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Chapter Text

The hum of tyres on tarmac is comforting, if only because Hermes knows the alternative is sore soles and muscle fatigue. The audial reminder that he is safe and secure within his vehicle, travelling at a steady pace of sixty miles per hour, away from the bluster of wind and rain, and things that are much worse than inclement weather, is relieving; but Hermes’ eyelids intermittently droop, and his head throbs.

He has been driving for too long.

“You should slow down to fifty miles per hour, it’s more efficient,” Dionysus’s voice permeates his foggy mind from the backseat, and Hermes clenches his jaw before letting out a scoff.

“If you don’t have a driver’s license, you don’t get to shit on my driving,” Hermes hisses, blinking a few times hard to try and sharpen his bleary vision, but it doesn’t really do much for him. His eyes flit to the rear view mirror where his youngest brother slumps in his seat with the corners of his lips pulled down into a facetious pout.

“He’s right, though, and you know it,” Apollo reprimands from the front passenger seat, “the car is more efficient at a lower speed because of aerodynamic drag, and we need to conserve what fuel we can. We don’t know when we’ll get lucky again; finding that full jerry can forty miles back was a miracle.”

Great. There goes Apollo, prattling on about anything and everything. He sure does love to hear himself talk, especially when Hermes is trying to ignore the pulsating pressure behind his eyes.

“Are you listening to what I’m saying?” Apollo snaps firmly, and Hermes startles in his seat, hands tightening on the steering wheel upon realising he let his eyes fall shut for more than a few seconds.

“You need to shut the fuck up and just let me drive,” Hermes seethes through gritted teeth, and Apollo tuts, shaking his head. Hermes can see him in his peripheral vision, his perfect, stunning blue eyes burning into the side of his head, judgemental and irritated.

“You’re exhausted, you haven’t drank anything since yesterday evening, all you’ve eaten is half a stale granola bar, and your head is killing you. We need to find somewhere to stop before it gets too dark, or you’ll crash this car and kill us all,” Apollo states firmly. Hermes fights the urge to roll his eyes. Of course the med student can spot a headache from just the twinge of Hermes’ facial expression.

The reminder of his crippling dehydration makes him swallow tightly. His throat feels like sandpaper, he is desperate for even a drop of water, something, anything. Hell, at this point he’d take sparkling water if it was offered, and Hermes hates sparkling water.

He knows Apollo is right, but his simmering pride pushes a scathing retort up his throat to the back of his tongue, though he barely has time to spit the hostile insult out at his older brother before Dionysus suddenly draws in a gasp.

“Look, there’s a building!” He points out of the windshield ahead, and Hermes’ gaze focuses on the blurry rectangular mass of a building he is hastily approaching. He promptly slows his speed as they near it, and Hermes cautiously pulls up to the turning that leads to the parking lot of some sort of warehouse.

It looks abandoned, but Hermes knows looks can be deceiving; there are a few busted up cars around the lot, as well as a commercial truck that looks like it was ditched in a hurry. The building itself is dilapidated, with a few shoddily boarded up windows here and there, and in the dimming evening sun, Hermes cannot see a lick of light creeping through the gaps in the crudely applied plywood planks.

“I think I’d rather just sleep in the car,” Hermes grumbles miserably, not trusting the run down state of the building. It almost looks like it’s been abandoned since before everything went to shit.

“It could be a safe stop for the night,” Apollo weighs in optimistically, and Dionysus anxiously leans forward, peering out with uncertainty.

“Or it could be full of biters,” the youngest of the three whispers.

Hermes swallows again, his throat screaming at him for something to lubricate it with. There’s no guarantee he will even find any water or food inside this run down warehouse, but he can only go on for so long before the dehydration becomes detrimental. His stomach is already gnawing at itself; he really has no choice but to venture in.

“Fuck,” he murmurs, feeling his heart lurch with fear at what potentially awaits him inside. He could scout the building first, and if there’s too much of a risk, he can always return to the car and keep driving.

