A/N: I've been sick for a while, so it took a little longer than usual to get a new chapter out this time and I think it's a bit shorter than the others (or at least less happens in it), but that's because I'm still not back to my usual 100% yet. It's been so long that I just wanted to get back to writing and get something out, even if it's a bit short, to get back in the swing of things.
Disclaimer: I own nothing
6.
I open my eyes, cursing at the sunlight for making my head hurt and I can hear Pollo laughing from the bathroom.
I reach blindly beside me and sigh happily when my fingers encounter warm flesh.
"good morning, my precious winter-girl," H says sleepily and I chuckle.
"I have a name, you know?" I ask, leaning towards him so I can kiss him.
Too tired to stay like that, leaning on my arms, I just let myself drop onto his chest and stay there for a bit.
Both Pollo and H decided it was probably better if we kept the night-time activities split for now, considering I'm so tightly strung from the whole doppelgänger-thing right now any added stress might cause me to explode.
And figuring out how I'm supposed to have sex with two guys at the same time – even if they know all there is to know about it and have done this a million times before – might just be that tiny bit of added stress that I can't handle right now.
But that doesn't mean either of them was willing to sleep alone and let the other one sleep in my bed, so I went to bed with H about an hour before Pollo came up and he dropped down into the bed next to us and went right to sleep.
Guess he was pretty tired from the entire mess as well.
That's not to say it was all bad.
I mean, Pollo did get his brother/boyfriend back – I'm still not sure how I feel about that one, even if I am okay with being shared – and we found out a lot about what exactly is going on around here.
They do say that when you understand the problem, you're halfway to knowing the solution, right?
I feel the bed dip besides me and smile contently when I feel Pollo running his warm hands over my back.
"you know?" I ask, trying desperately to keep my brain awake so I can keep enjoying this for a few more moments.
"hmm?" Pollo asks and I sigh happily when he runs his hands over my legs.
"your name is an acronym," I say, pointing blindly behind me to where I suspect Pollo is lying.
"really?" he asks.
I nod.
"Paolo is an acronym for Apollo, though there's an L missing. But there's an extra L in your nickname Pollo," I say.
I'm not entirely sure where this is coming from, it's just something my sleepy mind came up with.
Pollo's hands still, apparently I surprised him with that little tidbit of useless information.
"really?" he asks, his tone light and joking, but I can sense an underlying tension in his voice that I'm too tired to figure out right now.
"u-huh," I say, nodding. "and it fits, too. Because you're Hermes' brother and Apollo is Hermes' brother."
I lay down on my back and yawn, seconds away from falling asleep again.
"and your little brother, Dio, that's short for Dionysus, is the little brother of Apollo. And your twin-sister is called Diana, which is the roman name for Artemis, who is Apollo's twin sister," I say, counting down my fingers, even though I'm not really making a list of anything.
"and Mina is short for Minerva, which is the Roman name for Athena and Mina is your sister and Athena is Apollo's sister," I say.
I would've said more, not sure what, since I was talking pretty much on autopilot the whole time, but I can feel the heavy darkness of sleep pulling me under, so I just yawn again and get comfortable.
The last thing I see before my eyes close is Pollo sharing a shocked look with Hermes.
Wonder what that's about. Maybe they figure I've gone crazy or something, but whatever.
If they're going to be with me, they better get used to my crazy half-asleep talking.
As I wake up, I can hear Pollo and H whispering about something, but I can only make out some of the words, since they're not on the bed anymore.
They seem to have moved to the bathroom.
I don't open my eyes just yet, but instead I just lie there, enjoying that wonderful moment in between sleeping and being awake.
"maybe we need to change them," I can hear H saying.
He seems to be getting agitated, so his voice is rising, making it easier for me to understand the words."if she can figure it out when she's half-asleep,..."
"yeah, but then again, she was half-asleep, maybe she doesn't even remember," Pollo says, his voice also rising, as if to keep up with H's volume.
"and what if she does?" H asks and Pollo sighs.
"well, I don't know. We can't tell her she's delusional. You know damn well I can't lie," he says.
"either way, that doesn't change the fact that we'll have to change our names...again. If she can figure it out, then maybe other people can too. I told you we were getting too lazy with them," H says.
