Bottom of the Bottle
“This is bad.”
Thaletas scrubbed his face, hearing a chuckle from the other side of the tent. He didn’t dare look at Deimos.
About an hour had passed since the younger man had revealed the truth about the garrison’s situation. An hour of Thaletas pacing and ranting, an hour of Deimos just nodding thoughtfully, silently, horribly silent.
“Is that your final conclusion? We’ve been sitting here for eons.”
Thaletas finally looked over at him, a small smirk sitting on his lips. “Very funny. You do understand the severity of our current situation, don’t you?”
He longed for Deimos’ calm, unbothered demeanor to suddenly become infectious, but he did not have the luxury. Maybe he would have, on the islands, when he was but a rebel, even just for a moment; now, he had responsibilities, personally given from Sparta. He had men to lead and care for, and apparently, to sift through like looking for valuables in the sand.
“Of course I do.” Deimos grabbed a vase of wine, pouring it into two of the glasses left on the table. “It’s very serious, actually. Have you ever even dealt with the cult this close up?”
Thaletas narrowed his eyes. Wouldn’t he already know?
“Didn’t you delegate everyone? You know.”
Deimos stopped mid-pour, looking up at Thaletas. “I knew everyone, yes. But I didn’t delegate them. That wasn’t my job.”
“Then what was your job?” He moved over to the table, grabbing a glass of wine.
Deimos swallowed, setting the vase down with intentional care. “My name is Deimos. I’m the god of fear. What do you think my job was, Thaletas?”
His name on Deimos’ tongue sounded so… sad. Hesitant on the ‘D’, drawing it out for an extra beat instead of just getting on with it, like everyone else. His voice was filled with a dark longing. Longing for what, he wasn’t sure.
“Deimos-”
Thaletas watched the other man shake his head and sip his wine. “It doesn’t matter anymore. The point right now is that we have to find those traitors, or you’ll be dead before the sun rises.”
Thaletas’ breath caught in his throat. If anyone else had said that, it would have been a threat; yet somehow, the way Deimos casually laid it out for him, it felt easy to nod in agreement.
He sipped his wine as a plausible excuse to stay silent, but he was even more tempted to spit it right back out. To Dionysus, that wine was bad. The grapes must have been spoiled.
“And how, exactly, do we do that?” Once he had swallowed the liquid horseshit, he finally offered something of use to the conversation.
Deimos laughed again, offering Thaletas the vase of wine, a silent offer to pour him another cup. He shook his head, a polite smile on his face.
Deimos shrugged, pouring himself another glass.
“Bait.”
“Excuse me?”
“Bait. We’ll use you, and our good friend Nefeli, as bait.” He sipped his wine, giving Thaletas another breathless moment to wait for more context. “I was thinking this through on the ride here, you know,” He added, noticing the officer’s uneasy expression. It didn’t help his nerves.
Thaletas let out a quick breath. “Of course you were. I don’t doubt that.” He paused. “Oh, and of course that’s your idea, putting me in the middle of danger without any sense of what’s going on.”
Deimos crossed his legs, leaning back a bit as he used his hands to prop himself up enough to keep eye contact with the polemarch. He looked so calm, yet so tense at the same time; his shoulders were squared up and his blunt nails were digging at the wooden table. Yet, his gaze was even and his face unmoving.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll tell you the plan, but only if you ask nicely.” He didn’t smirk, not like you would expect with that type of comment.
Thaletas wasn’t entirely sure he knew the man in front of him. The man he had gotten close to so long ago was horribly pained, all the time; this one seemed numb, unbothered.
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Thaletas gazed at Deimos’ lounging figure, a cup of wine in his hand. The sunlight filtered in through the open window, illuminating the troubled man like he was Aphrodite’s mortal lover.
Thaletas took the cup from his hand. “You drink too much nowadays, Deimos.”
He received a glare in response, but it was weak, and quickly dropped from Thaletas’ face to the rest of him. “And how would you know?”
“I think a lowly Spartan like me has some sort of capacity to understand you, agapiménos.”
Deimos laughed, and Thaletas found it heavenly, although he was painfully aware how the pet name made the man flinch.
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Due to a brief moment of melancholy and introspection, Thaletas was sure now that he loathed the change, in a sort of selfish way. Deimos was a project, last year; something that they were working on, together. Or so he thought. But it seemed like Deimos didn’t need Thaletas to heal, or at least properly mask his emotions like the rest of them.
“Alright, tough guy, what’s your plan?” Thaletas’ eyes narrowed slightly, but his face was still soft. He had a hard time genuinely scrutinizing Deimos; it was simply another version of that man lounging under the sun.
Deimos rolled his eyes. “Simple, really. Announce that you’re going to fight Nefeli, and that I’ll be here, running the camp.”
“I’m assuming that you won’t be at the camp, and that it’s just a lie?”
