. Moros has been pissy about us joining you, by the way."

"I'm not afraid of the Fates's errand boy," Thanatos looks up from his phone, flashing a Patented Death Glare to his counterpart. "Plus, Moros would have a better living arrangement if he-"

Keres's laugh is a piercing bark - it scratches the inside of one's soul like claws on a chalkboard.

Then, she puffs her chest and solemnly announces, "Moros, embodiment of Doom, whose domain stands firm in unsafe workplaces and lack of fair compensation, joins the UWU!" Another burst of laughter. "Yeah, right."

She stands up on all fours and leaps towards Thanatos's desk to tease him a little...

...only to fall down ignobly in a tangle of limbs.

"Fucking-" A grunt. "Stupid-" A yelp. "Humanoid- body!"

As the embodied Ker flails and whines, the disembodied Keres watch their counterpart - he doesn't even snicker. All he has is those terrible misty eyes. As if she wants that crap. He even offers her a hand...

All the spirits - at least those not tasked in bringing gruesome deaths - look at the hand of Peaceful Death. Once a handsome tan, Thanatos's skin is now a cadaverous shade - just like her own - since he shed his old one. He gazes at her with unending compassion; she gazes at him with feral contempt. She wraps his skin in practical clothes or armor instead of funeral suits and gold jewelry. She carries his elegant, long limbs with the twisted grace of a wild animal. She puts his long tresses in a tight bun. Shaves his tasteful beard so rough that she tasted his divine blood on her cheek... Keres, once disposable spirits, drowns in the ecstasy of having golden ichor in her veins for the first time. She is ascending to godhood, but even that godhood is dependent on his.

Some Keres must wonder how much she owed it to him that she was here in the Underworld, conversing with gods and living in exalted Elysium when not working, instead of only being the Fates' and Olympians' unpaid assassins.

Another Ker wonders how Thanatos feels, to have his domain divided, his godhood stripped in half.

Another one hates thinking about Thanatos as anything but the weakling that gets in her way.

Many other Keres follow suit:

Don't pity us!

Don't patronize us!

We don't need a union!

We are as much Death as you!

"Don't," Keres's voice hisses through too-blunt teeth. She swats his hand away.

She props her body by the desk, dragging her uncooperative, clawless limbs upwards, toes wriggling in her stifling shoes that would not budge. She misses her spirits' claws that could firmly grip her prey and the ground. Her strong, bent knees that could leap whatever distance she wanted. The strong wings connected to her arms, as opposed to this flimsy butterfly bullshit on her back.

"I'll tell the shades to send more suggestions," Thanatos says awkwardly. He moves to sit on his chair behind the desk, custom-made to accommodate his fuckass huge wings. He stops looking at Keres in favor of his phone once more. "I'll also try to come up with some of my own... You can help me, if you'd like."

"If they're all like this, we have no hope for this UWU," Keres sighs. She perches herself on the desk in a humanoid way; that is, sitting her ass on the edge, shifting backwards, and taking her legs up with it. "Rhyming 'shadies' and 'Hades' is probably something that'd make the old man laugh, if anything, so maybe your union has hope as a comedy club."

"Comedy club?" Thanatos says. "That's a bit harsh. I don't think they're all so bad. Some of them can even be on posters and the like... I can commission a few shades to draw them, and put them wherever the eyes can see."

Posters, huh?

In her time on the surface and space, she has seen many of them. They could be examples of great (and not-so-great) graphic designs from mortals' best (or worst). But she knows humans are very often driven by, sometimes more than the power of any graphic design principles, Aphrodite's domain...

"You should model for them," Keres suggests. "Shades love hot gods."

Thanatos looks at Keres like she's grown two heads. "I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, you know!" Keres says, a cheery grin stretching her face, her eyes lighting up. "Mortals have made hot Thanatoses for their stories and games and shit. You too can join their ranks. You know pop culture, right? Isn't Hermes your fuck buddy? Don't say you don't know pop culture, Than."

"Don't call me 'Than'," he says tersely, "And Hermes is not my fuck buddy."

"If it's whatever we have with Ares, you're his fuck buddy."

"Hermes is my partner," A flush of gold colors Thanatos's ashen cheeks. "I didn't know you're into Ares."

"He's into us," Keres brags, "Eris is also into us. And him. We think we make a great throuple."

"Is it a throuple if there are several billion of you?" Thanatos asks, looking so genuine that Keres laughs.

"Okay, maybe it's more of a billiuple," she snickers. "Did you hear Eris and Hermes have a kid recently? They've been having field day after field day, if you get our drift."

Thanatos looks at her in bewilderment. Some of the Keres boo him, others sneer. What, too mature for sex jokes?

His expression turns deadpan. "I get it."

"Yeah, and some of these days resulted in the conception of one beautiful minor god," Keres says dramatically, making an explosive gesture with her hands, and fluttering her fingers. "And by 'beautiful', we mean it's like watching a car crash in real time and scooping the life out of the bodies. Maybe scoop out the glass shards out of them too. But in this case, it's moreso scooping someone out of the Hermussy. Or is it Erisussy? We don't know which one of them got pregnant."

