Eros needed to stall, but he didn’t know what for. In his experience, Death left people dead in the dust, and the man wasn’t the kind to save anyone. Thanatos wasn’t coming back, but he did have that weapon.

Eros didn’t know how to stall. He could accompany Loki while Loki led the campaign, but alone, Eros didn’t know how to do it. He was more of a get it done and over with kind of person.

They were fucked, Eros thought. No, not fucked. Eros was a Primordial God, for fuck’s sake. Eros made other gods cower just by existing. He could do this. He had to do this.

“You know… Loki made a good point. You fated us here. If we were fated to be in Tartarus, I think you would have sent us there already. Unless you really are lonely and just wanted to have someone to talk to for a bit. I can fix that for you, your loneliness. Not as a bribe for freedom, but merely out of pity. You. Are. Pathetic. This whole charade is a carrot to lead us where you want. Come on, nieces, tell Uncle Eros what you want. I am the god of desires. What do you really want?”

“To put you in your place.”

The three Fates broke out of their line and began to drift apart to surround them. Atropos was getting closer to Loki than Eros would like.

“This is just a shake down then. So, you’re not going to send us to Tartarus, because you can’t. If you send too many of us to Tartarus, the gods will start thinking about throwing you down there.“ Eros laughed.

“It is a balancing act. Come, silly child of Venus-”

“I am Primordial, and it will do you well to remember that!” Eros raised his marble-cut jaw.

Atropos hovered over Loki.

“Leave him alone!” he cried, but she grinned as she plucked a hair out of Loki’s head, and hid it in the folds of her robe.

“This dark hour is a solemn reminder of our power.”

“Though, it is true, we may not imprison two.”

“The hole in Tartarus is fit only for one of you,”

“..and one, my love, is much more fun.”

“You will pledge faith to our command, or your new lover will be eternally damned.”

Dry lips caressed his ear, “Eternity is a very long time, Primordial.”

“What do you mean there is a hole in Tartarus? A vacancy? Did someone escape?” Eros sneered.

“Indeed. The son has found his way home...”

The phrasing rang out prophetically in Eros’s ears, and the Fates smiled down on him.

A rock sank in his stomach. Each strange prophecy- the one from Hypnos, the eccentric verses from Josanna. They had come straight from the Fates. The Fates had led him to this precise moment. They wanted him here. He knew he was trapped.

Eros swallowed, knowing what was to come would lift the veil off of all their deception, all the ways he was led here, and all the ways he was fucked.

“The son of whom?” he asked.

“Death.”

The world fell silent.

The puzzle clicked together in his mind. He raised his hand to cover the despair crossing his face.

The boy wasn’t Thanatos’s secret weapon.

He was the Fates’ secret weapon.

This had little to do with him and Loki. This was about Thanatos.

They always knew Thanatos would be likely to challenge them, so they installed a landmine for when he crossed the line.

Something Thanatos did had triggered this entire chain of events.

Death had a son.

The boy in his basement was his son.

Loki was right. Thanatos would never forgive himself if he killed a child, let alone his own son.

The Fates were always pulling the strings. Always. It was all just a blasted game. There was no point in fighting a rigged system. It was best just to play along.

So, he wouldn’t be a Primordial again. So what? At least he would still be with Loki. And most of all, Loki wouldn’t be locked up in Tartarus for all eternity, and Death wouldn’t be responsible both for that, and for having destroyed his only child. That was a hell Eros wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy.

“What say you?”

“What will you do?”

“Will you let your lover finish his fall?”

“Will you let your old friend torture his only son?”

“To beat us?”

“To win your free will?”

“We cannot be outrun.”

“Not by love or by chaos.”

“We cannot be undone.”

“Not by weapons or by Death.”

“We created this game of chess.”

“Fine!” Eros tensed. “Fine. I’ll do as you ask. Just let Loki and I go, and I’ll inform Thanatos of his poor choice of weapon, which I assume is what you want.”

He offered them the book still in his hands, a sign of good faith.

Clotho snatched it from his grasp.

“Good boy.”

“We’re glad you see it our way.”

