Note: I decided there was at least one more chapter to share for this story. The warnings are mostly the same here; discussion of rape but no depicted rape. This chapter also addresses incest to some degree. If you want to know exactly what is in this before you read, skip to the endnote for the spoilers.
Story
Hermes was feeling out of sorts across his realms.
When a mortal feels out of sorts, they often don't put their full attention into any task they are doing. When a deity feels out of sorts, they put too much attention into a single task. By nature, a god like Hermes is too big, for lack of a better word, to only exist in a single instance. He can if he wants to, of course. He can concentrate his entire being into a single form, and usually does during official meetings with his family because Zeus is a jealous god and does not like attention that is not on him. Hermes' full form is the kind of form that would fry a mortal who tried to gaze upon it, because it is too much, but that is not an issue while sitting in a divine council. When not attending to his father in Olympus, Hermes' presence is often divided between anywhere from four to, if he stretches himself really thin, eighteen physical bodies and one divine overseeing presence without form that is able to process the flow of prayers. For Hermes, any action that relates to one of his realms could be considered prayer, but special attention is always given to those who called for him by name.
This day, his strongest aspect was delivering a message from Aphrodite to one of her sons, because godly requests always take precedence and because carrying a physical item required some level of physical presence. Besides, he'd always had a bit of a soft spot for Aphrodite. Her romance with Ares might have been legendary but Hermes had fathered a son with her in the past. Meanwhile, another version of Hermes was bringing luck to a woman in a casino, a third was enjoying watching own son successfully pickpocket some tourist, and a fourth was herding some hapless demigod children in the direction of an inn he knew of that wouldn't care about their ID or age so long as they had money while a fifth form was leading a trail, seemingly as a demigod infant to head off the mormo tracking the hapless demigod children. The sixth form was guiding the soul of the demigod child that the mormo had already caught. Most of these actions did not require him to manifest for mortals and so did not take too much effort, though tricking the mormo did require him to actually appear in toddler form with most of his godly presence masked so he didn't smell fully divine.
A large part of his concentration, however, was not on any of these tasks. It was located instead in Peitho, who wasn't currently needed to do anything at that moment and so really shouldn't have been manifesting at all.
The end result was that he felt at least fifty-two thousand minor prayers he could have responded to, but didn't, and that he put the bare minimum into those tasks he did appear for. Aphrodite's letter got delivered, silently and without him taking the chance to check in on his own cabin as he usually did when sent to Camp Half-Blood. The luck given gave a small reward rather than the jackpot the woman was praying for. Hermes' son probably got the most attention, which was just as well because Hermes was able to trip the angry tourist who discovered a little too late what had happened. The guidance for the demigods was too subtle and they missed the inn entirely but at least the monster chasing them was successfully lured away; mormos preferred babies over older kids and a demigod infant was irresistible. The soul being guided to the underworld was getting there the long way around because he wasn't putting a lot of energy into directions. And Peitho sat on the edge of a fountain in a garden and twirled her hair over her fingers, utterly lost in thought, next to a snake that was sunning itself and with a second snake curling herself around Peitho's free arm.
"Peitho, dear," said the snake crawling up her arm, "Is everything alright?"
"Of course," Peitho answered. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Oh, don't ruin it," the sunning snake muttered at his companion snake. "I was enjoying the vacation." Then, while his companion hissed at him in annoyance, he lifted his head and added, "Though…I could do with a rat?" He looked at Peitho expectantly, but the young goddess didn't return the look. She didn't even take the bother to respond, just reached down to stroke the raised head as if he were a kitten and not a snake. A phone lying next to the snake buzzed. No one took any notice.
"It's only," said the first snake, once she had finished hissing admonishments at the other snake, her tones becoming kinder and more motherly now that she addressed the goddess once more, "Normally you keep us with your messenger aspect. Not that we can't help him from here…sort of…but…" But the caduceus was a symbol of Hermes, not Peitho, she did not say. But there was a limit to how they could fulfill their function when held separate from where they were needed. But the messenger god had fewer defenses while traversing the mortal realms when they were left behind. But this was not like Hermes and they were worried. Okay, Martha was worried. It seemed as if George was perfectly content to sunbathe by the fountain and dream of rats.
