: chapter 23; tartarosNotes:
WARNING: fairly violent scene towards the end. there's no gore or anything, but it's still quite intense so if you are sensitive to that stuff be careful x
(See the end of the chapter for .)
Chapter Text
"Oh no."
Harry's voice is like a muffled white nose ringing in Louis' ears. The kind of sticky, thick air surrounding them has him feeling faint and confused, and he rubs the back of his head with a grimace.
Gemma is completely vanished from the scene, Zayn's book is lying beside him, and Harry is up on his feet, looking frantically around.
"No," he keeps repeating. "No, no, no, nononononono—"
He turns back to Louis again, watching the fairy with complete, undisguised terror, and Louis stomach turns violently at seeing Harry, Harry, this distressed.
"Where are we?" he mumbles, even though he already has an idea.
"You can't be here," Harry just breathes erratically, ignoring Louis' question. "You can't be here, shit."
Despite Louis still being visibly weak and dazed, Harry takes him by the forearm and pulls him up from the ground. He keeps Louis closely tucked to his side as he starts walking with hurried steps, and Louis doesn't quite know what to do except stumble along to wherever they're going, droopy gaze following the dark wall on their left that whooshes by with every surge forward Harry takes. It's hauntingly dented and dripping with a viscidity, like it's crying from all the painful memories it holds, and Louis feels like it whispers to him, pleading for him to go back, to disappear and to save himself.
Tartaros. He knows it's Tartaros. It's evident in the dreadful humidity of the air, it's evident in the rush of Harry's steps knowing their exact way around the place—it's evident in Harry's fear. His jagged breathing and his desperate attempt at shielding Louis from all the thing capable of hurting him here.
Louis knows they're in Tartaros and he knows he should probably be scared, too, but his head is too muffled and hazy to feel anything but confusion.
Harry finally stops when they reach a marble temple, the smooth stone tinted slightly from red shadows fleeing across its walls. They make something anxious stir in Louis' belly when Harry tugs him inside, not stopping until they're finally in a secluded, closed off area behind a solid door. Louis sits down on a silky smooth bed, trying to get his head to clear up.
"Lou," Harry crouches down so that they're at the same level, his eyes scanning Louis' face rapidly. "We're in Tartaros, which means you're going to have to be really, really careful. As in, you're going to have to stay right here, while I look for a way for us to get out of here as quickly as possible. Can you do that?"
Louis frowns.
"I don't—I don't want to stay here. I don't want to be alone."
Harry looks like someone's twisting a knife in his stomach, and he shakes his head.
"You can't come with me. If the wrong creature sees you, they'll—you can't come with me."
"But." Louis shakes his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts. "But you made it sound like I'd be okay here. Back in Grimm, you said—"
"You won't be okay here."
"But I thought this place wouldn't be dangerous if I was here with you."
"That's because I lied, Louis." Harry's voice is too harsh and blunt, and Louis flinches. "I wanted to leave Grimm and I said what needed to be said to convince you. You shine too bright, Louis. Your presence is too innocent. The lost souls will sense that, and there's no way they won't want to destroy it."
Harry isn't soft, now. He's all stress and lips bitten raw and bloodshot eyes, and Louis hates it. He doesn't know how he ever handled Harry like this.
"But..."
"Listen to me." Harry raises his hands to cup Louis' face, making the fairy look him straight in the eye, and his fingertips are so warm against Louis' cheekbones. "I'm going to do my best to keep you safe so we can get out of here, I swear I'll get you out of here. But you're going to have to do exactly as I say, yeah?"
Harry's intense greens stand in contrast to the blacks and the reds and the threatening greys surrounding them, and they feel like a lifeline to Louis. He nods slowly, not even blinking, scared that if he breaks that eye contact, he's going to disappear into his own head.
"You're going to have to stay here," Harry continues. "I'll be looking around to see which portal is the most easily accessible one. I'll come right back to get you when I've found that out, okay? Can you stay here for me?"
