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When the Styx grabs Zagreus and pulls him down, there's a moment—or an eternity—when he floats, in between death and rising. It's a twilit place that's nowhere, so far as he can tell, though it reminds him of Chaos.
In this place, space and time and reality are nothing, and Ares, whose several boons Zagreus is carrying because he was particularly eager about offering them up this run, is standing right beside him.
His body is powerful and mouth-wateringly perfect. His expression is sophisticated and seductive. His aura is a frenzy of lust for death and self-destruction.
"How proud your father must be," he purrs as he reaches for Zag's face. "You scourge those wretches in Tartarus more savagely than the Erinyes."
It twists in Zag's gut. He hates the idea, frankly. Those poor suffering souls don't need yet more pain brought on them. But oh, the memory of the violence. Stygius shearing through the memory of flesh and bone. It felt like power, and power feels so good.
Ares laughs. Of course he can feel it. He's probably feeding on it. His thumbnail bites into the slice across Zag's cheekbone. Hot blood trickles down. A hot tongue licks it up. "You taste wonderful, did you know that, my kin?"
Zagreus hisses in pain as his tongue laves into the wound, seeking more—of his blood and his pain. His body is hard and hot against Zag's. His presence so close seems almost to suck at Zag's pulse, inciting him, that sweet murderous frenzy twining about him like a heady perfume.
Zagreus hates and loves it. He gives in to both and bares his teeth and grips the back of Ares' neck as hard as he can, digging in his nails for good measure. Clawing till he can tell he's drawn blood. Till he can feel Ares hard against his belly.
"We are kindred spirits," Ares gloats. His other hand clamps down so hard on Zagreus' hip that he can feel his divine bones creak. His strength is enormous, or maybe he's just less inclined to hold back than anyone Zag has ever met, but either way he makes it hurt as he turns Zagreus around and bends him over. Zag knows what's coming, but when Ares thrusts into him, he screams anyway. Through the bond of the boons Ares still hasn't lifted from him, he can feel the war god's pleasure in his mingled pleasure, pain and fury.
He snarls out loud at the second thrust, twisting, automatically trying to get to the god behind him to punish him for the domination and get a little of his own back.
Ares' hand closes over his face, cutting off his snarls, and yanks him backward till his back is bowed and his head is pressed against Ares' shoulder. Between Ares' fingers, Zag can glimpse a dagger coming up to press in the hollow beneath his left collar bone. The tip is beyond mortally sharp. It sinks into his skin without Ares even applying pressure, and Ares draws a line in his flesh with it, highlighting the elegant line of his collar bone. The cut burns. Red blood pours down over his chest in a thin sheet.
"You do bleed so beautifully, my kin," Ares says to him. And then he drives the dagger all the way through him, till it sinks into Ares’ own shoulder and pins them together.
Zagreus howls. Ares' laugh rings out, bright and strained with his own pain and delight.
Every move of him inside Zagreus tugs at the dagger, slashing at him inside. He can't pull away; neither of them can, and Ares keeps him in a crushing grip, fingertips pressing with dangerous strength at his temples and his jaw. He's huge inside Zagreus, every stroke tearingly painful but forcing his power up through Zagreus, wild and vicious and delightful. He finds himself shaking with desire for more, and then Ares is coming inside him, and it's pure power. A fountain of it, scalding hot from the source right up through his body, till he can taste fire and iron on the back of his tongue and feel it at the tips of his fingers, in his nipples, at the backs of his eyes. It feels like dancing on Asphodel's magma. It feels like making his enemies dance on Asphodel's magma and laughing while they burn. He hates it and he craves it.
It isn't him. It isn't who he wants to be. But he lets himself relax. Ceases struggling against it so that it can soak into him, to offer it up to Ares in turn as his just reward for the power he's provided, the pleasure, and the companionship he's offered Zagreus so many times in the lonely, terrible dark places he's fought through. The places inside him that other gods would find too distasteful to venture and where, frankly, Zagreus isn't interested in having them. For all his flaws, Lord Ares doesn't judge.
Ares sighs with sated pleasure against his neck. "You and Aphrodite," he murmurs. "The only ones with the courage to take me as I am." His lips brush Zag's throat as he licks a smear of blood off him. It's almost tender, and it makes Zagreus shudder. "I will see you again soon, my kin."
His godly will unclenches. The release of it is like a great fist opening. The nowhere they're in ripples, then dissolves. "I look forward to it," Zagreus finds himself replying before the Styx closes over him.