She trailed off without saying any of that and Peitho failed to respond, still twirling her hair between her fingers. Martha considered biting her, just to get a reaction. It wouldn't really hurt her, not as powerful a being as she was, but it might startle her back into her own mind from wherever it had wandered. Martha didn't know what else to do. She'd never, in all the millennia that she'd known him, seen Hermes like this. Sure he had bad times, rough times, horrible times, but he tended more towards fits of passion in response, not…whatever this was. But before she could make up her mind to actually bite, Peitho answered, even if it was not much of an answer.
"It's just…something Percy said."
"Good guy, Percy," said George. "He gave me some rats, once."
There was a long moment of silence while Martha ignored George and waited for more from Peitho and the goddess failed to continue.
"Oh?" Martha said at last, encouragingly. Peitho sighed.
"He wanted a blessing…" and here she glanced around, because Percy had offered a second drachma in bribe and it didn't do to share private business when bribed not to. When no one obvious seemed to be listening in, she continued in even softer tones, the barest breath of a whisper. "He wanted a blessing but he did not want to copulate with me."
"Ah…oh…well…" Marth said, and then, "Not everyone is going to be attracted to you, my dear, lovely though you are. And he does have a very strong bond with his own mate."
"What?" Peitho blinked down at the snake, or tried to; Martha had reached her upper arm and then gone sideways over her breast. This would normally be easier, as Peitho preferred nudity, but in this moment she was clothed, even if only barely. Another sign that something was wrong.
"Percy is a…er…attractive young man, but…" Martha said carefully, trying to be non-judgmental.
"I didn't want to copulate with him either," Peitho interrupted. Martha waited, sure there had to be more to it than 'neither of us wanted sex, and we didn't have sex'. Uless…
"But you had to bestow your blessing anyway and it has made you both uncomfortable?" Martha hazarded a guess.
"No," Peitho answered. "I found another way to bestow my blessing. Without copulation. But. Percy was angry."
"I can bite him for you," George offered, sleepily, and clearly not fully following the conversation. Forget biting Peitho to bring her back to them; Martha was now considering biting George.
"No!" Peitho answered, and then more quietly, "No biting Percy. He was…he was angry for me. Not at me."
"Oh, well, that's okay then," George decided, and settled once more, shifting slightly where shadows had crept up to rob him of a bit of sun. "Always liked Percy. Gave me rats once."
"Why was Percy angry for you?" Martha asked.
"It didn't make any sense," Peitho answered, sounding angry and frustrated herself. "I told him I like having sex and I like being a fertility goddess and it's fun and…and…he…grr." She wrinkled up her nose in a way that couldn't help being attractive and endearing, seeing as her entire form was crafted with the idea of being attractive and endearing.
"Does he not like that you have a lot of sex?" Martha asked next, rather confused herself, because what did the boy think it meant to be a fertility deity? Besides, Hermes had lots of children and Percy's only concern had ever been that he take responsibility towards them. Which Hermes had always done, at least by classical standards; he kept a metaphysical eye on them and guided them and gave them his blessings (not fertility blessings, of course, other blessings) and tried to reward them when they made him proud. Apparently, that wasn't considered enough by modern child rearing standards, but Hermes had always tried to be there for his children, if not physically, then as an unseen guiding presence. He tried to be there for the other gods' children too, even less seen and not always successful, but he was one of the reasons any demigods made it to Camp before being eaten by a monster. Being the god of travel, shepherds, and initiation meant he was a natural herder of lost children.
None of that, it turned out, had anything to do with what was bothering this deity aspect.
"He didn't like that I offered to bless him when I didn't want to bless him," Peitho answered.