He's going to be honest—Louis doesn't want to stay. The mere thought of being here by himself, without Harry to make him feel safe and to keep him awake, is making his blood run cold and his throat tighten hopelessly. He brings shaking hands up to lock around Harry's wrists, holding them there in an attempt to convey how much he wants Harry to remain here with him, how much he needs Harry's presence, hopes to whatever benevolent gods who might be listening that Harry will see how uneasy and heavy the dim, creeping light in here is making him.
When Harry's expression shifts into something pained and a thumb starts stroking the soft skin under Louis' eye soothingly, Louis think Harry probably already knows. He knows, he knows, and he has to go, anyway.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "This wasn't meant to happen. I don't know why it did, I don't—"
"Thank you," Louis interrupts lowly, because he doesn't know what else to say to make Harry stop talking and realize he shouldn't be apologizing. "For coming here with me."
It makes Harry's features soften the tiniest bit, but his brow is still distressingly furrowed and there's an ache embedded in his bottomless irises.
"I'm going to make this right," he promises. "We're going to be okay. I just... There's a big risk I'm going to have to face my mother. She definitely already knows I'm here, what with Gemma and everything and—she just can't see you, Louis. She can't."
Louis understands, he gets it, and so he just moves his hands from Harry's wrists to rest them on Harry's own hands, and squeezes for the longest of seconds.
"I'll be here," he says weakly, pushing a frail smile onto his face.
Harry lets his anxious gaze ghost over Louis' face for a moment, and then leans in to press a soft kiss to his lips. It doesn't last for longer than a couple of seconds, but it's reassuring, it's as steady as anything can be to Louis right now, and though he wishes it would last longer it still evens out his pulse just the tiniest.
And then Harry leaves, and Louis is left with the eerie silence.
Harry leaves, and Louis looks up just in time to see the shadows of approaching life playing on the walls.
Harry leaves, and someone else enters in his place.
~
Harry knows there's a severely overweighing risk that he's fucked.
This whole situation is still so endlessly confusing to him—how Gemma had even found them, how she'd dragged them right here without fail despite the broken portals, how she'd aimed for Louis and not for Harry—and he wishes he had time to stop and get an answer. But he doesn't, right now. What he has time for, is to figure out a way to get himself, and more importantly Louis, out of here as quickly and efficiently as possible.
He can't help but feel like the universe is taunting him. Laughing, snickering at him in the most condescending way. Tilting its head, saying 'baby boy, you thought you could avoid this?'
And he had, hadn't he? Walking around holding Louis' hand and running fingers through Louis' hair and tasting Louis' lips like they were things he could just have without direct consequences. Like they're natural experiences he deserves. He's been stupid and ignorant, and knowingly so. He just didn't think finally being met with the proximity of whatever consequences he'll face would feel this filled with panic.
It's too real now, he thinks as he smoothly makes his way to his mother's temple, where he knows he'll have the easiest access to a portal. The portals for workers of Tartaros are placed elsewhere, but they're surely guarded and crowded and there's no way he'd be able to slip past without drawing everyone's attention to him, to them, to Louis. It's too close, the risk of Harry getting punished and Louis getting hurt, it's all so tip toeingly near. It's breathing down his neck and Harry wants to get as far away from it as he possibly can.
When he finally reaches the majestic, beautiful and towering building, he lightly sneaks in through the ornate door and prays so intensely that his mother will not be in there at this moment, just so he'll have an excuse to not go through with their impending conversation.
"Harry," he hears his mother's velvety voice call out before he's even finished the thought, and he closes his eyes and grimaces. "Long time no see, darling."
Fuck dammit.
But he knows there's nothing he can do about it now, so he decides to go with it and try his best to get out of it quickly. She doesn't know, he reminds himself. There's no way she can know. He's safe as long as he can keep his old act up and she doesn't find Louis.