Thanatos, to his credit, doesn't look the slightest bit disturbed. Probably because he knows what Hermes is packing in his messenger bag.

"No comments for our glorious retelling?" Keres grins, elbowing her fellow Death.

A moment of indeterminate time passes.

Two moments.

Maybe even three.

"They have two children," Thanatos corrects her, tone all flat and unaffected. Boooo! "Ultra and Discoursia."

Keres scrunches her face. "Ultra, as in Embodiment of Sports Rivalry and Hooliganism?"

"Yeah."

"What?" One of her spirits gasps.

Another one groans. "He's Eris' and Hermes? I remember seeing the guy and he doesn't even look like Eris-"

"Hypnos and I are twins, but we look nothing alike," Thanatos points out.

"Hypnos is kinda hot," a Ker mutters. "I love thicc boys."

"Shame that Thanatos doesn't share his good looks," another teases.

Thanatos crosses his arms over his chest and rolls his eyes. "Oh, shut up. Gods don't adhere to human genetics."

"Yes we do. That's only because you two are weird!" Another disembodied Ker sticks out her tongue at him, wrapping her bat-like wing around his head to noogie him.

Thanatos, being the killjoy he is, wriggles out of it. "If we're talking about your spirit selves, we look nothing like each other. But if we're talking bodily..."

"That's because we're wearing your skin, idiot," a few Keres say, flicking him on the head in quick succession. He shakes his head and pushes them all away, causing them to laugh shrilly as they leave. "Love you, skin donor!"

"Love you too," Thanatos rolls his eyes again. "Skin thief."

"Erm, excuse us?" the embodied Keres leans on his shoulder, hand clawing on his collarbone. "We look alike because we're Nyx's children too."

"Ewww, why the hell would you want to be related to this wimp?" another Ker cries, flying to sit on Thanatos's head. He sags downwards, but doesn't make a move to swat her away. "We're just the evil spilling out of Pandora's box, don't listen to her!"

"Those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive," Thanatos says, lifting the one on top of his head and moving her to the other side of him. "Myths always conflict each other for a reason."

"Whatever!" multiple Keres pipe up. "Who cares?"

"I do," says another Ker with a pout.

"This is getting so off-topic," another one rolls her eyes, folding her hand to prop herself on the head of her body. "We were talking about Ultra."

The Keres with a body does swat her away. "We thought he was Hermes and Nemesis's kid!"

"Maybe he's born from the three of them." Thanatos leans back on his chair. "Weirder shit has happened in our pantheon."

"Yeah. Have any bets on who became the midwife of Discoursia and Ultra?" Keres wonders. "We're thinking... Zeus would be funniest."

"Artemis," Thanatos deadpans. "She already did it for Apollo."

"That's such a boring answer," Keres protests, "At least suggest Hephaestus or something..."

"Hephaestus? Why?"

Keres knows why. She retreats into her mind, followed by her fellow spirits, painting a vivid picture with her imagination. Hephaestus building a contraption so complicated it could be called a Rube Goldberg machine. Hermes might even be live-streaming it. Then, when the machine's ready, Hephaestus connects it to the god giving birth. The god of the forge cranks up the doohickey... one, two, three... smoke will come out... bleeps and boops from the doodad interrupting the painful screams of the delivery... everything shakes as the machine's lights flash in dizzying colors... and BOOM! 

Thanatos snickers, as if having his own mental image of Hephaestus becoming a midwife.

Keres can't let him miss the obviously more fun image in her head. So she parts her legs. She then rests her elbows on her upper thighs, before gesturing upwards with her two hands. "So the kid could be launched right into Olympus with a divine cannon!"

To Keres's surprise, Thanatos stands up. He flies to the direction Keres's crotch was facing... and then zooms upwards to the ceiling.

"Express delivery!" he bellows from up high, "Two babies, fresh from the womb!"

Keres pushes herself straight to stand on the desk and throws her hands in the air. "Whooooo! Hell yeah!!!"

"Hell yeah!"

"Heeeeeellllll yeeeeaaaaaah!!!"

Chapter Text

"Lord Hades, thank you for inviting me to your office."

"Of course, son." Hades greets. As Thanatos makes his way towards Hades's desk, the Underworld king continues, "Yes, come here, come here, have a seat. I have been meaning to talk to you."

Thanatos sits in front of the Underworld's king. Poised with a straight back and legs apart in a farce of masculinity. Looking down with his face slightly lifted, he hopes that Hades won't criticize his posture this time around. He has also wrapped himself in the color of Night in a most conservative cut; his now-stringy hair hidden under the hood of his cloak.

From above Hades's throne, the unseeing eyes of Makaria, Zagreus, and Melinoe stare at him like a tripartite-god display. Each child is crowned with one replica head of Kerberos. Their collars are wrapped by necklaces of pomegranate seeds, giving them the impression that they've been beheaded.

Lose your place in mortal heads, o gods, and lose your own.

Thanatos can recall the arc of his sword as he committed the deed.

Hades's silent wrath would spread into the Underworld. Persephone's madness would follow her like a shackle chained to a prisoner's ankles. But things are different between the three of them - Maybe it's revenge. Maybe it's the aftereffects of grief. Thanatos doesn't ask, doesn't dare ask.

