#a LOT of unnecessary internal monologuing but i needed to culminate it into 'oh he's a simp okay'

[mythvoiced]

" hey, can you deliver this important letter to Hermes? " she asks of the God himself, passing him a note with 'FUCK YOU' written in bold and all caps.

@astremourante | IM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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He brought this onto himself, you might argue.

And you'd be absolutely right.

Serves him right for engaging with mortals beyond what is traditional, orthodox to pursue for an Olympian.

He's not the first one (nor will he be the last) to entangle himself into human affairs and grow intrigued enough by someone who isn't an Olympian to know them by name, by the taste of their lips even.

The only difference is that... no one does it quite as well as Hermes.

Although he's the busiest among the Olympians, he'd argue and defend with ichor-blood, he's also the one who has most to do with mortals. And he's also the one most intrigued by just about anyone the sky and the earth, immortals and mortals, deem worthy of being shunned.

Nay, he is particularly fond of those others feel justified in shunning, othering, forgetting about, banishing.

One of his favourites among the fine people he's laid his eyes on had been Circe, after all, loathed by her entire family, a witch who turned vile men into pigs and cared for the nymphs on her prison island with the kind of care Greek mythological figures are not used to receiving from children of Titans: benevolent.

Snide tongue, sharp eye, witty mind, a good lay, even.

He has a type.

So, knowing full well who he's up against, that he's always enjoyed surrounding himself with people, mortals, who portray his favourites of mortal traits, the wit, the cunning, the raw ugliness of being anything but holy (that same ugliness he is the only one to recognise within his family), the bite, the ferocity of fighting because a mortal's life is so very short it makes it so very valuable to them especially, does he have any right to be surprised here?

No.

Which is why he isn't.

For a brief moment, a flash of something infinitesimal in contrast to a second, he'd been excited at the prospect that she'd have any interest in any aspect of who he actually is. They don't talk about divinity, his role. He doesn't even know if she knows he carries souls of the damned within his bag at times, that he's closely (closely, even) associated with the ferryman of the underworld, that he truly is the fastest among the God and can get her to anywhere in the world in the bat of an eye.

Then he hears his own name and reads the note.

There's another brief moment he dedicates to the shudder giggling along his spine, hidden beneath the mask of careless maniacal superiority, at hearing his name on her lips, so rarely used (especially in contrast to how often he'd like to hear it.

Then he bursts out laughing.

Because... because of everything described above and because of how none of the above truly matters, because the true reason he should have known better, the true reason he still takes it and laughs is because Amelia dug herself like a hook into his core and he'd probably find ways to fuck it all up, for the skies, the earth, the oceans, if she asked him just often enough.

He wouldn't right away, because he's smarter than that, God of Cunning and all that.

But he'd entertain it, entertain it in earnest.

A good idea.

Cause a war for Amelia Sinclair?

A good idea.

"Will do," he responds, with the glee of a flirty inside joke, smiling, all teeth, all a mollified cat just a nudge too enamoured with his Alice. "That will cost you, though. I don't do deliveries for free. Can you pay, miss?"