Martha had no answer to this. She was a snake. She prided herself on being more complex than George, whose answer to everything boiled down to 'rats' or 'more rats', but her worldview was still severely limited to less nuanced matters. Regulating mail was fairly straightforward. Acting as a medium for messages was too. Understanding the nuances of social interaction or the nature of consent was a bit beyond her. Still, she tried.
"You offered to bless him when you did not want to bless him?" Sometimes, just rephrasing what a person had just said as a question could help. Martha might not have the answers but she was very used to the ebb and flow of conversation.
"He sees things like a mortal sees things, still," Peitho complained. "He doesn't understand."
"Okay," said Martha, and then, somewhat cautiously, "Does it matter if he understands?"
"He made it sound like I was doing something wrong," Peitho all but growled, yanking at her own hair now in frustration. "Or…I don't know. Like it's bad that I don't like everything about my function. Anyway, I'm just doing my job! Everyone has parts of their jobs that aren't fun. Most of my job is fun, and it doesn't matter if some of it isn't! It's just a job!"
Somewhere in Detroit, a very unfortunate mormo caught up with what the monster thought was an infant demigod. An infant demigod armed with a harpe and more speed than a toddler should really possess.
Somewhere that was not Detroit, a small girl was smiling up at the man who held her hand in his, leading her down a road and kindly answering whatever questions she thought to ask. So far she had learned that his name was Hermes, that he was taking her to a magical kingdom on behalf of her mom, who he knew, that his favorite color was green, that he is fond of the ninjask pokemon which most people assume is his favorite because of how fast it is but, does she want to know a secret? His absolute favorite is the turtwig.
Somewhere in New York, Hermes' son failed to be caught pickpocketing.
Somewhere in a cabin, a son of Aphrodite wanted to know why a box labelled to him had been placed on his sister's bunk. A small war ensued.
And in a garden in Olympus, Peitho continued to stormily yank at her own hair while one snake sunbathed beside her and the other tried to work out how to be a therapist without any training and coming from an animalistic point of view.
"Look, I get that it's bad for a mortal if they don't get to choose if they have sex or not," Peitho continued to rant. "I get that! I know you aren't supposed to make people have sex with you just because you want them!" And wasn't that a difficult lesson to impart that actually took a couple thousand years when half of Hermes' relatives were of a rather different mindset. But Hermes was, by nature, close to both deities and mortals. He was a go-between, of a sort. He had to have an understanding of how mortals thought to be able to do his job. Also, his temples tended to be alongside female deities and his aunts and sisters rather beat the idea of consent into him over the millennia.
Martha knew less about the issue than Peitho did, which did not help her in figuring out how to get Peitho to snap out of it, stop yanking her own hair, and pull herself together. Which in this case meant either disappearing completely back into the larger Hermes body, or going to do fertility things like helping plants grow. Technically, she was doing that just by being in the garden. Even as they sat, a few of the more enterprising plants were slowly growing their way towards the fountain. If her temper tantrum went on too long, the fountain would be a mess of roses and ivy and whatever other plant could get away with creeping up.
"But I'm not a mortal, and it's my job to bless people, and it isn't the same thing at all, and Percy just doesn't understand!"
"Ah," said Martha. This was beyond her. Maybe it was time to call in reinforcements. "Have you considered going to one of your aunts?"
"How would that help?" Peitho demanded, bringing her knees up and hugging them while Martha hastily climbed to a less squished location about her shoulders. The answer, of course, was that they would better understand the issue and maybe be able to talk her through it. But that wasn't an answer Peitho would like.
"They could explain it to Percy, help him understand."
Peitho considered this.
Then, before she could come up with excuses why she couldn't possibly, she felt the pull of a prayer that called her by name. She was so not in the mood to answer a fertility prayer. Not when she still felt all out of sorts over what Percy had implied.
"Peitho, dear?" said Martha, who sensed something had changed but was more in tune with the messenger aspect than the fertility one and didn't know exactly what had happened.