I think about that for a second, now fully awake, and realize they're talking about the crazy theories I came up with this morning, the last time I was 'awake'.
Their voices have dropped again, as if they suddenly realized they're getting too loud, so I can't understand everything they're saying, but I can hear enough to know they're talking about the names-thing and the doppelgängers, something about changing their names and not telling each other about it until they're sure the person they're talking to is the actual person they want to be talking to.
That way, they could recognize the doppelgängers easily, just pay attention to what the other person is calling them.
I'm not thinking about the doppelgängers right now, I'm too busy wondering why they're taking my sleep-talking so seriously.
It's not like they're actual Greek gods, so who cares if their names happen to resemble those of the gods?
I guess it'd make sense if they were the actual Greek gods, but let's forget for a minute that the Greek gods don't exist – and neither do doppelgängers, right? But I'm going to ignore that one for now –, their family dynamics don't fit either.
Juno said all the kids were hers. In Greek myth only Ares and Hephaestus are hers.
Pollo said she was his mother and she didn't disagree with him, even though in the myths Apollo was the son of Leta and he hated Hera – and she him – because she'd tortured his actual mother to punish her for Zeus' infidelity, since she couldn't actually punish Zeus himself.
Juno had said Caleb – which in this crazy reality would be short for Khalkeús, one of Hephaestus' many names – was married to Dahlia and had two children by her. But Dahlia would be short for Habrodíaitos, which is another name for Aphrodite.
And everyone knows Aphrodite's marriage with Hephaestus didn't last very long, considering she cheated on him with Ares and a whole slew of other men, but mostly Ares – which I guess would be Alex in this story – and divorced Hephaestus pretty soon after marrying him and she didn't bear him any children.
"what're you thinking about?" Pollo asks as he walks back into the room and sees that I'm awake.
"well, I've figured out Dahlia is Aphrodite, from Habrodíaitos; you're Apollo; Alex is Ares, this one I'm guessing he just chose a name that sounded kinda like the real one; Diana is Artemis, from her roman name; Mina is Athena, from her Roman name Minerva; Dio is Dionysus; Caleb is Hephaestus, from Khalkeús; Juno is Hera, from her Roman name; and Hermes is – obviously – Hermes. So I'm guessing that makes Jove Zeus, but I can't figure out the name-connection there," I say honestly.
No sense pretending I don't know any of this stuff.
Even if the family-connections are screwed up, there's no denying that all of them have names that can – to a certain point – be linked to the names of the Greek or Roman gods.
"Jove is short for Jupiter, which is Zeus' Roman name," Pollo says, sighing deeply and coming to sit on the bed next to me.
"yeah, I probably should've figured that out. Guess I was looking for something complicated and completely overlooked the most simple answer," I say.
"and in case you were wondering: Caleb's kids, Ai and Kyle, short for Aineas and Akylas. And my uncles are Silos, which stands for..."
"Agesilaos, an epithet of Hades," I say.
He looks down at me, obviously impressed that I'd figured that out so quickly, but then again, he doesn't know that I spent four years of my life learning everything I could possibly learn about the Ancient Greek belief-system, since it was the most interesting religion I'd found when I was 'looking for my own faith' after I'd renounced my Christianity.
"and Gaieo," H says, also sitting down onto the bed on the other side of me.
He remains silent, waiting for me to figure this one out.
Well, the only male we haven't had yet is Poseidon, so I already know what I'm looking for.
"Gaieochos, the earth-shaker, an epithet of Poseidon," I say and he nods, smiling widely.
"and the last one, our aunt, is Louisa," Pollo says.
I think about that for a long time and right before Pollo is about to just tell me, it hits me.
"of course, Demeter Louisa, the mild. Duh," I say.
"it confused me for a second because it's such a 'normal' name compared to the other ones. But what about Hestia then?" I ask and then I mentally slap myself as I realized I'm actually buying into my own sleepy delusion.
"she doesn't keep in touch much. Stopped talking to us a couple thousand years ago when she realized that because she gave up her spot as an Olympian to Dio, she was no longer worshiped as much as she used to be, so she tried to get father to switch her and Dio back, but he refused, and she got real prissy about that," H says, sounding utterly bored, as if he's just talking about the weather and not about some weird alternate universe or something where he's an actual god.