"Mother," he greets, sauntering up to her, giving her a small nod of courtesy.
Not a lot has changed in there—to his left Harry sees her giant world map where she'd pin out the places for the most misfortune-ridden humans, to his right are the bars which the lost souls are trapped behind, reaching their hands out and mewling apocalyptically, and right in front of him is his mother perched upon her throne, smile menacing and insincere. She eyes him up and down for the longest time, and Harry notes that he isn't happy to see her. He hasn't missed her even a little bit. The overwhelming need to please her, to get appreciation from her doesn't seem quite as important anymore, and it startles him a bit, but it's not unwelcome.
The silence between them is slowly eating away at Harry's nerves, and he has to clench his jaw and fists to remain seemingly unbothered.
"How do you like my work? It's good, wouldn't you say?" Eris asks at last, and the wicked pride in her eyes has always been a thing Harry longed for and admired, but now it makes his stomach turn.
"Excellent," he utters quietly. "Chaos is everywhere."
"So according to plan, then." Eris nods, satisfied with herself, and leans back in her chair.
Harry is silent for a beat. This is his chance, he realizes, to find out exactly how his mother succeeded with all of this. It's been a dream, an aspiration, a plan of hers for years, Harry's known for a very long time, but it was a plan filled with obstacles. No matter how much and intensely Eris searched, she couldn't affect their powerhouse in any way at all. If Harry needs to converse with his mother before getting the fuck out of this place, he can at least try to get something out of it.
"How did you do it?" he asks, hoping his breathlessness comes off as eager admiration.
Eris' head perks up just the slightest, a new sort of light in her face now, as if excited to tell him just how genius she's been. Because Harry doesn't doubt that she's been genius. She is a genius, his mother. Cunning and scheming and always a slight step ahead of everyone else.
"They key, is the electricity bonds," she starts slowly, confirming their theory in one swift second. "Those were what I wanted to be able to put my hands on. And you're aware I tried." She pauses and shakes her head. "For years and years, I searched for a way to put them out of balance, but to no avail. No one but the Gods of lightning can touch it—the Leaders made sure of that when they created this system, and there are no exceptions or loopholes at all. Which only left me with one choice, really. I had to get a Leader under my command."
A Leader. Just like Thor said, there must've been a Leader involved—
Harry whistles lowly and forces out an impressed smirk, ignoring the churning of his stomach.
"And you managed that? All by yourself?"
Eris' dark eyes just glimmer with satisfaction.
"Not all by myself. I had a little help."
She makes a dramatic pause and Harry just gives her a raised eyebrow to urge her on. She's really taking her sweet time with this, he thinks. But he also supposes that if she has in fact managed to make a Leader—Zeus, presumably—her inferior? Then this is most definitely her biggest achievement since the Trojan war. Harry guesses it'd make sense for her to want to build the suspense.
"As it turns out... Aphrodite hates Zeus almost as much as I do."
She finally speaks, and it comes out as a purr seeping through her grin.
"Aphrodite?" Harry's eyebrows shoot up. "But she's a goddess of Olympus."
"She is," Eris agrees. "She's the most beautiful goddess of Olympus who Zeus condemned to an unhappy, unsatisfying marriage with an unattractive man around for the rest of her existence, and, well. Do you blame her when she says she'd do anything to get back at him?"
Harry supposes he doesn't. It makes sense that Aphrodite would see it as the biggest possible destruction of her character to be first of all tied down to one person, and secondly tied down to a person she resents.
"So, when I visited her and told her about my plan, about my way to get Zeus under my control, to make him inferior... She was more than willing to help me," Eris continues. "She supplied me with the strongest love potion she had. All I had to do was talk Zeus into having a meeting with me on my grounds and slip it into his wine, and so that's what I did—for being a Leader he really is pathetically easy to fool. He's stayed with me here ever since. If it makes me happy, he obeys my every last wish. It's quite nice, really. To have that loyalty even if it's artificial."