Slowly, he pulls the car into the parking lot, keeping his eyes peeled for movement of any kind, and engages the handbrake, shutting the car off. He observes the environment silently for a few minutes; the rain has let up to only a light spritz, and the wind has died down only slightly.

“Alright, I’m gonna check the place out. Stay in the car,” Hermes advises his brothers. He reaches for the machete blade sheathed in its thigh holster, a necessary precaution when venturing out into the world in its current state, and bravely opens up the car door, slipping out.

“Be careful,” Apollo warns, his blazing gaze now filled with apprehension for Hermes’ safety.

“Hurry back,” Dionysus implores, clutching the side of the driver’s seat with a white-knuckled grip. Hermes draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, quietly closing the car door and turning his sights to the warehouse.

He moves with silent footsteps, keeping to shadows and places where he can quickly duck behind an obstacle if needed. He is an expert at sneaking, talented at worming his way into areas unseen and unheard, but in a world populated with violent infected, Hermes cannot ever let his guard down.

Around the side of the warehouse, Hermes is greeted with paralysing fear. He hears it before he sees it: the gurgling chokes and wheezing groans of something that is no longer human. He peers along the edge of the building and discovers the source of the hideous noise; a creature that was once a woman is crouched and hunched over its latest meal, tearing out the guts of what Hermes hopes is just a wild animal, and stuffing them into its gaping maw, raw and dripping with decaying matter.

Hermes fights the urge to gag and forces himself to focus; one wrong move and he’s done for. He needs to be smart about this.

It is a good thing that the unearthly creature is distracted, because it gives Hermes the opportunity to make the first move. He raises his machete and sidles towards the monster, poised to strike the moment he is in range.

The creature makes a guttural noise and lifts its head, prompting Hermes to freeze in place several metres behind it. It turns its head, investigating left and right, before disregarding the disturbance in favour of the gore it has its hands buried in, bowing its head the continue consuming.

Hermes strikes while he has the chance. A few more noiseless steps, and he brings the machete down swiftly, stabbing the ex-human straight through the head, destroying the one thing that allows its infected cadaver to keep moving: the brain.

A final jarring groan escapes the bloodied mouth of the infected human, before it falls limp and lifeless as it should be.

Hermes refuses to look at its face as he extricates his blade from the recesses of its skull, and spares a fleeting glance at the animal it had been devouring. Just an unfortunate coyote.

He is not sure he will ever get used to the feeling of dispatching infected. Before the start of the apocalypse, he had never killed anything, not even an animal, but now he has a streak.

They are not human, he has to remind himself every time. They do not possess souls, they are husks uninhabited by intelligent life, they will kill him if he does not kill them.

Hermes presses on, circling the warehouse until he finds a solitary, forgotten window that has long since been smashed in. He takes the flashlight from his belt and peers in, illuminating a small, empty room with peeling walls. It is free from undead monstrosities, so he climbs in quietly and sweeps the room for anything useful. 

Unfortunately, like many times before, he finds nothing he can use, so he moves towards the only closed door and braces himself for the worst.

It is unlocked, he discovers, when he slowly turns the door knob and glimpses through the crack into the dark, wider interior of the warehouse. It is almost pitch black in the room, which suggests there are no humans about; but it does nothing to assure him of a lack of infected. The biters do not mind the dark, they amble about in all kinds of conditions, unaffected by circumstances that would instil fear in humans.

He strains his ears, but the room is large and the light spritz of rain on the windows is still loud enough to disrupt his attempt to zero in on any ghoulish groans, so he proceeds with caution, taking soundless steps as he slips between bare shelving units and old disused machinery that he cannot even begin to guess the function of.

Eventually, he wanders into a broader space with desks, metal barrels and crates, and what looks like a squalid area belonging to a squatter. But unless his ears deceive him, there is nobody here except him.