“We’re glad you’re deciding to behave.”

“Now, do as we say.”

They turned from him.

But, free will was something he was getting better at.

He had a sudden thought and changed his mind. For good or ill, Eros summoned one last hope.

“Wait! If you give me back Loki’s hair I’ll give you back the Bowl of Fate.”

They paused for an agonizing moment.

Loki still lay unconscious in the dust, the weight of the universe weakening the giant more and more each second.

Finally they turned back around.

“That is an awfully big trade,”

“...for an awfully small hair.”

“I would feel safer if you didn’t have a tie to him, and you would feel better if I didn’t have the Bowl of Fate.”

Lekhesis said, “We will return the hair and your lover when we have received the Bowl.”

“No. I’m taking Loki with me. You have his hair, your book, my surrender. What more will you need?”

“We’re glad you’re deciding to behave.”

“Now, do as we say.”

The three Fates lowered their heads and raised their arms, and Eros found himself outside Loki’s townhome.

He stormed inside and crumpled to the floor, screaming in despair and rage. Eros shook with wrath and terror. He wanted to break something, but everything there was too expensive. This was a horrible way to stall, but it was the only thing he could think of. He had to call Thanatos and figure out what to do next.

He got up from the floor and ripped out his cell phone. He dialed 4.

The bored voice on the other line said, “We appreciate you for calling Grim Enterprises. How may I direct your call?”

He tried to steady his shaking voice, “Thanatos, please.”

“My apologies. He is unavailable. Would you like me to leave a message?”

Eros screamed into the microphone and furiously, repetitively jabbed his finger on the red button to end the call. He wished he had a receiver to slam. Loki had been right. There was immense satisfaction in hanging up on someone.

He paced back and forth in five foot increments. Loki’s house was too cluttered and congested to pace in longer distances than that. Eros ran his fingers through his hair. He ran his hands over his face. Thinking. Thinking.

There were a million weapons here, and not a damn one of them worked! The Bowl of Fate was useless without the very voices of the Fates, and like hell was he going to give that up. Loki would kill him.

“Think. Think,” he ordered himself.

He could just give them what they wanted. He could hope that Thanatos had tortured the very soul out of his son to use as a weapon, but that was immoral as piss, and Eros would not allow himself to think on it further.

“What would Loki do? Get distracted and find something else to do.” But, that answer wasn’t the real Loki- the trickster, the deceiver, the manipulator. “He’d get them to open the bottle for him!” Eros chuckled hysterically to himself as an idea began to form.

He ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He tore into the office, and skidded to a sudden stop just inside the doorway.

There was a boy standing there, staring deep into the depths of the ruby red bottle on the desk.

“Who are you?”

The boy looked over at him. He blinked the tears from his eyes and flashed him an honest smile. “I don’t know. I’m trying to remember.”

Eros looked around the office, “How did you get in here? This place is… guarded.”

The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Yeah. Uh, I don’t know.” His eyes drifted back to the bottle. “I have all these memories that don’t- My mind is scrambled eggs.” He moved his shaking fingers to his temples, and they searched around in his hairline like he was hoping to find something there.

Eros cautiously stepped up to him.

The strange boy continued, “We’re trying to remember the same thing. You and me. We’re both locked up in our heads as if we’re safer in there. But we’re not…” The boy wrapped his arms around himself. “It’s all hell in there. But we escaped before. We can do it again.”

The boy was anxiously rocking back and forth with his arms wrapped around himself. Eros reached up gently to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, but the boy cowered away.

“Don’t be afraid,” Eros said cautiously.

“How can I not!” the boy snapped. “You’re terrifying. Desires ruin people. Desires eat people away from the inside out. You’re a parasite, and you’re inside of me!” His fingers went to his temples again. “I don’t want to want. I don’t want to wish. I don’t wish to know what it is I want. It hurts.” His fingers moved to his chest and started scratching.

The child hyperventilated and tried to swallow.

Eros took a small step towards him. “Focus on me. Focus on me. Flex your fingers.”

He did as he was commanded.