Harry has to admit—she's good. Like, genuinely seriously good. He understands just why it's always been so easy for him to have such respect for her. Not just anyone makes bewitching a Leader sound like a piece of cake.
"So you made Zeus retract his electricity bond and now you hold him hostage here?"
Eris shrugs.
"If you want to put it that way, yes. That was the intention. But do you know what I realized, then, when I finally had Zeus? That was even better than merely having the power to break the portals?"
She raises her eyebrows expectantly like she wants Harry to answer, and Harry only shakes his head in small motions. Eris' smirk widens.
"I have the power to control the portals. I can connect portals to whatever places I want to. I can purposely make creatures travel to the worst imaginable places, and since he's also all seeing, I can keep an eye on exactly what results my work has, in whatever world I want to. I can relish in every piece of chaos I cause. I don't just have the power over Zeus—I have the power over everything he has power over. I have access to everything."
Hold on.
Something carefully clicks in Harry's head at that revelation, and his eyes narrow slowly. Eris just looks at him, endlessly satisfied with herself.
"You've been on quite the trip, haven't you? What world did you find the most enjoyable? I reckon my personal favorite was Wonderland. You were very inventive."
Yeah, there it is, and Harry can't help a shaky, low gasp as he connects the dots.
"You—you're the one who's been sending us places?" he clarifies, and a cold kind of thrill starts pressing down on his head as he slowly realizes what this could mean.
"So smart," Eris smacks her lips appreciatively. "I was waiting for you, right here, all along. But you didn't seem to have any intentions to move from that hideous forest, so I had to take things into my own hands."
It makes perfect sense, is the worst thing of all. Really, how foolish has it been of the boys to believe that they just magically kept ending up in the exact place they needed to end up in every time they used a portal? That they never ended up in the same universe twice? That they managed to pick up Liam, Niall and Zayn along the way, in that precise, convenient order? Did she even go as far as making sure Zayn got back to Earth from Wonderland, then?
No one has that much luck. Eris has been playing with them this entire time, and Harry is gradually feeling more and more like throwing up.
"But..." he struggles. "Why?"
He earns yet another nonchalant shrug back.
"I wanted to see for how long you and that obnoxious fairy could stand each other before you snapped and, well. Finished him. It was a fun experiment, if you will. After all, you're my most ruthless offspring. Who was I to deny myself a show like that?" She looks up from her nails to fix Harry with a look, and there's something hardening in her black eyes now. It chills Harry to the core. "Ended up getting a whole different kind of show, didn't I?"
So she knows.
Harry can't do anything but stand petrified in his place as the realization of this settles deep in his bones, knots around his heart and crowds his lungs. His mother knows, she's known this whole time. She's aware of what Harry's been doing with Louis, what he's been doing for Louis, what he's been feeling and every single betrayal he's executed, she knows all of it.
Harry has known quite a bit of fear in his life, but the intense, throat-clogging kind of horror he's feeling in this moment is a definite and agonizing first. His hands are tingling and he opens and closes his mouth over and over, desperately searching for something, anything to say, but can there possibly be words suitable for a situation like this?
"I—Mother," he tries, chuckling weakly. "It's all been an act, surely you can't think I'd actually—"
"Oh, please. Do you not think I see how you're glowing?" she snarls, upper lip curled in disgust. "Do you not think I can recognize it when my own son is starting to drift to the weak?"
Harry can't even answer, his lips parted around a thousand empty breaths as his thoughts crash and scream and pounce inside his head. Eris' face is so rigid he can feel the hairs on his arms stand up, and he's positive he's never felt more lost in his life.
"Out of all my children, I never thought you'd be the one standing in front of me, bitten raw by benevolence. It's repulsive, Harry. It's sickening."
With his fists clenched so tightly his nails are digging into the flesh of his palms, Harry tries to keep his breathing from going erratic and panicked.
"Mother," he just tries again, and it's supposed to sound reproachful, but it comes out more as a plea.
