Thread by @Iracebeth3

So like- Mirio as Orpheus and Tamaki as Eurydice. SO:

When Tamaki dies, Mirio is not with him. Mirio's voice was so beautiful, the king decided to keep him from going to war. He had to see Tamaki depart. He bid him goodbye and Tamaki promised he'd come back.

But he doesn't.

https://twitter.com/ULTRAGLOSS/status/1373709694833942536

cw: unspecified ugly wounds, suicide attempts, scars, self-esteem issues

When Mirio learns that he died, he's so distraught he can't move. He's numb through the funerary rites, until they have to put the two golden drachmas under his tongue. Tamaki's face is barely recognizable.

Mirio's heart bleeds thinking of how much he must've suffered. Two tears roll down his cheeks and he starts singing, overcome by grief.

Everyone around him starts crying too, and not only the people: animals in the vicinity cry; fish drown themselves in the rivers. Trees cry+

tears of sorrow. Even Olympus cries, and the Lord of the Skies has to cover his realm with clouds to prevent the gods from grieving.

It'd have been good for a day, maybe for a week. The problem is: Mirio cannot stop. Weeks go by, and his sorrow doesn't go away. He feels+

like a tree ripped off the ground by a storm: slowly rotting and drying out in the sun.

And he sings about it, what else can he do? He plays his lyre and sings about his lost love; about their childhood days running on the fields and climbing trees. He sings about+

Tamaki's courage, and his smile, and his voice is so tainted with yearning that even the happiest of his memories make him cry.

By the time he decides to join him, it's too late: nature has fallen in love with his voice. No matter where he goes, he simply cannot die. Every river refuses to drown him. Instead of biting him to pieces, wild beasts lick his fingers and rub their nuzzles on+

him, aiming to comfort him. Even his own sword refuses to kill him, the perfect blade completely harmless no matter where he stabs.

He resolves falling off a cliff must certainly kill him, for rocks at the bottom have no spirit and no feelings. Once he jumps, however, he doesn't die. He is carried to the bottom by a gentle wind. Just as he falls to his knees, desperate, a goddess appears in front of him.

The blue-haired woman introduces herself as Nejire, the goddess of the West Wind. She's come here under the command of the god of harvest.

While beautiful, his music is killing the land: drying it just as he said his own spirit was drying out. And so Toyomitsu, the

God of Harvest, has made arrangements for Mirio to travel to the Underworld alive, and retrieve his other half from Elysium.

Mirio is delighted. However, Nejire informs him there is a restriction: once they leave Elysium, he cannot gaze on his lover's face until+

they are both touched by the sunlight. If they do, Tamaki will die again. There will be no second chances.

Mirio marches down to the Underworld without thinking. He buys his passage over the river with his lyre, and passes by Cerberus with his voice. Even the furies, upon+

hearing him sing his grief, have a change of heart: instead of going after him, they fly him to the obsidian palace of the God of the Underworld.

In the court, Mirio explains his case. The god of the underworld is unmoved: what is dead cannot go back to life. His partner's+

words, however, bring him to offer Mirio a challenge: he'll hear the song that's killed off the land, and if he can manage to make the Great Lord of the Underworld cry then he'll have his lover back.

So Mirio sings, pouring his whole heart into his song. He sings a ballad about his life with Tamaki: about their joys and their sorrows, about his regrets and his pain. The song ends with a plea: if he cannot have his lover back, he might simply stay here, for he cannot+

stand the thought of a mortal life without him.

When he looks up, two golden tears shine on the God of the Underworld's red eyes. His partner is looking at him with his cheeks covered in tears.

Eijirou, the God of Spring, then proceeds to explain the process again: he cannot look at his lover's face while they make their way back into the land of the living. If he does, he'll be lost forever. He also cannot tell him: his faith in him must be enough to carry him back.

Then he is escorted to Elysium, where Tamaki and him reunite. Mirio resists the temptation of taking a peak at his face. He wants to see if he is happy; fears to find any mark of the horrible pain he experienced before dying. Tamaki's voice sounds so secure and joyful, and+

for the first time Mirio questions whether he is doing the right thing, taking his lover from a life in paradise to bring him back to the land of the living with its pains and illnesses and sorrows, only because he cannot lose him.

Meanwhile, Tamaki sees Mirio, that has come to retrieve him, but hasn't looked at him once since they reunited. Even when he trips, Mirio doesn't turn around. His hand remains steady in Tamaki's, but he doesn't /look/, and an ugly, cold feeling starts to settle in Tamaki's guts.

It only grows darker and colder as the glow of Elysium starts to fade away. Tamaki sees how the scars return to his hands and arms; feels the cold stabbing his limbs and shivers and trips and falls, one if his legs considerably less steady than the other.

For the first time since his arrival to Elysium, he remembers his death. He remembers how many wounds he got, and how much they hurt but, more than anything, he thinks about the marks they must have left. He thinks about what his body must've look like when Mirio got+

it back. He wonders if perhaps he's having second thoughts, if maybe he doesn't love him anymore. If maybe, going to Elysium and seeing how he was able to charm even the lord of the Underworld, convinced him of that one thing Tamaki had been telling him their whole+

lives: that he is better. That he deserves better.