"I have to say, Thanatos, I am absolutely elated to see you well," Hades says affably, crow's feet crinkling on the edges of his eyes. "When I first heard about Nyx cursing you, I feared the worst. The Fates were never forthcoming about their intentions, but when they told Nyx to curse my most productive colleague and her own son, I had to request a petition with them! But guess what?"

Thanatos may not be close to his powerful sisters, but he does know the most sure thing about them. "They ignored you, Your Majesty?"

"Yes!" Hades answers. Then, he shakes his head in an exaggerated manner while clicking his tongue. A clump of strands escape his immaculately-styled hair. As he stops, he takes a sip of the ambrosia on the table - a full bottle, just uncorked. "Thank the Fates, I suppose, that you emerged from that curse intact, if a little more fit of your role. You look and sound marvelously chthonic, son."

Hades smiles at Thanatos's new form.

Well, Thanatos mused, shadowed by his cloak, Hades hasn't seen the worst of it. But the change in his voice is obvious. Gone is the deep voice that echoes from nowhere and everywhere at once - replaced by a longing plea that rattles the bones of mortals.

"Thank you, sir."

Hades grins, takes a glass from a cabinet behind him, and pours Thanatos a glass of his drink. "Peaceful Death - is that what the Fates deemed you now?"

"Yes." Thanatos suddenly feels the emptiness on his hip. "They recently told me to lay down my sword."

"And you did it?"

I wish I didn't have to. Thanatos puts a hand where he would have put his weapon, then caresses his thigh, down towards the length of his scabbard. It does little to console himself. "I bow to their will. Though I still intend to train myself in my swordsmanship."

"What a waste. I still cannot believe the Fates wanted those beasts to become a goddess," Hades hisses, before taking a big gulp of his ambrosia, "And Nyx actually helped them. What has this pantheon come to?"

It's always been a mess, Thanatos wants to say, but the responsibilities of Peaceful Death rather inconveniently includes diplomacy. So.

"I can only speculate, my lord."

"Bah!" Hades scowls. "The Keres are barely sentient, all they do is take orders - nothing more than those assassin constructs of Hephaestus's. What are they going to do as a goddess? Wage endless wars like Ares? Sow strife like that awful sister of yours? Commit the debauchery of my Olympian relatives? They're weapons. They don't deserve to have power over mortal life like a god."

And I do? Why?

"Perhaps the Fates wish for me to avoid overwork," Thanatos offers. He'd rather not get into what he thinks is Hades's reasons. "Keres have been able to hold their own."

"Clearly you jest." Hades shifts forward; looks down on him with an incisive glare. "How are they faring so well without your commands, Thanatos? They lack autonomy. They lack direction. Their claws may be efficient, but with the power of a goddess, they would be indiscriminate in their quest to inflict violent deaths."

"And we can't have that," Hades says condescendingly, "Because the Fates have a schedule."

"One Ker uses the body at the time," Thanatos explains. He pushes the emotion out of his voice - keep it steady, steady, don't betray yourself. "She would direct the rest of her brethren towards their targets."

Hades makes a face. "And how can the one Ker direct anyone, again? Did your divine flesh-and-blood bestow her the mind she lacks?"

His hostility towards Keres is as astounding as it is unsurprising. He loves to see the dead descend to the Underworld, filling his own ranks, and yet, when a goddess is bringing productivity to unprecedented heights during this time of wars, he complains? Everyone dies. Death doesn't care what their sex is or what role they live by. Mortals won't stop dying if Keres took them instead of him - no matter how much mortals fight back, she'll win in the end. As Death does.

Thanatos looks straight at Hades. "Yes, my divine flesh-and-blood is known to do that."

From now on, we must implore you to mind your tongue, brother, the Fates' voices from his first reassignment echo in his mind, As Peaceful Death, you cannot speak without first assessing what the one in front of you needs-

"Hm. Perhaps she can be a goddess after all," Hades rumbles, his grudging tone barely concealed, "But there is far too many Keres to fit in one body, isn't there? How is that supposed to be resolved?"

"Does it need resolving?" Thanatos genuinely wonders, "All the Keres so far seem to not mind sharing one body. They don't each need her own."

Hades leans back on his throne with his glass perched upon his fingers. He takes a glance upon the bodies mounted above; his lips pursing. "Three empty bodies - the bodies of my late children - are hanging above me."

"What of them, my lord?"

"Zagreus became Dionysus, so the story went," Hades continues. He looks down into his glass, now. "His soul is now in Olympus... did Zagreus fully transform himself, or did he simply move to the body of the god of wine and madness? And if the latter is true, why have I never heard of him again?"

His gaze returns to Zagreus' body. He takes a few sips of his drink and put it back on the table.

"Maybe," he muses, "Dionysus won the sole ownership of that body. Thus did Zagreus die twice - thus has he truly returned to you."

That is a very strange way of putting the death and reincarnation of his own son. But... he's seen how grief can twist someone, anyone, into a philosophical bent. He sends his king a sympathetic look and hopes he appreciates it.