He shines his flashlight across the floor and spots a lumpy sandbag, a dusty blanket, and a backpack. Hermes’ eyes lock onto it, widening slightly in both hope and fear; hope, for the potential of supplies the bag may hide, and fear, for the burgeoning realisation that somebody might actually be living here at this very moment. Unless the creature Hermes took care of outside was the previous occupant of this warehouse, that is.

Hermes spots no immediate danger, so he investigates, kneeling by the bag to seek out its contents. Inside, he pulls out a half-empty pump bottle of antibacterial hand gel, a box of matches, two food cans without labels, both of which appear to be severely battered and dented, a pocketknife, a bottle of pain relievers with only a few pills left, an empty canteen, and a blood-stained children’s toy in the shape of a white rabbit that leaves an unsettling feeling in his chest.

All the items, except the empty canteen and the haunting toy, can be of use, but of course, the water he so desperately needs is still nowhere in reach. Hermes massages his temple as he grits his teeth; he could take one of the pain killers for his headache, but without any water to swallow it with, the pill will probably just get stuck in his throat and do him no good.

He sighs, wishing he could lay down his head and sleep off the pain, but this warehouse is not secure enough for him. The car will be a better place to sleep for the night.

Before he can muster up the energy to stand, a low growling noise makes his blood run cold, and Hermes feels every hair on his body stand on end; he gasps, turning his head to the source of the snarling, and slowly raises the flashlight, spotting a rather frightening looking dog emerging from the darkness.

It’s a black and brown Rottweiler with an intense stare, upper lip raised to expose its sharp teeth as it makes its displeasure known.

“Sh-shit, ah, um, s-sorry, uh, good- good dog?” Hermes babbles meekly, lifting his hands shakily out of reflex. His heart thumps behind his ribs as every hope inside him sinks; being mauled by an angry dog is not how he expected to go out.

“Who are you?” A low voice cuts through the darkness, startling Hermes further. A person. There’s a person standing in the darkness just beyond the Rottweiler; hope soars anew in Hermes body with the realisation that the dog’s owner can probably be reasoned with, until Hermes raises his flashlight a little further and recognises that this human is pointing a pistol at him.

“Please… don’t shoot me,” Hermes stammers out, showing his hands more purposefully to display his harmless intentions, “I’m just a survivor, I was just looking for supplies. I’m sorry, I didn’t realise anyone was living here,” he continues, managing to stabilise the fear in his voice.

He tilts the flashlight ever so slightly, illuminating the face beyond the handgun, and Hermes observes the countenance of a pale-skinned, gaunt man whose lips are stretched in apprehension, his eyes unblinking, but oddly glazed. His askew hair is either very light grey or stark white, it’s difficult to tell without being up close, but his face does not possess the aging wrinkles Hermes typically associates with hair like that. 

He’s taller than Hermes by a few inches at least, and his frame is draped with loose-fitting garments in the form of a teal hoodie and black sweatpants, the latter of which are held up with a brown belt around his lower waist that betrays how thin the man is beneath his baggy clothes.

The man’s hands, which clutch the gun in a timid grip, are shaking. He is afraid, even though he has a big, scary dog at his heel warning Hermes not to make any sudden moves.

“I’ll leave, okay?” Hermes murmurs anxiously when the man doesn’t respond and doesn’t lower his weapon, “I’m not here to cause trouble, I just came looking for food and water.”

He swallows, throat scratchy, and feels like shrinking beneath the man’s ceaseless stare, anything to make himself look like less of a threat.

The man’s lips twitch into a frown, but he tentatively lowers his gun, and Hermes unleashes a soft sigh of relief, relaxing minutely. The dog’s growling persists through the silence, until the stranger tilts his head down to his furry companion and says, “Heel, Jigsaw.”

The Rottweiler immediately quietens and spins, returning directly to the man’s side, yet remaining poised to protect its owner at a moment’s notice, and is rewarded with a soft praise from the man, “Good boy.”