With a heavy heart, Tamaki stops walking. He lets go of Mirio's hand, feeling his fingers cold. If he is to live without Mirio, why would he live at all? He'd very much rather to remain dead.

Mirio asks him what happens, and Tamaki tells him of his resolution without breathing. He knows he doesn't love him anymore. He hasn't even looked at him. If he doesn't want him, then he'll stay here with the dead, where he belongs.

Mirio tries to reassure him that he loves him, his voice hard with tears, but he can hear Tamaki take a step back. He says they messed him up: he remembers the cut in his face, and his hands. Even if he did return now, he'd never be what he once was.

Tamaki's voice is rough with tears, but final. He doesn't want Mirio to waste his life away clinging to their past. He wants Mirio to live, to look forward. He doesn't want him to stay with him just because he feels he has to.

Mirio listens, horrified, as Tamaki takes a step back. His words are sweet, and grateful: he thanks him for coming for him, and for the years they spent together. And Mirio knows if he doesn't do something now, he'll lose him forever. Even in the afterlife, Tamaki will+

never trust him again.

So he turns around.

Tamaki's face is the same as it's always been. The only defect Mirio can find are the tears of sadness that pool in his eyes. The second he sees him, Mirio's eyes fill with tears too.

Softly, as if they had all the time in the world, Mirio cups his face in his hands. He kisses his tears away gently, mumbling that he's sorry. He tells him he loves him as he kisses the scars on his face. He brings him closer into a hug.

Feeling life escape him, Tamaki understands at once. It must've been forbidden, he thinks, for Mirio to look at him. And he was trying to oblige, because he loves him.

And Tamaki made him turn. And now he'll have to see him die /again/.

Mirio mumbles at least he'll get to say goodbye this time, and Tamaki chuckles with a sob. He apologizes, and Mirio apologizes too, and they both grieve about how much easier it would have been, if Tamaki had known, if Mirio had been allowed to tell him.

But it's too late now.

As the last strands of his mortal life die away a second time, Tamaki promises Mirio he'll wait. He'll be back in Elysium waiting for him. So he needs to go back and live: live the best possible life, so he can then join him.

Mirio promises he will, leaving a tender kiss on the now cold body before it dissolves into golden smoke.

Five or six decades later, Mirio makes his way back into the underworld, this time as one of the dead. The ferryman returns his lyre as Mirio boards the boat, and Mirio stiffles a laugh as he starts to sing a tune. This time not one of grief, but of hope.

Instead of judging his soul, the three judges request him to sing a song for them. There is no being in the underworld that hasn't followed the deeds of this mortal: the one whose grief made their Lord cry. Bets were crossed on whether he'd lose his spirit and end up in+

the Fields of Punishment, but it was quite the opposite. Seeing his lover, for as little as it was, gave him hope. Besides, he promised he'd earn Elysium: he couldn't let Tamaki down a second time.

And while the underworld is far from a place for hopez Mirio's music seems to have brought something new for all of them. Flowers bloom at his feet as he sings, and the judges recognize the sign of their spring God requesting the mortal's presence. They all+

share tired, but joyous smiles as Mirio makes his way to Elysium.

The King and Queen of the Underworld are already waiting for him, and Eijirou gives him a bright smile as he shows him a path of flowers, sided by a court of nymphs, naiaeds, goddess and goddesses. Every+

force that refused too let Mirio die together for this joyous moment. Their love has become legend even among the gods. The goddess of marriage has said she'll wed them, and the whole assembly is wishing to witness their union.

Not that Mirio realizes or cares, because Tamaki is there. And the second he sees him, everything stops for him.

He looks beautiful, in a way Mirio cannot even describe. His hair has been braided with chains of gold, his skin glowing in a way that's almost ethereal. His eyes shine with tears just like the last time, but this time there is a smile on his face.

Mirio walks to him so slow, because his legs are shaking so much he's afraid he'll trip and fall if he tries to run. He finally reaches the love of his life and cups his face in his hands. He leans forward, then, until their foreheads touch.

Mirio doesn't want to move. He can feel Tamaki's tears in his fingers. He knows he's crying too, but these are happy (the happiest) tears.

"Took you long enough," Tamaki jokes, his voice cracking at the end with emotion.

"I got lost in the way," he answers, leaving a kiss at the tip of Tamaki's nose, "my boyfriend came first so he- wasn't around to read the map for me."

Tamaki laughs. It's soft, like a bell gushed by a gentle wind, and Mirio knows, he's finally home.

"Never again.”

To Mirio's astonishment, Tamaki kisses him. His lips are soft on his, completely perfect.

And thus Mirio, the musician that came back from the Underworld, was once again, and finally, whole.

(~end)

(SO, as you probably noticed, I took some- *cough* artistic liberties with a lot of things, including the ending. But I hope you liked this
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