"You don't know how much I hoped that it would be a scheme, Harry." Eris doesn't even react in the slightest to Harry's anxiety, eyes still etched onto him like two threatening abysses waiting to take him down. "I hoped it would be a plan of yours to rip him apart. It would've been genius, really. But alas, I should've known that despite everything I've done to lead you onto the right path, you still weren't smart enough not to fall into the trap. I should've given up on you already when you were a little kid and talked about flying among the clouds and love like they were things to desire."
The worst thing is that Harry can't even defend himself. He has no words, he desperately wishes he had, but he doesn't. There's nothing he can think of to say that could possibly get him out of this figurative chokehold his mother has him in right now.
And when he looks into Eris' eyes, it's clear that she knows this, too.
"Still, I hoped. I made a mistake, and I hoped. I've always hoped for you. When you were young and wouldn't shut up about your dreams, I hoped. When you took twice as long as everyone else to mend after the Ceremony, I hoped. Because at the end of it, you delivered, didn't you? You became my best worker. I've given you the benefit of the doubt countless times, and I've been right to. I think you just need a reminder of where you belong, wouldn't you agree?"
No, Harry wouldn't. Not even close, not ever, under any circumstances. He's never going to agree with anything his mother says ever again as long as he exists.
He doesn't get a chance to tell her.
Suddenly rock-solid hands grip tightly on Harry's forearms and holds him in his place, and when he furiously tries to wrench out of the grip, he finds himself helpless and all too weak. He knows it's his older siblings holding him there, he can feel the density of their fingers against his skin and he knows he can't escape that, but that's not why he suddenly has his heart in his throat.
It's because if he needs to be forcibly held back, only one thing can follow.
And then the door to the temple is being thrown open, and another group of his ominous siblings enter. The sight of them approaching him hasn't ever made Harry scared in his life, because he's always known he's above them, has always known he's safe from their endless quarrels.
But the thing is, that before this, Louis hasn't ever been in the center of their harsh hands, looking way to small and shining way too bright in comparison to the smoky, suffocating auras of the other spirits.
He is now.
He is now, and Harry has never feared his siblings, but in this moment he fears them so overwhelmingly he feels like he's going to be ripped in half.
"Mother. What are you doing?"
He wants to sound demanding, but his throat is suddenly dry as a desert and the words just barely squeeze their way out. Louis looks disoriented and breakable , and Harry's arteries are cramping.
"Did you genuinely think you could hide him? Here?" Eris' tone is bordering on mocking by now. "You can sense his light from miles away, Harry. Such a pretty thing, though, he is, I'll give you that. I wonder if he'll be as pretty after the souls have him."
One mention of the souls, and the breath is punched out of Harry's lungs.
She can't.
She can't.
"Mother. You can't do this." Iciness is sloshing through his body from his toes and up to his stomach up to his chest up to his throat up to his tongue up to his head and it's petrifying his heart and it's aching his brain and all Harry can do is plead. "Mother, you need to let him go. You need to let him go right now, you have to let him leave, you can't—"
His mother just watches his anxiety, pursing her mouth and shaking her head grimly.
"Desperation doesn't become you, Harry," is all she says, but her voice is colder than it's ever been and her back is more rigid than before.
Harry knows he fucked up even more by begging her for mercy, by begging at all. He knows he shouldn't have done that. He knows that this was supposed to be a test of loyalty, that this is Eris giving him the benefit of the doubt once again by offering him a chance to choose her instead of Louis.
Maybe if he didn't know his mother as well as he does, he'd try and pretend to choose her. To make her release Louis. But he does know his mother well, and he knows that she's just as prone to hurting Louis if Harry plays along as she is if Harry doesn't. He knows that there's nothing that'll truly work to make her release the fairy.
So he begs, and he begs, and he begs. Because it's all he has the power to do. Because putting on an act wouldn't mean shit. Because he's sure in this moment he doesn't even have the ability to put on an act anymore.