A trickle of amusement flutters into Hermes voice as he speaks up, “Heh. Jigsaw? Like the guy from the Saw franchise?” It made sense, naming such an intimidating dog after such a creepy horror movie character.

But the man’s face twists in confusion and he replies, “No… like a puzzle.”

Hermes blinks, “Oh.” The man named his guard dog after a jigsaw puzzle? How odd. 

The stranger slips his pistol into the belly pocket of his hoodie, and Hermes ponders how this man can be warm enough if a hoodie is all he has to protect his scrawny body from the elements. At least Hermes has a proper parka coat to keep his underfed body warm.

“Sorry for disturbing you,” Hermes apologises for his intrusion, “I… I’ll leave now.” He does not want to give the dog a reason to misbehave.

The stranger looks conflicted for a few short moments before he finally blinks and lets out a sigh, “Do you have a canteen or a bottle?”

“Yeah, but it’s empty,” Hermes answers, reaching for the canteen hanging from a loop on his belt, as if double checking its vacant status, despite the fact he has already reached for it and checked about twenty times in the past six hours.

“I’ve got water you can have,” the stranger reveals, and Hermes would have fallen to his knees if he wasn’t already kneeling.

“Where? Please, I’m so thirsty,” Hermes all but whimpers, unable to shake the gravelly tone with which he speaks.

“It’s been raining a lot lately. I have containers set up on the roof to catch rainwater,” the man explains, “as for food, I have cans of… something. But I have no way to open them. If you can get them open, you can have one.”

Hermes’ body yearns for hydration so badly that he almost doesn’t hear what the stranger says after the promise of water; he draws in a swift breath, “I have a can opener. In my car.”

The stranger’s lips part, “You have a car?”

“Well,” Hermes mutters, “It’s someone’s car. I’ve just been driving it for the past three days.” His head pulses with another wave of agonising pressure and pain, and he cups the side of his head purposefully, “Sorry, I can go grab the can opener, but… can I have some water first? I feel like I’m gonna collapse.”

Something akin to sympathy flits onto the man’s face, noticeable in the creases of his frown, and he nods, “Come… I’ll show you to the roof. Grab my canteen for me, I need to refill mine too.” The stranger begins to walk, veering off away from Hermes into the pitch black of the warehouse, the dog following obediently at the man’s heel, and Hermes scrambles to his feet, swiftly snatching up the empty canteen he had removed from the backpack, startled by the man’s willingness to disappear into the darkness. He hurries after the man who has surprisingly strong strides for somebody so emaciated, and feels the need to introduce himself.

“My name is Hermes, by the way.”

“Tiresias,” the stranger simply replies. Hermes manages to catch up, and just so happens to lift his flashlight to the man’s face; up close, he spots it - the milky colour to his irises and pupils that give his eyes the glassy appearance Hermes noticed before.

“Oh, you- your eyes,” Hermes cannot help but murmur in exclamation; his shock stems from the similarities Tiresias’s eyes bear to the infected Hermes has come across over the last few months. They all have the same dead-eyed stare, but Hermes did not expect to see it in a living being.

Tiresias stops briefly, turning his head fully to Hermes to tell him, “Yes. I am blind,” before he resumes his steps.

The revelation tugs at something painfully in Hermes’ chest. Surviving the apocalypse is difficult enough as an able-bodied person, he cannot imagine navigating this cruel new world without his vision.

“I’m sorry,” Hermes murmurs softly.

“It happened years ago, before all this,” Tiresias elucidates without much emotion, but Hermes is still caught up on how sure-footed Tiresias appears to be, despite his lack of vision.

He has questions, but he refrains from accidentally blabbering something insensitive in his ignorance. As they approach a door, Tiresias extends his hand, feeling for the handle and opening it up, revealing a stairwell to a roof access point. The man begins climbing the steps slowly with his hand on the banister, and quietly counts under his breath with each step he takes, the dog following loyally alongside him.

Hermes supposes Jigsaw must be a guide dog, given the high level of obedience and his insistence to stay firmly rooted to Tiresias’s side.

