Adventuretimefantic's drafts and oneshots

Sleeping beauty (zagnos)

Fandom: Hades (game)
Ship: Zagnos
Oneshot/unfinished story: first few chapter of a potential story
Synopsis: taking place over the course of the second game, a zagnos centric look into why Hypnos is in his coma. Written before the Olympic update came out.

Ch 1

Zagreus dragged himself from the bloodied waters, shaking it from his hair and stumbling to his feet. Another death, another witty remark from Hypnos- or not? When Zagreus looked up and down the hall, the sleepy god he'd come to enjoy the playful jabs about his deaths from wasn't there. Not too unusual, he did get some breaks after all. So, Zagreus continued on. Making his rounds of the house saying hello to everyone. Although he quickly noticed something seemed... off. Everyone was rather tense, like they were just waiting for him to realise something he was completely missing.

When he turned the corner to talk to Nyx, he found she was already occupied with Thanatos. He hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should just walk by and not intrude or if it was ok to join the conversation. But they sensed his presence first, and turned to face him with a rather stressed expression. And notably... a bruise on Thanatos' right cheek.

"Than, what happened? What's going on? Everyone is acting weird" Zagreus asked.

Nyx gave her son a look, pushing him to explain himself.

"Hypnos and I we... we got into a fight-" Thanatos replied.

Zagreus was silent for a moment, stunned when he realised that bruise... was from Hypnos.

"What? Hypnos? We're talking about Hypnos here? I don't think I've ever seen him run let alone fight someone" Zagreus replied.

"It's a long story, one I don't want to waste time talking about. But... if you see him, report to us" Thanatos said.

Death promptly vanished, teleporting away seemingly in a bad mood and wanting space. Nyx sighed, stressed and somewhat disappointed.

"The twins have been... at odds for a while now. It seems Hypnos finally reached a breaking point. I don't know how it started, neither of them will tell me. But by the time I arrived they were practically trying to kill each other. Hypnos ran off... I haven't seen him since" Nyx explained.

"I just... I can't see Hypnos ever becoming violent. What on earth would set him off that badly?" Zagreus asked.

"I don't know, Thanatos seems to but he won't admit it. He's always been painfully stubborn... and Hypnos... I've never seen him like that either, he seemed more sad than angry. All I could do was push them apart before anyone got even more hurt, and he ran before I could stop him"

Clearly, something big had happened. Zagreus wasn't fully aware of the Chthonic families drama, but he did know from talking to the twins over his escape attempts, that there'd been some tension between them. Hypnos clearly loved his brother dearly, despite how cold Thanatos could be at times. Seeing Thanatos with an injury that Hypnos caused? That felt like seeing a fish walk on land. Completely foreign and shocking.

Thanatos once told Zagreus, that he should tread carefully and not interfere with peoples personal matters unless they asked for help. But the situation at hand felt too out of character for Zagreus to ignore.

"Well... if I see Hypnos, I'll come tell you" Zagreus said.

"That is appreciated, child. Resolving this issue is best done sooner rather than later" Nyx replied.

The prince had to push the concern aside for a while, because he had other important things to do around the house. For one, check up on his heavily pregnant mother. To say Zagreus was overjoyed when he found out he was going to be a brother was an understatement, he was practically bouncing off the walls. Persephone, queen of the underworld was to bare a daughter by the name Melinoe. She'd arrive any day now, so Zagreus had been quite antsy. He wasn't sure if he should go out on any runs just in case he missed the brith. He... obviously didn't want to see it happen and all, that was his own mother who'd be half dressed giving birth. But he wanted to be there the second it was over and the baby was in his mothers arms. So he wandered into the gardens where his mother was sat weaving a babies socks from wool. Just in case this child came out without the flaming feet, those little toes had to stay warm.