"Listen to me, this isn't—you can't just—I'm the one who's in the wrong here, mother. Why aren't you punishing me?"
"Oh, honey." Eris smiles at him, but it's hard and wicked and it only makes Harry's hands tremble. "I am punishing you."
And then she turns away from him and to his siblings still holding Louis in place.
Time doesn't pass for an eternity.
"Release them," she just utters, and Harry's knees buckle right as the giant bars fall, leaving the way free for the lamenting creatures to do the worst possible damage they can.
They're emerging, hazy and dark and terrifying and all at once, their desperate wailing like a haunting anthem. The strong grip on Harry's arms is fast and steady no matter how hard he tries to twist his way out of it, and he's left being able to do nothing but watch as they close in on Louis' bright, small figure like an eclipse closing in on the all too brightly shining moon.
See, the thing with the lost souls is that they're always deprived—deprived of life, of happiness, of light and love and spirit and dreams. They whine and cry all night through about the lives they've lived and ruthlessly lost, and their nostalgia is starving them. They're always starving.
The starving makes them feverish. Erratic. Hysterical, desperate, inhumane.
Destructive.
Harry catches a glimpse of Louis' panicked face before the wretched darkness envelops him, and after that he can only see the souls' arms in grabbing, harsh motions and their backs arching and their frantic hissing bouncing against the temple walls like demon-clad arrows. Harry can't help the anguished cry leaving his lips at the sight, and no matter how hard he tries, how violently he yanks his limbs or how intensively he tries using his powers, he can't move. Forced into his spot, he can't do anything but watch with rapidly blurring vision and plead until he can't even tell words apart anymore.
Harry knows they aren't killing him. The souls' purpose isn't to kill, it's always to take, to steal, but Harry knows, he knows that when they do, you'd rather they aim for murder. Death is preferable to feeling their nails bore into your skin and their fingerprints squeeze into your pores and their gasps sucking the air out of your lungs.
And they claw. They claw, they scratch, they tug and yank and they rip, rip, rip, and Harry can't see what they're clawing, what they're ripping, what they're ruining, until he notices the dishevelled pieces of thin, spun silver singling down onto the rough ground.
His heart wrenches into a crumpled piece of lifeless flesh as it drops down to his stomach when he realizes where it's coming from.
Louis' screams echo throughout the temple, the most excruciating soundtrack to every single one of Harry's future nightmares, as the souls continue to dull his light. Their mouths are wide open and heaving, swallowing pieces of Louis' spirit with every sharp, hacky inhale.
"Please," Harry gasps, his whole body trembling. He has no pride or fear for his mother left now, the only thing he wants is for them to let Louis go, to stop hurting him, to stop tearing at him, to stop, stop, stop. "Please, mother, tell them to stop. Please tell them to go, please make them leave him alone—do this one thing for me and I'll never ask you for anything ever again. I'm asking you as your son, I'll do whatever you want, just—mom."
Eris' face is stern with icy indifference, and she doesn't dignify him with a single look as she pointedly, slowly, leans back in her chair.
"You are no son of mine."
Louis doesn't stop screaming, and Harry's life crumbles.
Notes:
this uh. yikes. i'm really, really sorry.
things were goin too great my friends n we just can't have nice things today i'm sorry
this update took a lil while bc 1. i've been absolutely DROWNING in school work and 2. this is a kinda important chapter and i've been very picky with how to write it. but it's here now!!! even though it's a terrible one!!! AND i'm on summer break with basically nothing to do outside from a couple of weeks of work, so i'm dead set on Finishing This Thing. (even tho i will cry when i do bc this fic has been my baby for YEARS)
as always, kudos and comments make me the happiest most grateful and moved person in the entire world and you can always come and talk or yell at me on my tumblr @tequiladimples. thank you so, so much for reading and for sticking with the story i love you forever xxxxxxxxxx