Through the access point, Hermes is greeted by the wind and light rain, and watches Tiresias hug himself as a shiver wracks the man’s frame; beyond him is a scattering of around twelve or so containers dotted across the roof. 

Hermes hands the man his canteen and falls to his knees beside a large, metal basin that is more than halfway filled with rainwater, and breathes, “Holy shit.” He wastes no time, dunking his own canteen into the water till it is full, then he brings it to his lips and guzzles it down, drinking every last drop, before he refills it once again.

The hydration is heavenly, and Hermes wants to cry. It has been too long since he has been able to drink so much water in one go. For the last week, he has been rationing sips from his canteen, but now he is greeted with more than enough water to keep a man’s thirst quenched for days.

“Thank you. Fuck, thank you,” Hermes babbles to the man, who kneels to fill his own canteen. Jigsaw also putters up to a bowl and begins drinking from it.

In his immense gratitude, Hermes impulsively extends a proposal, “You should come with us. We’re heading to the Olympus Sanctuary in Michigan; they’re trying to establish some level of normality, and a safe zone protected against biters.” Despite the initial rocky introduction of pointing a gun at Hermes face, Tiresias seems to be a good guy, and the enduring, deep-seated compassion within Hermes cannot allow him to just walk away from a lone, blind man and leave him to fend for himself in an apocalypse.

Tiresias is quiet, but his lips part in genuine surprise, and he solemnly replies, “…Are you sure?” 

Hermes stalls, wondering what his brothers will think. He already knows what Apollo will say: ‘We can barely feed ourselves, and you want to add another person into the mix?’

Dionysus is more agreeable under normal circumstances, he’s a ‘the more, the merrier,’ type of person; he and Hermes are closer in age and have always had a positive relationship, but he’s likely to remain silent and not take a side, because he too will see the logic in Apollo’s protests.

But throughout their journey so far, it is Hermes who has borne the brunt of the responsibility in caring for himself and his brothers. Hermes is the driver, Hermes kills the biters, Hermes is the navigator, and ultimately, it is Hermes who decides what’s what.

“I’m sure,” Hermes tells him, “and that offer extends to your buddy, Jigsaw. I love dogs.” He loves dogs when they aren’t about to chomp his hands off, at least.

Apollo doesn’t like dogs, but he can go fuck himself.

Tiresias’s face takes on that conflicted look once again, and he cautiously steps back out of the rain into the top of the stairwell, holding onto the banister firmly, before he timidly speaks, “I am useless to you, though.” 

Hermes follows the blind man, and Jigsaw joins them under the roof shelter, “I don’t believe that,” he answers Tiresias’s self-deprecating remark.

“I will slow you down and use up resources. Are you sure you want that?” Tiresias argues, and Hermes cannot kick the thought that this man has been put through some harrowing trials since the apocalypse began six months ago.

“Please come with me,” Hermes utters, his voice an imploring plea. He knows exactly why he is begging this man, this stranger he met five minutes ago, to accompany him on his journey to the Olympus Sanctuary, but he will not admit it out loud.

It is truly not difficult to convince Tiresias, especially with the desperation in his request; his situation is far too grave to pass up the opportunity to be taken somewhere safe. His lip wobbles with suppressed emotion, and he slowly nods his head, “Alright.”

Hermes smiles, a small but genuine grin, for the first time in so long, “Great. I’ll bring your stuff to my car and grab that can opener. We can eat and sleep in the car, and in the morning I’ll come and retrieve more water before we go - I’ve got empty bottles in the car I can fill. We’ll need all the water we can carry.” The bountiful mouthfuls of water have already begun rejuvenating him, bringing back a dash of the charismatic charm he is known for. Once he fills his belly with food, Hermes will be closer to his old self than he has been in months.

