Who: Natalie and Hermes What: A bonding of sorts When: Friday evening Where: A hotel room in Michigan
Natalie was flying Hermes around the US on his search for Ares. That this was all over who had sent Zeus a gross and dismembered hand was ridiculous to Hermes, but his father had sent him on an errand and he would go, aided by his mortal pilot.
Despite Hermes' insistence that Natalie didn't need her own hotel room, Natalie had opted to keep some semblance of professionalism in their relationship and she had gotten one of her own even if she wasn't currently in it. She was seated at the hotel's desk, filling in paperwork while Hermes rested on his bed with his back to the wall, eating the macadamia nuts from the mini bar.
Hermes looked up at her, so beautiful in the lamp light, her hair falling over her face in all sorts of appealing ways. "You're beautiful," he informed her, because it seemed like the thing to do. "And I am very sorry you're stuck on this pointless journey with me."
Natalie looked up from her papers at the compliment with a small smile. How flattering it was to be told she was beautiful by a guy who'd probably seen Helen of Troy. Not that Natalie though she was Helen of Troy. She may have had a bit of arrogance in her but she wasn't about to start getting delusions of ship-launching.
"Hey," Natalie said with a shrug, sitting back in the chair and putting down her pen. "As long as you keep paying me, I'll keep flying you wherever." When he'd told her they were going to going looking for Ares she'd thought it was a joke. She didn't know why, because it was perfectly logical when put against the rest of her life.
"It's still frustrating to be flying all over the continental United States looking for someone to ask a question about stupid things. I used to lead the dead to the Underworld. Now I'm looking for my brother so I can ask him if he sent my father a dismembered hand."
Hermes ran his fingers through his hair and he looked up at her again. He liked her smile, but he was too distracted to properly appreciate it. "The truth is that Zeus just wanted me out of the house. I don't think he cares who sent him the hand. He just wanted my wife to himself."
Natalie didn't quite know what to say to that. "Does he, uh, have your wife a lot?" she asked, trying not to sound like it grossed her out. Sharing his wife with his father was kind of fucked up, but the Greek gods seemed to have a different standard than normal people from what her research told her.
"Not a lot," Hermes said softly. "She has always been loyal to him, and Zeus knows what he wants. She's persuasion. It's not hard to see why he would be drawn to her. It's not that I don't like. Peitho can be with whomever she wants to be with, just as I am free to do. I am not her master. I never was, and in a time when that was commonplace, I took her as my wife because her independence suits me."
Hermes didn't know if he was saying too much. He did not usually dwell on his emotions, but feeling this way about Peitho's safety was new. They had lived near each other since ancient times, but never together. Now they were co-habitating and he was falling for her all over again. He was not a jealous man, he was a protective one. It was new and even if he didn't really know Natalie, he wanted to talk to someone about it. And no way was he telling anyone he was related to!
"It's not that he is with her. It's that...I was worried he might harm her. I am not used to feeling concern for her safety because Peitho is capable of caring for herself. And last night, I worried."
Natalie watched him from over the desk, finding it strange that this seemed so normal yet so utterly alien. He was talking about Zeus, about gods being loyal to him, about how he was afraid his wife - a goddess of persuasion - might be harmed by Zeus, the king of the Greek gods.
And yet he was sort of just a man like any other with concerns about the woman he loved. So Natalie said, "that sounds pretty normal, Hermes." She tried not to sound like she knew better than him. Hermes was a pretty nice guy but she knew he could do the smiting just like the others. (She'd checked. Hermes had turned a lot of people into different animals for offending him.) "You love her and Zeus - and please don't turn me into a turtle for saying this - is sort of a creepy rapist sometimes so of course you've got concerns."
She hoped she would at least be a bird, because a turtle would suck.
Hermes actually laughed when she asked to remain un-turtled. She was useful and beautiful and therefore he had no intention to turn her into anything other than a bedfellow. "I can assure you, you will not be waking up with a half-shell! You're not wrong anyway."
Then Hermes' mood turned quite sombre and he frowned. "Zeus once informed me that if I messed up, he would rape my wife. I don't think he even remembered I was married to Peitho, and he was angry at the time, but I can't get it out of my head. And I keep wondering if he even remembers that and if I don't show up with word from Ares, is he going to make good on his word? My job is so much harder these days. Everyone is so spread out and- It's just not the same." He didn't want to say he hated relying on mortals because she was one and quite a lovely one at that.
"And you don't have those nifty shoes with the wings anymore," she added. Those would be really handy.
Of the rest she had no idea what to say. She'd shuddered with pure horror at what Zeus had told him, feeling her insides clench up. How were these people still in the world? She didn't understand how Hermes could just accept that sort of thing, but she knew it was because he was a god, because he wasn't just some attractive young man like he looked.
"I'll help you find Ares. I know I'm not exactly the Hermes Express you used to have, but I'll do my best."
Hermes smiled at her and then he tried to look slightly less forlorn. "Peitho would be able to calm him down. I know she would. She's done it so many times. She could convince him that she was willing and then he wouldn't hurt her. But I still would like to spare her that."
Natalie looked at her nails, her really interesting and very normal nails that didn't go around raping people or convincing people that they weren't actually raping anyone.
"I don't..." Natalie looked up at him, a little uncomfortable. "The fact that your father threatens to rape your wife as punishment but it's okay because she could convince him it's not really rape... I don't actually know what sort of thing I can say to that because... it's fucking fucked up."
"It is," Hermes said quietly. And then for her sake, he added, "in case you were worrying, I haven't mentioned you and I don't intend to."
The breath that Natalie let out was of pure relief and she felt a little more relaxed already. The last thing she wanted was to become a part of the creepy games. "Thank god," she she breathed. "Um, thank you," she corrected herself.
Hermes laughed again, feeling better for having unloaded his worries on Natalie. "Actually thank you. I never would have been able to speak to my family about this. It would get back to Zeus somehow. And he doesn't understand the way I feel about Peitho because he hates his own wife so much."
"So the Greek gods are sort of like some high school Mean Girls clique when it comes to gossip?" Natalie asked, with a little amused smile.
"Personal question," Natalie said with a slight raise of her hand. "If you and your wife love each other so much, why all the sleeping around?"
Hermes hadn't really thought about that, because to him it was a non-issue. He slept around because it was natural. "Monogamy is a fairly recent invention," Hermes said, even though it wasn't actually true. He was a god and for him, monogamy didn't exist. "I don't think it ever occurred to either of us...not to not sleep around."