FicWad

He had a nice house. It towered like an old-fashioned mansion over the dull surrounding landscape, gothic and beautiful. I climbed out of the car, staring open-mouthed at it. Ivy crawled up the walls, accenting the white paint underneath perfectly.
“Like it?” he asked, coming around the car.
I jumped. I hadn’t realized he was even out of the car. “Yeah. It’s gorgeous.”
He smiled. “I’m sure it appreciates your approval.”
I turned my stare at him then. I’d heard him laugh. More than once. But usually, it was just a hollow mockery of the emotion that is happiness, and aimed at me. And now here he was, smiling a real smile. I liked the look for him more than I was willing to admit to myself.
“Shall we?” he asked, gesturing to the front door. I nodded mutely and followed him under the arching doorway and into his castle. The place literally had a medieval feel inside. Stone walls, a fire roaring in the living room, perfect for a king to stand over, rubbing his head and wondering what he’s going to do about the newest problem arising in his kingdom. I still had wide, glassy eyes as I stared around. “My room’s upstairs,” he said. “We can work up there or down here.”
I glanced around one last time. I was slightly afraid of being down here. It was starting to give me the creeps in its authenticity. “Let’s go upstairs,” I mumbled, shivering. He led me up the winding stairs into a more modern-looking level. His room was at the end of the hall.
Okay, this place definitely didn’t give me the creeps. In fact, it was awesome. Black walls, red painted splattered across them to give the impression that they’re dripping blood, black comforter on the bed, flat screen TV, books everywhere. I picked one up off the desk by the door and read the title: Alice in Wonderland.
“Respect the classics,” he said, plucking it out of my hands and tossing it under the bed.
“I never liked that book much.”
“I did. It reminds me of a simpler time.” He suddenly looked like he’d said too much. Shaking his head, he sat at the desk and opened his laptop. “Pull up a chair,” he said.
I grabbed one from in front of the TV and dragged it up next to his. Grabbing my notebook, I read over our notes from yesterday. “We got basically everything about him…except his love interests,” I said, scanning the page.
“I don’t think he had any.”
“He had to. All the gods do. Everyone does at some point in their lives.”
He glanced at me in a weird way, as if I’d just said something so sad, yet so true. I reached over him and clicked on an interesting looking link. What I read next freaked me out:
Thanatos might be poetically called the brother of HYPNOS (Sleep) and the son of Nyx but no matter how you describe him, he is a creature of bone chilling darkness. From on high, HELIOS (the Sun) never casts his light on Death.
Hypnos goes kindly among the mortals but, his brother, Thanatos has a heart made of pitiless iron. When he takes hold of you, the world of light ceases to be.
Gerard gasped next to me, frantically hitting the back button, exiting out of the page.
“Hey! I was reading that!” I complained, trying to open the page back up.
“I…I…I can’t read that.” He looked sad.
“Why not?” I knew I was hitting a rough subject. Something he knew better than to talk about. But I was mad he’d exited out of what I had found and was interested in reading. And I had to know what his problem was. I was tired of his moodiness, the way he was hiding something big and wouldn’t talk about it.
“It’s personal.”
I rolled my eyes. “Who am I gonna tell?”
The look he gave me wasn’t far from a glare. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” I challenged. “I gotta know what’s up with you. It’s confused me from Day 1.”
“Just a mistake, made long ago. Doesn’t matter anymore. There’s nothing to be done to change it.”
I stared at him, trying to convey nonverbally that this wasn’t over.
“Nothing here says Thanatos ever had a love interest,” he said then, drawing my attention back to the screen.
“How is that possible? That’s not how Greek mythology works. There’s always gotta be some love affair, someone perfect for that god or goddess, and they always go to extreme lengths to reach that person. It adds drama and pulls in the listeners, and helps to create more gods of more things.”
“Maybe love just wasn’t gonna fit in Death’s story,” he said, meeting my eyes.
I found myself leaning closer. “Shouldn’t it always fit?”
“Sometimes it doesn’t.”
“Maybe he just didn’t find the right girl.”
“Maybe he just didn’t want to do something stupid and get hurt.”
“Sometimes it’s worth it to do something stupid.”
“Sometimes it’s not.”
“Are you reluctant to take that chance?”
“Very.”
Our faces were inches from each other. We had been so absorbed in what we were saying we didn’t realize how close we were getting. We stared at each other for a minute, wondering what to do next. I knew he was trying to decide if it was okay to kiss me, just as I was wondering the same about him.
“Do you have a date to the dance in two weeks?” I asked softly.
He shook his head.
“Wanna go with me?”
“Sure.”
Phase one of my mission: complete.