"huh. But I don't think I know any gods called Aineas and Akylas," I say, trying for the same nonchalance these two seem to have about the whole thing. "or even demi-gods for that matter. I know A-e-neas, which was the son of Anchises and Aphrodite and was some minor hero in the Trojan war – no twin, by the way – but no A-i-neas. No Akylas either. Atlas? yes. A-ky-las? no."
"they're only four years old, of course there wouldn't be any record of them in stories written several millenniums ago," Pollo says, as if I should've somehow known that.
"well, excuse me for not knowing all the ins and outs of Greek Divinity," I say, a bit offended. "all I have to go on here are 'stories written several millenniums ago'."
"it's not really 'Greek Divinity', considering we're still in charge of the entire world. We just didn't start mingling with humans until the time of Ancient Greece, so before that no-one knew our real names or what we looked like, which is how we somehow became 'Greek gods'," H says, shrugging.
"and yet, here we are, in Greece, where you guys live," I say, also shrugging and sitting up.
This is not a conversation to be had lying down.
"yes, but we were also Roman gods at some point in time, and Norse gods, and Egyptian gods, and even modern western gods, though they all called us by different names," Pollo says. "so we're not really Greek. Greece just happens to be the favored country for some of us. Hep and Aphrodite live in Paris with the twins, Sei lives in Hawaii, Demeter lives in Australia,..."
H nods.
"although, talking about how many different names we've had, I have to say the modern ones are not very original or inspired," he says.
I look at him questioningly and he laughs.
"well, in Christianity, Zeus is worshiped as 'God'. They didn't even give him a name. Just...God. And the rest of us are angels and we were given names that were actually pretty common baby-names at the time. Michaël, Raphaël,..." he says, smiling widely.
"you think that's bad? The Muslims just call all of us Allah. They just turned us into several aspects of this one god so they wouldn't have to come up with so many different names," Pollo says.
I can't help it, I start laughing.
This is by far the most ridiculous conversation I've ever had.
"Buddhists think there are many gods, but they are all actually different reincarnations of this one original god," I say, shrugging.
"yeah, but at least they went through the trouble of coming up with separate names for us. How are we supposed to introduce ourselves to Muslims, if we'd ever need to? 'hey, I'm Allah, and so is this guy, and this guy, and these girls, and those two, and...'," Pollo says, making me and H laugh again.
"I have to say, the most...amusing part, to me, is not the names," I say.
They both look at me questioningly and I shrug, smiling a bit.
"to me it's the fact that there are wars starting over who worships the 'right' god, even though they're all actually worshiping the same people, only with different names and looks," I say.
"Christians call everyone who doesn't worship their god a heretic and say those people won't get into heaven, as if heaven is only for the lucky ones who happen to blindly pick the right faith out of the over 600 different religions presented to them. So they starts wars with the Jews and with the Muslims, they look down on the Wiccans, the Hellenists, the Hindus,... How crazy is that? Basically, their Christian 'God' is the same as the Greek 'Zeus', who is the same as the Hindu 'Ishvara', who is the same as the Wiccan 'Horned God' – not true, The Horned God is actually Pan, since the Wiccans don't worship Zeus as the supreme god, but whatever – and so on. That's like someone wearing a 'red orange' shirt starting a war with someone wearing a 'sunset orange' shirt. It's pretty much the same color, but it has a different name, which makes 'red orange' so fucking much better than 'sunset orange'." I stop talking, not because I'm out of things to say, but because H and Pollo are too busy laughing their asses off to still be listening.
Also, I'm kinda out of breath.
I tend to rant about religion, considering I spent the better half of my life studying it intensely, looking for something I could believe in that didn't involve me hating or looking down on other people.
"did you just compare my dad to an orange T-shirt?" Pollo asks before falling into hysterics again.
I just shrug and wait for them to calm down, something that takes a lot longer than it should.
It wasn't that funny.
