Hermes shook his head. "I am the whore, Alcuin. You, at least, were sacred once and have the marque to prove it. I still think you are, but your future seems to be in your own hands."
He didn't look at the coffee, couldn't look at Alcuin, but his own left hand was enough for now. It reminded him that he was whole even if it had been so broken that it barely looked like a hand at all anymore. He'd spent too long staring at that hand while he was imprisoned, knowing that it was but a piece of what happened to the rest of him.
"I did," he finally answered. "Just as you said, I worshipped him and every lover I took in his name was still him in my mind." It was the only way he could bring himself to properly manage. He was a still a shifter in those moments, lying and honest all at once the same as any of the other forms he took were still reflective of who he was at the heart of it. "Now...now I'm not so sure. I don't want him to touch me. Half the time I don't want him anywhere near me and yet...I couldn't belong to another master. I couldn't serve them wholly not while he lives. Eris would buy me in a heartbeat, but she'd just as soon turn me and have me walk by her side in the night. Even then...I can't imagine forever with anyone but him. I'm not... I'm not sure if what I want is freedom or oblivion."
He swallowed a lump in his throat. "I have leave to visit a Balm adept when I wish to, but...when I was meant to be dying it wasn't Elua or his Companions that held me fast to this plane. It was Hermes Psychopompos, I'm sure of it." It didn't feel like any of the stories he'd heard of those who'd been close to the fallen angels he'd been taught he was not worthy of. Perhaps that was proven true, now.
He lifted his gaze to meet Alcuin's. "Do I ask for freedom, then? He offered it, but do I take it? Do I repay that debt to a god whose name I was given by being unbound and wandering? To hope that I might one day be polytropos again? Help me," the last was a whisper, and what followed was even less audible. "Please, you're the only friend I have."