"I suppose I should go," Peitho grumbled. She didn't have to go. It was an old satyr calling for her, one who had lately been in the habit of calling on her for one of the less physically demanding blessings; he wanted to copulate but not with Peitho and his older age had robbed him of the ability. Usually, Peitho enjoyed showing up in person to tease life into whoever asked for such a blessing. This satyr no doubt expected it. She wasn't in the mood.
She almost rejected his request, just because she could, just because it would prove that she was in control and Percy had it all wrong and this was all ridiculous and she was getting worked up over nothing. Except she knew it was only even possible to reject it because it was a satyr making the request and not a god. Not that a god would need that kind of blessing in the first place, but still. Rejecting him didn't really prove anything to anyone. And besides, if she rejected him…he'd want to know why. She had never rejected his drachmas before. Mortals could get so worked up over the tiniest hint of rejection; he'd think he'd displeased her and he'd want to know what he did and what he could do to fix it. Likely he'd start asking around, and the rumors would spread, maybe as far as her father, and she'd need to explain and 'I didn't feel like it' would sound so strange. It would be better to make up some slight but…unfair to a kind old satyr who was always so polite and worshipped her so well.
It was just really badly timed.
When she appeared before him, in satyr form because it felt the most appropriate, she smiled because it was a blessing and expected. He still jumped away from her, not afraid or even alarmed, just surprised. He covered it up by immediately bowing to the ground, as if he had meant to all along. Peitho winced a bit at the move; his joints audibly did not appreciate his obeisance.
"Thank you for answering my prayer, o goddess and goddess's companion."
Peitho blinked at him, confused, until she felt Martha gliding between the strands of her hair.
"You are most welcome," Peitho answered formally, "And I grant my blessing." While putting a finger to Martha's mouth because the last thing she wanted was for a serpent of Hermes to be recognized. It wasn't common knowledge among the mortals, and Hermes favored secrets over common knowledge because he was a god of currency and what were secrets if not something to trade for? Better if the satyr didn't make the connection.
Words given, she touched him, on the head because the more usual spot to touch when granting her blessing was out of reach, what with the way he was hunched over in a way that made reaching that part of his anatomy impossible without breaking several laws of physics. She left then, much faster than was normal for her but the blessing was given and there was no actual need to stay and see the coupling. Soon they were once again at the fountain's side. George didn't even lift his head; he might actually not have noticed.
"Talk to your aunts," Martha ordered, the moment they were back.
"There is no need," Peitho answered instantly. "I was upset only that the once mortal had so little understanding, but that will change in time. I realize now I am perfectly fine to continue on."
"You took me with you," Martha answered, not swayed in the least. "That is not normal for you to be that distracted. We should not even be with you, instead of the Messenger."
"If you want to go back to him I'll happily send you back." Her tone was careless, but Martha had known Hermes for far too long to fall for that.
"I do not mind being with you, I enjoy your company. Sometimes it's nice for us girls to catch up, hang out. But you are not fine and I cannot help you. Your family can."
"My family…" Peitho muttered darkly, and Martha was fairly certain it was not her aunts she was thinking about. "I should…"
"Mommy!" a young child's voice exclaimed and Peitho sat up quickly from where she had been hugging her knees again, so quickly that Martha had to entwine herself further into her hair before she was thrown off completely. As quick as Peitho moved, she was only just in time to brace herself before the child who owned the voice barreled into her with enough force that they all three almost went in the fountain.
"Halie!" Peitho answered, smiling in spite of herself because she was always happy to see her children.
"Mommy, did you need me? I heard you calling for me."
"Yes, she did, dear," Martha said firmly, while Peitho was still trying to work out how to say 'no, I don't need you' without it coming off as a rejection of her own child.
"Mommy," Halie said, frowning, "Why is your caduceus here? Is something the matter?"
"That's not for you to worry about," Peitho answered instantly. "George wanted a short vacation."
"Wha…rats?" mumbled George, who definitely had no idea what was going on.
"Did you want a rat?" Halie asked, and reached her hand down the front of her chiton and pulled one out to lay before him. Instantly, the snake was much more active than his previous languid state had suggested possible, gobbling it up in an instance.