"Do I understand correctly," Thanatos says, "that Dionysus's body has its own soul, which overtook Zagreus's when he reincarnated into that body?"

"Yes," Hades sighs, "A body has its own soul, does it not? And there is only one soul for each body - you would know..." His voice wavers. "You should know."

"Most bodies have one soul inside them, my lord." Thanatos nods. "But there are exceptions. Even you have seen a divine example. The Keres can-"

"No," Hades's voice cuts in. "You are incorrect."

Thanatos bristles. His experience severing souls from bodies beg to differ. His hand, mercifully cloaked by the folds of his clothes, twitches towards his scabbard - and finds nothing.

You hereby surrender the blade that cuts through life's thread.

His mind drags Hades to a battlefield to see how many souls he had to take, how many would congeal in a single body.

You shall henceforth embrace a mortal upon their last breath.

He fantasizes putting his king at sword point, pressing on his back to draw blood. All so he can show the stubborn old god the dead oracle in her chambers, one soul as old as her and accepting his embrace, the other soul much younger and begging for more time-

And thus we pronounce you the God of Peaceful Death.

Thanatos takes a deep breath he does not need. He will listen as the King of the Underworld continues his lament. Every muscle inside him tenses, from the tips of his toes to the arches of his wings, eyes glaring daggers and loathe to blink.

"If that was true... Zagreus would still be alive. The Keres, vicious as they are... will eventually turn on each other to be the undisputed goddess of violent death."

An ache worms its way into Thanatos's head - damn, he'd been gritting his teeth for quite a while. He loosens himself.

To no avail.

"If the Fates agree, perhaps it will happen," Thanatos says as softly as he can - I will be gentle and I will be kind - "It would be fitting for her domain, at the very least."

- his own words, Fates help him, still sound like shards of glass upon an accident, shattering a human throat into a bloody spray -

"You see it now, son?"

Hades... doesn't care about that? He doesn't see it as disrespect? Is it because of his new appearance?

"I do," Thanatos clasps his hands - not quite together. It can't just be that, can it? If so... his mind's touch instead puts Hades' neck between his fingers - he used to have claws, insatiable claws, and now he only has a phantom grip for a phantom neck. "But who would win, if that body has my soul in it too? Can there be two of me?"

No, he wanted to scream, the answer is no!

One Thanatos, many Keres, how it has always been. So what if he's lost his command over them? Other gods - Olympian or Chthonic - also lost theirs. It's no skin off his back. Figuratively.

Hades's eyebrows furrow, deepening the crease between them, etching lines upon his gaunt face. "Was that your whole body? I was under the impression that it was simply the molting of your skin."

"It was still my flesh and blood."

"Do you feel it call to you?" Hades asks. "Can you move that body, too?"

"No," Thanatos says, "It is fully theirs now."

Hades' eyes widen. "An empty body..."

"A lifeless one," Thanatos agrees, cocking his head towards the three chthonic children, "Now filled with spirits of violent death."

"So the fight for the body will be decided by themselves," Hades concludes.

"Presumably. But I think there are too many violent deaths in this world for one goddess to handle alone."

"Did you not handle violent deaths as well?"

"Yes, but the Keres also caused some of them. I had to deliver some of them here afterwards..."

Hades leans forward again, trailing his index finger round the rim of his glass. It... makes a strange sound. "So you think this... 'one Ker with millions of Keres as her attack dogs' arrangement is truly what the Fates desire?"

"I would never know what exactly the Fates desire," Thanatos spits. He realizes, as soon as he spoke, that can't hide his resentment. "Or if they truly desire anything but their own amusement."

"You would never know, son, that is true," Hades hums; his hand reaches for the telephone on the edge of the desk. "But one of your brothers would, would he not?"

"Yes," Thanatos grounds out. His fists clench. "He would."

Hades slots a finger in the rotary and spins.

Whirr.

And spins.

Whirrrr.

And spins again.

Whirrrrrr.

Hades then puts the telephone on his ear. "Moros!"

Ah, yes, Thanatos's favorite bother!

"Yes, you. How many Moros are there? Yes, this is Hades. Come to my office at once!"

Contrary to the shades' beliefs, the Embodiment of Doom no longer presides over the mortal world to deliver the news that Thanatos was about to come to them.

"...what do you mean 'you're busy'? ...the Fates want you to copy some documents... fix the computers? When did they break...?"

A god who has been mythologized in all of two sentences. A god with nary a follower to his name. A god whose place in mortal heads have long been lost.

"...What do you mean they want more funding for better processors... coffee? You're making the Fates coffee?"

Yet, when Thanatos came to the Fates' office to end the reign of Moros...

"Gods, Moros! Stop this nonsense! ...no, no, I don't care that they 'cannot work without their morning coffee'!  They are far too old for this... no, Moros! Can't the Fates be left alone for five minutes?!"

...whose domain is redundant, held already by Thanatos...

"This is about Keres! ...Yes, the new death goddess! Yes, violent deaths, how many Keres are there?!"

...the Fates intervened.

"...Classified? I am your king, you ingrate, don't you dare hang up-!"