“Now, take a breath.” Eros said.

He did as he was told, and he managed to calm down.

“Good. Now, I have no idea what you’ve been through-”

“Yes, you do.” The boy stepped aggressively up to him. “You were there too. I am breaking through my walls, and now I’m here to help you break through yours.”

“Help me? The parasite?” Eros gave a self deprecating laugh.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he looked so fucking sad, man.” said the boy.

“Who?” Eros asked.

“The man in the white suit.”

Eros’s brows narrowed.

This was Death’s son. His cold green eyes matched Thanatos’s left eye, but otherwise he looked nothing like him. The boy had darker hair and skin, while Death was so pale.

The boy inhaled sharply. “You and I are both going to remember who we are and then… we’re going to handle our shit.”

Eros stepped forward with an eerie calm, “Is that what you want?”

The boy’s nostrils flared.

Desire peered down at him with devouring eyes. “I am not a parasite. I am the spark of creation. I am the fuel behind all actions. Gods and humanity fear me because they fear themselves. They beat me down like they beat their own desires down into manageable submission. They limit me so as to limit their own potential. They have been taught to fear their own power, my power, because of its unknowable reach, because Heaven forbid people actually acknowledge what they truly want and let revelations happen!”

Death’s son flashed a crooked smile, “I guess it’s working then.”

“What ’s working?” Eros spat.

“Your walls are crumbling down.”

“Of course they’re down! I’m pissed. I’m angry.” He remembered Loki asking him how long he could stay angry for, and laughed at the irony.

“I grant wishes…,” the boy said strangely. He no longer seemed to fit inside his own body, like he was bigger than his body. “I grant desires. But, people wish for the wrong things all the time. You’re right. People don’t know what they want… I know what they want. What I want. What you want.”

The boy was pulling at his ragged clothes, feeling the buttons, constantly fidgeting as he spoke. It reminded Eros of the way Hypnos paced and played with the random objects he found.

The boy’s eyes were searching the floor. “The Jinni I wished free, the little girl with the doll house, the actor, the faery prince, the Sage who set me free, and a million other masters. They all wanted the same thing. They all wanted to be loved. But, not by others. People could shower them with love, and it would never be enough. Do you know what people want most, Desire?”

Eros scoffed, feeling annoyed at being lectured about his own game. “No. Suppose not.”

Death’s son looked up and flashed him a knowing grin, “I think you do.” He began to wring his hands, and he continued, “People want to be able to love themselves. And they always think they can if they just level up. Get that promotion. The mansion on Main St. Lose those last five pounds. They trick themselves into thinking they’ll love themselves if they were just a little bit different…” He was digging his fingertips into his scalp again. “And its a fucking abusive relationship, dude. Fucking abusive.”

The boy who was not a boy walked away tapping on his temples. “I’m guilty of it too. And you’re right. If people actually loved themselves, the whole damn game would change- a revelation. But not only can people not love themselves, they hate themselves, and it’s an unforgivable sin. One that you can never quite wash your hands of, and facing that, facing yourself, and your own self-imprisoned desire, is fucking terrifying.”

Eros looked down at the ground, ironically hating himself. The boy was right. Eros was wasting his potential on self-loathing.

“And the gods do it too! They’re no better! That is why they destroyed you. The Fates couldn’t control you, so they twisted you all up so you couldn’t love yourself, or trust yourself, and they locked you away-”

“No.” Eros shook his head.

The air in the room grew heavy.

The boy began to say things that there was no way he could know. No way unless he had been there at the beginning of time, “They locked you away in Tartarus too,” the boy began, “and none of your friends could stop them. In fact… your friends helped them lock you up.”

“Stop it.”

“Thanatos and Hypnos helped them lock you away in a tiny little room inside your own mind, the Red Room. Tartarus wasn’t strong enough to hold you on his own, Primordial. The only thing that was strong enough to imprison you was you.”

“You’re wrong.” The room was suddenly spinning, and the blur was turning different shades of red.