"Knew you were my favorite of Hermes' kids," George managed to say even with his mouth full. Halie laughed.
"You spoil them," Peitho admonished, but didn't stop her when she offered a second rat to Martha, who was not so concerned over Peitho that she wasn't ready to accept it. Anyway, some of Peitho's family was here at last. Mission accomplished.
"They deserve to be spoiled," Halie insisted. Then she frowned again. "Mommy, what is the matter? I know you are not here, pulling on your hair and…and wearing clothes, because George wanted a vacation. Please tell me."
"I am the mother here and it is nothing," Peitho insisted. The young girl put her hands on her hips, sitting in her mother's lap.
"I'm not a child," she said sternly.
"I know you're not a child," Peitho said quickly, "Even if you prefer to take on…"
"And you've been knocking at the door of my realm for over an hour now."
"It's nothing to do with your realm," Peitho insisted, actually sounding surprised. Then, "Have I? Well…I suppose Percy is a cousin so…but we didn't have sex so how could that have called to you?"
"I've told you, nothing is as clearcut as you want it to be." Then she sighed, and twisted away, leaning out to greet a particularly adventurous briar. "I love plants. They have no care who they mate with, and there is something freeing in that. It's so much…messier with gods and mortals." Then she let it go and leaned back against her mother and sighed, as if Atlas's weight were her own and she found it bothersome and heavy.
"My uncles have not been bothering you again, have they?" Peitho demanded.
"Your sister," Halie said, leaning back on her mother but tilting her head up and back until she could see an upside-down version of her face, "Has asked me to join her hunt. She thinks that I 'of all the goddesses' should want to give up on men forever." She even did quotation marks, her tone utterly annoyed. "Aunt Artemis does not get me At All."
"I could talk to her," Peitho suggested, which had Halie laughing out loud.
"As if she would listen to you; you are everything she hates most. A woman who spends her time seducing men and a man yourself. She'd shoot you before listening to you."
"Wouldn't be the first time," Peitho said with a shrug. "And my children are worth it."
They settled into a contented silence for a moment, with just an edge of unrest. There was a reason Halie had sought out her mother, and it wasn't to complain about Artemis.
"Percy Jackson is a new set of eyes," Halie said suddenly. "Did you ever think…maybe…he can see us clearer than we can see ourselves?"
Peitho held very still for a moment, except for her fingers that carded through her daughter's hair.
"You were there," Peitho said, gaze distant and tone disturbed. "You already know what Percy said."
"You were in my realm," Halie explained. "I amped up cousin Percy's disgust at copulating with you times ten to stop him from making a mistake."
"It wouldn't have been a mistake," Peitho tried to say, "It would have been fine…"
"He would have hated himself, once he understood," Halie insisted. "You did not see the disgust he held for my realm. He would have hated himself. And it can warp a god…such self-hatred."
"I didn't feel you there," Peitho said, still carding her hand through Halie's hair.
"No. I may be yours but you are not mine. I miss spending time with you. Even Grandpa-Daddy hasn't wanted to spend time with me lately."
Peitho stopped carding through Halie's hair to instinctively hug her tightly to herself.
"When you say, 'spends time with you', you don't mean…" Peitho began, then trailed off.
"Not like when he spends time with you, Mommy. It just feels like home, being near him. He's such a large part of my realm, the grownup parts anyway. He doesn't hurt me." Then she leaned in close to Peitho's ear and whispered, "I think I make him uncomfortable."
"Good…good," Peitho said.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Peitho was lost in thought and the child seemed content to simply be, first reaching out to play with the plants, then reaching to entwine her fingers in her mother's hair. Peitho let her do as she pleased.
They still hadn't broken the silence when Hermes stepped into the garden.
As a rule, Hermes did not wander about collecting his different aspects, meeting with himself. For one, he was generally too busy. For another, it was simple enough to go from many, to one, to many, as needed. There was no benefit of being multiple people in the same space and the feedback loop when he tried it tended to give him a headache. Yet there he was, wearing his delivery outfit. He smiled when he saw them.