"hey dad, we just found out that, as far as religions go, you have nothing to complain about. It could be worse, after all. At least there's not some religion that likens you to a T-shirt," Pollo says, walking into the living room, falling back into hysterics for the seventh time.
"it was a metaphor, jeez," I say, but Pollo just laughs again.
Jove looks at me questioningly and I shrug.
"we were talking about modern religions and I made a remark that so many people go to war over whose supreme God is the best one to worship they might as well be going to war over whether 'a red orange shirt' or 'a sunset orange shirt' is the best kind of orange shirt to wear. And then this happened," I say, pointing at Pollo, who is again laughing.
H walks in behind me, completely calm again.
Only for a second though, because as soon as he sees Pollo kneeling on the floor, doubled over in laughter, he starts chuckling again as he's soon laughing as hard as Pollo is.
"it was a freakin' metaphor," I say, throwing my hands up in an exasperated gesture when I notice Diana's now also chuckling and will probably soon be following the two into hysterics, and sitting down on one of the couches.
For a second I'm confused as to why I said 'freakin'' instead of 'fucking', but then I notice Juno holding a sleeping Elizabeth with Alex sitting at her feet surrounded by crayons and paper.
I'd forgotten I'd slept in today, so of course those two would already be out of bed by now, it's almost noon.
Whenever there are children near I become almost physically unable to swear.
Even when I haven't yet consciously realized they were there, I'll still automatically use words like 'darn' or 'freakin'' instead of the actual curses.
"thanks for taking them. I hadn't realized how long I'd been sleeping," I say and Juno just smiles and nods, not seeming at all bothered that she had to take care of kids that weren't her own.
Well, if she really is Hera, then she is considered 'the mother goddess' so it makes sense that she'd enjoy taking care of little ones.
"are you finally done?" I ask when, almost twenty minutes later, Pollo, H and Diana seem to have finally calmed down.
Pollo thinks about that for a second, takes a few deep breaths and then nods.
"ow, my head hurts," H complains.
"that's what happens when you go insane for so long," I say and I shrug.
"ah, come on, darling. Don't be mad. It's just that we're so used to people finding out about our dad being Zeus and immediately falling to their knees and singing 'holy is the lord' or trying to sacrifice their cat to him – that actually happened once, no lie – that you threw us for a bit of a loop when your first reaction was to compare him to an orange shirt," H says, sitting down on the couch next to me, wiping the tears off his cheeks, his chest still shaking with barely repressed laughter.
"that was your first reaction?" Jove asks incredulously, as if he can't believe I didn't fall to my knees in worship.
"well, I don't have a cat," I just say, crossing my arms defiantly, and he smiles.
"but actually, no. My first reaction was trying to figure out how you went from 'Zeus' to 'Jove'. Since I'd been deciphering Aphrodite's and Hephaestus' names, with the whole Habrodíaitos and Khalkeús thing, I was thinking too complicatedly, so I couldn't come to the really simple conclusion that it was just short for Jupiter. Comparing you to an orange shirt was my second reaction. So sorry, no 'holy is the lord' for you. Wait...someone actually tried to sacrifice their cat?" I ask, H's words finally fully reaching my brain and short-circuiting something there as I try to imagine anyone having that extreme a reaction to finding out there's a god in the house.
"hah! God in the house," I say, shaking my head and laughing when everyone looks at me like I've finally lost my mind altogether.
"sorry. It's a song a couple of weird friends of mine came up with back when I was in high-school and it popped into my head just now. So anyway, sacrificing a cat? What...how...why?" I ask, my brain once again short-circuiting at the idea of it.
"well, ideally you'd sacrifice a bull, but those people only had a cat," Jove says, smiling slightly, probably recalling the time he met those weird people.
"it took twenty minutes to convince them I didn't actually want them to kill their family pet for me."
"man. I mean, I can understand how some people – you know, normal people – would have a pretty strong reaction to finding out they're in the presence of an actual factual god, but sacrificing their pet? My brain can't even come up with an image of that kind of reaction, let alone figure out what logic there could've possibly been behind it," I say, shaking my head in wonder. "normal people are weird."
"well, dead cat or no dead cat, we need to get back to business," Pollo says, completely serious once again, looking at all the timelines we've drawn up yesterday-evening.