He's going to hang up, Thanatos rolls his eyes inwardly.

The phone slams down.

Hades slams himself down his throne as well. "That insolent little-!"

He interrupts his own tirade by downing the entire glass of ambrosia.

The glass slams down too.

Thanatos doesn't know what to say that qualifies as "diplomatic". Calling Moros was a stupid move. Of course he would side with the Fates over Hades; he is the Fates' favorite. Their older sisters treat him like their own son and so he repays it with piety. Why does Hades expect otherwise? But if Thanatos says that, Hades might be even more upset.

To the king's credit, however, he doesn't continue ranting. Instead, he takes off his golden laurels and produces a handkerchief to wipe the dust off the intricate carvings. As intricate as the golden jewelry adorning his ears, neck, wrists, and ankles. He is dressed in a black chiton with gold trim, wrapped in a Stygian red himation whose edges is dripping with beads that symbolize pomegranate seeds and blood drops at once. The sight of his clothes combined with the new rotary dial from Olympus - one day it will come to mortals, though he does not know when - is a jarring one, but Thanatos isn't one to talk. He is still wearing robes himself. He used to wear a peplos, hair pinned in intricate styles mirroring his mother, but, those days are over.

"Thanatos," Hades calls him. He has put his crown on the desk. Perhaps it gave him a headache.

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

"Would you mind taking off your cloak?" Hades asks. "I would like to see your new appearance."

Thanatos stiffens.

"No need to be shy, son."

There is no use in delaying it. So he does as told, unclasping his hooded cloak and standing up in all his newly molted self.

His hair is a mess. He hasn't had time to cut it - it falls quite far, almost to his knees - but then they were tucked behind his ears by the Underworld's king, who appraises him. The king's gaze lingers on his face, top half an ash-brown and tightly wrapped around his bones, bottom half covered by a mess of hair. He looks like a rotting corpse and he knows it.

"I never thought you would grow a beard, son," Hades remarks, "It suits you."

Well, he kind of had no choice. If he didn't, he would be indistinguishable from Keres, whose spirits cut the facial hair off with her claws immediately. Those can be a functional razor - the more he knows!

"Thank you, my king."

"And you seem to have gotten taller. Broader." Hades touches his shoulders and forces him to square them. Pulls him up to a straighter posture. "Stand straight, Thanatos. You can make a more terrifying sight if you don't slouch, don't you think?"

Mortals would be scared of me no matter how I look like, Thanatos wants to say. Instead, he mutters, "Absolutely correct, sir."

"You look like Death." Hades smiles at him. He puts Thanatos's hood back on and adjusts the clasps on the cloak. "Now go fulfill your duty."

"Peaceful Death, sir," Thanatos corrects him.

Hades's smile turns stony. His gaze the brewing of a storm. "I meant every word I said. Don't you want to have sole power over your domain?"

Thanatos stiffens. "It is not my place to want, my lord."

"Is it not your place to reclaim what has always been yours?"

He's playing a dangerous game. I don't need them to bring more trouble. And so Thanatos frees himself from his king's grasp. "Perhaps it is my place. But it is not my fate. Keres and I will do our duties with utmost diligence, we promise you."

Thanatos bows to Hades before making his way towards the door. He stretches his back.

"Son..."

He gives Hades a peaceful-death-glare. "Your Majesty."

"You do not have to settle for this..."

"I am not settling." Because what else can he do? Complain? A god is not remembered for the vastness of their domain, but how well they preside over it. Steeling his heart, Thanatos crosses the threshold. His wings are ready to carry him to his duties, now. "Good day, Lord Hades."

Chapter Text

Thanatos sits on the bed, back propped by a stack of pillows, while another pillow on his thigh props up his laptop. From the laptop to his ears, lays a bridge also known as wired earphones, to block Arunika's noise with some dubstep.

Yes, the 10-year-old is indeed paying the immortal deity a visit! She's sitting on the right side of the bed watching short-form content (gods know Hermes loves that shit too), leaning on the wall with another pillow as her backrest, legs bent to make a tunnel for Thanatos's outstretched ones.

Unwilling to spend any more time in her mother's company, Arunika rushed her change out of uniform into house clothes and dashed upstairs, tablet in hand. Thanatos enjoys the visit; yet, his heart breaks for her. With the gene donors hitting the age of sixty a few years ago, Arunika was unplanned and unwanted. But there's a silver lining in that fact: Arunika is free to escape the scrutiny of her mother until she notices that her daughter's disappeared. Not to mention she has a tablet far earlier, which means an earlier reprieve from her family, a more frequent talk with friends.

It's a double-edged sword. Thanatos knows that this mortal vessel is far too disabled to make sure she's got a proper offline-online balance...

...he doesn't need to think about its owner for now. He's knocked them unconscious for a reason. One of the reasons is sitting right here, deadnaming him constantly and while he's wracking his mind for the answers to this assignment.

Today's case study is a real case in their country of residence during colonial times, where different ethnicities were subject to different laws... a native person is tried for a crime, but he was framed by an immigrant from the neighboring country... All he has to do is roleplay the colonial government and then analyze what would have happened in the current day... He has opened a few research papers; skimmed them for what he needs; types what he can, but...