“Come on. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,” a mild chuckle escapes Hermes’ newly lubricated throat; now that he has quenched his thirst, he becomes slowly aware of the hunger pangs causing his stomach to clench uncomfortably. Of course, this man looks to be in far worse a state of malnutrition than he himself is; what with the sunken eyes and lack of any fat on his face, and Hermes face falls as he regrets his jesting remark. He clears his throat and grimly says, “Let’s go, we need to get you fed. You need help getting down the stairs?”

Tiresias grips the banister firmly and opens his mouth with refusal in his expression, but then his face softens, falling into something distressing and largely unreadable, and he relents with a nod, “Please.”

“Of course,” Hermes offers his arm and leads Tiresias down one step at a time with the dog slipping past Hermes’ legs to lead the return to the warehouse, loyal and dutiful in protecting his owner.

“Do you have any belongings other than what’s in your backpack?” Hermes questions when they return to the area they’d met, and he ensures all the items he removed earlier are placed safely back in, including the unnerving child’s toy. He wants to ask about it, but he knows it would not be a wise topic to broach so soon after meeting the man. No joy can come from what tormenting memories the white rabbit toy must possess.

“I have a couple of cans of dog food left, but that is all,” Tiresias explains as he wanders across the shrouded room to where the light of Hermes’ flashlight doesn’t reach. He shines it Tiresias’s way reflexively, offering a dash of illumination for the man, before realising it is a pointless venture. He holds the light there anyway until Tiresias returns with the dog food cans he took from the desk, because it feels wrong to let the man wade through the dark, even though he obtains no benefit from the flashlight’s glow.

“You want me to carry it?” Hermes proposes, well-intentioned, but Tiresias is quick to take the backpack from him with a shake of his head, holding it possessively as he digs his hand around inside it, locates the rabbit toy, and relaxes minutely. Hermes doesn’t question the action. 

Tiresias calls gently for Jigsaw, and Hermes hangs off of every soft spoken word with tranquil appreciation for this particular quality; it certainly pays to have a reserved speaking voice in a situation when survival depends on one’s ability to communicate quietly. Hermes might learn a thing or two from Tiresias, for he has always been the loud one in his family.

The blind man and his dog lead Hermes to a door with the key in its lock, one that Hermes tried to open from the outside but gleaned no luck, and opens it with a turn of the key, then he steps back anxiously and wrings his thin, bony hands.

“You… you lead the way,” Tiresias bows his head, trying to conceal his fear. Hermes understands the man without need of an explanation: Tiresias feels safe within the walls of the warehouse where he is enclosed and barred off from the horrors of the outside world, but out there, he is a sitting duck, vulnerable to danger. 

“I’ve got you,” Hermes assures the man, and this time he offers his non-dominant left arm to help guide Tiresias, so that if need be, he can reach for the machete in its sheath on his thigh. He hopes he will not need it.

The dog is the bravest of them, stepping out into the cold and damp with the natural instinct to ensure the way is safe for Tiresias, and the two men follow cautiously as Hermes guides the blind man in the direction of the red car in the middle of the parking lot.

His gaze flits about frenetically, searching for any biters that might be attempting to sneak up on them, but the parking lot is blessedly quiet. It seems the infected he took care of earlier was a lone wanderer. Not that the monsters typically hunt in packs; they have no intuition or desire to stick together like humans do, and as a result there is no predictability to their movements, except when they smell something they want to sink their teeth into.

“Almost there,” Hermes assures as they approach the car. He is swift in his movements as he opens the passenger side door and ushers Tiresias in, closing it once he is safely inside, and then Hermes opens the rear passenger door and lets the dog in, stating, “Atta boy,” when Jigsaw promptly leaps up to the seat.

Hermes rushes around to the boot of the car, grabs the can opener, and then wastes no time jumping into the driver’s seat, shutting his door behind him.

“Hermes?” Tiresias begins nervously.

“Yeah?” He responds.

“There’s nobody else but us in this car,” Tiresias states, his face twisted with uncertainty, like his words are halfway between a question and a statement.