“Oh, absolutely.” Deimos’ eyes glistened with the emotions that you see in a predator that just spotted its prey. “If you go after Nefeli, any Cult member with half a brain will follow you, I’m sure of that. I’ll stay hidden, round them up when we’re isolated, and then... the fun part starts.”
That last part set off alarm bells in his head. “Wait just a moment, Deimos.” At the use of his name, the former god’s lips tightened into a thin line. “‘The fun part’? What in all of Hades’ domain does that mean?”
A scoff and an eye roll. “Someone’s a little dense. How do you think we extracted information from people in…” He paused, his face giving way to the inner battle he was fighting Yet, it was over just as soon as it had started. “...My earlier years.”
Thaletas really didn’t like this now. Yes, Cult members should be punished; but they fought by his side at some point nonetheless, and the thought of torture went against everything he had built up for himself since the islands, since Kyra. “We’re not- no! We’re not doing that!” He threw his hands up in frustration, and just the tiniest of flinches was displayed from the other person in the room.
Deimos looked away. “Fuck, Thaletas! Fuck. What else am I supposed to do, ask them really nicely to tell us everything they know?” He looked back at the Polemarch. “Yeah, we both want the Cult dead, but I think we’re not clear on how that’s going to be achieved!”
“Would you want someone to corner you and torture you, Deimos!? Like everyone else, like you, they have been brainwashed! Broken! We may have to kill them, yes, but we will make it merciful and pray the gods take mercy on them!”
Deimos stood up in one swift and powerful motion, easily towering over Thaletas. There it was, again; the power shift. It only took one word, one moment, and everything was changed once more. Thaletas contemplated grabbing his sword once more.
“There is no mercy in this world, and there are no gods!” Deimos ran a hand through his hair, the beads jingling when they hit each other. “If there are, they have abandoned us long ago.”
The Spartan rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, looking anywhere but Deimos. “You have no idea what you’re saying. The gods have not abandoned you-”
“Then they have sat by and watched as I was thrown off the mountain, taken in by a Cult, and forged by fire? I am a sword, Thaletas.” He motioned to himself. “I am a weapon. I am no person. What gods would allow this?”
“Ones that let you escape.” Thaletas’ faith was debatable; steadfast believing was only one of many outcomes after being in as many fights as he had.
Still, he found comfort in the thought that there were beings, far less imperfect than himself, watching over them. Guiding his sword as he struck every enemy, even though the training he had gone through was nothing but his own work.
Deimos’ view wasn’t just skeptical. It was destructive, destructive of order and structure. He had nothing, no one to look up to, to pray to when things felt dark.
What was that even like? He wasn’t sure he could accurately empathize. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to.
Thaletas turned his back to Deimos, which probably wasn’t a good idea. He just couldn’t bring himself to look at that beautiful face contorted by pain and anger. “Can we not argue anymore tonight? You walk into my camp, give me information I have no way of verifying, then yell at me. And you’re hogging the wine.” He motioned helplessly towards the vase of liquor.
Deimos laughed, one of his bitter laughs, yet again. “I would apologize if I had the ability to feel that anymore.”
He looked over his shoulder, meeting the beast’s gaze. “Stop.”
“What?”
Thaletas turned fully. “Stop that. Stop saying things that just-” He growled under his breath in frustration. “You are impossible, you know that?”
“So Kassandra has told me. Although, I think she’s done it with far more affection.”
This? This sent Thaletas’ head spinning. He was a calm man, but like every Spartan, there were certain battles he could not resist fighting.
“You have no clue what I feel for you, Deimos. Or what I don’t. You don’t know what I think.”
Deimos hummed. “I think I do.”
Thaletas shook the memory away before it managed to latch onto his brain, like it had on so many nights. “No. No, not anymore. It’s been a year, Deimos. I messed up.”
“That you did.”
Ah, alright, he saw what Deimos was doing. The whole ‘total agreeance’ thing was infuriating, and that’s exactly why it was happening.
“I missed you, Deimos.”
“You left me.”
“I missed you, but you were not the only thing in my life at the time.”
An amused hum. “Funny. That sentence implies that things have changed.”
Thaletas tipped his head back, looking at the worn cloth that had been his ceiling for almost a month. He debated on praying, just for a moment.
Yet, that moment passed, and there was silence.
“Why do you argue with me, Deimos? Why? What do you gain?” His voice was hoarse, and felt odd, considering the angle his head was at.
“Because it’s easier.”
“Easier than what?” He stood normally, his eyes falling on the man he was with a year ago.
Deimos smiled. It was a smile, a real one, but it was no grin.
“I’ll be back bright and early. Try not to drown yourself in that wine. It sucks.”
On his way to the exit, Deimos’ shoulder brushed Thaletas’ own.
Sparks of fire lit up in Thaletas’ gut.
He was in trouble.