He's tired.

Thanatos cares for the child, he really does. But he's gotten 50% for a previous work, accused of using generative AI because he wrote the assignment in proper grammar and spelling. He's tried to make the "95% AI-generated" accusation leave his screen by making his work less formal, but all it does is knock five percent off the stupid, inaccurate, false-positive-laden detectors. At least the mortal's partner has compassion for him. To deny the accusations once and for all, he set up a literal screen recording that captures everything he does - scholarly databases for papers, e-textbooks, a plain old dictionary and an APA-7 guide. The dubstep is a bonus. A fuck-you, even.

You awful school system, Thanatos grumbles inwardly, furious hands raining down words on his document, if you didn't give us 7-14 assignments a week, fewer students would resort to cheating. Or hurting themselves.

The mortal has rewarded him for that 50% just yesterday...

.

.

.

"You cheating dumb cunt!" the mortal screamed, stabbing a sharp-nailed finger at his grade, "I'll get you for this! I'll fucking get you!"

The nails immediately moved to his wrists. Their wrists. Does it matter? Thanatos should let go of the body and let it fall, but he doesn't. He failed. He failed again. His legacy was defined by failure, first it was Sisyphus and next it was Herakles and then it was Keres and Hermes and now it was the mortal over and over and over-

Sensing his lack of fear, the mortal scratched harder - and that wrenched a scream out of his throat, their throat -

A slap on the right thigh.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

"A 50 is a grade you get for going to engineering school with my fucking trauma!" the mortal yelled. "I was bullied from kindergarten to the end of my stupid engineering school stint... and what do you have in comparison, pussy?!"

On the left thigh.

And another.

And another.

And another.

And another.

"Fucking fifty is not a grade for someone in humanities in a fucking major everyone goes to when they couldn't pass exams for STEM shit! If you don't want to use your brain, then here! I'll make sure you can't!"

The mortal slams their head on the wall. Again. And again. And again.

Thanatos's head throbs -

"Say something!" The mortal cries, tears pooling in their eyes, his eyes, as their hands go around their own neck and tightens, "Please say something!"

Their neck hurts. He lets go of the mortal's lungs and forces their body, forces himself, to lie down on the bed.

Their hands, his hands, move to their eyes, his eyes, and wipe the tears. "Say sorry, Theta-04!"

That name. That awful new name.

Thanatos tunes it out with a memory...

"You hereby surrender the blade that cuts through life's thread."

"Say sorry! How could you do this to me? I thought you wanted me to graduate!"

"You shall henceforth embrace a mortal upon their last breath."

"You won't even respond? What are you even saying? What shit poem is this?"

"And thus we pronounce you the God of Peaceful Death."

"Come on! Do better, Theta-04!"

Thanatos doesn't speak. He doesn't stop the mortal from slapping and scratching more of him.

"You wouldn't even give me a peaceful death..."

.

.

.

So, all Thanatos is left with is to nurse the consequences. And by "nurse", he means "do homework while babysitting because the deadline for this week's is tomorrow".

It's great.

Funnily enough, despite the headache, despite the red marks all over his covered skin, a part of him wishes that the mortal would make their body bleed. The greedy jaws of Death would not mind a sacrifice... and he does need an offering. Badly. He knows Hypnos is right and soon he won't be able to keep himself at a mortal-abiding size.

But he shouldn't.

The mortal always talks about themself as if they're cowardly for never drawing blood, for never hurting their own body badly enough that it'd get hospitalized. But why would they? Medical attention is not in the gene donors' dictionary. A certain event, taken from the mortal's vaults, plays in his mind.

.

.

.

They went home from the supermarket, dragging their pained feet to the front door with a large bag of groceries in each hand. Their knees ached with every step. Their head hurts from the sensory overload. Driving was equally hellish... They need to lie down...

They put the groceries down and knocked on the door.

"It's unlocked," a small, broken voice said.

"Nika," they breathed out.

They opened the door to see the 6-year-old sitting on the floor, tears running down her cheeks. Behind her was a trail of blood that... doesn't end. Holy shit. Holy fuck. Fuck, fuck, what have the parents done now-

They pulled the groceries in and locked the door and knelt in front of their sister, their little sister, oh gosh, oh fuck, they held her in their arms tightly, "What's wrong? What happened?"

Arunika held them tighter, squeezed them, pressed her small head onto their shoulder. "Nika broke the vase. The expensive one..."

The mortal looked at where the blood trail led to... of course. The living room. The expensive vase lied in painted shards...

"Where did you bleed from?"

"My foot..."

"I'll let go, okay? I need to look at your wound and I'll clean it and make it better." 

Arunika obediently scooted back and showed them the wound on the sole of her foot. It looked like a small cut, but hopefully it wasn't deep-

"Dad and Mom wanted Nika to clean the shards herself..." She glanced, full of guilt, at the mess. "They said Nika is clumsy and stupid and don't appreciate the money they give her to keep her alive..."

Fucking hell. They want to cry, too. How could any parent...

