FicWad

I sighed when she stared out the window curiously at me as I backed out. I threw my bag next to my books in the passenger seat and headed off down the street, my music growing louder. I reached the coffee shop right at five. I came in to see him seated at a table in the back. He caught my eye as I stepped in, but I stopped at the counter to get a hot cocoa before sitting across from him.
“Evening,” he said without smiling.
“Hello. So I searched this Thanatos guy and he sounds okay, but are you sure you wanna study up on him?”
“Yeah. He and I have a lot in common.”
I stared at him funny for a second, then just shook my head and pulled my literature book onto the table. I flipped it open, rifling through its thin pages. “I don’t know if he’s in here, but doesn’t hurt to—“
“He’s not,” he said, flipping the book shut on my fingers. “Here.” He pulled a laptop out of his bag and typed something in, then scooted closer to show me. I focused on the screen. He’d pulled up Google and was scrolling through the links that came up when he searched “Thanatos.”
“So Thanatos was a minor god, and thus he’d be at the back of the list…”
He found the name and clicked it. The page I’d found earlier popped up, and he started scrolling through it, more for himself than for me.
“So what do you have in common with Thanatos?” I asked.
He was silent for a while before finally saying, “It’s complicated.”
I wanted to ask him more, but the look he gave me made me stop dead. “So this thing has to be ten pages long. What are we gonna talk about?” he asked without looking at me.
“Um…well, what do you think Thanatos’s personality would have been like?”
“Sad. Bringing death to that many people must have sucked. Unless he thought he was doing them a favor. But I don’t think so. Think about having to control who dies and when, every second of every day. Forcing them to leave this world, leave their families to mourn them, leave everything behind. Destroying lives. No one would ever enjoy that. And then to be unable to change anything…”
I had a weird feeling we weren’t talking about Thanatos anymore.
“What a sad life Thanatos must have had…or so I think he would.”
I watched him as he gazed at the laptop without really seeing it. I felt like I should try to comfort him somehow, maybe take his hand, I didn’t know. Just something.
“But he was the twin brother of sleep. So wouldn’t that mean he was just, for once, bringing them peace, if only for a little while before going to the Underworld?” I asked.
He turned to me then, an odd look crossing his face. “Bringing peace to whom? The one dying or the ones left behind?”
“The ones dying.”
“Then what of those left behind? And what if the person dying already has peace?”
“What if the person dying only thinks they have peace?”
The silence that followed was suddenly broken by the ringing of my phone in my coat pocket. I dug it out and hit the green button. “Yeah?”
“Come home,” my mom said. “Dinner’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
I got up. “Well this was fun. I’ll text you, okay?”
“Where are you going?” he asked, almost looking like he didn’t want me to go.
“I gotta go eat dinner. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow. I really gotta go. If I’m late I’m dead. Bye.” I turned and left the shop before he could call me back.




Author's note!
Okay so I rarely write any of these, but I just wanna say thanks to anyone who's reading and enjoying the story. And if you're reading but not enjoying it, well, no one likes you anyway! (kidding!)

But seriously. The positive feedback for this makes me get all excited and stuff. Because I was very, very skeptical of this when I was writing and I had no idea anyone at all would read it and like it. Hell, I had no idea anyone would like any of my stories! So keep up the reviews. I love getting them. And if you're facing summer boredom and have nothing to do, go ahead and read my other stories. It would be much appreciated. :D Thanks, love you, bye!