Hermes swallows rigidly, and answers, “Yeah.”

“You said ‘we’ earlier. Join ‘us,’ but there’s no one else here,” Tiresias’s voice is a low whisper, his tone quizzical with a touch of alarm.

Hermes casts his weary gaze into the rear-view mirror where Dionysus had been before Hermes entered the building; then he stares at the seat now inhabited by Tiresias, which previously belonged to Apollo, and bites the tip of his tongue as dread floods his chest and makes it difficult to breathe.

His brothers are gone. It has been a while since they last vanished; they tend to linger when there is nobody else to distract Hermes from his own insanity, and will disappear suddenly without a trace in those rare moments Hermes is blessed with genuine human interaction.

Sometimes he truly forgets he is the only one who can see them. He misses them when they are gone.

“I’m sorry, I misspoke… it’s just me,” Hermes enlightens bleakly, “It’s just been me for a long time.”

Tiresias goes silent, and his expression shifts from anxious to sympathetic, and eventually he tilts his head down in quiet solidarity. Tentatively, he picks out the two battered food cans from his bag, as well as one of the dog food cans.

“These dog food cans have pull tabs to open them,” Tiresias quietly points out, “but these food cans need a can opener. I’ve had them with me for two weeks while I’ve been starving, with no way to get into them.”

Hermes takes the human food cans while Tiresias opens a dog food can with ease and reaches to place it on the back seat for Jigsaw, who instantly delves into it, and observes the battered cans in a new light now.

They’re dented and damaged because Tiresias has desperately tried everything and anything he can to get into them, to no avail; his hands reflect his attempts, littered as they are with minor cuts, grazes and bruises.

Hermes quickly and determinedly pierces the can lid with the opener and turns the knob until the can is open, revealing its contents.

“Ravioli, nice,” Hermes smiles and returns the can to Tiresias, who at once rushes to lather his hands with the antibacterial hand gel he has in his possession, and then he digs into the tin of room temperature ravioli like it is the most delicious thing he has ever tasted, and Hermes does not blame him.

He opens the second can, which is also ravioli, and follows suit, foregoing his manners to get as much cold ravioli into his stomach as he can. 

It truly is the most magnificent thing he has ever tasted.

“Fuck, that’s delicious,” Hermes moans. The serving the can offers is the most calories he has eaten in one sitting over the course of the last few months, and it almost brings a tear to his eye that this man was so willing to share food with him when he himself was in such dire need of it. He stammers out an emotional, “Thank you.”

“Thank you for carrying a can opener,” Tiresias responds, mild and reserved. His face has a dash more warmth to it now that he’s eaten, and it makes him look a little more lively. 

“That’s the first proper meal I’ve had in… too long,” Hermes murmurs, and takes the empty cans, opening the car door briefly to toss them out before shutting and locking it.

Tiresias pulls his sleeves down over his hands and wraps his arms around himself, reminding Hermes that the lack of fat on Tiresias’s body means he is likely feeling the cold far more than he himself, especially in that flimsy zip-up hoodie.

He reaches into the back seat, past Jigsaw who is happily lounging post-dinner, and grabs the thick blanket he has been using to keep warm while he sleeps.

“Here, you can have my blanket,” he tells the man, already spreading it out to cover the length of Tiresias’s body, and the man’s eyebrows rise in surprise.

“What about you?”

“I have a coat, I’ll be fine,” Hermes lies; he will be cold, but Tiresias would be colder, so the choice is not difficult for him. Tiresias’s lip wobbles, and he brings the blanket up, tucking it under his chin with gratitude showing abundantly on his face as he whispers his thanks.

Hermes reclines Tiresias’s seat for him and does the same with his own as he has done many times before, and then he shoves his hands in his pockets to keep them warm and sighs softly, gently admitting, “I’m glad I ran into you.”

And through the darkness, Hermes is almost certain he spots the faintest ghost of a smile form upon Tiresias’s lips, brief though it is.