"Nika said, Nika's scared of walking on there," she continued, "they said it was Nika's own fault she put so many broken glass on the floor, so Nika waited for you to come home, but they don't wanna see Nika cry..."

"I'm sorry," they said softly, "I'm so sorry. I'm home now. I'm home."

Arunika looked at them with misty eyes.

The sperm donor's voice rang out with their deadname. "About time you went home! Your sister played ball in the living room and look what she's done!"

Arunika hugs them again. "I'm sorry..."

"I'll carry you to the bathroom," they cooed, "We'll clean the wound and dry it and then I'll get bandages in the car... and I'll clean the floor, don't worry..."

.

.

.

The memory plays in his mind sometimes. The mortal's heart pounding against their ribcage as they opened the door. Arunika's blood. Her cries fading into hiccups. Her tiny hands on their back, face on their shoulder.

Thank the Fates it was only a surface wound...

...oh, god (the god is himself).

He's crying.

The screen in front of him is blurry now, so he wipes his tears with the back of his hands, and then his T-shirt. Arunika doesn't deserve it. Even the mortal doesn't deserve it.

"Should I leave?"

Thanatos looks up to see Arunika asking him that question. Laid next to her is her tablet, showing a video with some familiar characters...

"You don't have to," Thanatos says. He takes a sip of his drink from the water bottle on the corner of the bed. Then, he points at her screen. "What's that?"

She shows the screen to him: TURN YOUR HOUSE INTO FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZERIA!

Some FNAF fan-song that he doesn't recognize plays while a bunch of teenagers make crafts based on the games: posters of the animatronics, children's drawings, paper plates, banners saying "Let's eat!" and "Let's party!", the Freddy mask that can deter enemies, and even the meme desk fan. There's also some cardboard art, peeking out from behind closet doors, outside windows, under the bed-

Damn, these kids are creative!

"We should make these sometime," Arunika says coyly.

Thanatos grins at her. "I can do you one better. We should make these today."

Arunika gasps. "REALLY?!"

"Yeah, really!" Thanatos replies. "I'm bored of homework anyway. Let's have fun."

Stars shine in her big eyes. Beaming, she says, "I'll get the materials!", and zooms downstairs.

Thanatos smiles and loosens his shoulders. He turns off the dubstep playlist and the screen recording. Next, he saves his work and closes all the tabs. And finally, he turns the laptop off and puts it on the desk.

The homework can wait... 

Arunika returns with a cardboard box full of stuff. A tower of paper plates and rolls of colored paper can be seen from Thanatos' vantage point. He sits the floor, using pillows to make his back comfortable, and she follows suit, sans pillows. Together, they take out everything inside the box:

• A pencil case; opened, it's full of crayons from multiple brands
• Another pencil case with markers from multiple brands
• A 12-color watercolor paint set
• Paintbrushes of many sizes
• Scissors, two large and one small
• Clear glue
• Glue stick
• Clear tape in two sizes
• Paper plates
• An unopened pack of origami in all the colors; they're new!

Thanatos looks up "FNAF room decoration" on his phone's de-enshittified search engine. He does the same with her tablet. Birthday banners, paper pals, kids' vaguely creepy art of the animatronics, polished animatronic art, posters made by SFM artists with their 3-D model prowess, pizza slices made out of paper plates...

He turns the screen towards her and asks, "What are you interested in?"

"There's a lot of choice here... what do you think?"

"I like the jumpscare stuff," Thanatos says, pointing at the paper animatronic peeking behind doors. "We can put it behind the curtains on my window."

"So you get jumpscared every time you open the curtains!" Arunika's eyes widen, bright as the sun. She flaps her hands and smiles. "Awesome!"

"Which animatronic do you want to make?"

"Let's do..." She pauses to scroll down on her tablet screen, looking at all the options. Through six main installments and other games and books, Thanatos bets the choices were overwhelming. He looks at his own phone...

These animatronics were quite hard to draw, with the joints and plates. He would welcome the challenge, but knowing Arunika, she would want the easiest one. He finds himself wistful. From his trips to the mortal's memory banks, they would've chosen the most ambitious projects in childhood and teenagehood, their own skills be damned. The snail-shaped sock puppet... the date clock... the many stories... the Impossible Quiz-like on their notebooks, complete with paper puzzles... One would improve if they do things above their skill ceiling, after all. Maybe he should challenge their sister!

So, he looks towards the supposed star of the franchise. He thinks Freddy wouldn't be so hard, but definitely more challenging than, say, the paper plates... the cardboard are brown, so all they need to do was make the plates and stick them to each other. They only need to paint the joints gray, the eyes blue, and the hat and bow tie black. He shows her picture of the animatronic bear and suggests,

"Why don't we make Freddy?"

"Can we make the Puppet?"

Oh, wow.

Thanatos looks at the picture she shows him, and that is definitely not a challenge. No robotic joints or face plates, just a creepy face with a spindly body. But it is creepier... so maybe it's a better jumpscare? He doesn't play FNAF or watch the Let's Plays. That was the mortal's pastime back in 2017.

"What if we made both?" Thanatos offers. "Freddy doesn't even need much paint."

Arunika's face scrunches. "Two jumpscares on one little window?"