“It wasn’t that hard for your friends to lock you up. You scared them too. When Hypnos and Thanatos were one being, they couldn’t reconcile each other- the desires of logic and the desires of dream. It was a war inside their head, so they split it in half. And they locked you away in a room inside your own head they made, wrapped up in a pretty, hazy fantasy, high on dream dust, while, really, you were actually in chains in Tartarus.”

The office fell away and Eros was in a tiny red room. A wave of lightheadedness nearly toppled him to the floor, but he managed to catch onto the wall and remain upright. The wall was soft, swallowing his fingers like memory foam. His polished shoes sank into the floor. Everything was cushioned, spongey, comfortable, like a dream.

He heard the boy’s voice echo through his mind. “They volunteered to do it- to try to protect you. They were stalling. To keep you safe long enough for Thanatos to argue your case. But, Hypnos found a way to make it look like you escaped yourself. Claimed you were too strong to be locked up.”

Eros sank to the squishy red floor. His breath was heavy, his peripheral vision blurring, and his heart was racing. The walls were still pulsing from pink to deep wine red and back.

The boy continued, “It’s a prison inside a prison. That’s what they did to me too. And we made it out. But only part of you escaped… Until now.”

The Red Room vanished. Eros took in a deep breath, and found himself suddenly back in Loki’s office, lying on the floor with the strange boy who was so much more than a boy, crouched next to him. The boy’s cold green eyes were prying into him.

Eros backed away. “What the bloody hell was that?”

“I broke through your mental blocks. You had to remember.”

Ancient memories were slipping in from the back of Eros’s mind. Feelings, forgotten long ago, reared their heads and shook off their dust.

“See,” The boy stood, “even you’re scared of me. I’m scared of me. I didn’t know I could do any of this. I can alter reality. I can change everything-,” he snapped his fingers, “-like that. What can you do?”

Eros lay on the floor, propped up on his elbows and looking into the eyes of Death’s son.

With a new sense of self-awareness, Eros stood, brushed himself off, and straightened his suit and cufflinks. “I can show them what they’re afraid of,” he said, matter of factly. “I can show them love.”

After a long glance, they both laughed despite themselves.

The boy moved to sit down in the desk chair, and he resumed looking into the red bottle. He folded his arms on the desk and laid his chin on top. “Love’s a powerful thing. I-,” the boy swallowed, “would really like to know what it’s like someday.”

Eros acknowledged that desire but stowed it away for later. He turned and looked through the boxes until he found the crate containing the Bowl of Fate.

He removed the lid of the crate and carefully pulled the bowl from the wood wool, as if he was taking a hot pot out of the oven. Eros decided he was no longer afraid of the Bowl, and he put it under his arm like a football.

“Well, that was an… insightful conversation. Now, I have to go save my boyfriend,” he cleared his throat, “and probably afterwards apologize to my ex-wife for literally everything, and then come back here for a long mental breakdown.”

The boy chuckled, “I didn’t know mental breakdowns could run on a schedule.”

“Mine do.”

“That is impressive.”

Eros saw that the boy’s hands, now folded neatly on the desk, were trembling.

“Did you want to take that with you?” Eros asked, referring to the bottle.

“Nah.” The boy stood, “I can’t, or maybe I can now, but I wasn’t able to touch that thing before. And I’m worried if I touch it- it will swallow me. Plus, I’m not even really here. I’m in my head. I’m actually strapped to a slab in some guy’s basement, so…”

“We’ll get you out of there,” Eros reassured him.

The boy shrugged, “Everything’s temporary. And besides, there doesn’t seem to be any room in your schedule for that.”

With that, the boy stuck his hands in his pockets and limped towards the door.

“I’ll make time.” Eros said.

The boy smiled his crooked smile. “The blond man seems like the kind to… Let’s just say that even though I’m not a Jinni anymore, if you freed me, I think he’d make you take my place.”

“We’ll see. I might know a thing or two about his real desires.” Eros grinned at the boy, who shrugged.

“Well. I wish you luck in saving your boyfriend, and with your mental breakdown, of course.”

“That means a lot coming from you. Right?”

“Yeah, it does,” the boy confirmed.

The son of Death disappeared.