"Hello, Halie," he said. "Hello, self. George, Martha, why are you letting me steal you away when I need you?"
"Mommy!" Halie said, waving happily but not trying to leave Peitho's arms. Peitho blinked up at him. Hermes sighed.
"We need to figure this out. Its putting me off schedule."
"I…" Peitho said, then stopped. The feedback of being right next to each other and also being each other was starting to get to both of them, but Hermes didn't leave, just waited. Halie sighed again, then reached around to pat her mother on the arm.
"Rest, until you are actually called for," the child suggested in world weary tones that did not at all match her small form. "Dreams are how we process."
"I don't dream," Hermes and Peitho said in one voice, then glanced at each other and clutched at their heads.
"Of course you do," Halie insisted. "You just don't like to because you hate slowing down long enough to manage it." The child slid out of Peitho's lap, then reached up and untwined Martha from Peitho's hair. Then she turned to beseech Hermes with, "Let her sleep, Mommy. It will help."
Hermes and Peitho looked at each other a moment longer, and then Peitho was gone in a shower of gold and Haile was alone with her male mother. Hermes put a hand on her shoulder, then went grab his phone and wake up George.
"Did you have to feed them?" Hermes asked as both snakes grumbled about being made to work on a full stomach.
"They deserved it, looking after you like they did." The child moved closer to her mother and put a hand on his hip. "This isn't something you can run away from. It's been a long time coming, all your life I think. But maybe…maybe good change will come. I don't like it when you fall into my realm and I can't make it stop."
Then Halie left too, in the more traditional way by skipping down a garden path. Hermes watched her go, a complicated expression on his face. Then his phone buzzed and he shook his head, too busy to stop and reflect. He'd fallen too far behind, what with how distracted he'd been. So he let his daughter go and corralled George and Martha into acting their part.
Before he left for his next delivery, he did pause to watch Halie, barely in sight, as she accepted an apple from a tree with a childish laugh. He smiled in spite of himself. Yes, not everything about his eternal life was sunshine and roses, but the bad was worth it, if such good could come out of it.
"When did my daughter become the parent?" he asked out loud, fond and exasperated with just a hint of sadness.
"When her mom decided to act like a child?" George suggested, somewhat sleepily.
"I do not act like a child," Hermes answered. "You're a child."
"Children," admonished Martha. And then the space by the fountain was empty, except for the crowd of rose briars now overtaking its side.
Spoilers: Peitho was disturbed by her conversation with Percy to the point that she manifests without a summons to try and work it out by talking it through with her caduceus (that last part was probably accidental and a sign of how disturbed she was). She continues to say that Percy is too used to being a mortal and just doesn't understand while Martha tries to convince her to reach out to family who might understand and George tries to convince her to feed him rats. In the middle of this, an old satyr summons Peitho by name, wanting help with erectile disfunction, a simple blessing that doesn't require sex. Peitho does not have to answer him since he is not a god but thinks the resulting gossip if she refuses where she would normally agree would not be worth it and goes anyway (another issue with consent, but a subtler one; she could say no but not without consequences). Finally, a child goddess (or rather, an adult goddess presenting as a small child) appears and reveals that Peitho/Hermes is her mother and that Peitho had inadvertently called to her because her current issues are related to the daughter's realm. It is never outright said what Halie is a goddess of, but it is heavily implied it is related to incest and/or rape. She references other members of their family with particular emphasis on her 'grandpa-daddy', who is never outright confirmed either to be Zeus but probably is as her particular title for him would mean he is both her dad and grandfather, which could only apply to Zeus or Chronos, and she would not be able to 'hang out' with the latter.
Note: I continue to mark this complete because I consider each chapter, while clearly related, to be one-shots. I may or may not continue to add to this but I've tried to write it in a way that each chapter could be considered complete in itself just in case I never do.