Thanatos hums... and he knows where the other one should be. He stands up and opens the door of his wardrobe. "One on the window, one inside here."

She pouts. Her head shifts forward to look closer at their closet... filled with clothes neither Thanatos nor the mortal liked.

"There?" She points at the inside.

"Here," Thanatos says, pointing at the door's backside, which holds a full length mirror. "It wouldn't be a direct jumpscare, it'll only catch me if I look at it."

Arunika raises her eyebrows. "You want to be jumpscared when your guard is down?"

Thanatos grins and closes the door, which makes her sit down on her previous spot again. "That's the point, isn't it?"

"True."

And so, one death god and one ten-year-old girl begin the FNAFication of a plain old bedroom.

"Freddy is so hard to draw," Arunika complains as she drags her pencil on the cardboard's surface. Her tablet screen shows a Freddy as a reference. The drawing, for now, is still a curve with no identifiable goal. "Can I just draw the Puppet?"

Thanatos suppresses a sigh, pausing his current endeavor - drawing the Puppet's mask on a piece of paper. Arunika lacks challenge. She needs to challenge her brain. Her art skills. Who taught her to give up so easily?

Her parents, duh, a stray thought answers, A kid who gets punished for the slightest failure will always take the easiest, unfailable road.

"It could've been worse," Thanatos jokes, "Foxy is the one who actually jumpscares us from the closet, right? We could be drawing him instead."

"Which Foxy?"

"FNAF 4... Nightmare, I think."

She looks up Nightmare Foxy on her tablet and gives him the most bombastic side-eye. "I am not drawing that!"

"I could do it sometime," Thanatos says, "You're welcome to help."

"No, thanks," she huffs.

It's playful, he guesses. So he just chuckles to himself, before continuing the Puppet's mask. When the lines are done, he takes the plastic glass to the bathroom sink and fills it with water. When he comes back, she has thankfully drawn Freddy's head.

He sits down to take a paintbrush, dip it in water, and then the black paint. "That Freddy head looks good!"

"Thank you," Arunika replies. "How about the arms?"

"Just draw them in sections," Thanatos replies. He points at the hand and circles every section of the robot bear's arms. "And the body, you can just draw half. I'm not drawing the Puppet's full body either."

"But it's so much!"

Come on, Arunika, please... "I'll draw one arm, you can draw the other." 

Arunika's stance goes straight, a new resolve invigorating her. She looks for a piece of cardboard that would be big enough for Freddy's arms and hands. Thanatos thanks her and makes his section. She copies them right after.

"Aw yes!" Thanatos cheers. "See, you're good at it!"

She looks at him with her cute, big eyes.

He beams. "It's true! Just cut and paste them. We can make the joints from cardboard squares painted grey."

"Okay."

Satisfied with her work, Thanatos finishes painting the Puppet's mask and begins to make its lanky body.

"We have all these paper plates here," Arunika pipes up by the time Thanatos is painting the Puppet's torso.

"And?"

"And we haven't even made the paper pals yet! They're probably the easiest to make and we can put them wherever. We can also make pizza?"

"We so can," Thanatos agrees. He quickens his painting so he can do just that. "When you're done drawing and cutting Freddy's parts, we can rest a bit and then do stuff with these paper plates."

Arunika looks up from her work with a frown. "Rest? That's boring."

"We gotta eat something, I'm hungry," Thanatos says, drawing the buttons of the Puppet on a sheet of paper, before tracing them on a piece of cardboard, sticking them, and cutting them out, "We can make sandwiches. Or you can eat lunch, if you haven't."

"I ate at school," she replies, "let's have the sandwiches."

"Sounds good to me."

Thanatos smiles, then, he cuts the cardboard buttons and sticks them on the Puppet's torso. Next, he glues its head on its neck. It's a small neck, so it's a bit flimsy, but it won't matter when he sticks it in the wardrobe mirror. Now he only needs to make the Puppet's arms, which is... not an easy task. Should he make it a folded accordion like the paper pals instead?

He asks Arunika just that.

She's cutting out the arm sections... "No, let's do what you want."

"Okay."

The sun peeking from outside the window plunges down into reds and oranges, before it turns purple, then blue. Thanatos and Arunika went downstairs to make some sandwiches. When they return, they turn on the bedroom lights; Arunika closes the curtains.

Outside, the sky washes with darkness, murky clouds and light pollution blocking the view of the stars and moon. Under the veil of Night, the two not-siblings sticks their homemade jumpscares behind the curtains and on the wardrobe mirror. Pizza pieces on the walls, surrounding the pictures of fictional- and mythological-Thanatos from every media and historical thing conceivable. A little funny, wasn't it. Arunika sticks a slice on the gaping skeletal mouth of a Grim Reaper-like interpretation of himself.

"You think the Grim Reaper deserves some pizza?" Thanatos asks.

Arunika looks at him like he'd gone mad. "Everyone deserves pizza."

"True." He nodded. "The Grim Reaper must be exhausted, reaping all those souls... They must be hungry."

And just in time, too - the flesh vessel's stomach rumbles.

Thanatos doubles over in laughter. Maybe he can finish the assignment tonight.