snippet Sunday
I've been working on an AU of my AU where PatZag is a thing that happens.
Zagreus’s face above him breaks Patroclus’s view of Asphodel’s ceiling and completely ruins his counting of all the small stalactites hanging down. He’ll never figure out where he was in his progress now. Zagreus waves.
He’d already known the boy was there, but perhaps Zagreus felt he would be less likely to be ignored if he stood right next to Patroclus’s supine shade, burning toes almost touching him, and hovered over his field of vision.
He sighs, though he should be grateful for the interruption. He’ll have to start over now, which will while away just a bit more time of his lonely, empty afterlife. Zagreus has provided him with something to do.
“Patroclus, sir,” Zagreus asks, one eye seeming to reflect the heat of the magma and the other painfully human. He used to be woken up by a pair of green eyes every day, equally desiring of his attention. Patroclus focuses on the red eye. “Have you ever considered, um, languishing, I guess, in a different spot? A better one?”
He has not. “I think immobility is a foundational aspect of languishing.”
“You’d certainly know better than I would,” Zagreus hedges, and his tone is all Patroclus needs to know his day or night is going to get a lot more bothersome and a lot less immobile. He wonders if Zagreus would stoop to throwing Patroclus over his shoulders if it came to it. He clearly has the muscles for it. “But, well, I’ve seen a lot of Asphodel, and there are better places than this. In fact…” he hesitates, as if offending Patroclus in a way that matters is something that could happen. “I talked to another friend of mine in Asphodel about it. With her help, I found an empty apartment. A nice one. With furniture and… fewer rocks on fire.”
Patroclus has no use for furniture, and no opinions on the flammability of rocks, but if the boy wants to feel helpful, he can’t find a reason to deny him that. He doesn’t much care where he “languishes,” so long as he will be left to it.
“As you wish, stranger.”